In Sickness and in Health
by Paul Willingham
Bill and Becky Ann met at Purdue University where they both majored in Radio/Television broadcasting. They were married on the 13th of the month and believed that their marriage would not be undone by the superstitious whims of others. They were married for over 62 years. After broadcast gigs, first in Chicago and then at WCCO Radio in the Twin Cities, they struck out on their own and in 1949 successfully launched their own AM radio station.
For the next 20 plus years they successfully competed with and against stations with more broadcast power and were successful with counter-programming to the prevailing Rock and Roll and Top 40 formats of the day.
In the 50s and 60s women in business were rare and the glass ceiling was located somewhere just above the door knob of the corner office. But Becky Ann was a full-time active career partner with Bill as they owned, managed and worked together to build their business.
Guest Post: The War on Christmas
My Uncle David recently asked me to take a look at an article he’d written. I asked him if we couldn’t publish it here. He’s graciously consented, and just in time for me as I’m still feeling my way around John 9.
Known at family gatherings (and the comment box here) as Uncle Weird, he is a bi-vocational pastor, shepherding a flock in Wisconsin as well as providing leadership to the field of social work.
His voice might have a familiar ring. He’s the guy who gave us, in response to the Apostle Paul’s question, “Does this tunic make you look fat? I’m thinking you may need to buy a threenic next time!“ He is also my dad’s brother, my grandfather Al’s son, and my uncle. We’d never say he’s objectionable (unless we were alone or with somebody), but today he speaks out as a Conscientious Objector in the War on Christmas.
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Guest post by David Willingham
The “How to Celebrate the Birth of Christ” Committee
The word Christmas has a very specific meaning, and we know where that meaning comes from. So in fact does Holiday (Holy Day). When I say have a Happy or Blessed Holiday, I’m referring to a Holy Day.
Not all people who say Merry Christmas mean Christ’s Mass, or are honoring the Birth of Christ, while at the same time not all people who say Happy Holiday are not honoring the birth of Christ. It’s all between each one of us and who we are or are not honoring.
Has God appointed any of us to the “How to Celebrate the Birth of His Son” Committee?
Teach Us to Pray
A guest post by Paul Willingham
Praying with a Limp
A few months ago I was enjoying a late breakfast with my dad at the local Perkins. Our table was near the front entrance so I was in a position to observe as diners entered and departed. Several middle-aged African-American women were leaving. As they passed, one of the women asked her companion if she had injured her leg. She seemed to favor it as she walked.
“No”, she replied. “I always limp after I’ve been to prayer meeting.”
The uninitiated, overhearing her comment, probably would not have caught that her prayer life included being on her knees. But what a testimony for the initiated that this woman and her prayer partners spent part of their prayer time on their knees, not seated around a table.
I suspect that in this day of compartmentalized Church Life/Christianity and a desire for comfort (air conditioned buildings, heated baptistries and padded pews) that there is not as much prayer that takes place on the knees of the supplicants. I’m neither denigrating the prayers of the sincere today (the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much), regardless of the position of their physical bodies. Nor am I suggesting that prayer is more effective when offered up while kneeling.
The King is Coming
Guest post by Paul Willingham, just in time for the Vikings season opener . . .
Who’s the king, really?
I read recently of the passing of gospel singer Doug Oldham. Oldham was a regular on Jerry Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour, back in the day before the televangelist scandals dimmed the Klieg lights of many religious broadcasters. Oldham died July 19 at the age of 79.
Like Roy and Happy Trails, Elvis and Heartbreak Hotel, Kate Smith and God Bless America, and George Beverly Shea and How Great Thou Art, I have always associated Oldham with the song The King is Coming. (more…)
A Rock is Just a Rock — Or is It?
Guest post by my dad, Paul Willingham
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What comes to mind when you hear the word rock?
A noun? A verb or some other part of speech? No, this is not a grammar test.
A Rolling Stones Concert?
A boxer named Balboa or Grazziano?
Elvis, the King?
Alcatraz?
Gibraltar?
Prudential Insurance?
Or if you are a hoops fan, a basketball?
The entrance to Jesus’ tomb?
The grand old hymns Rock of Ages or
My Hope is Built on Nothing Less?
Sandy Patti’s Upon This Rock?
Jesus’ promise to Peter in Matthew 16?
Psalm 18:2?
The wise builder’s foundation?
Jesus himself?
