Our friend - we'll call her Diane - shocked her family years ago when she announced at the age of 17 that she was pregnant. Even with some folks urging her to have an abortion, she made the choice to have that child - a son. When her son was seven, Diane met a guy we'll call Gary, and she knew they were falling in love. With some fear and trembling, she told him about her son. Gary said, "Let's go meet him." And Diane's boy took to Gary immediately. Diane and Gary got married, and the boy grew up with a wonderful relationship with Gary. But something happened when he turned 17; this unexplainable rebellion that ultimately made him decide to go live with his biological father. A few months later, he returned to the home that he'd grown up in. He had made a powerful discovery in those intervening months. He said to Gary, "You're the one I walk like, you're the one I talk like, and I do things the way you taught me. You are my father!"
As we drove through Utah that day I kept "oohing" and "ahhing" at one magnificent view after another. Majestic mountains, rugged terrain, fabulous vistas - I loved it! Then my wife reminded me that I'd seen all this before. Or, more accurately, I should have seen it before. See, I had traveled these same scenic highways on a bus with our Native American outreach team On Eagles' Wings a couple of years before. But much of the time, I had my head down, I was buried in work or preparation or I was busy talking with one of the team members. In the process, I totally missed some of this country's greatest beauty.
My sister-in-law used to be involved with insurance claims. And it was not uncommon for her to have clients who had major messes to clean up. Imagine the damage that flood waters could do to a home, a major fire, or even frozen pipes that burst in the winter. That's when they called on a major company that is known for their specialty; they come in and clean those grossly soaked carpets, they restore that damaged furniture and those smoke-saturated drapes. They are known for being the ones who can clean up a mess that folks could never clean themselves.
It's becoming a pretty frequent refrain around our house. I'll be trying to read a label or some instructions or something my wife has given me to look at, and it becomes obvious that I'm having a hard time deciphering what's in front of me. The first clue is that my arm is extended as far it can go with that item in my hand. My wife knows I'm not seeing words clearly; I'm seeing a blur or I'm seeing letters or words that aren't really there. Thus, the refrain "Put your glasses on!" Oh yeah. I do that, and what looked so blurry suddenly looks pretty clear.
Little Cindy had been a bad girl. She'd been sent from the dinner table to her room. After a little while, Mom and Dad thought the point had been made. They knew that children, of course, need to be assured of our love when we've disciplined them. So, Daddy went upstairs, opened the door to Cindy's room, and found her in bed, under her covers, snuggling with her arm wrapped tightly around her favorite dolly. Her father sat on the bed and he just gently said, "Cindy, I love you." Then he held out his arms to hug her. For a moment, the little girl just looked straight ahead and she hugged her dolly closer. But that couldn't last. Very soon, Cindy dropped her dolly and grabbed her Daddy in a big hug. Because a dolly is no substitute for a daddy!
It's always a political battle when the government wants to establish a toxic waste dump somewhere. Not too many people are all excited about having radioactive or otherwise toxic kind of material buried near them. In fact, the American government has established what they call a "Super Fund" to pay for the cleanup of some of those areas that can be hazardous to people's health. Well, I'll tell you what. I'd sure want it cleaned up if there was a toxic waste dump near where I live.
Our kids played with it when they were little. Our grandson plays with it now. I play with it every once in a while. It's that colorful clay in the round can - it's Play-Doh! You can squeeze that Play-Doh into something flat, something round, something long. You can turn it into any shape you want it to be. Which is OK for a toy; it's not OK for people.
We were eating with friends at a restaurant, and my wife unobtrusively gave me "the sign." She brushed her upper lip with her fingers. I know what that means - it's nothing romantic. Some crumb of my dinner has managed to escape going in my mouth, and it's on my mouth instead. If we're alone when that happens, I usually tell her, "Oh, I'm just saving it for later." I don't know why she doesn't just let me embarrass myself. That's called love, isn't it? I have no way of knowing that I'm carrying something that's going to embarrass me or make me look bad because I can't see myself. But she can and she loves me enough to tell me.
When one of our kids would be going through a sick spell, I used to tell them that they needed to get lots of sleep. That's because "when you're asleep, the good soldiers come out and fight those bad soldiers that are making you sick." Okay, so it's not exactly advanced microbiology, but it works for me. Actually, one of the amazing things about these bodies God has given us is how our body kicks into action when it's been invaded by an infection. All those antibodies go to work and those white blood cells start coming out in force. In fact, one way doctors look for infection is to check your blood for the elevated presence of white blood cells. They start multiplying fast when the "bad soldier" germs try to take you out.
We were between ministry engagements, and we took a short timeout in a picturesque mountain community in the Southeast. It's the oldest town in the area and its buildings make you feel like you've stepped back into the 1890s. It's got rambling Victorian mansions, soaring spires, it's got this classic railroad station. We stopped to ask a local man directions, and somewhere in the middle of his answer he made this observation about his town, "You know, this place is sort of like a movie set. There really isn't much here, but it sure does look pretty."
You see them in motel rooms, most public buildings, and you should see them on the ceilings in your house - smoke detectors. Those little plastic monitoring devices that sound an obnoxious alarm when there's smoke in the room. Just ask me; I proved it the day I left my English muffin in the toaster oven too long. The smoke detector did its job; a job that can actually save lives. You want an alarm to go off when there's smoke in your house, especially if it's warning you about something that could do major damage.
