Everybody Is Doing It

I’ve got some bad news. I’m dying. I found out some time ago, probably when I was 10 or 11 years old. My dogs died. I had a cat that died. My grandfather Brady died, and my parents told me that before I was born my two grandmothers and my other grandfather had died. My little cousin got hit by a car and she died, and a friend of my parents was killed in a coal mining accident. It seemed that a lot of people and pets in my life died and they continue to die. Then I was told that my parent would die some day, and I would also die. I haven't died yet, but I know I will, and so will you. Everybody is doing it. We are all going to die!

Do you ever worry about dying? I don’t as much as I did. I think everyone worries about facing death at some time in their life. I’ve heard that Christians should never worry about passing away. We are told that at death, in a snap, we will be in heaven with Jesus. That is comforting, but death  is a once in a lifetime thing. That’s what the Bible tells us. We have never experienced this before. I know I will go to heaven, and that I will live again. I really do believe that. I’m sure many reading this also believe you will spend eternity in heaven. But it takes a lot of faith to be completely sure of that.

Think about it. We are believing in a God we have never seen, trusting in a Savior we have only read about, and are hoping to go to a place in which nobody we know has ever been. Many of us have been told these things all of our lives. “It’s in the Bible”, they told us. Could we have been brainwashed? I can understand why many people have a hard time accepting all of this. I’m sure God knew we would have doubts. Even some of the strongest Christians have doubts, especially when life strikes a hard blow.

But the good news is we have a personal God who is very close. He speaks to us assuring us that he will do what he promised he would do. His Spirit is truly in us, to encourage us, to give us power, and show us the ways of God. He answers our requests. He provides for us when in need. My faith is in God because I have done things I would never have been able to do without him. I’m not worried about dying because I know where I’m going.

Sherri and I have gotten to travel a lot since we retired. We have been to places we had never been. We imagined what those places would be like. Some of them were far greater and more lovely than we expected. Heaven will be like that. Nothing that we have ever heard will prepare us for heaven. It will be a magnificent, breathtaking place, but more than that to be in the very presence of God without any sinful, earthly distractions will be far greater than anything we can imagine. God’s Spirit is repairing us even now for the day we will die. If we keep our minds fixed on Jesus and focus on Heavenly things we will be ready. What a glorious day it will be!

Who Do You Think You Are

Lord our Lord, how  majestic is your name in all the earth!”

 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
Psalm 8

 “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Genesis 3: 19

 When we consider God, his majesty, his mighty works, his saving grace, and his care for us who do we think we are when we  refuse to give him the honor and glory that he deserves? Who are we to refuse to worship him and diligently search the Holy Scriptures to know him more completely? Who are we to say all manner of things that contradict who Jesus is and devise our own plan for living; a plan that caters to our selfish desires?

 Recently I had someone tell me that I was too extreme in the way that I serve God. Going to church every Sunday and worshipping with fellow believers (which is what we are supposed to do), serving with the body of Christ by giving our time and our money, taking every opportunity to carry on Spiritual Conversations, as our pastor mentioned yesterday, are these actions too extreme? We who were created by God, who came from dust, who were crowned with glory and honor by him, and were made rulers over the works of his hand, the creatures of earth, the birds of the sky, and the fish that swim in the seas, being given the responsibility of caring for his creation and proclaiming the name of Jesus, how can anything we do be too extreme?

 How can we be accused of being too spiritual when we tell others about our Savior Jesus Christ? He did not come in secret. He did not hide who he was, nor why he came. A man, yet God in flesh is how he came. He said that he was the Light of the world. He called God His very own father. He said, “I have come that all may have life, eternal life.” He said if everyone remained silent the rocks along the road would praise him and cry out with cheers. Jesus let it be known that he came to draw all men unto himself. But it is for us to lift him high, lift him up so that others might see him and be healed of their sin. He let it be known that he was the Son of God, the Messiah. Over and over again Jesus made no mistake about who he was, what he came to this world to do, and what he expected of those who chose to follow him. He showed the world that he overcame death. He presented himself as the resurrected Savior.

Today too many Christians are hiding, Christians in secret, afraid that someone might accuse them of being too extreme or too spiritual. We need more Christians to come out from their hiding places to tell others about Jesus. In a world that is turning away from God and in danger of dying eternally without Jesus there is no way we can be too extreme. If we do not tell them about Jesus, who will? How can we keep quiet and not speak the name of our Savior Jesus Christ? How sad if we wait for inanimate objects do our bidding.

