I Noticed You Don't Limp

What keeps you going?  I do not know about you, but I need someone to push me when I won’t start, guide me when I need direction, pump me when I am down, move me when I am stuck, soothe me when I hurt, embrace me when I am lonely, and stand beside me when I struggle. 

I pray that as I face the uncertainties of life that I always have hope.  I have known several people that have given up hope and the result was death.  I want to have a living hope and that is difficult when I realize how fast evil is growing in our world today.  You and I must avoid killers of hope such as betrayal, trials, and death.

I had a yearly checkup with my knee surgeon on August 29, 2016.  After x-raying of both knees, Dr. Steele examined his handiwork bending my knees, straightening them, and swiveling them.  He asked if I had any issues.  Having none, he said, “I will see you in five years.”

That was great news considering that the last year had been a healing year.  Skibo, my knee therapist, saw me the one night at a Quarterly Men’s Meeting at Fairhaven Baptist Church in Demopolis, Alabama.  He said, “I watched you walking at Walmart the other day and noticed you walked without a limp.”  I responded, “I didn’t know I was supposed to having two new knees.”   He continued to tell me how good I did and how I was a poster child for his clinic Genesis Rehab.

Prior to my surgery, I was on the verge of giving up hope.  My greatest fear was losing the use of my legs.  I knew that there were hundreds of people that loss the use of their legs, especially veterans of the Middle East.  The uncertainty of total knee replacement, especially those I knew that were not totally successful, those that walked with a limp, got infections, and had to re-operate and replace replacements, made me doubt.

My knees deteriorated for over eight years after the initial diagnosis of severe arthritis, bone on bone, and a recommendation of total knee replacement.  The harder I tried to aid in the healing of my knees before surgery, the worse they became.  I eventually destroyed the ACLs in both knees and tore ligaments reaching the lowest point in my life physically, but it was beginning to affect me emotionally and spiritually.

Having had both knees replaced, Erma Davis from Dixons Mill Baptist Church, one of the churches I served, encouraged me have the surgery.  A pastor friend of mine told of a member of his family who had the surgery and wished he had done it years earlier.  When I started having fever, could not do steps, could not bend my knees, and could not move laterally, I paid attention to those trying to give me hope.

At our eldest son’s birthday dinner in Birmingham, we and our daughter, Angela went shopping in Brookwood Village.  Not being able to walk, I sat in the car.  It was a beautiful day for January 18.  I watched handicap students from the University of Southern Mississippi exit a van.  They were in town for a handicap tournament.

I noticed a student that had a prosthesis leg.  He wore shorts and tennis shoes.  I watched him move effortlessly in the parking lot.  I made up my mind that day that if I did lose my legs, I could do as this young man did.

During the pre-op for the first knee replacement, the lady in charge of pre-surgical exercises apologized for being late.  She had helped an eighty plus year-old lady into her car.  This little lady had had total knee replacement that morning.  I made up my mind.  If that little old lady could do well, I could.

The morning of my surgery, I had a Biblical, a Godly peace.  I knew that people were praying for me.  I knew that regardless of the outcome, that God would be with me every step, no pun intended, of the way.

I remember that there was no pain in my knee.  Sure, the knee was sore from the cutting of muscles and ligaments, the pulling, hammering, and cutting of bones, and especially the tourniquet, but there was no pain in the joint.  That afternoon after the surgery, I started walking.  Actually, having not bent my right knee in years, I learned how to walk again.  I couldn’t wait to replace the other one and wished I had not waited so long.

Learning to walk again is what we must do when betrayal, trials, and death wounds us, zaps our energy, and consumes our being.  Peter’s hope was obliterated after the betrayal, the trial, and death of Jesus.  But, after the Resurrection, Jesus picked him up from the pits of self-destruction and self-pity and challenged him.  Examine the difference in Peter when he wrote the early Christians when they were being persecuted.    

  

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls (I Peter 1:3-9 KJV).

A PINK NOTE FROM GOD

 As a new day began to dawn, I watched embers drift into the sky.  The embers were the remnants of a lifetime of collecting.  My home of thirty-six years was slowly disappearing into the coming sunrise of July 12, 2012.

Alone as the Lord’s Day was about to dawn, I began to recall the events of the last twenty-four hours.  My son Aaron and I had spent our Saturday in Linden, Alabama where I was serving as Director of Missions doing miscellaneous items known to all weekend warriors.  We ended the day grilling hamburgers on the grill.  We watched as the hickory wood burned into to coals and the tiny embers that scurried to enter the heavens.  The hamburgers were the best we had every cooked.  They were juicy and delicious.   The embers of the Lord’s Day were a sacrifice, not of Biblical requirements, of over sixty years of sacrifice to have, fill, and maintain our home.

