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Monday, October 10, 2016

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Moving day! Good news, bad news. The process of moving is horrible. The result, once you find everything you packed, is wonderful. Years ago, my Administrative Assistant got to experience all that good news and bad news. Actually, the bad news turned out to be not so bad. It could have been bad. She was just one woman with some heavy stuff to move; refrigerator, stove, piano, plus lots of smaller things. Now, I was out of town when she moved, which was good planning. But I talked to her a few days after the big migration. And all she could talk about was the difference her friends had made. The guys pitched in on the especially exciting things like the piano. The women carried some of the other items. And even her little nephews joined the team. They carried the little nephew sized stuff. Each person carried what he or she could. Gayle said, "You know, when I look at each piece of furniture in my apartment, I think of a person; the one who helped carry that particular burden." The burdens turned out to have a lot of blessing in them because of friends who helped her carry what she could never carry alone.

Friday, October 7, 2016

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I've got a friend who travels with me on a lot of my trips; actually, just about all of them. And I depend on him a lot. It's my clock radio. See, if he doesn't get me up in the morning, I make a lot of people very unhappy. Since he's battery-operated, I'm glad there's a display on there that shows when the batteries are nearing death. The other day, as I set my alarm on my first night home from a long trip, I noticed the big "E" flashing at me. That means it was time to replace the batteries. And I did, with brand new batteries of course. But after I closed it up, the radio was still dead. Hmmm. New batteries, all put in properly, dead radio. A mystery. A mystery solved when I opened up the back of the radio and took a good look at those batteries. See, one of them had a tiny piece of plastic on its positive pole, and it was simply interfering with the connection. I remove that, "Hello, things are working again!"

Thursday, October 6, 2016

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My friend Don was a wonderful family doctor. But some of the greatest moments of his life were spent, not in a doctor's office, but on the river-preferably a river with some very challenging white water. He's a veteran kayaker and river rafter-with some fascinating tips for us folks who don't have his experience. He told me that, as a teenager, during his first days on the river, he was amazed to see canoes and kayaks just ‘hanging out' in the middle of these raging rapids. Then he learned the secret of this amazing feat, There are quiet eddies behind some of the big rocks in the rapids. And those canoeists and kayakers had found a place to rest in the very turbulent waters-behind a big rock.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

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In my early days of trying to figure out the world of computers, my friends would shake their heads. Sometimes they still do today, because I guess I could be a special challenge in the techy stuff. I mean, in the early days, someone saw me turning off my computer without going through all the steps you're supposed to. I didn't know until they told me that day. Probably my friend was shaking their head as they watched me. He showed me how to bring up on my screen an option called "shutdown". When you activate the shutdown mode, the computer displays a special shutdown screen that stays on while the internal shutdown work is going on. Then, suddenly, your computer is off. Well, when I asked my technically normal friend what shutdown mode was, he gave me a simple answer, knowing my techno-dork limitations. He said, "Your computer is cleaning out a lot of junk that's accumulated in there; any unfinished business from whatever commands it's been given since the last shutdown." Oh, that sounds good to me. Now I never end what I'm doing without going through shutdown mode. Neither should you.

Monday, October 3, 2016

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I've done my whole adult life with my Karen, the only woman I've ever needed. Suddenly, I have to figure out how to do the rest of my life without her. That Sunday night, we sat in the bleachers at our local football stadium and we watched our grandson graduate from high school as valedictorian and giving a faith-filled valedictory message. Monday afternoon, she was gone. Wrapped in this huddle of sobs with our three adult children, I just choked out the words, "It hurts so bad." It really does.

Friday, September 30, 2016

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If you're a frequent flyer, as I have been in the past, they give you frequent flyer miles that eventually add up to a free ticket. Well, they give their really frequent flyers a few fringe benefits. The benefits aren't quite what they used to be, but like sometimes you can do early boarding. When one of our leaders and I were flying a lot together, it helped if we could board early. Because we could kind of get set up for a lot of work to get done on the flight. Now, he didn't have all the miles I did, but the boarding agents were pretty nice to him, because he boarded with me. My ticket, well, it has this special stamp that would indicate my high-mileage status. And on one occasion, they actually offered early boarding to us guys that they see all the time. They took my ticket and then he was following right behind me. He said, "I'm with him. Is that OK?" Yep. We went together.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

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"Should I call her, Dad?" That was a common question as our boys were teenagers. Like most boys their age, they were unsure of what kind of response they would get from a certain girl. I can remember at that same stage staring at the phone for 45 minutes and thinking of the most suave way possible to start that conversation. But no matter how prepared I was, when I heard her voice, I would just kind of croak out "hello." Now there were a couple of girls I just picked up the phone and called, no problemo. It was the same with my sons. They were these rare girls who just knew how to make a guy feel, well, safe.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

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It's always hard to lose someone you love. It's especially hard when it's a child. I had friends who lost their precious granddaughter, Amy. Two years old; went to sleep with a little cold and a little fever. By the end of the night, Amy was gone from a cause, well it was still a medical mystery. As I talked with the family at the visitation, of course there was deep grief, but there was also a little comfort from something beautiful that happened right before Amy went to sleep that night. Her mother began singing "Jesus Loves Me" to her and little Amy sang along with her. Her last words, "Jesus loves me, this I know." And then she was with Him.

