It’s amazing how the Lord can take something small and turn it into much more.
     Jesus did that with a young lad’s lunch to feed a multitude.
     My last blog was about a one-toothed woman at Burger King.  I stopped by there four more times, hoping to give her more than the $1.00 that started this thing, but to no avail.
     On the fifth time success.  Well, kind of.  When I got there about lunchtime, there she was. 
     But there was a problem.  There were two workers about the same age, the same body size, and the same hair color.  I wasn’t sure which lady she was.
     I mean, it wasn’t like I could ask both of them, “Would you ladies smile for me?”
     I have come to believe that the Lord had more plans to use a dollar and a one-toothed lady to do more than I thought at the time.  And more than I imagined when I wrote the last blog, sharing what I intend to do over the next few weeks.
     I had lunch today with my sister, Jan, who was in Cynthiana because she couldn’t get home to Hindman due to the weather.
     Jan shared with me a story that moved my heart.
     There’s a family that Jan knew who had a family member who had an illness that required them to travel a long distance for treatment.  This family couldn’t afford to stay in the city where the treatment was, though it would have been far better for the patient.  So, this family traveled back and forth.
     Jan shared with me about another person who heard their story and had read the last blog.  This person was moved to give enough money for this family to stay at least a couple of days.
     Jan then shared about another family that was considering matching the gift. 
     Before lunch was over it looked like one dollar to a one-toothed lady had turned into possibly several hundred-fold, enabling this family to stay about a week if they need to do so. 
     I should never doubt the power of our Lord.  Nor should I doubt doing what the Holy Spirit nudges me to do.
     I am looking forward to seeing what the Lord still has up His sleeve to use a one-dollar bill and a one-toothed lady.  I will let you know as I know.
 
     On a second note.  My Beaver squirrels’ prediction of a bad winter has been fully verified.  We are enduring the worst winter in Kentucky in several years.  We are facing more snow and dangerously cold weather this week.
     How remarkable is God’s creation.
      If only those squirrels could predict the stock market!

     Over the last two years I have written some blogs that no one but me ever read.  Most of the time if there was something in the blogs that I thought might be construed differently than my intent, I usually either deleted it or didn’t post it.
     This one goes against that grain.  If you take it differently than my intent, it’ll just have to be that way.
     One of the principles that I live by is “don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”  That is one of the things that Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount.  I try to live that way personally and we try to do that as a church, with no one except the leaders who count the offering knowing what anyone gives, including me.
     But I got the nudge to share this with you.  I think I know why.
     I was on the way to Cynthiana on Wednesday after having lunch.  A large glass of water at lunch meant that a stop in Georgetown was necessary.
     I stopped at a fast-food restaurant.  I’ve always believed that it was unfair to use someone’s facilities without buying something, so I thought that I would top off lunch with a cup of ice cream.  I am sure that stuns most of you.
     The lady behind the counter rang up my ice cream.  It came to $1.06.  I reached in my pocket and felt no change, so I handed the lady two $1.00 bills.
     That’s when things out of the ordinary began.  This 50ish lady looks up at me (she was shorter than I am).  I can see only one lower tooth, the only tooth that I think she has.  
     She pushes one of the two $1.00 bills back towards me, reaches into her pocket, and she says to me, “I have some change.  I’ll pay the six cents.”
     I have shared several times in these blogs that I am not a very good receiver, but this was one that there was no way that I was going to be on the receiving end.
     I slid the dollar bill back to her and said, “Why don’t you just keep the dollar?”
     The look on her face was a look that I wish that I could express to you in words. 
     I smiled at her, took my cup of ice cream, and headed to Cynthiana.
     As is obvious by me writing a blog sometime later, the encounter with the one-toothed lady wasn’t over, at least in my heart.  As I neared Cynthiana I wished that I had done something differently, far more than one dollar that was on the counter.
     As I headed back home a few hours later, I stopped by to see if the lady was still at work.  I stopped again the next day at lunch, hoping the lady would be working.  Since then I have stopped a third time.
     As you could guess, I intended to give her something that was more than before.  
     Obviously, my concern about writing this blog is that I wouldn’t want to imply, nor anyone to think, that I was such a good person.
     Here is the “why” that I think I got the nudge to write this.  
     I have had a heart for the working poor for most of my adult life.  My dad came from a very poor family.   
     Lots of days I encounter, as do many of you, folks on their journey who have a more difficult financial journey than I do.  I am not the guy who gives to the homeless person standing with a sign on the street corner.   The nudge from the Lord would almost have to be audible.
     But what if I listened more to the Spirit to help someone working at Burger King like this lady?  It might bless my day, as well as their day.
     Though I started this on Friday, I finished it over the weekend, pondering some way to respond going forward. 
      I have decided to set aside an amount that I am going to use to bless some folks who are working in a service-related job, most likely a server in a restaurant or a clerk and bless them with something out of the ordinary, beyond a normal tip.
     Over the next few weeks I intend to do that 10 times, as the Holy Spirit nudges me.
     I invite you to consider doing the same thing.
     If you choose to do so and something special happens, I’d love to hear about it.
     The one-toothed little lady might just have a lasting effect.   Hopefully we can, too.

