Matters that Mattered

 

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13b-14

The apostle Paul challenged Christians at Philippi to look to the future and not rest on their accomplishments.  He stressed the importance of pressing forward toward the upward call of Christ or be under the threat of perfectionism. 

Christ liberated Paul from the old Pharisaic values and sins that consumed him.  Paul challenged those who experienced liberation to look to those things ahead.

Paul’s epistles reveal that he lived a real life in real circumstances with real options to choose.  He made some wise choices.  He pursued matters that mattered.  He said, “One thing I do.”  Without a defining, central priority, there can be no sensible priorities in life.  Paul knew that all his priorities grew from this consuming priority. 

Priorities help us choose, but a consuming priority redefines how we say yes and lives to make that yes a reality.  Paul challenges: Don’t look back, stretch forward, and never give up.

Heard Through the Grapevine

 

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay says the Lord.” Romans 12:19

A few years back gossip wrecked my ministry.  As a pastor, my reputation was rooted in confidentiality, honesty, and moral integrity and all these dissipated when well-intended folks spread rumors rooted “appearance of evil.”

I learned as a young man that things are not always as they appear.  I tell folks not to believe everything they hear and only half of what they see.

Those that knew the truth tried to squelch the rumors, but juicy gossip attracts more attention than the truth.  The hardest thing has been to forgive the perpetrators and ignore the gossipmongers.  The “country boy” in me wants to even things, but my faith says wait on the Lord.  I know that the Lord will judge accordingly.

The Lord has blessed my faith with a renewed ministry, a more compassionate heart, and better understanding of forgiveness.

Hold to the truth.  God knows the truth and repays.

Love of the Game

I love to play football.  From the very first time I played on the school playground I was hooked.  I had thrown the football in the yard with dad, but never really played the game until physical education at Jemison elementary.

It was fourth grade recess, and two teams were playing.  I didn’t know anything about the game and had never watched one on television of been to one at school.  On one particular play a new kid had transferred from Calera Elementary and seemed to know about the game.  His name was Tony and he was quarterback.  I didn’t really know what a quarterback did, but he was the one throwing the ball.

As he dropped back to pass it, I realized he was throwing it toward me.  In yard football we played more running than throwing.  I was more Rugby than football.  I reached up and caught the ball.  The guys around me hollered “interception” and the new kid that threw the ball asked, “Whose side you on?” Not really knowing, I yelled, “Yours.”  He yelled, “Touchdown!”   That was the beginning of many passes that my future brother-in-law would toss me.  I would play many PE games before I actually witnessed a real game. 

 My best friend during my school years was Ricky.  He was a small boy and an avid University of Alabama football fan.  Tony my other new friend was an Auburn University football fan.  Being an ignorant poor boy from across the tracks, I was clueless about college football.  I had no idea about national championships.  As I said, never watched one and had no idea that a Bear was coach at Alabama or that a guy named Shug was coach at Auburn.

 One day in the lunchroom Tony and Ricky were arguing, as most Alabama and Auburn fans do, about who was better.  They would almost fight over it.  Finally, they asked me who I was for, Alabama or Auburn.  Now I was clueless about who or what an Auburn fan was, but I knew I lived in Alabama and said, “Alabama of course.”  Ricky and Tony would be bitter rivals until the die-hard Alabama fan went the Auburn University for an engineering degree. 

In the spring of the seventh grade, Ricky talked me into going out for football.  Spring training was much harder than PE football.  On the first scrimmage coaches lined up across from a junior named Tracy.  He was a monster.  I found out that he was a very good tackle.  He made All Conference the previous season.

I had never played organized football, so I asked the coach what I was supposed to do.  It sounded simple.  He said, “Tackle the man with the football.”  I had done a little of that at PE with my peers from fourth through seventh grade.  They were nowhere near the size of Tracy. 

Suddenly the center snapped the ball, and I disappeared in a cloud of dust and under a mass of humanity.  It hurt really badly, but I was determined.  Same thing happened over and over.  The best thing about the spring practice was I got to watch my first real live football game from the sidelines.

In the ninth grade I had the privilege and honor to be one of the practice dummies for the first every state championship playoff in Alabama and for Jemison.  We ended second in the State of Alabama Two A playoff.  In the off I have the privilege of seeing my first T-bone steak.   I couldn’t eat so I gave it to one of our running backs.   I got to go to a football banquet and received my first football letter.  They gave away trophies and I determined to win one the next year.

God blessed my football training by chasing hogs and I found that catching football players were much easier.  I played defensive end and offensive tackle/end.  I remembered what they told me at my first ever practice, “tackle the man with the ball.”  So, I did.  They added a bonus.  They said hit the quarterback every play.  So, I did when there was no one else to tackle. 

I earned two trophies for best defensive player for my junior and senior years.  Made all conference and had scholarships offers.  I received one from Dartmouth College and another from a junior college.  Alabama and Auburn said I was too small.

 I loved to hit quarterbacks.  I love the game.  I loved it enough that I received a cussing every day when I got home from walking six miles to house and feeding hogs and getting in firewood.  I loved it enough that we played most every Saturday and Sundays between morning and night services.

My dad worked evening shift.  One night my sophomore year, I went to the sideline for a breather.  Someone said your dad is here.  I looked and there stood dad in the tunnel leading to the field.  He was in his work clothes, covered in grease, and wearing a hardhat.  I was proud and happy.

My junior year he sacrificed and took off work to travel to Selma, Alabama to watch me.  That night I had hit the quarter back most of the night forcing him to pitch the football.  The coach changed the scheme and had me take the running back.  When the Selma quarterback ran the option, he looked to see where I was.  When he saw me, he pitched to the running back whom I hit immediately forcing a fumble.  The football shot high in the air and hit in the end zone spinning like a top.  I jumped on it scoring a touchdown.  Dad was there.

The new Name Image Likeness (NIL) rule breaks my heart.  Going to the highest bidder replaces team loyalty.  Love of money has replaced love for the game.