The Chicken Story (Part III)
Grandpa and his watermelons, circa. 1915
The Chicken Part of the Chicken Story
When I asked my granddad to record The Chicken Story so I could post it here, I expected he’d be able to get me just a short anecdote, on paper. Better than that, my dad set him up with a digital recorder, and instead of just my favorite story about chickens, I got a wonderful narrative history of his twelfth birthday, his first paying job (50 cents a day), and a slice of life in the early quarter of the twentieth century.
In the process of transcribing the story, I discovered Grandpa recorded the story for me not just once, but twice, each version just a little different and told as fresh as though the events happened yesterday. These posts have attempted to blend the best of the two.
Today we get to the punch line, and the chickens. Or, rather, the chicken. Singular.
The Chicken Story (Part II)
A doorknob makes a good hammer, if you can’t find a screwdriver
Yesterday, I introduced you to the Willingham clan’s patriarch, R. A. Willingham, Sr., or as we know him, Grandpa. Or Grandpa Al. Or Grandpa George. Even though the R. in R. A. doesn’t stand for George.
My dad emailed last night with a few more details to fill out Grandpa’s CV:
Your grandpa had one of the top Boy Scout troops in the city of Chicago. The troop was in danger being disbanded before he took over. My cousin Norman was a member of that troop and said that he was the best scoutleader he had ever had.
He once told me that his dad told him, “a door knob makes a good hammer, if you can’t find a screwdriver.”
He probably has held every office that churches require, including Sunday School teacher, deacon, elder, and Sunday School superintendent. He took the office of elder seriously and willingly would fill the pulpit in the absence of the pastor.
He played the inn keeper in the Christmas pageant at Maplewood Baptist (Chicago) when I was about eight years old. He grew a big dark black beard just for the show.
He and grandma Edna were also instrumental in starting a church in Oregon, IL.
With that, I’ll give you Part II of The Chicken Story. If you didn’t read yesterday’s “guest post from a 102-year-old guy,” click back to do so and learn that a fella can never have too many hankies. And stop back tomorrow, when we’ll get to talking about chickens and the punchline of the story.
That’s why they call ‘em hamburgers
by Al Willingham
Grandpa and Grandma outside the dorm at Minnesota Bible College, Minneapolis MN, circa. 1950s
A grocery store in those days was a far cry from what we think of with a grocery store today. In many respects a grocery store today has many of the same features. Most grocery stores sell everything. You buy stationery, you buy stuff for your kitchen, there’s a pharmacy and so on and so forth.
‘Course they didn’t have pharmacies in that time. The doctor was his own pharmacist. He fixed his own medicine. And incidentally, the medicines that they gave me to take were liquid. And I’m telling you, after about two doses of their liquid medicine you got well in a hurry so you didn’t have to take any more. You might have needed it but you didn’t want any more.
Anyhow, [my uncle's] store was sort of a general store. There was a certain amount of clothing and dishes and odds and ends. But instead of you taking a basket and going around the store and picking up what you wanted, you went to a place called a counter and he or one of his two clerks would stand with a little sales tab in his hand. If you wanted some rice he’d write that down, and after four or five items he’d go and get them and lay them on the counter. Then he’d go get whatever else it was you wanted and take care of you.
A little money exchanged in that store. People would say “Well I do my tradin’ over at Val’s.” My uncle had a peculiar name, his name was Valentiny. He was born on Valentine’s Day. As soon as he grew up a little he changed his name to Val.
He bought everything he could in bulk. Sugar came in a barrel. Flour came in sacks. He’d buy a car load of flour at a time and half a car load of sugar. One of my jobs in the store was to sack up the sugar and keep it on the shelf ahead of time. He’d put it up in one and five pound bags, stiff brown bags that they sacked it up in. And he showed me how to sack it up to get just exactly one pound and twist the end and tie it with a string that came off a ball that hung on the ceiling. My job was to see that the sugar counter was always well filled because that was one of the popular things.
Grandpa and Lil with Isaac, circa. 1998
The automobile was just coming into town and I mean probably one in 20 residents had a car. But he had a gas pump out there and it was my duty to fill up a tank of gas. The tank had marks on the side of it so you’d fill it up full and then drain it down into the car that you were servicing. And I think at that time gas was probably maybe ten or eleven cents a gallon.