     For the first time in a couple of months, last evening I got the nudge.  I have committed to not writing except when I sense the nudge of the Spirit.  I finally sensed that again.
     Yesterday I met a new soulmate.  Not in the way we usually think of it, of course.  Maybe the better term would be a new shipmate because we are on the same ship. 
     I was at the warehouse yesterday afternoon when a manufacturer’s rep came for a scheduled meeting with me.  We had some products that had been damaged and he was to process the return. 
     We spent maybe 10-15 minutes on the return and another hour or more on what mattered.
     I will call him DK.  He’s 20 years to my younger.  He has a family and two teens.  He looks good, but he has been through a lot. 
     I wasn’t sure that he was the one I had heard about, so I asked him, “How are things going for you?”  “Good, he said.  “How about you?”
     Then I asked him, “How is your health?”  That was intended to open the door. 
     “I’m doing as well as could be expected,” was his reply.  Then he admitted what I thought was the case.  “I have multiple myeloma.”
     DK was diagnosed six years ago after having some extreme pain.  He had a stem cell transplant and has been on a chemotherapy pill daily for three weeks out of four since then.
     If he was in the Cancer Center getting treatment, I couldn’t say that I was the healthiest looking person there.   20 years might have something to do with that.
     We shared our individual stories on treatments, fatigue, hope, and reality.  He so wants to see his kids grow up.  I wasn’t far from his age when I first had cancer over 20 years ago.  I understood just how he felt.
     Like other cancers, multiple myeloma affects people differently.  Honestly, he and I are fortunate ones.
     I hadn’t thought about it until after we had met, but DK is the first multiple myeloma patient that I have known personally.   I had seen some other patients at Mayo Clinic, and I have heard of others who have myeloma, but he’s the first person I actually know who has the same disease.
     Our sharing was open and free with each other.  He has been treated locally.  It was obvious that I knew more about the disease.  Mayo gets credit for that. 
     I worked hard not to imply anything that might be construed as critical of any care that he had received.  It is apparent that he is doing well.
     Being the ponderer that I am, I have mulled over in my mind my time with DK a lot in the last 24 hours.  Here are some takeaways for me.
     It’s a very hard thing when you are able to see some possibilities, both positive and negative, and can’t cross those bridges.  I must leave his care to those who have been successful thus far, while at the same time hoping to get him some more insight.
     As we were sharing together this thought came to me.  Maybe it was the nudge of the Spirit.  If he would like to at some point, I invited him to go with me to Mayo.  I will be stunned if someday that doesn’t happen.  
     A second takeaway was how quickly we became friends.  I didn’t ask if he was a believer, but that wasn’t the critical issue at this point.  I have a heart for DK and his family.   He jumped on my prayer list rather quickly.
     The third takeaway is why I am writing after such a long pause.  I sent him an email, thanking him for coming and how much I enjoyed the privilege to get to know him.  Let me share with you part of the email that he sent back:
     “I wanted to respond and tell you that I also enjoyed our time and it was really helpful just talking about the process with someone who was going through the same thing.  You can talk to a lot of people, but it’s different when the other person can really relate.”
     DK is correct, isn’t he?  It is different when you share with someone whom you know who knows. 
     As shipmates, we have both found that sometimes the water is pretty rough.  Sometimes it is like you are in a storm and the sun can’t be seen.  Sometimes the sun shines, the winds die down, and the water is calm.  But with multiple myeloma you’re never off the ship.
     As I read his email, I couldn’t help but think of the value of the church.  Paul says that we are to come alongside of others to comfort them with the same comfort that God has given to us. 
     There is so much as believers with which we can relate.  We are all sinners, saved by grace.   None of us is worthy.  All of us have struggles.
     And then sometimes by the grace that God gave us in one of life’s struggles, we are able to come alongside of someone who is in the same struggle and take them by the hand.
      And it helps.  It really helps when we know that they know what we are going through.
     Thanks, DK, for bringing meaning and purpose to yesterday.  And maybe a touch of hope for both of us.