Thursday, August 18, 2005

Fettuccini Alfredo! It's that great Italian dish that has buttered noodles served in a rich, creamy cheese sauce. Unfortunately, one news magazine in an article on nutrition and our health called it a "heart attack on a plate." That may be a bit of an overstatement, but the fact is that a lot of foods do contribute to the slow shutdown of the valves that happen to carry the blood and oxygen into your heart. I love what one commercial calls it -- blood sludge. Medical people refer to the hardening of the arteries -- the process in which foods that are high in cholesterol and fat start building up hard deposits in your arteries. If this hardening in your heart is allowed to continue long enough, it is not a laughing matter. It really can threaten your life.

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

No matter how big you expect the Grand Canyon to be, it's bigger. And when our family has had the privilege to visit there, we've all been impressed with this awesome, divine masterpiece. One big problem there though has been our boys, because they think they're part mountain goat. Of course, mountain goats cannot read the signs that tell you to stay behind the fences. Apparently, our boys can't read them either. They always had this irresistible urge to venture out as far as possible on those rocks that overlook the canyon. Of course, one false step, and it's all over -- actually, you're all over. All our lectures about going too far for safety's sake made a lot more sense the morning after we had stopped at one particular overlook. The morning paper reported that on the same afternoon we had been there, two young men went to that same overlook and one never came back. He ended up dead at the bottom of the canyon. The reason? He got too close to the edge.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Most people go to the mall to shop, which usually leaves them in worse shape financially. But a few people go to the mall to get in shape physically. Every once in a while you'll see them walking at a steady clip, getting their mile or their miles for the day. One of those mall walkers made the national news recently. He was power walking -- which means, don't get in his way, he's coming fast. He must have looked away for a moment, because he walked full speed into a metal pole in the middle of the mall. Now why would a collision with a pole be news? This man has not had any sight in his left eye for years. Suddenly, after running into that pole, he noticed light in that eye. That collision was one of the best things that ever happened to this man in his life. It helped him see!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Onions taste great on your hamburger. And they keep tasting long after the burger is a memory. Garlic tastes great on your pizza. But it will be there for you for the rest of the night. In fact, the onions and garlic will be there, not only for you, but for anybody who gets close to you - which won't be very many. Many teenagers have discovered the interesting aftermath of a scrumptious hot fudge sundae or a chocolate bar - acne appearing tomorrow morning on center face. The chocolate was great - briefly. The acne is ugly - not briefly. And what about that ancient wisdom "a moment on the lips, forever on the hips." Those super-size fries or that creamy milk shake will taste wonderful - briefly. And possibly enlarge your body for months or years to come! Here is Science for the Simple, just in case you haven't figured this out already: What you eat affects you later.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

For those of us who have traveled many summers with our Native American outreach team, it will always be remembered as the Night of the Bat. I was with a team of about 35 young Native Americans on a reservation in the Northwest. Most of us were staying in tents or teepees, and a few girls were sleeping in the dining hall. A few of us were in that hall wrapping up for the night, and suddenly a bat somehow got in the room and began doing aerial laps around the room. The reactions were priceless. The girls crawled into their sleeping bags, they covered up, and they screamed like "wolf man" was on the loose. There, huddled in one corner, was this mound of moving, screaming sleeping bags. And the rest of the camp was waking up fast. Everyone was running toward the dining hall to see what awful terror had invaded.

Meanwhile, the bat continued to dart and fly and dive around that room. Some of the guys tried to intercept the bat by throwing bath towels in the air. Needless to say, that was totally ineffective. One team leader was wildly swinging a mop handle in the air. It’s great exercise, but the bat soared on, continuing to terrorize the girls in the room. Except for my wife - Ozark Mountain Woman! She watched that bat make a couple of circuits around the room, she raised a broom above her head, and she took one mighty swing - bam! Direct hit! The dazed bat was taken outside in one of those useless bath towels. And the next morning, one of our Native leaders conducted a brief ceremony to honor my wife with an Indian name - Kills With One Swing.

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

Some people get a lot of recognition at their high school graduation. I got a lot of recognition at my graduation practice. We were out on the athletic field one beautiful June day, lined up in the alphabetical order that we would be in at commencement. Now the idea is: listen to the familiar strains of that traditional graduation march, "Pomp and Circumstance," and march up to the platform in step with the music. Sounds easy enough. Sure, I was listening to the same music as everyone else, but I just had my own original cadence. So, all I can remember from that commencement rehearsal is the faculty coordinator yelling, "Hutchcraft! Will you please get in step!"

Monday, August 8, 2005

I’m not sure if it’s harder for a baby to have major surgery or for adults like us. The baby has no idea of what’s going on – which might make it easier. We know too much, so we get to worry a lot. Little Jamie’s not even a year old, but recently he had to undergo heart surgery; which I associate with old guys like me. Jamie is the nephew of one of our team members, and she’s from Australia. The miles made it pretty tough on her, so we all joined her in praying for this little guy so far away. And thankfully, Jamie came through with flying colors. His heart was fixed. It was a tough operation, but it had to be done. You see, Jamie had a hole in his heart, and you can’t just leave it that way!

