Weather-wise, it was one of those wild, late-winter days. We'd been running around in short sleeves with 75-degree temperatures at 3:00 in the afternoon. Spring is here! Four hours later, we were wearing heavy coats and gloves; the temperature had dropped 40 degrees! Boo! Winter's back! And needless to say, the dramatic change did not come without our weather alert radio going off and every TV and radio station in the area sounding the warning. Severe thunderstorm warning! Tornado watch! We never got a tornado, but we did get attacked by a deluge of rain, lightning, and merciless hail. Our house just happens to have a room with all concrete block with no windows. It's good to have that room. It's good to have a safe place to go when, as the song says, "The weather outside is frightful."
A new staff couple had just arrived with their U-Haul truck, moving to our area from the Southwest. And a bunch of us were there to meet them and help them move into their apartment. Our four-year-old grandson insisted on joining the moving crew. I was inside the truck, handing out items as helpers came to get some more, and no one made more trips than that youngest mover there. Now, I didn't give him the couch to carry, or the dresser or the TV set. I gave him small boxes, small appliances, and lighter objects to carry. There's only so much a four-year-old can handle. Or even someone who's a lot more than four years old - like me, for example.
Even though I was really busy speaking at a conference, I was blessed with a beautiful mountain cabin as my accommodation while I was there. The best time, and about the only time I could enjoy it, was early in the morning. This cabin has a large porch from which you can see majestic forest views and an awe-inspiring tapestry of green mountains and deep valleys. As I stepped out onto that porch one morning, the scenery had undergone a significant makeover. The fog was winning. I watched as these large clouds of fog billowed up. First they filled the valley below and then steadily rising to totally obscure the mountains. It looked almost as if the mountains were being consumed by the fog. So, the morning light from the sun that should have been illuminating the area by that time was nowhere to be seen. Well, briefly. You know what happened. The sun continued to rise behind that conquering fog, and in a short time, that fog began to quickly shrink and pretty soon totally disappear.
My friend called me not long ago to pray for his Mom. During some medical tests, the doctor discovered something he didn't like - a large growth in her stomach. My friend said, "They haven't used the 'C' word yet. They wanted to take some more tests first." Now they've said the "C" word; the word all of us dread hearing from a doctor. You know - cancer. We know what that word can mean.
Our friend Steve has been involved with horses most of his life. He's even owned a couple of champions. But one day at the barn, in one moment of carelessness, Steve allowed himself to get in what horse lovers know as the "kill zone"; that area behind a horse where they can kick you with those potentially deadly hooves. In one life-changing moment, Steve was kicked in the leg, and it shattered his bones. Even though he was in excruciating pain, he managed to drag himself to the highway near his house where he pulled himself up and began waving for help. Car after car just drove right on past this seriously injured man - even his friends and neighbors. They didn't know he was hurting. They thought he was just waving "Hi!"
I guess you could call it a "tale of two cities." It was during the Civil War. The Confederate Army had again invaded the North. The Confederate General came to Hagerstown, Maryland, and he threatened to burn the town unless they came up with a $20,000 ransom. A local businessman rallied the townspeople and he collected the ransom. Hagerstown was spared. Then the Confederate forces moved up to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and they made the same demand. Those folks didn't come up with the ransom. Chambersburg was burned to the ground.
They were just a young fire-fighting crew, assigned to work on a relatively small brush fire in Washington State. No one could have imagined what was about to happen. Seemingly timid fires suddenly roared to life and then out of control. In the end, 14 firefighters had to pin their hopes on those tinfoil shelters designed to be the last line of protection in a firetrap. Ultimately, four young firefighters died in the fire that day. They had tried to escape the fire by heading for a nearby road. Apparently, their superiors had not advised them that it was a dead-end road.
The dam broke. Those are words no one wants to hear if they live downriver from a dam. But that's exactly what happened near some small towns in southeast Missouri. It was just before daybreak when a dam on Taum Sauk Lake collapsed, sending a billion-gallon torrent of water streaming down the mountain and washing away homes and vehicles. When inspectors began to probe the reason for the collapse, they were dumbfounded by what they discovered. Instead of the granite that they had assumed for decades was the main material keeping the water in the reservoir, they found that the broken portion appeared to consist entirely of just soil and small rock. The breach occurred when an automated system mistakenly pumped too much water into the reservoir. But the reason for the disaster was a dam that was made of material that just couldn't stand the pressure.
So how many diets have you been on in your life? You lost count? Me, too. I think I must have gone on my first diet when I was about six months old. If you're one of those over-blessed people who can eat anything you want and never gain weight, oh fine! Just keep it to yourself and have some sympathy for the rest of us. But if you've been on a diet, then you know what it's like to blow a diet. You've been eating just celery and tofu for the past couple of weeks, and you're getting lighter. Then somebody offers you a French fry. You succumb. Then you say, "Oh well, I might as well eat all the French fries!" Then you feel so bad about it, you say, "What's the use, I might as well wash it down with a milk shake while I'm at it!" An hour later, you're thinking, "If I've blown it this bad, I might as well order pizza too...with extra cheese and extra pepperoni, of course!"
This is going to be a tough Christmas for my friend Rob. This will be his first Christmas without the love of his life. She died just a few weeks ago. He's like a lot of people whose Christmas joy is bittersweet. I came very close to losing the love of my life, and I am very grateful God gave her back to me. But Christmas makes us think about the loves that we've lost - which can lead us to the greatest love of all.
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