One day every person and every creature will bow before Him and cry out his name and confess that he is the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, Jesus! There has never been anyone like him. For many that last testimony as to who he is will be too late. God wants extreme Christians. He  doesn’t want excuses. He wants obedience.

Who Do You Think You Are

“Lord our Lord, how  majestic is your name in all the earth!”

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” Psalm 8

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Genesis 3: 19

When we consider God, his majesty, his mighty works, his saving grace, and his care for us who do we think we are when we  refuse to give him the honor and glory that he deserves? Who are we to refuse to worship him and diligently search the Holy Scriptures to know him more completely? Who are we to say all manner of things that contradict who Jesus is and devise our own plan for living; a plan that caters to our selfish desires?

Recently I had someone tell me that I was too extreme in the way that I serve God. Going to church every Sunday and worshipping with fellow believers (which is what we are supposed to do), serving with the body of Christ by giving our time and our money, taking every opportunity to carry on Spiritual Conversations, as our pastor mentioned yesterday, are these actions too extreme? We who were created by God, who came from dust, who were crowned with glory and honor by him, and were made rulers over the works of his hand, the creatures of earth, the birds of the sky, and the fish that swim in the seas, being given the responsibility of caring for his creation and proclaiming the name of Jesus, how can anything we do be too extreme?

How can we be accused of being too spiritual when we tell others about our Savior Jesus Christ? He did not come in secret. He did not hide who he was, nor why he came. A man, yet God in flesh is how he came. He said that he was the Light of the world. He called God His very own father. He said, “I have come that all may have life, eternal life.” He said if everyone remained silent the rocks along the road would praise him and cry out with cheers. Jesus let it be known that he came to draw all men unto himself. But it is for us to lift him high, lift him up so that others might see him and be healed of their sin. He let it be known that he was the Son of God, the Messiah. Over and over and over again Jesus made no mistake about who he was, what he came to this world to do, and what he expected of those who chose to follow him. He showed the world that he overcame death. He presented himself as the resurrected Savior.

Today too many Christians are hiding, Christians in secret, afraid that someone might accuse them of being too extreme or too spiritual. We need more Christians to come out from their hiding places to tell others about Jesus. In a world that is turning away from God and in danger of dying eternally without Jesus there is no way we can be too extreme. If we do not tell them about Jesus, who will? How can we keep quiet and not speak the name of our blessed Savior Jesus Christ? How sad if we allow inanimate objects do our bidding.  

One day every person and every creature will bow before Him and cry out his name and confess that he is the Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, Jesus! There has never been anyone like him. For many that last testimony as to who he is will be too late. God wants extreme Christians. He  doesn’t want excuses. He wants obedience.

Pork Chop

One thing that I have noticed as I get older is how young people, most often, fail to understand when you are joking with them. They take everything literally. I love to watch the reactions of waitresses when I have the opportunity to mess with them in that way.

Yesterday Sherri, Clay, Susan, Holly and I ate at Texas Road House after church. Now that Brady is driving he never joins us for Sunday lunch. The waitress took our order and Sherri ordered a pork chop. We all ordered and sat eating peanuts while we waited. Finally, a young girl, not the one who was our waitress, came with our food. I’ve never understood how those girls can carry all that food without spilling it every where. Anyway she looked directly at Sherri and said, “Pork chop?” Sherri replied, “Yes!” Anyone who knows Sherri can understand how gracious and excited her response was.

I don’t know why I have the thoughts I do, and I don’t know why I vocalize them for others to hear, but I said to the girl without thinking, “How did you know? That is her nickname! We call her Pork Chop!”

The young lady had the funniest look on her face. She didn’t know if she should laugh, or if she should respond with some kind of compliment. I think she thought I was serious. Susan  couldn’t quit laughing, Sherri was embarrassed, Clay thought it was funny, and of course Holly did not laugh. “That’s not funny”,  was her response. I love it when I can embarrass Holly. The confused girl quickly distributed our food and left to be seen no more at our table.

My cat fish wasn’t  very good and neither were the fries. Maybe I had eaten too many peanuts. But I enjoyed our time at the restaurant. We finished and old Pork Chop and I went home. I was thinking about my cat fish. I knew a baseball player named Cat Fish.  That might be a good name for me. People could say, “Here come Pork Chop and Cat Fish!” Naw, Sherri wouldn’t like that at all.