Monday, September 26, 2016

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I don't know if you've ever driven across the United States, but it's something you want to think twice about. I mean, it's a long haul. How about riding a bicycle across the United States? That's what my friend Scott did when he was a college student with a group called Wandering Wheels. That's a lot of wandering! Scott said he was excited about the idea until the day the leaders displayed a map of the whole country on the side of their chuck wagon. It looked, in a word, impossible. But they started on Mission Impossible anyway. Each day, they'd get up and just start riding again. "So he took it a day at a time, then?" No. Scott said when the riding really got tough and his legs were just about to go on strike, he would just aim for that next telephone pole. And pretty soon, he said, that huge map got conquered, one telephone pole at a time.

Friday, September 23, 2016

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Years ago when I went on my first international ministry trip, I went just about as far as you can go – 10,000 miles to Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. I was going to be away for three weeks, which was the longest I had ever left my wife and our three young children. My wife mobilized the kids to put little love notes all over and all through my luggage. We had a nice meal together on the way to the airport and then some special hugs and kisses at the airport. But I did have to go. And I'm not kidding you, it was a sad moment. My wife was trying to look like she was fine. The children were obviously hurting. I managed to hold myself together until I rounded the bend in the concourse, then I started wiping tears from my eyes. It was hard, but one thing made it OK. It was only temporary. We would be reunited.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

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Kasey pretty much blew high school. He was on our ministry team and he was a walking miracle. The pain of his childhood set him up to make some lousy choices, like drugs for example. He quit high school. He was headed for a wasted life or an early death until he met Jesus at the age of 19. He left all the junk of his past behind him and started a passionate study of God's Word, like memorizing hundreds of verses! Kasey wanted to get college training, but he knew that meant taking the GED test to get a Graduation Equivalency Diploma. He had pretty much failed math, he failed English and all the subjects he was about to be tested on. They were timed tests, something like 25-50 minutes. But at the beginning of each test, he bowed his head and prayed for about 10 minutes. The teacher administering the test walked up to him and said, "Excuse me, but I think you're going to need all the time. It's challenging to get it done with all the minutes you've got. You've got no time to pray." Kasey's answer? "There's no hope if I don't."

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

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If I'm ever on an airplane flight where the flight attendant becomes incapacitated, (And the thought of that is as close as I ever want to get.) I think I might be able to do the safety instructions. I mean, I've heard them so many times. Actually, you know, they've now video-ized the presentation. It used to be they just kind of got up and did it. I like the part where that little yellow oxygen mask drops down from above your seat in the demonstration. In the video, everyone is wonderfully calm in this simulated oxygen problem. I'm sure that's very true-to-life. "Oh, look, my oxygen mask just fell down. That's nice." Well, the video shows a mother putting the mask on herself, and then on her little girl. The instructions go like this: "If the cabin pressure drops, get the oxygen to your face first, and then to your child's."

Monday, September 19, 2016

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When our boys were little, did they work ahead on their homework? No! On their chores? Silly question. On their Christmas lists? Oh yeah! For some strange reason they were able to do some serious advance planning when it came to what they wanted for Christmas. I could expect their carefully prepared Christmas list by Thanksgiving at the latest. Their wishes would be listed in priority order, with what they called "the big one" circled and starred in big print at the top. They didn't want me to miss it. For our oldest son one year, it was this spaceship that was the toy of the year, the toy that parents fight over to get the last one in the toy store. You know? Well, I worked ahead that year. Right around Thanksgiving, I went out and bought that ship before toy wars began at the store. I tucked it away safely in my closet. Now my son reminded me of that thing over and over again during December, maybe nagged would be a more accurate verb. He kept on asking, and that was fine. Of course, I had granted his request as soon as he asked the first time. I just waited till the appropriate time to give it to him.

Friday, September 16, 2016

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A while ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to this tasty new addition to my usual breakfast menu. They're called English crumpets; low fat, great taste. Then I was hooked. In fact, I decided I had to go get myself more of them. Well she told me that there was only one local store that carried them, so I made my way to that super-supermarket-one I was unfamiliar with. I went to where I figured something in the English muffin/bagel category would be: the bread section, right? No, not crumpets. I tried the bakery section. Failed again. I looked in every aisle that I could logically expect to find something from the breakfast bread family. Zip! Nothing! I finally tried something really radical. I asked someone who worked there. Yeah, a guy's last resort. He said, "They're in dairy." Dairy? Well, I guess these things are supposed to be refrigerated. And dairy is where I found them…at the end of a long search!