We had moved into the house on December 13, 1977.  It was my birthday.  My brothers, father-in-law, and two brothers-in-law had moved everything in for us.  My daughter Angela was three months old, her big brother almost two.  It was a time of dedication and rejoicing.  Now it was a sober and bitter moment of reality that everything burned.

Aaron and I watched old movies and went to bed.  I wanted a goodnight’s rest knowing I was to preach three services for the Greensboro Baptist Church in the morning.  Sound asleep, a neighbor, Rick, knocked at the door and rung the doorbell.  News at two in the morning is rarely good.  Rick was an Alabama State Trooper and he told us that our home in Jemison, Alabama in Chilton County had burned completely.  It was totally furnished and was our getaway and retirement home while serving in the ministry.

We arrived at Jemison about 3:45 that morning and found the house gone leaving the main floor and basement smoking with tiny fires scattered around the main floor.  Angela, her husband, and our grandson were there crying with only memories of the home she started living at three months.

The West Chilton Fire Department, less than a mile way, tried to quench the fire but the house was too flammable with materials that would create a giant open grill much larger than where Aaron and I grilled burgers.  The only item redeemed was my 1950 Plymouth that had been a resident of the basement since 1978.

Thinking the fire out, most everyone left.  I was able to go in the basement.  There was a fire at the stairwell leading into the great room.  A small flame lapped over a couple of floor joists.  Heat warmed the predawn air and embers continued their flight to the heavens.  Suddenly the remaining darkness disappeared and what had not burned exploded in fames rising for a second time seventy feet into the morning sky.  Firefighters said when they got the call the house was already engulfed in flames reaching high driving darkness away into the heavens.  Everything remaining fell into the basement creating the towering inferno.

I sent everyone home.  Going to my workshop, I pulled out a chair and watched a lifetime float away.  Gone was an antique, hand carved device that we never could fine anyone to identify it.  Gone was my baby bed that was bed to Andy, Angela, and of course me.  It was second hand when momma bought it for me in 1952.  Even today, I remember items that were in the house, basement, and attic.

It was watching our lifetime collection disappear that I cone to the conclusion it was just stuff.  It was OUR STUFF.  When it is all said and done, after my immediate family, it was unimportant.  No lives were lost and a hundred years from that moment who cares?

As the sun began to rise, the thing that mattered was that 8:30 that morning I was to preach the early service at Greensboro.  I had contemplated what would I do.  There was no way to do it.  I called my good friend, and fellow Director of Missions Tom Stacey of the Selma Baptist Association.  He was an answer to prayer.  He told me he had it and he would handle and not to worry.  I knew he would do it and I quit thinking about.

I heard a voice calling BOBBY!  It was my aunt Katherine from across the road.  Her and my aunt Annie were my security system while I lived a way.

I returned the yell with yes mam!  She said come eat some breakfast.  It had been a long time the burgers.  She cried as she consoled me.  I reminded her that everything was going to be okay.

As I returned to the smothering pit, I noticed something pink in the ditch by my driveway.  It was a charred pink note card.  The card drifted more than three hundred feet from the burning house.  A fragile and flammable piece of paper place for me to find.    

It had a picture of a worm created using the fingertips of a child, Angela’s.  I turned it over and there written was Psalm 46:1. I remembered it was in the attic with keepsake stuff in our cedar chest.  Angela was not even old enough write it.  Thirty years before the fire God had someone send me a note.  Psalm 46:1 states, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

I looked into heaven and thanked God for the note.  He had been with me all morning.

 

The pink note reminded me:

Life is lived by moments.

One moment I was a 16 yr/old, next I am old man.

One moment our children were babies, now they are 47, 46. and 36.

One moment I was a plant employee, next moment I am retired.

One moment I could not wait to graduate college on December 1987, now that’s 37 yrs ago.

 

Life is fragile.

We are one heartbeat from death.

We are one trip from fatal accident.

We are one phone call from tragic news.

We are one wrong step from being handicap.

We are one incident from emotional instability.

We are one sin from moral failure.

 

God is who He says He is. (Refuge, Strength, Help)

God is the God of the Universe.

God is the God of Salvation.

God is the God of Peace.

 

Why are we afraid?  You may need a pink note from God.

Someone made the pink card for Angel during Vacation Bible School.  They will never know how much spoke to me that morning of the fire.