 

 For the love of money is the root of all evil (I Timothy 6:10)

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17)

Imago Dei

 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

Have you ever heard someone say, “God is out to get me?”  I had a co-worker that continuously said it.

We are created in the Image of God, “Imago Dei.” The world says we evolved however, Christianity, on the authority of God’s Word, states that we are created.

We are created with a purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.   He loved us enough that He imparted us with the dignity of being free moral agents, the ability to make choices, to choose evil or good

We are created with meaning and have interpretation in relation to God.  Our understanding of ethics, law, education, and sexuality depend on what we believe about our beginning.  We begin with God or a mindless processes and dramatic consequences.  We have God’s moral rules. Finally, one night I told my co-worker, “Jesus did not come to earth to get us, but to die and resurrect for us.”     

The Great Deceiver

 

In the Garden of Eden came the first lie

The Deceiver said, surely you will not die

The woman decided to give it a try

To the Garden of Eden, she said goodbye

 

A lie has the tendency to grow

Further and further from the original it will go

Where it comes to rest, we may never know

It creates havoc and a really big show

 

The lie a reputation will ruin

People accused of that not doing

Juicy gossip with mouths chewing

Imaginations in the mind brewing

 

Lies believed before the truth a way of life

Partial truths are malicious, deceptive, and anti-life

Lies are colored causing trouble and strife

Simple and selfish is the black lie creating lowlife

 

Fibs are lies of trivial matter especially from a child

Jocose lies are told in jest, a tall tale that is wild

Grey lies are hard to clarify, ambiguous and begild

Whites lies avoid hurting someone and acceptably mild

 

Exaggerations are lies with fundamental truths within

Half-truths can be the whole truth with a deceiving end

Told big enough and long enough a lie will be the trend

Just remember the Great Deceiver is where lies begin

Bobby E. Hopper

Clark and Chief, Boys and Dogs

Growing up we always had dogs.  We fed them table scraps and never bought dog feed.  They would occasionally eat wheat shorts that we fed the hogs.  That was the closest we came to feeding them bought food.

The first dog that I remember was my Uncle Clifton’s boxer named Pat.  Pat was a well-trained dog.  The Beloit, Illinois Police Department would use her to train rookies.  They would place Pat in an abandoned automobile and have the rookies check it out with the goal of retrieving Pat.  Pat would make bona fide officers of them and make seasoned officers laugh at the rookies.

Pat was gentle and protective of my sister and me.  We rode her like a pony.  We were only 3 and 6 years old.  That was comforting considering Pat and Uncle Clifton lived with us.  Dad and Uncle Clifton worked evening and midnight shifts.  Southerners from Alabama living in Illinois with unknown surroundings, Pat was a wonderful guard dog.

My first dog was a mix breed.  I never knew what kind, but he looked like a collie/German shepherd mix.  I named him Butch.  He was not very old when we moved our Yankee dog south.  Butch was a faithful companion and lived a long time.  Summers were brutal for him.  I often wondered if he had some Alaskan Husky blood.

We got him a rebel playmate that was a German deer dog and named him Red.  We were always original when naming dogs.  Red had weird eyes and was greedy.  Red was the culprit that ate the first biscuits my sister made when she 9 or 10 years old.  She made from scratch and did not get done.  When she threw them from the back porch into the yard, Red quickly gobbled them down.  Getting choked, he vomited them up.  We continue to josh our sister to this very day that her biscuits were so bad that the dog puked them up.  For the record, my sister Diane is a very good cook.

Since I have two brothers, we had several dogs.  Since Butch was getting old and Red was gun shy and did not hunt, we got a spotted bird dog and named him Spot.  He wasn’t much of a Bird dog, but he was great at pointing.  He pointed mostly at food.

One night I was returning home in a pouring rain when I saw a puppy in the highway.  The puppy looked like a drowned rat.  I picked it up and carried it home to be with Butch, Red, and Spot.  I discovered that the puppy was female and was red with traces of white on its tail.  It looked like a fox so we named her Foxy.  Foxy never ran like the other dogs and never got very large compared to the others.  Well, in time we realized that Foxy was a fox.

Father time finally got the best of Butch.  I had to “put him down.”  At that time, it was the hardest thing that I had ever done.  In his last moments I held him close and tight, and we relived some precious moments that we had together.  That’s what boys and dogs do.

Through the years I had a dog named Duke.  He was a red bone hound that looked like Duke on the show “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  I had him when my oldest son, Andy was born.  He and Andy were inseparable.  The along came Angel.  I have vivid memories of the three walking across the field to their maw maw’s house.

Once a pack of dogs attacked Duke and almost killed him.  The dogs ripped him open around his testicles.  I had him examined and the vet wanted to “put him down.”  I couldn’t do it.  He said the dog is going to die.  I performed surgery on Duke.  I had successfully removed hog testicles for years.  Duke didn’t like the surgery, but he survived and lived for several more years until I had the heart-to-heart take with him.

Lisa, my wife, bought a half German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees.  He looked more German shepherd, and we named him Loki.  I taught him to sit, to shake hands, and to high five.  Lisa works full time, and, in my retirement, I spent most of the time with Loki.  He was smart, protective, and faithful.  He was also aggravating, always hungry, and digging holes.  Like Butch, Loki could not take the heat, so he dug holes for cooling.

He loved to swim in two ponds near our house, never met a stranger, and slept at our front door.  Lisa loved him and would spend time with him when she was home.

It was not unusual for Loki to be missing for a few days.  This past summer he was missing longer than normal.  I didn’t get to spend last moments with him.  I found him and buried him.  His loss hurts.

This past weekend, we spent time at my brother’s place in South Alabama.  When we arrived, a beautiful bloodhound greeted us to the Hopper Ponderosa.  The bloodhound is a big puppy and belongs to my 6-year-old great nephew Clark.  Clark named him Chief.  They were inseparable.  I laughed as Chief dragged Clark across the yard.  Later Clark, while riding his bike, dragged Chief who was hanging on to Clark’s shirt.  Clark says that Chief is his brother.