Thursday, September 15, 2016

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I'm a tornado and hurricane kind of guy. I mean I don't like them but, I've lived where you learn about those things. I'm not an earthquake kind of guy. I've never lived where those mattered much. But when I was in San Francisco, I was where earthquakes are a big deal! Most people there still have dramatic stories to tell about what happened during that big quake in 1989, the one that interrupted the 3rd game of the World Series. Some of the heaviest damage and injury was in the Marina District of San Francisco.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

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Our son had just arrived in the southwestern United States to begin his work with Native Americans there. In fact, his supervisor in his non-profit work was a Native American. And our son was eager to show that he was coming with a servant spirit, you know. He had a tremendous opportunity to do just that. His supervisor needed his help in cleaning out a septic system. The job began with our son's hands having to work in that sewage. But the job got more and more involved and so did his body. Before he was finished, he was in that septic sewage up to his waist! Needless to say, he never felt more disgusting in his life. And then came the shower; that long, wonderful, heavenly shower! He said "Dad, I have never felt so dirty in all my life, and it never felt so good to be clean!"

Monday, September 12, 2016

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Sometimes I'll say kiddingly, "I've figured out what my thorn in the flesh is. My metabolism." Is that possible? Well, unfortunately, my metabolism just doesn't turn calories into energy fast enough. It seems like the more birthdays you have, the more that's true. In other words, I could get heavy pretty easily. Years ago, my not-very-tall body weighed in at 210 pounds. Yeah, well, I lost 40 or 50 pounds less, you know, and kept most of that off over the years. I want to stay that way. But I still have the same metabolism that got me to 210, and the bakery, and the candy store, and the ice cream place. They still look just as tempting, but I've got to remember what a battle it was to get that weight off! I mean, it is worth saying no to some temptations to avoid the struggle of having to get back in shape!

Monday, September 12, 2016

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Sometimes I'll say kiddingly, "I've figured out what my thorn in the flesh is. My metabolism." Is that possible? Well, unfortunately, my metabolism just doesn't turn calories into energy fast enough. It seems like the more birthdays you have, the more that's true. In other words, I could get heavy pretty easily. Years ago, my not-very-tall body weighed in at 210 pounds. Yeah, well, I lost 40 or 50 pounds less, you know, and kept most of that off over the years. I want to stay that way. But I still have the same metabolism that got me to 210, and the bakery, and the candy store, and the ice cream place. They still look just as tempting, but I've got to remember what a battle it was to get that weight off! I mean, it is worth saying no to some temptations to avoid the struggle of having to get back in shape!

Friday, September 9, 2016

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When my wife and I pulled up late to the Bed and Breakfast we were going to be staying at, I tried to be real quiet. I was afraid we might wake some people up, you know. Not a problem. That B & B was buzzing like a beehive. Inside there were ten women huddled around the dining room table, each one with a sewing machine right in front of her. Of course, I felt right at home. Okay. I learned that the other guests-all women-were there that weekend for a Mystery Quilt weekend. They were each making a quilt...some for the first time. And even though I felt like I had sort of crashed a grownup slumber party, I did ask a few questions like, "What pattern are you following?" They didn't know. See, it turns out that one of the women there, Millie, does these quilting weekends with ladies, and she has the pattern. It's a mystery quilt because each woman only has instructions for what to do with the next piece or pieces; she has no idea what all those pieces are going to make. The next day, one lady said to me, "I can't wait 'till I can see what all this is going to look like when it's all put together." Good thing she didn't leave early with her pile of pieces, huh? She would have never known what it all made.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

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Boy from Illinois moves to East Coast and develops love affair with ocean. The Illinois boy – me. And I would love to sneak away with my wife to the New Jersey Shore and just let the majesty of the ocean kind of mellow out my spirit. One time, we drove down to a nearby Shore point for a Sunday afternoon and the day was a 10. I mean, blue sky, blue ocean, white puffy clouds, warm temperature. (Wish I was a painter.) After a walk on the beach, we sat down on a pier to watch four surfers who were bobbing around in the water nearby. They were in their wet suits, hugging their surfboards, and staring at the swells out there that were trying to grow up and become big waves. It was close to low tide, but that didn't stop them. And were they focused! They didn't talk to each other, they never looked around. They just kept staring at the waves that might be forming. And when one started to build, they turned toward shore, lay down on their board, and started paddling furiously. And as that wave built under them, they stood on that board, and their waiting and watching suddenly turned to the excitement of riding the surf wherever it would take them.

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