My other duty was just to see to it that the papers and things were picked up off of the floor and keep the place as neat as possible. Next door was a butcher shop that was part of the store but had a separate entrance from inside and outside. One of Val’s brothers operated the butcher shop. I was also to keep that place tidy. I’d be responsible for checking into the meat market, and if there was any droppings on the floor I was supposed to pick them up. They kept sawdust on the floor and once a week they’d change it. Otherwise they just kept adding sawdust during the week.
They made deliveries to people in town all week. People would call in and they’d want pork chops for dinner. He had a route that would get delivered by 11:00 so the lady of the house could have dinner ready when most everyone went home for lunch.
Val was very popular in town. His store was located at a place called Five Points. If you asked where some part of town was, being a stranger, they’d say, “Do you know where Five Points is?”
“Oh yeah, I know where Five Points is.”
“Oh well, you go six blocks east from there and four blocks south and you’ll find the place that you’re looking for.”
Val owned all five corners. There was a blacksmith shop and sort of a general storage place, and then he had what they called this stand. It was the beginning of McDonalds. They would fry up sandwiches — called ‘em hamburgers because they would mix beef and pork together. That’s how hamburgers got their name.
Grandpa and Grandma (left) with friends
And this little store sold chewing gum and candy and perhaps other sandwiches I don’t remember. Coca Cola was just getting into the business and they had Coca Cola and cream soda and it seems like there was three or four others. You had a little container and you dropped a dime in there and you could slide the bottle over to a certain place. If the dime went through and released a lock and you could get the bottle out.
- to be continued -
The Chicken Story (Part I)
Grandpa and Grandma, circa. 1950-ish
A Guest Post by Grandpa Al Willingham
Two years ago family scooted down church pews while my granddad sidled up to a microphone. He’d been preparing his birthday speech for a long time. Years, I think. He rustled a few note cards between his fingers, but it seemed they were there just to put something in his hands. I noticed after the first two or three he never looked at them again.
We sat riveted, hardly breathing unless it was to fuel the next belly laugh. Partly because it was Grandpa, and he always captivates. But partly, I think, it was never having heard a 100-year-old guy deliver a monologue. For nearly an hour, he cracked jokes, told stories and passed out sage advice to a room full of friends, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That year in his Christmas letter he observed that he’d been told the first 100 years were the toughest. He was looking forward to the next 100. He’s now two years into that second century.
My grandpa raised a family in wartime. He worked through the Great Depression, never out of a job more than two weeks at a time I’m told. He’s buried two beautiful wives and more friends than a guy should have to. He’s seen things I can only imagine.
Grandpa Al is Rock solid, passing down a heritage of loving and serving Jesus that could cause the best Baptists I know to covet. He served as chairman of his church’s elder board into his 90s and can still fix anything with a little prayer, duct tape and baling twine.
I asked Grandpa if he’d help me complete four generations in this place. (My dad posts regularly, and Isaac guested here once last year.) Remembering a favorite story from the birthday party, I wondered if he and Dad could get it onto paper for me.
They did me one better. They puttered around with a digital recorder and for the next couple of days, we have the results of that here. I edited very little so you can get the feel for Grandpa’s conversation. In Part I, Grandpa sets the stage for the times with the sure sign of coming of age: he wore long pants at age twelve. In Part II, he describes his uncle’s grocery store where he held his first job off the farm. And in Part III, he tells a story of chickens, customers, and lessons learned about honesty.
All About Chickens and Chicken Soup and So Forth
Grandpa in 1912, not quite old enough to work
In order for you to understand the situation at the time, I was in my early youth. Upon reaching twelve, you lost your childhood one day and the next day you were supposed to be a man, a tradition handed down for many years from the Jewish people.
On my twelfth birthday — I had never had a birthday party before — I came home from school and nobody was home. I started doing the normal chores assigned to me. I got mine all done and started in on the ones that my dad would be doing.
Mother and Dad showed up along with a couple of cousins of mine from town and Dad and I continued with the chores. We got back to the house and it was supper time but I didn’t see any evidence of supper. I had noticed my dad had been carrying some wood into the front part of the house and I wondered what that was all about.
We had a peculiar house that had two huge living rooms. One was called the parlor and that’s where you put your best furniture. And when you had company you used the other sittin’ room. That was the showplace. You also had a parlor bedroom where the fancy bedclothes were on the bed and the bed never got used.
She’d made several trips in there and I wondered what that was all about. Finally she sent me in there to get a book of some kind out of the small library that we had. Lo and behold, the house was full of people from my school. I think all of my school chums or associates were there. I was attending a one-room school and we had about 20 students first through eighth grade. They immediately started singing happy birthday to me, something that was a total surprise to me.