I watched Chief smell Clark’s trail to find “his brother.”  Once Chief snuggled up the Uncle Bobby and later lay at my feet near a fire.  When Chief looked me in the eyes, he had the saddest face, drooping ears, and pitiful eyes.  Suddenly, Chief’s brother appeared, and the yard wrestling started over again.

What made the trip wonderful was Saturday night Clark and his older his sister, Ellison were doing the brother-sister thing.  Their pawpaw corrected Clark for making Ellison cry.  He told Clark to hug, kiss, and tell his sister he was sorry.  He was very reluctant, but pawpaw insisted saying hug her like you do Chief. Clark took three steps.  First, he sort of hugged her.  Second, he hugged her somewhat.  Third, he hugged her.  Pawpaw with a stern voice said, “I said to hug and kiss her.”  I thought about all the times I had to hug, kiss, and tell my sister Diane I was sorry and that I loved her.

Clark with remorse and tears said, “Pawpaw that's weird.”  I knew the feeling.  Thing was he didn’t mind hugging and kissing “his brother” Chief.  That’s little boys and dogs!

Thanks Clark, for the memory.

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  Proverbs 18:24

“She replied, ‘Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.'” Mark 7:28

Restoration

 I own a 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe.  People are always asking, “What is it and what year is it?”  It is a beautiful automobile.  Another question asked is, “Can I take some pictures of it?”  Usually the photographers are women.  Young women, most often Hispanic, want their picture taken with it.  I tell them go ahead.  I do worry about their boyfriends.

Lots of men my age salivate and drool and have to see under the hood.  Young hot rodder give a thumb’s up, blink their headlights, or try to buy it.  I tell them it is not for sale then they offer a ridiculous low price.  I usually them that their will buy them a look or the offer might get you the wheels.  Old timers say, “You got a lot of money tied up in the car.”  Some will ask where I found it and bought it. 

As of this article, I have been driving the Plymouth over sixty years.  That’s right.  I started driving it when I was twelve.  Mama taught me to drive it.  Back then it had a flathead six-cylinder engine, a three on the tree shifter, and a clutch.  I can still hear mama fussing and sometimes cussing me when releasing the clutch and the Plymouth hopping and jumping.  

Trying to shift from first gear to second was even more exciting.  I kept trying to shift it up and going into reverse.  The grinding sound was loud, but momma was louder.  I knew how to shift our Farmall Cub tractor.  It was a stick shift on the left with the gears marked and moved a whole lot slower.  I eventually got the hang of and started driving it. 

The Plymouth has been in the family since 1957.  Mamma’s brother worked was a body shop in Brent, Alabama.  I never knew what Uncle Gerald did in repairing it.  I never found any evidence of a collision.  He sold to his dad, my Grandpaw Chapman.  It was baby blue, two-door sedan.  My fondest memories are Grandpaw driving the Plymouth to our house on Saturday mornings brings us groceries because dad was out of work, which meant out money and out of food.  The Plymouth was quiet and sounded like a Singer sewing machine running.

Grandpaw became disabled due to his age and could not drive anymore, and daddy bought the Plymouth from him.  Daddy drove it to work each day for a few years.  The Plymouth had approximately six-eight thousand miles on it when a rod started knocking in the flathead.   Daddy asked, “Do you want a car?”  Boy did I.  Hot Rod magazines tantalized and owning a car was dreams come true for this fourteen old.  You read that right, 14.

Plymouth behind me

We had used the Plymouth for everything one would use a farm pickup to do.  We hauled firewood in the trunk.  Pulled farm equipment and pulled logs using chains connected to the bumpers.  We used the bumpers push and pull a wide variety of stuff.  There were bent, gouged, and scraped.

I started driving the Plymouth to school, to the store, and to church.  I bussed football players home, drove girlfriends' home, and when I got a driver’s license, I drove it to work at Hiwassee Land Company for two summers.  The first summer I earned enough to paint the Plymouth crystal blue on honor of Tommy James’ song “Crystal Blue Persuasion.” I drove it to the prom with plastic over the passenger window.   The second summer I had rolled and tucked interior installed.

During the years between age fourteen and eighteen, I replaced the flathead with one from a 1953 Plymouth Coronet.  I replaced the transmission and rear end, never bought new tires.  I never had the front end aligned.  I bought old junk Plymouths for ten to twenty dollars and used the good tires from them or picked up good ones in trash dumps.

When I graduated and later married, I drove it to work.  I drag raced it when challenged.  The brakes were bad, and it would not start when hot.  We always had to push it a few a few feet, jump inside, push the clutch, shift in first gear, and pop the clutch.  When it rained, was foggy, or a rat peed on the distributor it would not start.  My hot rod dream was to build it up from the ground up. 

Back in July 2012 our house in Jemison, Alabama burned.  I was Director of Missions in Linden two hours away.  Angela, my daughter, had the fire department pull the Plymouth out of basement storage and away from the house before it completely burned.  That’s when I carried the Plymouth to Linden and started six years of restoration.

Because the Plymouth was so unfaithful, I had named her Jezebel.  After the fire and restoration, I named her Phenix in honor of the mythical bird that rose from the ashes.  Phenix has a 3.5 Dodge hemi engine and automatic transmission, fat boy front end, 9” Mustang rear end, four-wheel disc brakes, high end vinyl bucket seats, power tinted windows, chrome mag wheels and tires, and painted Porsche Meteor Grey.

A family heirloom

The Phenix is a conversational starter.  It is an opportunity to tell of God’s transformational power.  It is a display of how something can change when loved and given a new start.  That’s what God does with us.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (I Corinthians 5:17 KJV)

Now for a little Bible humor:

What automobile does God drive?

Plymouth Fury - Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury (Jeremiah 32:37 KJV)

What was the official car of the early Christians?