Friday, August 5, 2005

There were only two words in the headline in USA Today, but most of us understand how urgent those two words can be: "Blood needed!" They were talking about an alarming shortage of blood available in blood banks due to severe winter weather, a holiday season, and a bad flu season. One spokesman for the Association of Blood Banks said, "If you've had a bad car accident or a couple of gunshot wounds, you're in a world of trouble." I guess so. There is no fact more basic to human life - without the blood you need, you die.

Thursday, August 4, 2005

My friend, Jerry, was a pilot. And not long ago, he went home to be with the Lord that he loved. At his memorial service, his son told some of the stories of Jerry's very adventurous life. Like the time just a couple of years ago when he was flying a twin-engine plane over our area. This made the headlines - both engines went out on him! Jerry was pretty unflappable. That's a pretty good characteristic for a pilot, huh? He quickly surveyed the ground to find the safest place to make an emergency landing. His choice - the local golf course. There weren't any golfers out there. It's a good thing. (They would have really been teed off, I suppose.) He started to bring the plane down for a landing, but as he neared the ground, he saw the one obstacle between him and a safe landing - a huge oak tree coming right at him. And he had no power to help him miss it. So Jerry quickly talked to God about it. He just said, "Lord, it will take a miracle. Please do one." And at that moment, one engine leaped to life for just a moment; just long enough to give Jerry the lift he needed to clear that tree.

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Recently, I spoke at a church and I followed it up with a question and answer time. The questions ranged from things about our ministry, to questions about reaching lost people, to my family. It was a little of everything. One man in the back asked a question that was even a little amusing. He said, "Where do you get all this energy?" I have been accused of being the Energizer Bunny, but the ironic thing is that I had come into that church totally depleted by a heavy weekend of outreach. I was wishing I could just go to my room and sleep, to tell you the truth. In fact, I even told the pastor that the meeting isn't going to be very long because I was too exhausted. It went for two hours! Physically, I think I must just have deep reservoirs of adrenaline. Adrenaline is our friend at times when we just don't have what it takes physically to meet the demands of the moment. Adrenaline is that amazing substance that you don't have when you don't need it, but that surges into your system at just the moment you do need it. And you are able to do things that if I had asked you earlier you would say you could never do.

Monday, August 1, 2005

Marty McFly met a strange scientist with a machine that promised interesting results - the ability to go back in time. And he did. He went, as the title of the movie about it says, "Back to the Future." He had a most amazing experience getting to know his mother and his father when they were teenagers - an experience some of us might find very interesting. His dad, George McFly, was a milquetoast, bossed-around kind of guy, afraid to stand up to anybody. Marty has always known him to be that kind of a man, until he is transported back to the night that will determine the course of the rest of his Dad's life - and his Mom's. One decision - whether or not George McFly will stand up to the bully who is attacking his girlfriend - who is to become Marty's mother - is the turning point of George's life. And Marty is there to help his Dad make the right and courageous choice. It totally changes the course of George McFly's life. He steps up, defends his girl, and neutralizes the bully who wanted her. So instead of the life Marty has known with a pretty unsuccessful, wimpy dad, he returns to his life with a strong and successful dad because of that choice. A very different life because of one decision that changed the future.

Friday, July 29, 2005

It may have been the scariest moment of my life. I was only ten years old, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my friends in Lake Michigan. We started out just wading, but they kept getting deeper - until the lake bottom dropped off sharply. My buddies started swimming. I didn't know how, and I was too embarrassed to tell them. And I started taking on water fast. I went under once, I went under twice, and I was desperately thrashing around. As for my buddies, they thought I was just clowning around. Can you imagine me clowning around? Well, I was drinking the lake. I can see that water burying me there like it was yesterday, and honestly, I was almost a goner. And then he came - the man from the shore who saw my predicament and he jumped in to do something about it. He had come to rescue me. I grabbed him with both hands. I hung onto him as if he were my only hope. He was.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

I've never seen the TV show, and based on what I've read about its moral content, I don't plan to see the show. But there's no denying it has skyrocketed to being a hit from its very first season. Maybe, in part, because so many women can relate to its provocative title, "Desperate Housewives." There are more than a few of those.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

We're not horse racing fans, but I happened to stumble onto a horse race on TV when I was looking for the evening news. It was The Preakness; the second race in a three-race series called the Triple Crown. Those races are, in essence, horse racing's World Series. The first race in 2005 had been won by a horse whose odds of winning were 50 to 1, beating out the odds-on favorite, Afleet Alex. Then came that second race, The Preakness. As the race passed the halfway point, Afleet Alex made his move. He quickly caught up with another horse who had been in the lead - who, for some reason, swerved unexpectedly right into his path, and both horses started to collide and stumble. Afleet Alex's jockey ended up hanging onto his horse's neck, fully expecting to go down in a potentially deadly fall that could all be trampled. But amazingly, Afleet Alex somehow managed to regain his balance, surge into the lead, and win the race in a dramatic finish. The headline the next day said it all: "From stumble to stunning finish."