Birthday parties had never been celebrated as far as I knew in my family. And of course they all brought gifts, not a very wide variety but I got about ten or twelve red bandana handkerchiefs and some more delicate ones presumably from the girls. After the presents were all open, my mother brought me in my present.
Mother and dad served them ice cream and cake – and ice cream was a real treat back in those days. You had an old freezer you made it with and you turned a crank until you couldn’t turn it anymore. You packed it with ice, and ice was also pretty much of a new thing they had learned how to make ice in the big city of Charleston. We lived about six miles from there. Anyhow we had that fun, and after everyone left then my Mother brought out a big package for me and it turned out it was my long pants suit true to tradition.
The dress code in those days for boys was knee pants or knickers, long black socks, a blouse and either a homemade knit sweater or jacket. I’m talking about Sunday-Go-to-Meetin’ clothes now. After you were twelve years old the dress code changed. Boys wore long pants, regular type suit, shirt and tie, white shirt and tie, and then that was designated as your Sunday-Go-to-Meetin’ clothes.
Maybe the oldest NBA fan out there, Grandpa saw the Heat and T-Wolves play for his 100th birthday
My mother was ill most of my life. Well, she lived anyhow. She thought since I was growing up now I should have a little business training. She had a brother that had a little grocery store in town. She conned him into allowing me to work on Saturdays for six weeks. The reason for the six weeks was that during that six weeks spring was coming along and there wasn’t much to do on the farm. By the end of the six weeks they would be starting to prepare the soil for planting and they would require me to be one of the helpers.
So I rode horse back into town. The store opened at 6:30 in the morning. My uncle was just coming across the street when I arrived on horseback. He showed me where I could put my horse where she’d be in the shade, and gave me a bucket of water to sit beside her. I could change the bucket at noon. I thought it was very thoughtful of him.
-to be continued-
I Got Mine but God Took It Back
Once in a while, great fun happens in the comment box. I unwittingly set off a maelstrom of punniness between my dad and uncle last week, and if you ever want to know what our family gatherings are like, you really ought to check it out. Following closely on the heels of that good fun, my dad sends over a shiny new guest post.
by Paul Willingham
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Last year I spotted a vanity plate that read “I TITHE” while driving through the “Devil’s Triangle”, a geometric bit of real estate in the northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. I recently spotted another vanity plate (an excellent and apropos name for them) while again making my way through the intersections that make up the “Devil’s Triangle.
This area is bounded by US 169, County Road 81 and 85th Avenue and has been and still is the site of some major creeping and beeping rush hour traffic. The intersections are currently being rebuilt and the construction has only exacerbated the traffic issues. I’m beginning to think that it must be the air that permeates the atmosphere around the “Devil’s Triangle” as this one seemed even more egregious than the last one. It read “GOT MINE”. I can hardly wait to see what the next spring’s winning vanity plate will read.
What is the owner of that sporty little convertible trying to tell those of us who take the time to read the plate?. That he or she owns a piece of the Iron Range or the Homestead Mother Lode. Or perhaps works for the American Dairy Association and ‘L’ and ‘K’ were already taken. In this instance, the benefit of the doubt doesn’t apply. It means exactly what it says. “Ha, Ha, too bad. I’ve made it and you haven’t.”
I didn’t follow the car to see if “mine” included a 9 bedroom, 6 bathroom, mansion on the lake with an 8 car garage to shelter the companions of the sporty convertible. But in today’s culture “got mine” means possessions or the wherewithal to obtain them.
Sadly the “got mine” attitude defines the goal of a lot of people today, including some Christians. Economists are not in agreement as to what descriptive title to put on the current world wide economic crisis. And it seems to change daily. Years ago, an anonymous wag commented, “if all the economists in the world were laid end to end they would not reach a conclusion.”
The roots of the current financial malaise can be laid at the feet of the bigger than life “got mine” role models and the culture that lionizes them. Bigger bonuses, bigger cars, bigger titles, bigger boats, bigger houses, bigger stock options, the big corner office or what ever defines “mine”. None of us are completely immune from this attitude or mindset. I suspect we all have, in a moment of weakness, made a mental list of what we would do or buy should we reach success as the world measures it.
In Luke 12 Jesus relates a telling parable that is timely for any and every generation. Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” He said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops? And he said, I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.”