Honda Accord - And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all in one accord in one place (Acts 2:1 KJV)

A King James Bible KJV and /Casserole Dish

Baptists in Alabama are known for preaching and teaching the Holy Bible, spring and summer revivals, homecomings, Southern Gospel singing, and “dinner on the ground.”  My good friend Kelly from Demopolis said that when he “got saved,” that he was told he had to get two things.  First he had to purchase a King James Holy Bible and a large casserole dish to be a Bono Fide Baptist.  Baptist folks love good preaching.  Most are disappointed and discouraged if you don’t “step on their toes.”

Sunday dinners are prominent times in the church.  When my home church, Union Springs Baptist Church Randolph, Alabama, had dinner on the ground it was outside under the big oak trees on homemade concrete tables. 
There would be meats of fried chicken, beef roast, pork barbeque, fried pork chops, pork ribs, and meatloaf to name a few. Salads were potato salad, congealed salad, poke salad, pear salad green bean salad, and green salad.  The list continues with mashed potatoes and gravy, fried taters and onions, baked potatoes and the fixings, and French-fried potatoes.

Every spread had green peas and butterbeans, bacon topped baked beans, and green beans.  The table always had turnip greens and collard greens, both cooked with lard and/or bacon with homemade pepper sauce to doctor them up.  There had to be cornbread for them too.

The bread table had yeast rolls, homemade and handmade biscuits, brown and serve rolls which were faithfully burned on top, sour dough bread, Mexican cornbread, and usually broccoli cornbread.  Some poor soul would have white loaf bread.  Finally, there had to be buns for the barbeque and possibly hamburger patties.

The dessert table was place of delicious beauty and gluttonous debauchery.  Some brought store bought cake mix cakes and store-bought icing that semi qualified for homemade, made from scratch cakes with homemade icing, again some poor soul would bring a Wal-Mart or Winn Dixie grocery store bought cake.  There would be Italian Cream cake, frozen coconut cake, carrot cake, chocolate cake, banana cake, strawberry cake, and the good old yellow cake.  My sister Diane makes the best homemade from scratch red velvet cake.  One Sunday I ate strictly from the dessert table.

Pies included home peach and apple cobblers, homemade lemon meringue pie and lemon no meringue pie, cherry pie, pear pie, ham and egg pie (Not a desert), mince pie, and those out of this world diabetic overload pecan pies made with Golden Eagle sopping syrup.  My sister-law makes the best million-dollar pie. Boy those were days.  Most ladies today bring Sunday dinner to church in a bucket or box.

When I think of yesteryear, most of the good cooks have passed away.  I can say that my sister is one of the few church women that continues to cook the old fashion way.  At her church, her dishes are the first consumed with all the envious women wanted to know what makes my sister Diane’s dishes better.  They all cringe and turn up their noses when she says she still cooks with lard.  No one in my sister’s family is fat!  in good old Chiton County vernacular, Ain’t nothing no better than French fried taters cooked in lard.  Ump, ump, ump!

When I reminisce about the cooks at Union Springs there is Ms. Betty Joe Pate’s fried chicken.  Eat your heart out KFC.  There was Ms. Nola Dutton’s chicken and dumplings.  Ms. Deenie Smith cooked the best homemade macaroni and cheese.  My Aunt Annie and Aunt Katherine made the best biscuits that the Pillsbury Dough Boy envied.  It is sad.  All these delicious cooks are gone.  Some futuristic ladies did acquire their recipes but in Chiltonian words, “It ain’t the same.”

My friend Kelly received some very wise council when he was told to purchase a large King James Holy Bible and casserole dish.  Baptists love Koinonia, the Greek word for Sunday dinner on the ground.

 

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship (Koinonia) to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Acts 2:42 KJV

 

Before I forget it, there are several men at Union Springs Baptist Church that are great cooks.  Heedy, James, and my brother David have their world-famous barbeque chicken halves and quarters made with a secret special sauce over a fire of hickory wood.  As they say in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, “The secret is in the sauce.”  My brothers David and Glenn have perfected the cooking of a whole hog which happens at Union Springs Baptist Church each year.  Ya’ll come!

Entertaining Angels

 While pastor at Gallion Baptist Church in south Alabama, I received a request from a pastor friend.  He needed a favor.  He had booked a young lady for a concert and to make her trip she needed another church to book her for a morning service since my preacher friend had her for a Sunday night. 

 I was not a promoter of replacing Sunday morning worship services for concerts with the excepteing homecomings.  My pastor friend insisted that I have her and then proceeded to tell me about this young lady.

 He said that her name was Stephanie Leavins from Florida.  His voice filled with excitement, I listened to what was an incredible story. He said has Muscular Dystrophy and can only move her head and big toe on her right foot.  I could not believe what he was telling me.

I had known my preacher most of our lives.  His dad and a brother were also preachers.  His mother used to ride to work with me and he eventually went to work with us.  He was also almost my brother-in-law.  He was a good friend, introduced me to Gallion Baptist Church, and was a neighboring pastor.  He was also very persuasive and very effective at it.  I gave in to him and booked Stephanie.

Booking Stephanie had to be one of the best decisions I made in the ministry.  My pastor friend did not realize the ramifications of me having her first.  She was amazing.  Stephanie and Libby and Earl, her mom showed up on a beautiful Sunday morning.  I met smiling angels that morning, one which drove a pink motorized wheelchair using her big toe.  That was only the beginning of many wonderful and marvelous miracles with Stephanie.

She zoomed out of the van and down the church sidewalk and spun around just laughing.  Earl just shook his head and Libby smiled.  I finally had the opportunity to meet this precious family and begin a journey that would span twenty plus years.

Sitting in that pink wheelchair was a motionless body adorning a beautiful lively smile and a voice that sung like an angel.  The first thing I heard was “Bother Bobby!”  I would hear her say many times, especially after I became a Director of Missions.  When Stephanie needed a place to minister, she would call me and say, “Brother Bobby I love you.”  She would tell me that she was in my area and needed another church to book her.