 

  

Pyromaniacs and Hope

I made a hospital visit to Demopolis, Alabama one day several years ago.  As I stepped out of the pickup, the aroma of blossoms of Barrett pear trees flooded the air.  Being the global minded I was transported to a time long gone.  I could smell the burning of a field and I remember gathering sagebrush, setting it a fire, and slowly scattering the fire around the field surrounded by wild plums in full blossom.  I could see daddy on the 8N Ford tractor straddling the fire, breaking the freshly burned field, and I could smell the heavenly scent of fresh dirt mixed with smoke rising from burned sage, weeds, and stubs of long gone crops.

Momma always worried that would catch ourselves on fire.  Did I ever tell you that momma was a worrywart and daddy did not worry about anything?  Well anyway, my brothers and I were pyromaniacs, burning fields, burning trash, burning wood, and burning rubber.  Burning rubber was fun until I bought that first set of tires.

The old timers burned off the woods each year to help control undergrowth and bugs.  I do not remember having trouble with pine beetles when we burned the woods.  All we had to watch was the smut.

We burned all the clippings, limbs, and brush we cleared.  It was fun to tell tales by the fire after dark.  Once again all we had to do was watch out for the smut.  You ain’t lived until you see yourself in the mirror after standing around a smutty fire or using pine tops putting out wood fires or field fires started inexperienced pyrotechnical neighbors.

A fire is hypnotic.  It consumes, destroys, and eliminates where new growth can spring forth with new life.  Ain’t nuthin’ no prettier than new green sprouts shooting up in a smutty area.  It has an indescribable green hue.

When one burns a yard, field, or the woods, there is hope for new growth.  Life comes from that which was dead.  I think that is the reason the Resurrection was in the Spring.  That which was dead, comes forth living and vibrant.

As Ezekiel gazed upon a valley of dry bones God asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest.”

I felt that way the first time I remember daddy burned the field.  Daddy knew it would produce a bountiful crop in due time.  Daddy gave me hope.  It reminds me of a story I used several years ago speaking on having hope.  It goes like this.

Several years ago, a teacher assigned to visit children in a large city hospital received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child.  She took the boy’s name and room number and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now.  I’d be grateful if you could help him in his homework so he doesn’t fall behind the others.” 

It wasn’t until the visiting teacher got inside the boy’s room that she realized it was located in the hospital’s burn unit.  No one prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain.  She felt that she couldn’t just turn around and walk out, so she awkwardly stammered, “I’m the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with your nouns and adverbs.” 

The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?”  Before she could finish a profusion of apologies, the nurse interrupted her:  “You don’t understand.  We’ve been very worried about him, but every since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed.  He’s decided to live.” 

The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw that teacher.  It all changed when he came to a simple realization.  With joyful tears, he expressed it this way:  “They would not send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?” 

 

Let’s celebrate hope in the Resurrection Jesus Christ our Lord!

So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.  And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.  Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Ezekiel 37: 7-10 KJV).

Sugar Ridge

 

Sugar Ridge 

Sugar Ridge not sweet but named from sour sarcastic pun

Filled with adversity, heartache, and pain

Days growing up there were full of hard work, plenty of love, and fun

Especially the days smelling plum blossoms after a spring rain

 

Smells of honeysuckles, clover, daffodils filled the air

Where the outhouse, pigpen, and chicken coop are no more

Where children ran hills and hollers with their feet bare

Gone the sweet aromas that made it wonderful to be poor

 

Smells of burning fields and fresh plowed ground

Burning hickory, boiling water, killing hogs and stewing lard

Now only the odor of cutgrass, wild onions and wild garlic abound

Mixed with the smell of primrose and sweet shrub permeate the yard

 

Sugar Ridge, home sweet home of the Hoppers

JM, Leecie, Bobby, Diane, David, and Glenn

The home place burned reduced to a pile of bricks, ashes, and copper

No one has lived there since death, marriage, and life caused the end

 

“Welcome Home to Sugar Ridge” a saying started by dad told to mom

For her constant plea to leave God forsaken Perry County and return home

No satire today for Sugar Ridge in its grandeur and magnificence today

It is a reminder of family, peace, and serenity regardless of where you roam

 

Thank you God for giving the Hoppers Sugar Ridge and love

As we enjoy the beauty of the good Earth, we call Sugar Ridge today

It is nothing compared to the joy, comfort, and hope from above

Sugar Ridge is a reminder where there is a will there is a way, Your Way

 

 

 

 

Bobby E. Hopper

April 9, 2021

“Dad’s Birthday”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weathering COVID-19 Storms

 

As the football season draws to a close and the football bowl season starts, we know that it is the holiday season.  It is a time of giving thanks, celebrating Christ, ending another year, and making new resolutions.

Family gatherings, festive merriment, and financial exertions will deplete our good nature, drain our energy, and depress our banking accounts.  Each of us will enter the New Year tired.