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21 ESV)
I’ve often wonder if this parable is the origin of the old saying, “a fool and his money are soon parted.” “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” flies in the face of the “got mine” philosophy. Jesus rebukes the farmer for laying up treasure for himself and for not being rich toward God. This verse does not prohibit wealth but there is a clear warning concerning the dangerous eternal implications of wealth, with its seductive tendency toward complacency, self-sufficiency, and covetousness.
Jesus then turns to his disciples in verse 22 and 23 with the admonition, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” He follows that up with those familiar words about birds being cared for by God and how we are more important than birds.
In the old TV series, “The A-Team”, B A Baracus (portrayed by Mr. T) used the word fool in a derisive, disdainful and almost damning tone of voice. Whenever I read the 20th verse where God says “Fool” I hear B A Baracus growling ‘fool’ to some miscreant just before he throws him over the A-Team mini-van.
On the Day of Judgment, “got mine” will sound more like “gotcha”. When the time comes to stand before the Judgment Seat “well done, good and faithful servant” will be a far superior greeting than “fool.”
“Only one life, it will soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.”
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About Paul: My dad is a retired CPA living in the Twin Cities with my amazing mom. He is granddad to three boys and five girls and is an occasional golfer, skilled carpenter, accomplished handyman and master chef. He gets together with his 102-year old dad each week to work out their latest life-enhancing contraptions and home improvement projects. It goes without saying (even though I’m saying it) that my dad and mom follow Jesus well. See other posts from my dad here.
Photos: Weather Grain Bins by Richard Dows and Jester by Cecile K via Stock.xchng
Smile! You’re on Psyche Camera!
My dad has a knack for finding spiritual application to sometimes odd news reports. This new development still has me scratching my head — though not, perhaps, as much as the image of Ananias and Sapphira on Facebook.
– by Paul Willingham
Back in the 80s when I was in business in South Dakota, I attended a 2 day marketing seminar for CPAs. One of the things that the instructor stressed was that you needed to be able to identify, as much as possible, the personality of your client or potential client. He pointed out that each person has these visible personality traits that, when identified, would help tailor the sales pitch to “sell” or close the deal. Some might call it manipulation but that’s a discussion for another time.
After explaining that each one of us fit more or less into one of four groups, he explained how to identify and pigeon hole a person by being sensitive to these visible traits. Before we broke for lunch that first day, he had assessed each of the participants. What was worse, he shared those assessments with the class and we all were surprised, chagrined and perhaps embarrassed at how accurate he was. One of our assignments was to go out to the Mall after supper, people watch, and then try to identify which one of the four groups passersby belonged to. It was surprising to me how much you could tell about a person by paying attention and looking for the telltale traits. (more…)
Reality Check
Day 4 – 12 Days of Community
My dad does not officially blog. Every now and again we like to cut him loose from the comment box and give him a guest spot. Though he has no blog of his own (I like to think of him as sort of a Blogger Emeritus), I’m featuring him for Day 4 of the 12 Days of Community we’re celebrating at High Calling Blogs. Dad previously posted for us on keeping performance in perspective and stepping out from behind the mask. He writes for us again today.
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by Paul Willingham
As I drove home from church on a recent Sunday, I noted that one of the billboards along Highway 7 had been updated with a new message. In true billboard fashion it only contained eight words so that we could read, process and absorb the message before we blew past it at highway speed. The sponsor is a huge nationally known shopping center here in the Twin Cities. The eight words “FALL IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF ALL OVER AGAIN”.
Halloween’s Over — Take Off the Mask
My dad posts again to round out the series of the past week. His thoughts here relate to the Legends post from earlier in the week, so we’ll call it Part 1.5. If you missed Dad’s earlier guest spot, you can pick it up here.
Meanwhile, Delilah is just dying to cut Samson’s hair, so I’ll be back in Judges 16 this week if you care to join me.
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by Paul Willingham
Rambo and Homer. Hmmmm! Superman and Casper Milquetoast. Babe Ruth and Casey (at the Bat). Sgt. York and Sgt. Bilko. The James Gang and the Apple Dumpling Gang. Rambo I know, having watched “First Blood” several times. Rambo II and Rambo III fell sort of flat, as most sequels do. I know who Homer Simpson is but have never watched even 5 minutes of “The Simpsons”. But I digress. My TV/movie viewing preferences are not germane here. What you were really saying as one wag put it long ago, we want to be legends but we only end up being “legends in our own mind”.
