*** Our dear Bro. Milton at age 75 experienced what it means to be absent from the body and present with the Lord yesterday at 11:30 a.m. Early Saturday morning I was awake at 2 a.m. wrestling with the urge to go to Louisiana. I finally decided to go so I got up and worked up my Sunday Bible study handout and then drove over to surprise the wife and to see Bro. Milton. I was not prepared for how I found him since the cancer had progressed so much just in the few weeks since I had seen him last. Thank you Lord for allowing me to see my dear brother in Christ and my dear brother in law one last time. His hospital bed was just a few feet from where he stood to pronounce us as husband and wife. They told me that he had recently said he hoped to hear his Lord say well done. I told someone in our local fellowship if Bro. Milton doesn't hear well done I might as well not even get in line. We do thank God for his life testimony of humility, simplicity, and faithfulness during the running of his race. And, we are so very thankful for all who have prayed for him and the family. May God be honored as we prepare this week to celebrate Bro. Milton's life.
Amen.
***
This is the blog I had previously prepared for today. Okay. It's hard for me to believe it but we have already burned through the first month of 2016, therefore, I bring you greetings on this
Monday, February 1, 2016. I see lots of people posting photos of idyllic looking houses in the deep deep snow. They may add a caption talking about wonderful memories from the past. I see the same photo and think about power outages, frozen pipes, roof damage, and transportation woes. I'm as much into escapism as the next fellow but knowledge is a serious impediment to getting on board. I'm certainly glad that many, especially children, enjoy snow related fun activities but there is always a downside to deal with. I didn't wake up this morning with a half empty state of mind but there are days when the half full just doesn't seem to make sense. Yes. I do remember the fun times we had as kids on those rare occasions that we had snow. We wore ourselves out playing in the stuff. Since Louisiana is not known for snow sledding, we certainly did not have the right kind of clothing to deal with the wet and icy landscape. The kids yearn for a snow day to be out of school. I most likely felt the same when I was a kid. Nowadays I think about the make up days and how far this will push out the end of the school year. We had us a really cool morning around these parts last Thursday. It got down to 30 degrees. I thought about pulling the covers over my head and just sleeping in. Yes. Contrary to what you may have heard I actually do know what sleeping in means. However, knowledge and reality came knock knock knocking on my door and I rolled myself out at 3:30 a.m. to get my half empty mindset prepared for another day. And, so it goes.
This is a crazy world folks. I read about the police in The Netherlands who kicked in the door of a lady's Amsterdam home because they could hear someone screaming. It turned out to be an opera singer practicing for her next concert. I don't know about you but I can easily see how that might happen. A would be smuggler on an international flight was arrested in Miami. They discovered that his fanny pack and his pants were filled up with illegal exotic birds. That reminds me of something said last week at the Gaither concert: Communicate like Jesus would, "Tweet unto others as you would have them tweet unto you." Waffle House has announced that many of its locations will offer reservations for the upcoming Valentines Day. It will be providing candlelit romantic dinners at a much lower cost than most restaurants. Talk about making a memory! Some folks in Naples, Florida recently had some party crashers at their home place. They were able to capture on video two black bear cubs bouncing around and having a ball on their trampoline in their backyard. Maybe those bears had read one too many Winnie the Pooh stories. Here's one that could only come out of California. It seems the coyotes in a certain area of Northern California have become overly aggressive in chasing cars. The current theory says they may be ingesting a particularly hallucinogenic mushroom that grows in that area. They thought one was heard barking out the lyrics to Rocky Mountain High. (That last part was not included in the official story.)
One of the most heard charges on the campaign trail is calling an opponent a flip flop to describe one who has changed his position on important issues. The actual accusation in the political realm dates back to 1890 when a candidate for City Attorney in New York City was directly charged with being a flip flop in his take on what to do about city corruption. Here's what Wiki-Pedia says: ~ A "flip-flop" (used mostly in the United States), U-turn (used in the United Kingdom, Ireland), or backflip (used in Australia and New Zealand) is a sudden real or apparent change of policy or opinion by a public official, sometimes while trying to claim that both positions are consistent with each other. Often it will occur during the period prior to or following an election in order to maximize the candidate's popularity. ~ Of course we hear all kinds of explanations as to why a person would change their stance. I believe perhaps President Obama was one of the first to say he had evolved on some issues. Others choose to deny the allegation as well as denouncing the alligator. It reminds me of that famous statement by the then Senator John Kerry, "I actually voted for that $87 billion dollar bill before I voted against it." Sad to say that in the current political climate that statement makes perfect sense. The late comedian George Burns summed it up pretty well, "Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair." Maybe tomorrow I will wake up with a brand new half full mindset. I hear you. Anything would be an improvement. Until then, may God bless us, one and all.
Amen. ....More later.
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