The Humor of Diabetes

Diabetes is a terrible disease. The public doesn’t readily spot someone who is a diabetic. Most of us who fight the disease look and act like everybody else. Unless we mention our problem others would never know. We have days when we don’t feel well, but we continue our daily activities because if we didn’t we would never get anything done. As we age those days of not feeling well are more common. The older we get the more damage diabetes does to our bodies. Most diabetics don’t die from diabetes. They die because of the damage it has done to our kidneys, our heart, our nervous system and other body parts.

I have had Type 1 Diabetes since I was an older teen. I got an insulin pump about 15 years ago. Before the pump I was taking 4 insulin injections every day. I have taken insulin every day for almost 50 years.  I have done well with my diabetic care. Exercise has been my savior. Until I had my back surgery (not  diabetic related) in 2012, I ran 5 to 10 miles most days. From the time I was 50 until I reached 58 I had logged 10,000 miles. Diabetics can prolong their lives if they take care of themselves by seeing the endocrinologist every 3 to 4 months, exercise regularly, avoid becoming overweight, and staying on a healthy diet. Let me add one other bit of advice. Avoid extremely low blood sugars.

I have come close to dying several times because my blood sugar got extremely low. The worst of those experiences was kind of funny. I was by myself at home. There was a ball game I was into and I forgot to eat. By the time I realized something was wrong I didn’t have the sense to get something to eat. The last thing I remembered was that I was in the basement. When I finally came to I was in the bed up stairs soaking wet from sweating. I had completely passed out. Sherri had gotten home just in time to revive me.

She had about panicked, and was able to get enough sugar in me to cause me to respond. My response was to point to the ceiling and say, “The light, the light!” over and over again. As it turned out the light I was seeing was not coming from heaven. Sherri had turned on the ceiling light when she came in, and for some weird reason that was the light I was responding to. Needless to say that response scared Sherri to death.  Diabetics don’t make sense when their blood sugar drops too low.

Sherri had called 911. In the meantime I was able to drink some orange juice becoming almost normal again. When the EMTs rang the doorbell I greeted them by telling them I was ok and they could leave. Obviously I was not completely normal. Sherri let them in, and they examined me and stayed until they knew I was truly ok.

I have had a few near death experiences over the years, but overall I have done well. My feet are just now beginning to give me problems from neuropathy. I have recently reached level 2 with my kidney disease, but that’s not bad. I feel good most of the time. I can still walk 3 to 5 miles a day. A nurse told me I would live for twenty five more years. That may not be a good thing. I don’t think Sherri can take it if that happens.

The Ease of Finding Trouble

They were not really bad boys, but they seemed to have a knack for getting into trouble. The younger one was more prone to venture toward the wayward path than his older brother. Very early in life, at the age of 7, he began sneaking cigarettes from his dad’s store, and he developed an insatiable desire for nicotine. Many stories could be told about Mike Brady’s mischievous past as well as his older brother’s plunge into the pit of darkness. But for now only one short story seems appropriate.

Both of the Brady boys spent time working in their dad’s grocery store. By the time they were teenagers they knew the business and could do most anything that needed to be done. Their favorite area to work  was in the meat department. Cutting up chickens, slicing bacon and lunch meat, trimming various cuts of beef for packaging, and making hamburger meat and sausage kept them busy and out of trouble, most of the time. They loved running the beef and pork strips through the grinder to make the best hamburger and sausage in Logan County.

One day they had just finished making sausage. The pork had been cut up for the grinder, the spices had been added and the final product had been packaged, weighed and priced. The only thing left to do was to wash the greasy, spice covered lard bucket that had held that delicious sausage. Up to that point all had gone well-no fighting, not even an argument. But trouble loomed on the horizon.

I’m not sure whose idea it was. I am not sure if the older Brady boy suggested the act that was about to occur, but it was Mike who carried out the dastardly deed. I do remember that the day was Friday which meant that Doris, one of the employees, had gotten her hair done the day before. Thursday was her day off, and she always went to the hairdresser on that day.  Hair doo's, as that sort of thing was called in the 1960’s, were kind of tall and very popular. That was the hairstyle that Doris was sporting. As I have mentioned I am not sure who suggested sneaking up behind Doris and putting that greasy lard bucket on her head, but that is exactly what Mike did.

Well, what followed did not go well for Victor Brady’s younger son. Doris’ reaction was something like one would expect from someone who had gotten their hand caught in that meat grinder. She was a good Christian lady so she did not cuss. I had known her all my life, and I had no idea how mad that little lady could get. Mike looked like he had been trapped in a room with an angry bull. I think maybe he would have preferred the angry bull when he saw his dad barge through the door. Doris told him her side of the story, and Mike had no side to tell.