When I was in college, an annual event was the “Speech Banquet”. After the meal, the program consisted of speeches by several students. The speakers (mostly male students as they were pursuing careers as preachers) on the program were selected by the Speech Professor. I agreed to serve as toastmaster for the event and thus escaped preparing and delivering a speech. Following years of tradition established by those who had gone before me, plus my own idea of what an emcee does, I introduced the various speakers with a short and what I hoped was a good joke (a good joke being defined as one that folks actually laugh at).
I introduced one of the students (We’ll call him Bob) as follows: Bob had a date with his long-time girl friend. When he arrived at the door and rang her bell, she appeared at the door and greeted him with the question that every male dreads. “Bob, do you notice any thing different about me?”
My Dad Reflects on Crunching the Numbers
I had an unexpected and pleasant surprise in my inbox this morning: a guest post from my dad, reflecting on some of the discussion we’ve had here the last few days. I know, I promised Part 3 on confession and self-disclosure today. It’s still coming. Consider this Part 2.5. You can pick up Part 1 and Part 2 to get up to speed.
When I think of what’s made me what I am today, it’s one part my dad, one part my mom, one part being beat up by my brother, one part having a girly older sister, one part reading a lot of books, one part being pursued for years by the love of my life, one part . . . well, a whole lot of parts God worked together to come up with a little something called me. But I was highly blessed to have a mom and dad who taught me the good stuff from day one and lived it out where I could see it.
So I’m happy to break my dad out of the comment box for you today. Ignore his flattery (he’s my dad, what do you expect?) and just move straight to the meat of it.
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by Paul Willingham
Fascinating discussion. You have the uncanny ability to take mundane things like pocket lint and Show and Tell and make us think. It is interesting that you posted on this subject this week. Yesterday, I started putting into words something that came to me in the car and it sort of ties into what you are discussing here. My opening lines were going to be the words of an old hymn that popped into my head while driving to Grandpa’s last week.
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Guest Post: Stumbles and Near Falls
Elizabeth guest posts again for me. Read her previous entry here. You can also see more of Elizabeth’s writing at her own recently launched blog, Made for Something Greater.
Today I experienced one of the scariest moments of my short career.
I am a physical therapist, and part of my current job involves working in a nursing home. I’ve been working with an elderly woman who had a stroke several months ago. She should have died, but her stubborn will kept her heart beating. The first couple of months were spent lying in bed, so when she came to us she was very weak and dependent on everyone to take care of her.
But with the help of physical, occupational, and speech therapies, she quickly began to make a comeback. Now, three months later, she is still quite dependent on others, but is able to sit up, transfer, and walk.
Actually, she doesn’t really walk.
She kind of springs out of her chair and takes off at a dead walk-sprint. (Before her stroke, she was the kind of woman who constantly ran at full speed.)
But her balance isn’t great and she is still weak. So I try to always have a hold of her gait belt when we’re doing stuff. That’s the purpose of the belt – I hold on so my patient doesn’t fall.
Today we were walking. Or more accurately, she was speed walking and I was trying to hold onto her with one hand and pull her wheelchair behind me with the other. She eventually tired out and was ready to sit and rest for a few minutes. So I one-handedly reached down to put the brakes on her wheelchair so she could sit safely.
That’s when things got scary. It happened before either one of us knew what was going on.
Which is usually how it goes. Older people don’t even realize they’re falling until they’re already on the ground.
Suddenly, my patient was taking a nose-dive forward. Straight down into her walker, which would only slightly break her fall before hitting the hard floor. Thank goodness for my hand on her belt. I yanked her backwards from behind her wheelchair and she just barely landed in her seat. Thank goodness for locked brakes.
She was (understandably) startled and began crying out that she couldn’t get herself back into her chair. So I did my best to lift her up far enough into the seat so she could get herself in the rest of the way.
I sat down as well.
This woman also has severe short-term memory deficits. So after a few breaths she asks, “Where do you want me to go?” I’m pretty sure she had already forgotten about her near-smack experience with the floor.
I said, “Let’s just rest here for a few more minutes.” I still needed to sit.
After a while we both got up and finished our walk and all was well. But had I let go of that belt for just the brief second I needed to reach across to the brake, the story would have ended differently.
Badly.
What if God let go of us every time we fell? What if He turned His back on us every once in a while and missed catching us?