That first time she ministered at Gallion was astonishing.  She had never eaten with her mouth at that time.  Libby fed her through a feeding tube.  That amazed me simply because at that time the courts were involved with Terri Schiavo who at age 26, went into cardiac arrest at her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was resuscitated but had severe brain damage due to lack of oxygen to her brain and was left comatose.  Terri Schiavo’s family argued in favor of continuing artificial nutrition and hydration via feeding tube.  Terri’s feeding tube was removed in March 2005 and subsequently died.

 Born April 3, 1977, Stephanie was not supposed to live.  Libby, called her special angel by Stephanie, fed her, bathed her, and helped her graduate high school.  Stephanie ministered again at Gallion, and it was the first time she drank water through her mouth.  I was with her when she experienced the exhilaration of tasting and swallowing chocolate candy.

Back to that fist Sunday, I learned she did not have a diaphragm yet could sing like an angel.  She wanted me to hug her, whom I did, and it felt I was hugging a “sack of taters.”

I do not mean that derogatory but other than her head moving she was not responsive.  We always enjoyed picking and playing with another.  She once asked my wife if she could kiss me on the lips.  I was reluctant but my wife insisted.  I kissed an angel with bright red lips and she squealed.  She loved lipstick, makeup, and jewelry and had beautiful blonde hair.  Every finger had a pretty ring.

Not having the ability to move her arms, her left arm fell from her wheelchair and dangled.  She made eye contact with me, and I rushed to the stage to place it back on the wheelchair arm.  She wisecracked, “What tender love and care.”   I blushed which made her laugh.

During another song, her arm fell again this time losing a ring from her ring finger.  Once again, I approached her and with tenderness lifted, her lifeless arm back on the wheelchair.  I stooped down and picked up the ring.  She said, “Well?”  I gentle slid the ring on her finger.  I remember that angelic voice saying, “I do, I do, do.”  The congregation laughed and gave an ovation.

Each time she ministered for me, I had grown men with tears in their eyes say, “After hearing that girl I have no reason to miss work. She inspired me.”  The only to believe her miracle was to witness God’s hand of grace and mercy on her.  She did me. 

The last time I was with her was a divine appointment.  I was visiting my brother’s church in Baldwin County, Alabama and he said that had a special guest for the morning service.  As I walked in the auditorium Stephanie yelled, Brother Bobby, I love you.”

 

Stephanie on January 5, 2025, just a few days ago Stephanie gained a perfect body.

 

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares (Hebrews 13:2)

 

For more on Stephanie:  www.stephanieleavins.com

PS:  Stephanie had a special wheelchair she used for deer hunting.  She bagged a big one.

Snow and Birth: God's Artistry

When I checked the time this morning, January 14, 2025, it was 10:22 and my mind went back to January 18, 1976.  It was a cold, fourteen degrees at 4 AM, morning and my firstborn son entered into the world at 10:22 AM.  It was a Sunday morning full of joy, hope, and the uncertainty of the future.

Back then fathers had a room to wait for newborns.  We were not allowed in the delivery room.  There were several dads nervously waited for the Stork’s delivery.  One by one, nurses retrieved dads to meet the arrivals.  Suddenly, they called for Mr. Hopper.  I jumped to my feet and entered my wife’s room where little Andy Lee Hopper lay on his mother’s stomach.  He had a yellow hue.  I jokingly asked her, “Where did you get the little Asian baby?”  

As she hugged Andy tight and forced a smile, she said he was yellow jaundice.  She said they are going to put him under some lights for treatment.  Andy was so cute laying with only a pair of colored glasses for clothing.  I would stand at the babies’ window and soak in the moments that seem as only yesterday.  Forty-eight years later, I have collected scores of precious memories especially those of birthdays.

January 18 typically involves cold and usually snow.  Snow in Alabama is rare but around the third week in January the probability increases dramatically.  There was snow last Friday, the 10^th and the immediate forecast for next week calls for more snow and frigid cold.  Snow is God’s way of blessing us with snow on Andy’s birthday.  His first snow was his first birthday.  We did not keep a record, but we did a big snow on his sixteenth birthday and several in between.

One snow birthday, a neighbor, now an aunt had a Honda three-wheeler.  They were outlawed later and a rare find today but fun especially in the snow.  Andy had the best time laughing as he slipped and sledded in the winter wonderland.  I can still see his rosy, red cheeks, laugher, and smile atop the big tired, red, motorized tricycle. 

As he got older and Three-wheelers outlawed, Honda added a tire and created four-wheelers.  His aunt and uncle surprised him with pulling him on a plastic kiddy swimming pool behind the four-wheeler.  He looked like Santa on a sleigh.

Any lives in San Antonio, Texas now.  I doubt that he will get snow there on his birthday but if we get it here it will be a time of reflection.  Snow and birthdays are God’s miracles.  Each snowflake and each birth are unique.  Once a baby and the hope and fears of another generation, he became an artistic man.  The first-born grandson of the Hopper family is followed by a sister, brother, and 49 cousins.

I remember daddy holding his first grandson at Granny Hopper’s wake.  The joy he had is priceless.  Momma loved Andy so much that love still radiates in our memories.  If they could only witness the increase that began with Andy, they would be proud.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.” Isaiah 55:10

It began with you.  Happy birthday son!

Love dad

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Back when the Hopper boys, David, Glenn, and me, were growing up, daddy got us two burros.  They were wild and hard to catch and even more difficult to ride.  On one particular day my baby brother Glenn decided to take the family John Deere 1020 tractor and chase the burros.  He chased them with a disc hitched to the tractor.  He was having fun using the John Deere as a horse.  We were creative e and named the John Deere, John

There was a place in the pasture where water from the highway and hillside drained.  It was damp, not muddy until brother ran across it several times in pursuit of the uncontrollable and untamed burros.  John went down in a soft spot.  My brother was stuck.  Daddy, David, and I went down to help.  The first thing we did was unhitch the disc.  Our utility vehicle was a 1950 Plymouth Special Deluxe.  We used the Plymouth to haul firewood, pull the John, and all the other things people would use on a farm to pull the disc away from the tractor.  Then we used the Plymouth to try to unstick the tractor.  All we tried was vain attempts of futility.

