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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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Jack Phillips was a senior radioman on the maiden voyage of the ill-fated Titanic. On that fatal night when two-thirds of her passengers and crew would die, Phillips received a message from a ship called the Mesaba. That ship was reporting a major ice field ahead and the message gave the coordinates where the Titanic could expect to encounter those icebergs. It was the place where just two hours later, the Titanic would, in fact, hit one of those icebergs; the one that would sink what was supposed to be the unsinkable ship. The message with the warning of what was ahead - would you believe it - didn't get delivered. Jack Phillips was really busy at the time, and he stuck the message on a spindle to be delivered sometime later, and it never was. That one decision would cost the lives of 1,500 people and the life of the radioman himself.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

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Because of my strong connection to Native Americans, I was especially interested in a story author Leonard Sweet told in a book of his. It's about a rite of passage that one tribe had for its boys when they turned 13. On that birthday, a warrior blindfolded the boy and took him several miles from camp. The warrior then took off the blindfold and left this young teenager in this dark, dense forest. The young man was expected to stay there for the night and fend for himself. When it got dark, it got really dark. The trees were so dense he couldn't see the moon or the stars. Oh, but he could sure hear those eerie sounds of the wind, the howls of the wild animals nearby, and the rustling of the leaves that sounded like an approaching enemy. For most boys, it was a night without sleep. And then the dawn began to break. And the young man could then see the forest as it really was; the flowers blooming, the majestic trees swaying in the wind, and the wildlife scurrying around for food. And then, the biggest surprise of all. The boy would see an imposing male figure, standing in the woods only a few yards away. He'd be startled at first, until he recognized the man. Unbeknownst to this frightened young warrior, his father had been there the whole time, ready to protect his son against anything that might harm him.

Monday, October 26, 2009

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I first learned about the United States Life-Saving Service years ago on a family vacation. We got to see a life-saving station that had been preserved at a strategic point along the Atlantic coastline. There used to be many of them. In some areas, they were every seven miles along the coast. Each one was staffed by a seven-man crew. They were heroes in every sense of the word! When a ship was in distress near their assigned area, they'd go out into the surf, or the storm, even the hurricane to try to rescue the people on board. They lived their motto: "You have to go out. You don't have to come back." They saved countless lives who otherwise would have been lost.

Friday, October 23, 2009

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For years, her voice was one of the signature voices of Gospel music. When Bill Gaither started doing his Homecoming videos, her commanding voice became known to more people than ever before. When Vestal Goodman belted out a song, it captivated an audience. I was actually surprised to learn that Vestal Goodman's singing didn't always dominate a room. Her husband Howard said that when they first started traveling in itinerant ministry, his wife actually had this little, light soprano voice. Something obviously happened. The storm happened. The near hurricane-strength storm that hit Monroe, Louisiana the day they were supposed to have a concert in their big tent years ago. Those violent winds destroyed everything, including the tent and their sound system. They moved their meeting to a church that night, and Vestal asked Howard to accompany her on a song she'd never sung before publicly. As he started to play that song, something happened! Suddenly he was hearing his wife sing with this great voice he'd never heard before - a voice that belted out a Gospel song; not only for the folks in the church that night, but for millions of people for decades to come.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

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Our former offices were on this long hall, and each night the last one got to walk that long hall and make sure all the doors were locked and the lights were turned out. And with the amount of work the team had to get done each day, it was pretty close to "beddy-bye" time when some of them left. Of course, Daylight Saving Time meant that you could leave well into the evening and it would still be light. Maybe that's why the lights in some of our closets were accidentally left on sometimes. When it's still bright outside, it's easy to miss a light that's on. But in the winter, when it's dark, you can't miss the light!

Tuesday, October 5, 2009

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"The metropolitan New York area may be a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." That's how a lot of folks feel about the area where I lived for so many years. And I can understand that. The area has a very fast pace, an awful lot of people, and there is a high stress quotient. Some call it stressful, some call it exciting, and some call it both. Now imagine this young man moving to the New York area to join our ministry team. He grew up in a small town in Mississippi, and he most recently ministered in Arkansas. Bam! He's suddenly in this whirlwind we call the New York area. So did he crawl inside his little home and just watch TV with his dog? No way! He started driving into New York every chance he got. He checked out all those places he'd heard so much about. He learned very quickly how nice it was to spend a day down at the Jersey Shore. He started eating a lot of new things he never tried before. Yes, this can be a hard area to adjust to, but he decided not to lament his location, he decided to make the most of it!

Friday, September 11, 2009

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I guess we'll be reliving for a long time the images of the World Trade Center attacks and the heroic rescue efforts that followed them. One moment that really hit me was this interview with a big guy who was helping the rescuers. He was sitting on a curb at Ground Zero, talking with a reporter from a cable news network. He told how he had been delivering food to the rescuers, and then how he was making his way back through the rubble when he decided to reach into that rubble just on the chance someone might be there. Suddenly, he felt a warm hand grabbing his arm. Immediately, he went and got helpers who pulled a firefighter out of there alive! And then that's when he lost it in the interview as he choked out these words, "He touched me first."

Thursday, September 10, 2009

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Some dear friends of ours lost their 19-year-old son. Because of the way it happened, his death was really a sudden, gut-wrenching tragedy. But with Jesus as their anchor, even through this, his mom and dad declared that "God wants life to come from his death." One way that's happened is through their decision to donate his organs to help save and improve some other lives. Not long after their son's death, the word came that someone in a neighboring state had received their son's heart. That's been a source of comfort and encouragement to them. As they say, "Our son's heart is giving life to someone else."

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

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One of the large churches in our area just started a new building that they've announced will be used for community outreach. But they did something I've never seen a church do before. They gathered the congregation around the just-completed foundation of that new building and they asked them to throw something into the foundation. Now you've no doubt seen people's names on the outside of a building's foundation, especially on the cornerstone. But these folks were actually putting names inside the foundation - the names of people they care about who don't belong to Jesus yet; people they are hoping and praying will be in heaven with them some day.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

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We just finished celebrating our grandson's tenth birthday. We didn't forget it. Well, he wouldn't let us forget it! This boy knew his birthday when he was two years old. It's a big deal to him, and to us. My wife and I will never forget the day he was born, because we were there! We waited outside that birthing room, then we got the word that he was in the process of arriving, and then we got the summons to come in and see him. One of life's ultimate "Kodak moments." And suddenly a day that had been just another number on the calendar before became one of the most special days in our life from then on!

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