Take a moment to reflect on the game of football.  It has been said that at a college stadium, there are twenty-two players in need of rest and ninety thousand spectators in need of exercise and that is at the game not counting the hundreds of thousands that are watching on television.

The truth is that the hustle and bustle of the holiday season is everything but a time of Holy day reflection.  Most everyone will start the New Year tired and exhausted.  As my daddy would say about vacations, “Son, I got to go back to work to rest.”

If you are like me, there are times when I have been tired and in need of rest when the unexpected happens.  Suddenly, totally exhausted we must find energy to continue.

While attending the University of Montevallo, I found myself in that situation on several occasions.  One of those times, I was working full time at the cement plant, taking a full course (12 hours) at the University, and pastoring the Brierfield Baptist Church.  I worked rotation shifts at the plant and had to swap my day shifts and evenings for evenings and midnights.  Truman, the co-worker that I swapped, loved the conditions.  I needed to do what I thought would help me live my call in the ministry.

After working a Saturday midnight, I went home, took a nap, got up, showered went to church, preached, ate dinner, took a nap, went to church, went home, and went to work Sunday midnight.  Monday morning I showered at the plant, and went to classes at the University.  My last class was physical education, a course in tennis.  I played tennis with an eighteen-year-old girl who beat me every time we played.  I was thirty-five and running on caffeine having not slept much since starting midnights.

I got home needing to get some rest before working Monday midnight.  Getting ready to sleep I got a call from the cement plant to report to work.  The evening shift man did not report to work and there was an emergency.  I tried my best to convince them that I had no sleep and could not work.  I was an oiler on the cement kilns.

Have you ever noticed how plant safety or any other employee rules go out the window in times of emergency?  The evening supervisor told me that if I needed to sleep, I could sleep in the control room.  Sleeping on the job meant termination on normal days.

I went to work and pulled a double, working the evening shift and the midnight shift.  I was tired on Tuesday morning.  I took a good hot shower at the plant and went to two classes at the University.  When I got home Tuesday afternoon, I died for a few hours.  By the way, I did not sleep on that double shift.  I worked for those sixteen hours.

Life is full of times when trouble comes when needing rest.  We have all been there.

After a very exhausting day of ministry and work, Jesus instructed the disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee.  While in route to the other side, a violent storm arose.  The area in which the disciples were caught in the storm was not an area where storms usually occurred.  It was dark and the boat tossed back and forth causing the disciples to panic.  It is bad when veteran fisherman panic.  Jesus was asleep in the bottom of the boat, but He got up to serve.

There is a lesson for us.  The disciples forgot that hope, Jesus, was in the boat.  They wanted to rest but they had to serve, wanted to rest but had to work, wanted to rest but had to pray, wanted to rest but had to continue, and wanted to rest but had to glorify God.

And the same day, when the even was come, He saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.  And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship. And there were also with Him other little ships.  And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.  And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake Him, and say unto Him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?  And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.  And He said unto them, why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?  And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, what manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:35-41 KJV)

 

With the COVID 19 storm robbing people of hope, remember Jesus urges us to go to the other side of the sea.  This COVID 19 storm will pass.

 

Spring Perspective and the Resuurection

You can tell when spring is near when you hear birds chirping, smell the aroma of trees and vines budding, see the countless colored daffodils, and taste food from the grill.  Spring is my favorite time of the year.  Everything is coming to life.  It makes Easter special.  It reminds us that the dead of winter and it long dark hours are gone.

I am one if the few that enjoy winter.  The Chain Saw team and I enjoyed snow in Missouri.  Well, I enjoyed the cold and the snow.  It reminded me of living in Illinois as a kid.  No, I am not a Yankee.  As the group ALABAMA sings, “My home is Alabama, Southern Born, and Southern Bred.”  Daddy worked up north for three years.  We moved back home to Alabama in the spring of 1960 because Mamma did not like the Yankees, the cold, and the snow.

Spring reminds me of going home, the eternal one.  It is the promise of eternal life found in the resurrection of Jesus.  Daddy died on Friday after Easter April 29, 1984.  I remember the morning I left the hospital.  The birds were singing, the morning sun glistened, and you could smell the aroma of spring.  I thought about what a beautiful day for daddy to go home with Jesus.

Doctors diagnosed momma with stage four-melanoma cancer in the fall of 1986 and she died in the winter in January.  Her last days were difficult.  The demon cancer consumed her beautiful body.  The funeral director said her body was as a piece of wood that looked solid until you picked it up, and then realized that, it was rotten and it crumbled in your hands.