The more we tried to free the tractor, the dipper it got.  Daddy decided to use a power pole to free John.  We slide the pole under the front of the rear tires and chained the pole to them.  Daddy assured us that when we moved John forward that the pole would raise John up and out to firmer ground.  It seemed like a very intellect solution to a dumb attempt to corral wild burros with a tractor.

Being the oldest and more experienced at helping daddy in easier said than done situations, daddy gave specific instruction for freeing John.  “Get on John and put it low gear.  Idle John down and slowly ease off the cutch.  Be careful and stop John when it picks you up and out.”

Sounded like a plan to me.  Something happened that would be the start of a long and challenging attempt to lift up John.  I did exactly as instructed.  When the rear tired started to rotate the pole, it became a giant twelve feet scoop and John was sinking deeper.  When we finally surrendered to the gravitation pull of the earth, John was so deep that the seat was below ground level, and I had step up to the surface.  The whole episode looked as a giant ice cream scoop in a giant bucket of chocolate ice cream.

For days neighbors would offer to help free sinking John.  Neighbors used tractors, log trucks, chains, cables, and the like but John was on a journey to the center of the earth.  More rains came and John was an attraction site for everyone traveling County Road 50.  People laughed, joked, and made fun of the Hopper Folly.  Garden time was coming, and John’s rear went lower, and the front went higher.

Finally, one of our neighbors owned a landscaping business.  He said, “When we get some day days, I will help ya’ll get that tractor unstuck.”  That day finally arrived and Larry, our neighbor appeared on the crime scene with a large Massey Ferguson tractor.  It had a large bucket on the front.  Larry had us put a large log chain around John toward the rear.  I dug around in the mud to put the chain around John.

Larry put that big Massey Ferguson bucket direct over John and lifted the bucket.   His tractor strained, shacked, and finally up came John.  I will never forget the sound freeing John.  It was a sucking sound similar to the sound a commode makes when flushing.  Larry put John on dry ground.  Larry said, “You would never get that tractor out by pulling.  The earth had suction on it.  Pulling it straight breaks the suction.”

Daddy got rid the burros.  We never did ride them, but the Hopper boys became very good defensive football players that honed their tackling skills on wild burros, Welch ponies, and later on loose hogs.  We never used John to chase livestock after the sinking fiasco.

I have shared this story many times in sermons.  When I studied Greek, I learned that Peter walked on the water when Jesus bid him to come.  He did the impossible until he lost focus on Jesus and he began to sink.  Sink in the Greek, katapontizo means to drown.  The less Peter focused on Jesus the more the earth overwhelmed and sucked him down.  An experienced fisherman and swimmer was drowning.  When Peter called on Jesus, Jesus lifted him having power over the gravitational pull.

My Greek professor explained that katapontizo was the concept of the pulling down which reminded of the Hopper boys and John.  The professor reminded the class that we do not sink in sin, sin draws us especially when we take our eyes off Jesus and focus on circumstances

 “But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.”  Matthew 14:30 KJV

At a Sunday dinner after sharing the John Deere illustration, a man approached me and told a related story.  He said that from the Tuscaloosa Waffle House he witnessed a dozier preparing the ground for a Shrimp Basket Restaurant.  It started rain and the construction company left the dozier on site.  It rained for several days and when they tried to retrieve the dozier it was stuck. 

 

As he had breakfast each morning he said that he watched the dozier slowly sink.  He said that the last thing he saw was the exhaust pipe sticking up as the dozier journeyed to the center of the earth as I had referred in the sermon.  He laughed and said just remember when you eat at the Shrimp Basket there is a large dozier underneath.

WINTER STORM WARNING

The National Weather forecast for the American Southeast for January 10, 2025, predicts a winter storm.  There is not anything more devastating and initiating panic for people in Alabama to hear than WINTER STORM WARNING.  Alabamians just do stupid stuff and create shortages, chaos, and waste.

 

Having lived in Illinois on the Wisconsin state line, I experienced snow, lots of it.  When I started kindergarten in 1958, I experienced a snowstorm for the first time.  I opened the car door to have violent winds blowing snow.  Daddy had gotten me a bag of cheese curls for a snack and the wind ripped the bag from my hands and scattered those delicious cheese curls in the snow.  The yellow against the white was etched in my mind.  It was beautiful and overwhelming at the same time.  My bag was gone with the north wind and my little heart broken.  I started to cry.  Daddy said it would be okay and handed me another bag that he had bought for him.  I figured that the Abdominal Snowman had a yellow treats in the snow that was very deep for a small boy.

 

When I started the first grade, momma received a list of things that were required for men to attend South Beloit Elementary.  Momma had never been out of Alabama.  The list was foreign to her.  I had to have a snowsuit and snow galoshes.  Believe it or not I walked to school in the snow.  First time I wore my new galoshes someone stole them and replaced mine with an old worn pair.  Momma was not happy with those Yankees.  Snow was part of living up North.

 

Back in Alabama, snow, which is more ice than flakes paralyze.  Stores run out of milk, bread, and cold cuts.  It was 1985 when a winter storm paralyzed central Alabama.  It was a Wednesday night, and I was returning home from conducting a Prayer Meeting for a pastor friend who was out of town.  The rain fell and temperature dropped as rain turned to sleet and ice.  I can close my eyes and visualize the windshield wipers as they moved pushing the frozen Slushy.

 

Nothing really accumulated and we went to bed.  Around three in the morning there was an eerie silence.  The electricity was off.  I heard from time sounds as a shotgun shooting in the woods.  I looked out the bedroom window and it bright white.  Going to the back deck of the house I stepped into snow, about a foot deep.  The sound was limbs from a pine ticket breaking under the weight of the snow.  As daylight came, my neighbors and I discovered that electric power lines were down everywhere.  It was not good for all of us with total electric homes, but I did have and use a fireplace to help heat the house.