Doris went to the lady’s room, I suppose,  to pick out all the sage and spices from her hair and perhaps to cry. Mike, however, went with his dad to the storage room where he bravely received his very painful punishment. There was no screaming or loud crying, but the sound of a belt hitting Mike’s bottom could be heard all over the store. The Brady boys had learned how to take their punishment like men. They had had plenty of practice because finding trouble was easy for them.

Maybe the Nicest Man

To say that something is the best, the biggest, the tastiest or that someone is the smartest, the prettiest, or the fastest most likely would be highly debatable. I am going out on a limb, and say that my friend, Gerald Hildabrand, was the nicest man I ever knew. I have known Gerald since the late 1950’s when we were both young boys.

The first time I saw Gerald was on a Sunday morning when he visited my Sunday school class. I will respectfully say that he looked different. He wore a little suit and a hat. Not a one of us ever wore a suit much less a hat. Gerald was probably 9 or 10 and I was around 8 years old. There was a boy in our class who was a big bully. I was his target several times over the years, but on this day he decided to pick on Gerald. He laughed at him, made some ugly remarks about him , and finally took his hat off of him and stomped it. I remember feeling sorry for Gerald because I knew what he was feeling. But Gerald handled it well, and he and his family kept coming to Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church. In fact, he was still a committed member of Mt. Pleasant when he died this past Sunday morning.

I’ve known a lot of nice people over the years, probably as many as anybody, but none any nicer than Gerald. There were some times I saw Gerald get very close to failing to be nice. The first time was when we were playing plastic ball in a friend’s backyard. We called the field Watermelon Park. We were not little kids. We were teens, and some of our teachers even played when we got together on Sunday afternoons. We made up rules that were different than baseball. Our bats and balls were even altered to make the game a bit more challenging.

One of the rules which may not have been the best was that the pitcher called balls and strikes. Whenever he played, our high school basketball coach, Bob Birdwhistell, pitched for his team. On the particular day that Gerald came close to not being nice he was on the other team. The coach loved to try to rile Gerald. I am not accusing Coach of making bad calls when he pitched to Gerald, but several of his pitches were somewhat suspect, and Gerald thought the calls were downright horrible. After Gerald’s third at bat he had had enough. Coach Bird had called him out three times in a row. Of course Gerald argued the calls, but coach just laughed. So Gerald quit and walked home. The problem for us was that all the equipment belonged to Gerald, and when he left he took his bats and balls and we couldn’t play any more.

I taught with Gerald for twelve years at Lewisburg School. And yes, Coach Birdwhistell taught there as well. Most of the men faculty had lunch every day in a very small teacher’s lounge. The women rarely came in there. I cannot even begin to tell, and for my own protection, would not dare tell what went on in that room. Somebody usually got roasted during that daily gathering. Sometimes it was not pretty, but over all we had a great time. Gerald received his share of roastings, most of the time from Coach Birdwhistell. Gerald would try his best to look angry, and not show his Mr. Nice Guy look, but he just couldn’t do it. There was a mirror in the lounge. When Gerald wanted to look angry he would walk over to the mirror, look at his reflection, and try his best to fix his face to appear tough and angry. But he couldn’t do it. He was too nice to look the part.

Gerald Hildabrand loved his students, his co-workers, his friends, and was always more than glad to lend a helping hand to anyone in need. Gerald even loved Coach Birdwhistell!  I left Logan County in 1983 and have lived from Texas to North Carolina over the years. Gerald and I stayed in touch, and if anything happened that he thought I should know about he would give me a call. I can’t remember things like Gerald could. If I wanted to know a date that something happened, or the name of a student I taught at Lewisburg, or something about sports, mostly baseball, I would call Gerald and 99% of the time he would know the answer. He was always excited to help me and would go out of his way to do so. But most of the time it was two good friends catching up, and it was always good to talk to him.

I don’t know anybody that didn’t love Gerald, or have the highest respect for him. That little boy I first met in the late 1950’s at church grew up to be a real man.  Unlike that bully who treated him so unkindly, Gerald earned the respect of everyone who knew him. A person can not achieve such an honored distinction without being nice.

Tomorrow or today, depending on when you read this, many of you will meet at the church for Gerald’s home going. I wish I could be there. You will remember and say goodbye to a wonderful man and friend. Gerald cannot be replaced. He will be greatly missed. Gerald leaves for us a most valuable legacy, a legacy of kindness, love, and an example of being very, very nice. Traits that each of us should desire.

Farewell my dear friend.