It snowed days before her death.  With her arm eaten into from cancer, she watched me build a snowman from her hospital window.  I knocked on her window and made a face.  Hours later, the Clanton Hospital transferred her to the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital.  I rode with her in the emergency vehicle.  I remember it snowing as we unloaded in downtown Birmingham.

They placed her in the terminal ward.  If there was a picture of hell it was the night I spent with her.  Seven people, including a young boy, young mother, and elderly man died that night.  Patients throughout the whole ward cried out in agony and pain. 

I had never been around such torment before.  I heard the cries of a young boy as he cried for his mother to hold him and stop the pain.  The lady in the room with momma would speak in a little girl's voice.  She said, “Daddy, please hold me.”  She repeated it over and over.  Momma would say, “Oh God, help me.”  She repeated this over and over.  I lay there with a feeling of hopelessness.  My pain seemed insignificant compared to those who died that night. 

I have thought about that night many times.  I went home, my back in severe pain from the stress, and stared at the ceiling.  I could not sleep, eat, work, study, read, etc.  I was useless and wanting to die.  This is how I pictured hell.  I was glad that this was the only torment that momma would endure.  When she died, my sister, my brothers, and I thanked God that she entered heaven where the flowers bloom forever and she would receive a new beautiful body.

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand (John 10:27-28)

Resurrection morning Jesus solidified His promise, I am the resurrection, and the life.  

A Person of Faith

I was watching a car show the other night.  These shows do what I would love to do, rebuilding old jalopies.  My love for building cars started when I was in the fifth grade.  I got a model car kit from a classmate for Christmas.  Over the years, I had a pretty good collection that I lost when our home burned.  In that collection I had a ’55 Chevy Nomad, a ’50 Ford, a ’57 Chevy, a ’40 Willis, two ’32 Fords, the Batmobile, ’53 Ford pickup, and a few others.  Some of these date back to my teens.  I built them until the government regulations forced glue makes to change the formula and ruining its sticking power.

My dream car is a ’32 Ford Vicky, yellow convertible or five-window, 350 Chevy engine, saddle colored leather interior, and Crager junkyard mag wheels.  Trouble is, they are out there, but beyond a retired Director of Missions means.

These car-rebuilding programs have the mission of saving old cars one at a time.  The closest I have come to rebuilding an old vehicle is when my youngest son Aaron and I rebuilt my ’77 GMC pickup, and I understood the statement, “They don’t build them like that any more” a little better.  It is an era of American history that is fleeting away.   A friend of mine said that it makes him sick to watch classic cars headed to the scrap metal place.

My ’77 GMC is actually a 2009-13 pickup.  It looks old, but it has experienced a transformation.  No, it is not a Johnny Cash Cadillac.  It is a completely restored truck.  It is a work of love and labor.  I will always cherish the time that Aaron and I, father and son, spend together transforming a ragged, rusty, multicolored hunk of junk into what most call a “sweet ride” or a “clean” classic.

Transformed classics make up the body of the church.  Men, women, boys, and girls that experience the transforming power of God are new creations.  The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that transforms all those who trust Jesus as Lord and Savior.  It is the same power that carries believers to virus pandemics.

As I thought about restored vehicles and changed lives, I cannot help but to think about Brother Arch Crumpton.  He was a classic when speaking of a man of God.  He was an old classic that you don’t see anymore, a one of a kind.  Brother Arch was a giant pillar in my home church.  Brother Arch, two other deacons, and the pastor were the only men in my home church when I was boy.

I heard stories how Brother Arch would walk four miles to church on Sunday morning to start a fire in the old pot-bellied stove, then walk back home, hitch the mule team to the wagon, and then bring the family to church.  It makes those coveting toilet paper during corona virus panic a little silly.  We have grown too soft in our living.

Brother Arch always sat on the second pew on the preachers left.  He wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, a tie, and a fedora every Sunday.  He could pray some of the sweetest prayers.  I never heard anyone say a bad word about Brother Arch.

One of the most interesting stores about him was when he was a young man in his twenties.  I remember as a kid thinking that Brother Arch was ancient, being well into his seventies when I was a teenager.  He was tall and frail, but always sported a smile.  In his twenties, which would have been in the 1920’s, he had an appendix attack.  By the time the doctor arrived, he had gangrene and the doctor said there was little or no hope.

The doctor did something that most would think repulsive.  He opened Brother Arch, took out his intestines, and washed them in warm soapy water.  Once they were clean, the doctor repacked them.  I remember that Brother Arch always had a flat stomach.

Somewhere along that time, Brother Arch accepted the Lord as his Savior and the Lord removed the gangrene of sin from Brother Arch.  He was transformed and became a model for the men in our church and our community.

