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I'm having sort of flashbacks of some very special Easters past; often at a sunrise service. Like the Easter in Miami, with the sun rising over Biscayne Bay as I spoke about Jesus rising from the dead. Or celebrating Jesus with Native Americans in a public park. And the... Oh, yeah, there was the one on the mountaintop near New York City.
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The land is flat around Joplin, Missouri. And then after the great tornado that hit there, much of the town was leveled by that F-5. It was just heartbreaking devastation as far as the eye could see. But you know what? In the midst of all that devastation, there was still one thing still standing. A reporter commented on it as the camera scanned across this sea of wreckage, and you couldn't miss it. It was a cross, and his words went right to my heart, "The church is gone, but the cross is still standing."
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We had rented this nice cabin in the mountains, and we really didn't want to leave it much. The view across the valley was like a painting. It would change as the sun changed and the weather changed; all kinds of moods, you know, like you see in the mountains.
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Yeah, when it came time for them to choose teams for softball, I felt a little rejected. Last one chosen. Poor me. And how about the time when I was the only one on the hayride without a date? Poor me.
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I was on this early morning flight to Pittsburgh. It's the kind where most of the passengers are real veteran flyers, you know, business people. And wouldn't you know, we got one of those two-for-the-price-of-one landings. Yeah, one of those bumpy, bouncy ones. I mean, even with the seasoned flyers aboard, that landing got everyone's heads out of their papers and their briefcases...including mine. I couldn't wait to hear what the flight attendant was going to say. And, fortunately, we got one of the few that had a sense of humor. He came on and he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, now that I have your attention, I'd like to make a few announcements!" That's great! Believe me, after a landing like that, he had our attention!
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If you had seen that three-month-old baby, you'd say, "Man, he looks like the picture of health." He was a handsome baby, full of dark hair, doubled his weight since he was born, strong, taking in everything going on around him, and a smile that could melt your heart. But inside, it was a different story. He'd already had two major heart surgeries in his short life and the prospect of more in his future.
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I'm told that new babies actually lose a little weight between the time they're born and the checkup they have two weeks later. Oh, not when our little granddaughter was new! No! No! And we know why. She was extremely dedicated to eating often and eating a lot. Her mother's milk obviously agreed with her. She had been one happy little girl, until it was time to eat again. At which point she would crank it up and let us know in no uncertain terms "I'm hungry! I will not be delayed! I will not be denied!" I think that's what she said.
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Our friends were expecting their baby in about six weeks. But the baby didn't get the message. No. They had flown in from Denver to attend a convention in Chicago and we were all at the same convention. Since I was living in Chicago at the time, I said, "Hey, baby happens, call me. I'll get you to the hospital in plenty of time. It's my city. You don't have anything to worry about." We were all laughing. I wasn't laughing at 6:00 A.M. the next morning when I got a phone call in my hotel room saying, "She's in labor!" Of course, I'm going crazy. I've got to get them to the hospital.
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At our house, we call it clean juice. I think the official name is "hand sanitizer." Whatever it's called, I use it big-time for flu germs! Actually there was a flu outbreak that took place, and our hospital was overwhelmed. The next closest hospital was overwhelmed, too, by people from our town. And, boy, what did the pandemic do? Lots of clean juice.
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They call it the Mayan prophecy. Yeah, it was a few years ago. If people had been right about it, you wouldn't be listening to me right now. It was December 21, 2012. Yeah, they said years ago that was the day everybody was talking about as the predicted "end of the world." I'm guessing it didn't happen.