Our spiritual growth is sequential. As baby Christians, God often holds us and carries us so we can see and experience Him up close. As we grow, we learn to walk on our spiritual legs. But the difference with our spiritual mobility compared to physical mobility is that we never walk independently. No matter how “big” we get, we still need God to hold onto us. For when we stumble.
That’s a promise. We will stumble. No matter how much of a spiritual giant someone may appear, even they will stumble. And even fall.
Sometimes it hurts. We might stub a toe or bump a knee. Sometimes we fall and it hurts so badly we’re not sure we are ever going to be able to walk again. But God always has His hand on us. We never fall so hard that He can’t break our fall.
“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:9-10).
There is no place we can go where God isn’t holding onto us.
And maybe we should embrace a lack of short-term memory. Sometimes it’s ok to sit down, take a break, and recover a bit. But it does no good to sit and dwell on our mistakes and punish ourselves repeatedly for stumbling. Maybe we should be more like my patient – forget about the near disaster we just about landed in and ask instead, “Where do you want me to go?”
Our destination won’t come to us. We have to walk to it. Even if it’s one baby step at a time.
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Guest Post: Isaac’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame
. .I’m traveling this weekend for Grandpa’s 101st birthday. Thought this would be a great time for Isaac to put up his guest post. Isaac is an 8th grader who sometimes exhibits insight beyond his years. He’s starting to learn to see the way God speaks through the sometimes ordinary things of life. Encourage him and comment him up, would you please? — Lyla
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Heyheyhey, it’s me, Isaac, you know, Lyla’s son? Of course you have no clue who I am. Well, She told me I could do a guest post, and well I guess that’s what I’m doing. I have nothing else to do anyway… it’s a friday night and I don’t have a girlfriend .
:: <— heh heh, I’m taking after my mom already…
Last Christmas we (my mom, my little brother JP, and I) were in Minneapolis to visit relatives. The second (I think) day we were up there, my mom and I went to a theater to see the newly released movie Valkyrie. (Great movie.) Well, we got in there about 5 minutes before the movie and we got one of the last remaining seats. She turned to me and asked. “Is it alright if I sit with you?”
I looked around and jokingly told her, “Don’t worry, Mom, I don’t know anyone here,” so we sat down and waited for the movie to start.
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Well, I’ve gotten to thinking, is that the same way with Jesus? Him asking, “Can I shine through now?” and us answering the typical response, “Not now, there are people here I know, I don’t want them to know. I want to be ‘cool’,” and He goes back to waiting.
Mark 8:34-38 says:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”
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Instead of brushing Him back, we should respond with, “Yes God, whatever you need me to do for you know what the best thing to do is.”
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So there’s my story, and my lesson, and even the :: between thoughts, so I guess this concludes my 15 minutes of fame that never was .
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Guest Post: Down to the Potter’s House
My friend Elizabeth tends to have some pretty amazing insights into our relationship with the Father. Sometimes she processes on the page, taking what God’s saying and working it out by writing. But she also has the ability to process on a canvas. I thought the combination of the two in this case was pretty compelling, and hard to resist. She’s taught me a lot over the past few years about brokenness. I find myself rather honored she allowed me to add her voice to A Different Story today. — Lyla
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God shapes us in His hands. He is the Potter. But even though we are the clay, we tend to decide for on our own when we’ve reached completion. So we set ourselves on the shelf to dry. But God looks at us and sees what He wants us to be. The beautiful and amazing vessel that He wants to create with His very own precious hands. So He takes us off the shelf. And He breaks us. He has to, because we’ve made ourselves unmoldable. Sometimes He shatters us beyond recognition. But then He picks up each piece of our broken lives and dusts it off. He reshapes it, molds it, smoothes the edges and works with that piece until, through our surrender and His masterful hands, He creates the perfect piece. Then He puts that one in place and reaches for the next. On and on He goes, working with every single piece until we are put back together.
If you have ever tried to re-piece a broken pot, you know that some parts will never fit back together. There are holes and gaps left between the pieces. And you can never fully hide all the cracks. A broken pot will never look exactly the way it did before it broke. But the holes and gaps and cracks become a thing of beauty and glory. For as the Potter puts the pieces back together, He also places His light inside of us. It bursts forth from those holes and cracks so that all who walk by and see the pot will be drawn closer by the light spilling from inside.
“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as it seemed best to him.” Jeremiah 18:3-4
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