One of my fondest memories of Brother Arch happened one Sunday afternoon at my Aunt Edna’s.  My cousins and I were playing football in the front yard.  Brother Arch and his wife, Mrs. Blonnie, shuffled their way toward the house.  They walked along our goal line, which was the sidewalk to the house halting the game for a few moments.  Suddenly, Brother Arch called for the football.  One of my cousins tossed it to him and Brother Arch kicked the football.  He laughed and told us to have fun.  We all had a little more respect for him seeing that old man could kick a football.  Brother Arch will never know how much of an impact he had on my early Christian walk.  He was an inspiration and an example of what a Christian should be.  He was a Christian Classic. He has always been a man of hope.   Our churches would much better with more men and women like Brother Arch.

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (Second Corinthians 3:18 NIV).



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

Pyromaniacs and Hope

I made a hospital visit to Demopolis the other day.  As I stepped out of the pickup, the aroma of blossoms of Barrett pear trees flooded the air.  Being the global minded, I was transported to a time long gone.  I could smell the burning of a field and I remember gathering sagebrush, setting it afire, and slowly scattering the fire around the field surrounded by wild plums in full blossom.  I could see daddy on the 8N Ford tractor straddling the fire, breaking the freshly burned field, and I could smell the heavenly scent of fresh dirt mixed with smoke rising from burned sage, weeds, and stubs of long gone crops.

Momma always worried that would catch ourselves on fire.  Did I ever tell you that momma was a worrywart and daddy did not worry about anything?  Well anyway, my brothers and I were pyromaniacs, burning fields, burning trash, burning wood, and burning rubber.  Burning rubber was fun until I bought that first set of tires.

The old timers burned off the woods each year to help control undergrowth and bugs.  I do not remember having trouble with pine beetles when we burned the woods.  All we had to watch was the smut.

We burned all the clippings, limbs, and brush we cleared.  It was fun to tell tales by the fire after dark.  Once again all we had to do was watch out for the smut.  You ain’t lived until you see yourself in the mirror after standing around a smutty fire or using pine tops putting out wood fires or field fires started by inexperienced pyrotechnical neighbors.

A fire is hypnotic.  It consumes, destroys, and eliminates where new growth can spring forth with new life.  Ain’t nuthin’ no prettier than new green sprouts shooting up in a smutty area.  It has an indescribable green hue.

When one burns a yard, field, or the woods, there is hope for new growth.  Life comes from that which was dead.  I think that is the reason the Resurrection was in the Spring.  That which was dead, comes forth living and vibrant.

As Ezekiel gazed upon a valley of dry bones God asked, “Son of man, can these bones live?”  Ezekiel answered, “O Lord God, thou knowest.”

I felt that way the first time I remember daddy burned the field.  Daddy knew it would produce a bountiful crop in due time.  Daddy gave me hope.  It reminds me of a story I used several years ago speaking on having hope.  It goes like this.

Several years ago, a teacher assigned to visit children in a large city hospital received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child.  She took the boy’s name and room number and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now.  I’d be grateful if you could help him in his homework so he doesn’t fall behind the others.” 

It wasn’t until the visiting teacher got inside the boy’s room that she realized it was located in the hospital’s burn unit.  No one prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain.  She felt that she couldn’t just turn around and walk out, so she awkwardly stammered, “I’m the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with your nouns and adverbs.” 

The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, “What did you do to that boy?”  Before she could finish a profusion of apologies, the nurse interrupted her:  “You don’t understand.  We’ve been very worried about him, but ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed.  He’s decided to live.” 

The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw that teacher.  It all changed when he came to a simple realization.  With joyful tears, he expressed it this way:  “They would not send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?” 

Let’s celebrate hope in the Resurrection Jesus Christ our Lord!

So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.  And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.  Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.  So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army (Ezekiel 37: 7-10 KJV).

Chernobyl, Katrina, and Hope

Earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods remind us that there are more opportunities for ministry than normal.  Watching tragic events unfold before our eyes makes one realize that our world is in a mess.  It is messes that help us keep the perspective that we need a Savior.

Hurricane Katrina was a reminder of how quick death and devastation hit.  Missing people, sex predators, and disregard for human life are demoralizing to any society.  Overnight, New Orleans turned diabolical.  What happened in moments will take a lifetime to rebuild.  Some things will never recover.  Local residents told me that one third of New Orleans’ population will never return.