Monday, July 18, 2005

Lori Piestewa was the first woman killed in the Iraq war. She was a Native American and a single mom with two children. She died in an Iraqi ambush, and her good friend Jessica Lynch was wounded, captured and rescued. You may remember that. She was determined to help fulfill Lori Piestewa's dream - to have a house for her parents and her children. Jessica Lynch contacted the TV program, "Extreme Makeover," to see if they could make it happen. Their popular program shows them doing amazing makeovers of people's homes in a very short time, re-creating them into houses that are far beyond anything the owner's ever dreamed. And they did it again for a war hero's family, moving them from their deteriorating trailer home into a wonderful new home. Given those good TV ratings that show has, apparently a lot of people love to watch these amazing transformations.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Boxing. Now, some people like it and some people don't. But those ever-present "Rocky" movies seemed to give us boxing as a mythical battlefield between the nice guy underdog and the not-so-nice favorite. A lot of boxing fans thought it was sort of a Rocky matchup when several years ago Evander Holyfield went against Mike Tyson for the WBA heavyweight championship. Holyfield was a 25-1 underdog when the fight was booked. Tyson was the almost invincible "Iron Mike" then - called by some commentators "the baddest man on the planet." Well, much to everyone's surprise including Las Vegas, where a lot of money was lost, the underdog Holyfield soundly defeated Mike Tyson. USA Today's lead sports story carried this headline, "Holyfield puts faith in more than his fists." It went on to tell about the boxer's strong emphasis on prayer before and during the fight. In fact, let me quote an amazing perspective from that article that goes way beyond boxing. "Holyfield sang along to a gospel tune on his CD player before leaving his dressing room, leading his camp in a joyous, revival-style celebration. One fighter said, "It was as if the fight was a preliminary. He had already won the main event in the dressing room!"

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Remember those classic Alka-Seltzer commercials - the two tablets dropping into a glass of water to the tune of "plop, plop, fizz, fizz"? Usually they showed someone eating something disagreeable just before bedtime. Right? And someone who could only be rescued from terminal indigestion with a "plop, plop, fizz, fizz." Several years ago I met someone who knew the agony of late night stomach revolt. Terry works in the theater on Broadway in New York. He told me many show people just can't eat before they go on, so they're starved by the time the show is over and they get cleaned up. It's around midnight then. And Terry said they would go out together for a big dinner and shortly thereafter head home for their night's sleep and their night's wrestling match with what they had just eaten. Eating's nice - if it's followed by digestion!

Thursday, July 7, 2005

I had just finished speaking for a Christian leaders' gathering that was part of the countdown to a Franklin Graham Festival. The setup team there was in their early days of working together on this massive mobilization. The team leader thought it would be a good idea to get his team together for a few minutes after the meeting ended, and he invited me to join them. Then he handed me a cluster of helium balloons tied together. Suddenly, I felt like I'd gone from speaker to like circus clown. And, you know, I've read Winnie the Pooh stories to our kids enough that I couldn't help picturing Pooh Bear being carried into the sky by just such a bunch of balloons. After all, I'm not much bigger than Pooh Bear. But in spite of my trivial imaginings, the team leader there had a holy purpose for having me stand there with those balloons. He asked his team members to spread out around the room. They ended up widely separated. He asked them to get as close to me and my balloons as they could. Within moments, those workers, who had been so scattered, were shoulder to shoulder in a clump around me.

Monday, July 4, 2005

The love of Mary Ann's life, Tom, was coming for a visit. He lived in another state, so those visits were really special. He was due to arrive Friday night or Saturday sometime, and Mary Ann's room had been declared a federal disaster area. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, she decided she'd better get busy trying to recover her room. It was in pretty embarrassing condition. You know sometimes you have to make things messier in the process of getting them put away or thrown away. Mary Ann's room was at that point on Friday morning when the phone rang. It was Tom. He was calling to say he loved her and that he was looking forward to seeing her soon. That was all the incentive she needed to finish the job. Unfortunately, she didn't get that opportunity. Tom had called from downstairs. He had arrived earlier than Mary Ann expected. So in he walked and there she stood, dressed in her "grubbies," hair matted on her forehead, surrounded by an indescribable mess!

Friday, July 1, 2005

It was supposed to be a one-hour fishing trip off the coast of South Carolina. For 17-year-old Josh and his 15-year-old friend Troy, it turned out to be a six-day nightmare at sea. When they set out on their little 14-foot Sunfish, they didn't know about the small craft warnings in that area. Within hours, the fierce winds had pulled them out to sea - to a point 111 miles north - well outside of the Coast Guard's search area. They fought to stay alive by eating raw jellyfish and gargling sea water. They were severely sunburned, exhausted and dehydrated. After 48 hours, the Coast Guard announced they were suspending their search and moving from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. But there was this uncle who refused to concede the boys were dead. He's a police officer, and he thinks rescue. After studying the weather and the currents, he concluded that they might be as far as the area where they actually were found. He made sure that fishing vessels in the area were alerted to be looking for the boys. And as they were praying that God would either take them home or take them to heaven, some fishermen spotted them - and saved them.