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Okay, I admit it. I talk pretty fast. But maybe that's because I lived in the New York area for so long. Everyone there talks fast! Or maybe it's because I always have so much to say before the time runs out. But I am sort of a, I guess, a verbal machine gun. But I did come across someone who finally succeeded in slowing me down by about maybe two-thirds.
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I was in downtown Oklahoma City, and I had the privilege to visit the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing back in April of 1995. I don't think any of us who were alive at that time will ever forget the images of the day that that Federal Office Building was destroyed by a terrorist bomb. The images of that devastated building and of the frantic rescue efforts there, a baby in a fireman's arms. It was a day of heart-wrenching tragedy and it was a day of incredible heroism. Literally, an entire city dropped everything to respond in whatever way they could to this life-or-death situation. The job was clear that day: rescue the dying whatever it takes.
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It is almost as if God had sent us an angel. We were coming back from a Christmas party years ago. All five members of the Hutchcraft family together with the families of the youth ministry I worked for had been there for the annual Christmas party.
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If someone is a champion in sports, we tend to make them an automatic hero. Now, not every champion lives like a hero or necessarily deserves to be one. But Wilma Rudolph? Oh, she was more than a champion. She really belonged in the hero category. See, she began her life with a bout of polio.
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It all started when my Dad helped some people lift a piano. There were not enough men to lift it, but they all thought they could handle it. And the next thing I knew, my Dad ended up in the hospital for a hernia operation, all because of lifting that big piano. He never should have tried to lift that much. You know what? I'm talking to somebody now who is sweating, and straining to lift...oh, not a piano! But it might be something you were never meant to lift.
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We were far from home in Phoenix, Arizona, living in New Jersey, when my wife had a gallbladder crisis. In fact, she was going to have to have her gallbladder removed. Well, I wasn't too happy about that happening so far from home, but God was in it. Because our friend who we were there with at a conference said, "Well, I just had this surgery not long ago, and our doctor here is one of the few in the country (at that time anyway) who is an expert at doing gallbladder surgery with lasers. Really? Well, instead of the six weeks that I thought my wife was going to have to recuperate in Arizona, why she was up and around in a very few days, because of the amazing power of a laser. Think about that. I mean, lasers can penetrate steel. They can help you get better eyesight, or take care of a gallbladder that needs to come out. It's pretty amazing power. Now, diffused light can't do that; only the focused light can do it. If my wife had been under just diffused light all that time, it wouldn't do anything about her gall bladder. But it took the focused light - that powerful energy - to really change things. There's awesome power when you focus the energy on one thing.
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When you work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, you know there will be no physical link to the outside world for you between February and October. You are 840 miles from the nearest populated site and you're facing average winter temperatures of 80 below zero. Now, imagine being one of the women stationed there and discovering a lump that indicates you may have breast cancer. Distant medical authorities determined that this lady had to receive some emergency medical supplies. (And it really happened.) Getting those supplies though? Well, easier said than done.
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Our local high school team won the state championship in football one year, and the coach gave at least one reason in the newspaper. He said, "We have mastered the two-minute offense. In other words, you have to know how to do the "hurry up" offense and get a lot done in a short time in order to be a championship team, like when there's only two minutes left in the first half or the end of the game.
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I was speaking in Mobile, Alabama when I heard about this amazing phenomenon that occasionally takes place there. It's along the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. They call it Jubilee. It happens on a summer night sometime between midnight and six, and the fish, and the crab, and all the other sea critters suddenly move in very close to the shore. It's like they get so close that many of them are right up on the beach. The locals just walk along and they scoop up the fish and the crab, and they gather as much seafood as they want. Imagine what an opportunity it is for the fishermen! I mean, they can grab anything they want without going out in a boat.
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My friend was an executive at a Bible distribution society, and he told me about one of their workers in Zimbabwe. His name was Gabriel. What a great name for a man distributing Bibles, huh? Their policy was to sell their Bibles for a small price so people would value them. The problem they encountered was that some people were actually using the thin paper of those Bibles to make cigarettes! In fact, one potential customer actually said to Gabriel, "I'll take one of your Bibles, but if I do, I'll smoke it."