 

From Wednesday night to Sunday afternoon, we had no power.  We mattresses and cover to the great room where the fireplace was.  I used it to cook meals.  My son Andy and daughter Angel loved it.  They said it was like camping.  I moved all the refrigerated food to the snowbank on the back deck.  County water continued and I heated water in five-gallon buckets by the fireplace.  By Sunday power was back.

 

That Friday night I decide I would take a bath.  My wife asked how I would do that.  I told her like I had for most of my life.  We did not have and inside bathroom until the spring of my senior year of high school.  My family washed in a foot tube with water heated by the potbellied stove.  She laughed until I appeared clean, shaved, and hair washed.  Saturday night she asked if I could heat her some water.

 

The next year, 1986, we had another winter storm.  It was almost the same scenario but worse.  Fearing another winter storm people went crazy.  We had an extra frig in the basement.  Living in the country you buy enough food stuff to last a week or longer.  I asked if we needed anything, and my wife said a gallon of milk.

 

One again it was a Wednesday night, and I went to the local Wally World (Wal-Mart) to buy a gallon of milk.  I went the store, and I encounter pandemonium.  People panicked. There were people pushing a buggy of milk and pulling another full of break.  I stopped amazed and puzzled.  The store was out of milk.  Pushing and shoving everywhere.  Frighten people ran and screamed.  I thought just what it will look like if the world was ending.

 

Suddenly a man yelled, “Winn-Dixie has a truck load of milk!”  I imagined it looked as did the Hebrews when they left Egypt.  I went to the car and drove to Winn-Dixie where a tractor-trailer loaded with milk was unloading.  It was the same as Wal-Mart.  I got a gallon of milk, out my index finger in the handle, threw it across my shoulder, and proceeded to the checkout line.

 

I man pushing a full buggy of milk and pulling a buggy of bread stopped me and asked, “That all the milk you gonna get?”

 

I replied, “Yep, all I need.”

 

He reminded that there was a winter storm coming.  I told him that this is Alabama and how long does snow stay on the ground especially since the ground is not frozen, three maybe four days.

 

It did last for four days.  A neighbor went to check on folks in our country community.  He found a family that had made fun of our country/backward way of life.  The Birmingham transplants did not have any electricity due to down lines, no water because the pumping stations had no power, and no heat trying to burn green logs in a fireplace.

 

My neighbor invited the family to his house where his wife had a hot breakfast with biscuits, hot coffee, and a warm house.  After thawing out and returning home, my neighbor gave them some dry wood, showed them how to start a fire with kindling.  From then on the Birmingham transplants had a different attitude toward county folks.

 

Nowadays I question what has happened to common sense?   I like what a fellow Alabamian said, “A country boy can survive.”

 

 "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."  Matthew 24:22

Silent Night December 25, 2016

After forty-three years of marriage, I found myself alone on Christmas.  It is a Sunday, and I attended Sunday School and Worship that morning.  After worship several families invited me to share Christmas dinner with them.  I politely declined and went home to grill a steak with baked potato and salad.

Watching the fire ready for cooking I thought about the shepherds abiding in their fields watching flocks as Bethlehem readied for the arrival of God Incarnate Jesus.  As the sun was sinking and the darkness covering the light I realized that I was not alone.  There were no heavenly hosts, angels, or shepherds but I did hear the sounds of small town Linden, Alabama enjoying Christmas day fading into the darkness. 

I began to sing Silent Night.  In solitude I knew that a great cloud of witness surrounded me.  I hope you enjoy the moment with me in the video below.

An Annual Event

Well, it happened last week.  It is an annual event, and I knew that unless the Lord came back or He carried me home, that I would become 72.  That’s right.  I turned 72 on December 13.  I outlived my mom by 17 years.  She died at 55.

Speaking of mom, annually she asked if I wanted a birthday present or a Christmas present.  She could not afford both.  It puzzled me for a long time how she could afford birthday, and Christmas presents for by sister and two brothers, but not me.

I made me wonder how she afforded to have me in the first place.  I never thought to ask if she got a Christmas present twelve days after my birth.  I must have been her Christmas present in December 1952.

You know there have been plenty of changes in the world since 1952.  “In 1952 despite the war in Korea Americans considered themselves to be prospering with average worker earning $3,400 per year, a college teacher could expect to earn $5,100 per year. Three out of 5 families owned a car, 2 out of 3 families now had a telephone, and 1 in 3 homes had a television. The average woman in America would be married by 20 years of age looking forward to raising a family but few continued with a career after children were born. Fast Food restaurants were growing in popularity, but the scourge of Polio hit many thousands of families (@50,000). Many more cars in America were now fitted with automatic gearboxes and gas cost 25 cents per gallon. The world's first passenger jet The Comet is produced in UK signaling the start of faster and cheaper air travel in later years.”

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican) defeated Adlai Stevenson (Democratic) for President of the United States. The first roll on deodorant is introduced under the brand name Ban-Roll-On.  The first Holiday Inn opens in Tennessee.  There is the world’s first successful use of a mechanical heart in the US. MAD Magazine publishes its first issue. The Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fried chicken franchise opened. The "Today" Program debuts on NBC, the first of its kind hosted by Dave Garroway. The Big Bang Theory of the creation of the Universe first propounded.  Gary Cooper won Best Actor for High Noon.  Norman Vincent Peale publishes his most popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking, and it sells more than 20 million copies in 41 languages.  Mrs. Paul's introduces frozen fish sticks. TV first acknowledges pregnancy on I Love Lucy. Considering that TV will not portray married people sleeping it the same bed.  Sony, a brand-new Japanese company, introduces the first pocket-sized transistor radio.  There were 37,794 motor vehicle related deaths. While in the air, there were 5 accidents resulting in 140 fatalities.  Mr. Potato Head arrives!  Boy, I love French fries.  Kellogg introduced Sugar Frosted Flakes, 29 percent sugar. Unemployment was 3.1%.

