Tuesday, April 12, 2016

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When we lived in New Jersey, twelve straight days of rain was pretty unusual. But I remember this time when we got to take our turn at almost two weeks without sunshine. For most of us, it was just a soggy nuisance. But for some people across town, it meant trading in their car for a rowboat. I turned on the news one night as they were talking about a roof that had caved in on a store in our town. It was the pharmacy I went to all the time. Apparently, water had collected until it just broke through the ceiling, and it literally washed one customer out the door like a raging river! I was in the pharmacy prior to the roof caving in and I noticed that they had put out a couple of buckets on the floor, catching drips from some leaks in the ceiling. First, some little leaks – then suddenly the roof caved in!

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

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There's one kind of nice trait that seems to have infected every member of our family. It's how much we enjoy trying to just get the right gift for each other. So over the years you'd often hear the question, "What would you like for your birthday, or your anniversary, or for graduation, or Christmas?" And the least appreciated answer goes something like this, "I don't know. Anything is fine." That's usually what I would say. Great! I was hoping for something a little more specific. I need some guidance.

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

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For several years, we had a Latin American outreach base in Mexico where our Latin American version of a youth broadcast was recorded. My limited Spanish didn't get me very far in Mexico. I mean, how much meaningful communication can you have when all you know are words like grande and mucho? "You look grande today." Well, the Director of our Latin American Ministry at the time was a wonderful translator and he was my best hope of communicating while I was there. Needless to say, I always lit up when someone was fluent in English there. I could converse unassisted!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

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I don't know how long Presidential candidates have had campaign songs, but I'll bet George Washington even had one! Now, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's was pretty famous, as it represented the Great Depression "Happy Days Are Here Again." Bill Clinton had a song for his 1992 campaign. In fact, he reached back to 1977 for his song "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow." They used it so much people wanted to sing, "Please Stop Singing About Tomorrow." Now I don't know how you felt about the candidate, and I don't even know if you liked the song...but it's not a bad theme for your campaign!

Tuesday, March 8, 2016

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When our daughter came into our family, she had Mom and Dad all to herself. It was a wonderful life! Life was a little more complicated for our next child. He got to do what every second-born gets to do. He competed with the first born for Mom's and Dad's attention! He also had someone to measure everything by. Obviously, at every age our daughter could have a few more privileges, a little more money, a little more freedom. So when our son wanted a little different response from us on something, we would often hear sentences that began with the same few words "How come she gets to...?" - sound familiar? When in doubt, compare yourself with a brother or sister.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

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There are some cities I look forward to visiting when I get a chance in this country. San Diego, California is one of them. There's just a list of things I love to see and do when I'm there. I was thinking about a particular trip prior to the invention of cell phones. (Yes, there was life before cell phones.) I was looking forward to getting out to see the sights, I was going to visit the beach, eat at a favorite restaurant there, but the meetings I attended were back to back and this happens a lot. I mean, I couldn't get out of the hotel. I mean, I hardly even got to my room! I wasn't there to see sights; I know that. I was there for ministry work, so I'm okay.

Monday, February 29, 2016

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Okay, spoiler alert. I am not talking about politics.

But, I can't remember an election where emotions have run this high. And the flood of passion is swamping the pundits. And that flood is sometimes carrying people where they never should go.

Monday, February 8, 2016

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It was one of those ministry trips where I had to take my office with me. I had my files and I had my computer. I was going to three different cities so I had to be prepared for everything. In other words, I had a lot of luggage. There was this one garment bag that I used often and I always ended up stuffing it to the gills! I actually introduced my bag to airline agents as Big Bertha. Yeah, I named my suitcase.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

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When you drive in the New York area, hold on tight. Take changing lanes for example. That's a well developed art form; three or four lanes at a pop. There it goes! Now, the danger zone in changing lanes is what they call your blind spot; that one area in your rear vision that you can't see in any of your mirrors. It's pretty critical. Actually the words "blind spot" took on new meaning for my wife and me a few years ago. See, she had a blind spot. It finally cleared up, but she had vision problems. The doctor believed it was a temporary blind spot. He injected some dye to see how much of her vision was blocked. And I was surprised as he showed us the results. He said, "Now, here's the blind spot that we all have." And I said, "I do?" Right around the optic nerve there are more rods and cones to produce a visual image. So guess what? We all have a blind spot.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

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When I had lunch with my friends George and Linda, they told me that the view had really improved at their house. They told me that everything in their backyard had looked so dirty and so dingy for a long time - until the other day. They did something that totally changed the view. They cleaned the big window that looks out on the yard. See, when you're looking through a dirty window, everything looks dirty.