There seems to be no end to world turmoil and the reality that at any moment there could be a nuclear holocaust that would make Chernobyl look like a boy scouts’ campfire.  The Chernobyl explosions and the resulting fire sent a plume of highly radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and extensive parts of western Soviet Union, Eastern, Western, and Northern Europe, and North America.  It had four hundred times more fallout than the A-bomb of Hiroshima.  Ireland experienced a light nuclear rain.  The Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were badly  contaminated.  My friend Alice was teaching school in Italy at the time of Chernobyl and witnessed the devastation.

Speaking of first hand Chernobyl experiences, I had the honor and privilege of flying to Los Angeles to spend a week at Dr. Rick Warren’s Saddleback conference several years ago.  The man sitting next to me on the flight was a retired editor from Time Magazine.  He was returning from an editorial summit in South America.  He had been there to judge young journalists and rate their potential as writers for major magazines.  He was very articulate and global in his conversation.  I shared with him that I was a former cement worker.    

When I asked him to share some of his travels, he related my cement vocation to the Chernobyl incident.  He told me of a Russian general he had befriended while in Russia.  He said that this General was wealthy by American standards and lived an extravagant lifestyle, but could not enjoy it because he dying from radiation poison.  He had been exposed to radiation while working in the Chernobyl nuclear facility when it developed the leak and became one of many victims.  The editor said the world would never know just how many died trying to save the earth from radiation poison.

I told him that I had a friend who was teaching school in Italy when it happened and that she said the devastation was so severe that livestock and vegetation were died where she was teaching.  It was then that he told me the horror of what happened according to the general.

The general said that the radioactive material from the leak was eating into the earth at an alarming rate.  Russian scientists feared that it would eventually eat to the core of the earth causing worldwide catastrophic problems.  Hundreds of workers perished as they tried to stop the leak.  Massive earth moving machines raced to dig below the material to pour concrete several feet thick to contain it.  They were trying to form a bowl.  After several unsuccessful attempts, they finally stopped the leak.  The human cost was great.

This is one of many detrimental incidents to our planet.  All the things that we have done to the spaceship we call earth has a price.  Hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and rumors of wars are the result of sin.  Sin caused the creation to fall from its perfect state.

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8:19-22 NIV)

How has a catastrophe affected your life?

Are you optimistic of pessimistic about the future? Write down your feelings.

What are you doing to help the environment of this planet we call earth?

Prayer: Father, as believers, we can see the world physically decaying and spiritually degenerating. Help us to be optimistic and not to be pessimistic, because we have a blessed hope. Thank you for the brighter days that lie ahead for the whole creation, for a time is coming when the curse will be removed, and creation will be restored to its original splendor. Thank you for the promise of resurrection with our glorified bodies, like the body Christ now has in heaven.

WHERE IS SHE THIS MORNING

Where is she this morning and how was her night?

When she was a baby, it was filled with tears and fright.

Where is she this morning and what has she to eat?

When she was a little girl, she would nibble at her food and run on her feet.

Where is she this morning and what is her plan?

When she was a teenager, it was trying to find a man.

Where is she this morning as a new day starts?

As a young woman her family does not know and its breaks their hearts.

Where is she this morning and will she sleep late?

As she grows older, I pray she comes home and not stay away with bitterness and hate.

Where is she this morning is a question that may seem odd.

We do not know the answer, but the one who does is God.

Dedicated to parents that do not know where the children are.  Living in fear that the next phone call, knock at the door, or visit will inform that the wandering child has been found and a parent's worse fears are now reality.  Until that moment there is hope that the prodigal daughter or son will return home.

Sitting on the Front Porch

Philip Gulley’s, Front Porch Tales, is a delightful read and inspiration for many of the articles I write.  Gulley writes of family, faith, laughter, and love.  Paul Harvey, Jr. says, “The tales Philip Gulley unveils are tender and humorous . . . filled with sudden, unexpected, lump-in-the-throat poignancy.”  I envy Gulley’s talent.  Front porch tales, how wonderful is that.  It reminds me my home place and our front porch.

I visit dad and mom each time I go back to my home church.  A pink granite headstone marks their grave.  It is not hard to find.  It is the only pink headstone in the graveyard.  Momma got it when daddy died.  I stand there and whisper to them.  I usually smile remembering what momma said about her grave before she died. “I been so bad, the grass will probably not grow on my grave.”  She’s right, it doesn’t.  Her grave is where the rain runs down the hill and the centipede is patchy.  It has nothing to do with her being bad, just bad location.

I wish many times I could go back to those days on our front porch.  Around my high school graduation, we remodeled the front porch and daddy put momma oak swings on each end.  Springs from the hood of one of our old junk cars held one swing on the porch.  We would get momma in that swing and bounce her up and down.  There was a sensation springing up and down, swinging back and forth that no county fair ride could duplicate.  Momma would scream, holler, and we would bounce more.