Favorite songs in 1952 were Tex Ritter’s High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me), Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable, The Mills Brother’s Worn Glow, and one of my favorites, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by Jimmy Boyd.

This hit is most remembered for, a cute novelty given him by Mitch Miller at Columbia about a kid who can't understand why Mommy is cheating on Daddy with Santa! It seems innocuous now, but the Catholic Church actually managed to get this one banned in several major markets (including that old standby, Boston), claiming that the implication -- however mistaken -- was all wrong for a religious holiday. It took a special conference between the 13-year-old Boyd and the Council of Churches to clear the song in those markets, where it finally enjoyed success year after year.

I wonder what mama thought when I was born.  When I think about my birthday and all the change, I am reminded of Mary at Jesus’ birth and the ban execution Herod placed on baby boys in an effort to kill Jesus.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. . . But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart (Luke 26-7, 19 NIV).

SO, THIS IS HOW IT ENDS"

February 28, 1990, seemed like any other day working off midnight shift at Blue Circle Cement in Calera, Alabama.  I had looked forward this morning for seven days.  For seven straight nights my oiler and I burned the cement kilns.  We counted down the nights of the dreaded “hoot owl” with virtually no problems.  We did have to stay past the last shift for an hour and attend a monthly TAKE TWO safety class.

The theme that morning was to report all accidents, no matter how minute.  As we left the class we talked of our plans for our two days off.  We each had important things to do.  I had to visit the hospital where a church member was scheduled for surgery.  I was going and ready to visit her.  Also, I had to prepare sermons, two Lord’s Suppers and two baptisms.  My priority was to get home, shower, dress as a pastor, and head for the hospital. 

I never made it.  On the way home, an eighteen-year-old decided he would practice as an Indy 500 race driver on my side of the highway.  I knew there was a school bus in the area, and I was being cautious as a Firebird passing three cars on a hill suddenly was flying toward me.  I realized that day of departure from this life was quickly coming to an end. 

I thought to myself, “Well, this is it.  This is how my life ends.”  My time of departure was at hand and what a way to go in a wreck.  All I could see was a head-on collision with multiple internal injuries and possible death.  I had heard that your life flashes before you when death is coming.  From the moment I saw the Firebird to impact was three seconds.  To this day when I pass the place of the wreck I count, one thousand one, one thousand two, BAM!

As the Firebird floated toward me all the things that were important in my life were fleeing quickly.  No time to tell my wife and Andy, Angel, and Aaron that I loved them, that I would miss them, no time to say goodbye.  No time to complete all those things I started.  I knew that I was on the downside of life at 37, but down all that preparation for my family and my life was apparently finished. 

Had I finished my course so soon?  I thought, I have two years remaining at New Orleans Theological Seminary before really getting started.  No, closing at eighty plus miles an hour Firebird.  Firebird, named for the mythical dead bird rising to life from ashes was flying toward me with impending death.   

Had I fought a good fight?  Since the time I became a Christian, had I done the best I could?  Suddenly there was no time to pray, to study, to minister, or do anything for the Lord.  Suddenly, my goals changed, changed to survival, that which I could do was think, and that had to be fast.  I was at the mercy of God.  There was no screaming or crying, just thinking how God was calling me to my heavenly home.

Then, God showed me hope.  He showed me an opening.  Taking those talents, experiences, and His loving grace that he had blessed me, I gave it my best last shot.  Watching the “Bird of Death” coming at me, God allowed to maneuver away.  I thought, “If you want my line, I’ll take the ditch.”   As I went to the ditch the teenager flying the death bird decided he wanted the ditch.  I thought, “I’ll give you the ditch and I’ll take the lane.”  Those driving the three adjacent vehicles to my left and the bird headed to the right side of me was about merge.

For an instant, I thought I avoided a head-on collision, then there was the sound of squalling tires, tearing metal, and busting glass.  Sounds like the word for a teenage love song, doesn’t it?  Then, I took the wildest slow-motion ride of my life.  My car turned almost 360 degrees.  God’s hand and Angels intervened.  We hit head on.  Since the teenager headed for the ditch and I for the lane we hit head on but at an angle.

There was an eerie silence as I came to a sudden stop.  The bird continued a short distance hitting a drainpipe in the ditch.  I couldn’t look up.  My body was numb from my neck down and could not breathe.  I knew pain would come.  I made my way out of the car and continued to be bent double. 

I put my hands on my legs above my knees and pushed myself up almost passing out.  I checked for blood in my eyes, from my nose, and from my mouth.  Finding none, I figured all bleeding was internal.  I looked at the car and the engine was between the front seats, the right front fender had replaced the door, and the front passenger door was where the rear door was.  My steering wheel was shapes like a large horseshoe.

I checked on the teenager.  He was on the hood of the Firebird.  He was missing some teeth, bleeding from his forehead and his hands.  His motor and transmission were between his seats.  He was not wearing his seatbelt.  He had borrowed the car and incidentally it was the third car he had totaled since getting his license.  He tried to leave the scene of the accident.  He did not a license or insurance.

When the Alabama State Trooper arrived, he asked where the body from the white care was, my vehicle.  I told him that he was talking to him, me.  He replied, “There’s no way you got out of that car.  Were you wearing a seatbelt?”   I pulled up my shirt and showed him the red streak that was turning blue, green, and back, running from my right side across my stomach to my left shoulder.  The trooper saw the road covered with transmission fluid and thought it was blood.  He estimated that the force of the wreck was 135 miles per hour.  Later that morning, around ten am, the emergency room doctor me that I survived a Delta force of 135 miles per hour and that my heart tried to come through my rib cage.  He said that two things saved me that morning.  One being a big man and two, God was not through with me.

God allowed me to live.  I had faith that regardless of the outcome, God could use me.  He was not finished with me.  He helped me to see that I needed to live each day as though it is my last day and to finish well.  It was not what I did walking from impending danger.  It was God’s love.  The wreck was almost thirty-four years ago.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.  (II Timothy 4:6-8 KJV)