From those swings, we would have talks.  I would sit in one swing and dad and mom would sit in the other. Back and forth, toward and away, and sometimes just sitting still we discussed important things of life.  We talked of getting married, leaving home, dying with cancer, having babies, whipping (disciplining for those who are politically correct) children, planting crops, attending funerals, heaven, hell, and the real issues of life.

Sitting on the swings, I can see momma smooching on daddy, my daughter Angel playing tic-tac-toe on the marks left from radiation treatments on daddy’s baldhead, and the look of horror of the unsuspecting visitor who sat in the “spring loaded swing”.  They thought it was falling only to realize the Hopper Law of Physics (reverse of Newton’s law of physics) was at work.  What goes down will go up.

Sitting on the swings, I learned how much daddy and momma loved God, loved family, and loved me.  Stories, laughter, tears, hope, and wisdom saturate the swings.  I stop there sometimes and draw from that magnificent saturation.  It is sweet and precious.  I wish everyone could have had a turn in the swings.  Life is short and good counsel is essential. 

Losing someone who counsels us leaves a great hollowness in our system of significance.  I am glad dad and mom chose to give me life.  Since Jesus gave me life, I am glad I have the Holy Spirit.  The Lord’s promise from Hebrews 13:5 reminds me, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Dr. Calvin Miller in his book, Loving God Up Close, writes:

This is the most remarkable thing about the counsel of the Holy Spirit: those who seem to abound with the most obvious joy, do not have less frequent troubles.  In fact, just the opposite seems true.  Those with the most joyous lives have often wept their way to the inner Counselor.  Laughter among people of real faith does not indicate that they are strangers to affliction. The truly joyous often have lived on the edge of an abyss where they have had to face the glare of despair and learn the laughter of God.

A Picture of Hell and the Hope of the Resurrection

You can tell when spring is near when you hear birds chirping, smell the aroma of trees and vines budding, see the countless colored daffodils, and taste food from the grill.  Spring is my favorite time of the year.  Everything is coming to life.  It makes Easter special.  It reminds us that the dead of winter and its long dark hours are gone.

I am one of the few that enjoys winter.  When serving the Bethel Baptist Associational Disaster Relief Chain Saw team, I enjoyed snow in Missouri after an ice storm.  Well, I enjoyed the cold and the snow.  It reminded me of living in Illinois as a kid.  No, I am not a Yankee.  As the group ALABAMA sings, “My home is Alabama, Southern Born, and Southern Bred.”  Daddy worked up north for three years.  We moved back home to Alabama in the spring of 1960 because Mamma did not like the Yankees, the cold, and the snow.

Spring reminds me of going home, the eternal one.  It is the promise of eternal life found in the resurrection of Jesus.  Daddy died on Friday after Easter April 29, 1984.  I remember the morning I left the hospital.  The birds were singing, the morning sun glistened, and you could smell the aroma of spring.  I thought about what a beautiful day for daddy to go home with Jesus.

Doctors diagnosed momma with stage four-melanoma cancer in the fall of 1986 and she died in the winter in January.  Her last days were difficult.  The demon cancer consumed her beautiful body.  The funeral director said her body was as a piece of wood that looked solid until you picked it up, and then realized that, it was rotten and it crumbled in your hands.

It snowed days before her death.  With her arm eaten into from cancer, she watched me build a snowman from her hospital window.  I knocked on her window and made a face.  Hours later, the Clanton Hospital transferred her to the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital.  I rode with her in the emergency vehicle.  I remember it snowing as we unloaded in downtown Birmingham.

They placed her in the terminal ward.  If there was a picture of hell it was the night I spent with her.  Seven people, including a young boy, young mother, and elderly man died that night.  Patients throughout the whole ward cried out in agony and pain. 

I had never been around such torment before.  I heard the cries of a young boy as he cried for his mother to hold him and stop the pain.  The lady in the room with momma would speak in a little girl's voice.  She said, “Daddy, please hold me.”  She repeated it over and over.  Momma would say, “Oh God, help me.”  She repeated this over and over.  I lay there with a feeling of hopelessness.  My pain seemed insignificant compared to those who died that night. 

I have thought about that night many times.  I went home, my back in severe pain from the stress, and stared at the ceiling.  I could not sleep, eat, work, study, read, etc.  I was useless and wanting to die.  This is how I pictured hell.  I was glad that this was the only torment that momma would endure.  When she died, my sister, my brothers, and I thanked God that she entered heaven where the flowers bloom forever and she would receive a new beautiful body.

And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom (Luke 16:23).

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand (John 10:27-28)

Resurrection morning Jesus solidified His promise, I am the resurrection, and the life.