I predict that this will be a colder than normal winter. I haven’t heard that from the weather folks on TV. I haven’t checked the Farmers Almanac. I base my prediction on one thing:
The Beaver squirrels. For the last two months they have been going crazy.
We have at least six hickory trees in our yard. In the previous four years that we have lived here I have fretted each fall because of the number of hickory nuts and shells that have fallen from those trees. The grass hardly grows under one of the trees because of the nuts. I have scooped up wheelbarrow loads of them.
But not this year. I have seen only two hickory nuts this fall on the ground.
In the past two months we have seen the residue of the cracked-opened shells of the nuts so thick on the driveway that it looked like it was a different color.
So, I am predicting a cold winter. I guess that we will see.
One evening recently I drove home after dark. The full moon was stunning.
A couple of days ago Teresa and I took a short boat ride on Beaver Lake. The water was like a piece of glass and a few of the trees were beginning to turn.
God’s creation is an amazing thing.
It never ceases to amaze me that the people who are considered to be the smartest are actually foolish.
Paul writes in Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
How can anyone be so foolish to think that all this just happened or evolved from an amoeba?
As I was glancing at the full moon, while trying to keep my eyes on the road, I couldn’t help but think of what heaven must be like. If this world has amazing splendor, I can’t imagine what splendor awaits us in heaven.
Until then, I will enjoy a moonlit night, the beauty of fall, and wait to see if the squirrels actually do know what is coming.

I wrote most of this Saturday evening, thinking I might include it in today’s sermon.   But as you will see, it ended up being longer than a sermon could bear.  

I have shared in recent weeks that some of our vendors are from India and are zealous about their faith.  Zealousness doesn’t equal truth in religion, in politics, nor a high school student’s response on a Scott Emmon’s math exam.  

On Thursday I entered a distributor’s warehouse and I could sense that something was amiss.  The owner and his immediate family were back in India seeing his extended family.  While there his wife, who is about 40 years old, had a stroke and then a second stroke.  She is in a coma in the ICU unit.  Their family doesn’t know if she will live or die.  

I texted the owner and told him that I was told the news and that I was praying for his wife and for him.  

I got an almost immediate response from him: “Thank you, brother.  Please pray.”  

That was from a Hindu.

I headed to the next vendor who is a competitor of the first vendor.   

Two brothers own this business.  One is a zealous Hindu.  I rarely see him without the bindi (dot) on his forehead.  The second brother I have never seen with any sign of the Hindu faith.

The “non-practicing” brother comes out and I asked if they knew the other vendor and his wife’s situation.  He tells me that his wife and her family are close and they know the situation.  I told him that I was praying for her.

A few weeks ago I shared in a blog that we had received some items from this second vendor for which we had not been charged because of a new software that they were using.  Up to that point, I was the only customer who had told them of the software problem.

I then explained that once again we had received items for which we had not been charged and had been charged for items which we had not received.  I had in a grocery cart about $350 of items that we had received for which we had not been charged.

At this point he becomes extremely agitated, not with me, but with his employees.  
He turns to me and says, “July, August, September, and now October that we have had this new system and you are the only customer who has shared this with us.”

He then looks at one of his employees and says, “Look at what he received that he wasn’t charged for.”  He asks me, “Was it last week?”

I said, “No, last week I was at the Mayo Clinic.”

He turns to me and asks, “Mayo Clinic?”  I said, “Yes, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.”

At this point he knows it could be serious.   “Why did you go to Mayo Clinic?”  

“I have been going there the last 18 months.  I have had three cancers.”

The tone of the conversation shifts dramatically.  

He says to me, “So the chemotherapy is working.”  I said, “The chemotherapy and the hand of God.”

This man then says to me, “I believe there is a God, but I don’t believe that He is involved in this world.”

And then he paused and said, “Until I meet a man like you.”  The implication was that if you’ve had three cancers and you are doing as well as you are, then there must be something to it.

Kind of like Peter and John before the Sanhedrin.  Luke writes in Acts 4: 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.

He then said to me, “I believe death will be better.”

At this point I said to him, “You know I am a pastor and you know what I believe.”  And I pulled out that verse that you are probably tired of hearing from me.   You may have memorized it without intending to do so.

I said, “There is a verse in the Bible that I live by.  Yes, death will be better.   The verse is: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

I came back to the whole issue where we started.  I said, “Heaven will be gain for me, but until then I must live a life that does the right thing.  That’s why I tell you when mistakes are made in your favor.”

I left their business that day with a different relationship with the man than I previously had.  I invite you to pray with me for him.

I have this crazy belief that has no Biblical proof text.  I don’t think it happens in every believer’s life, but I believe it does for some of God’s saints.

I believe that some folks God calls home when their death will bring more people to Jesus than the rest of their life will.  

Years ago those of us old enough to remember, remember how John Lindgren died.   As a TV anchor we literally watched him fight cancer until Jesus called him home.  And I believe his death brought more people to Jesus than if had he stayed in this world.

I preached on Stephen this morning.  It sure looks to me that Stephen would be an example of that possibility.  The old saying that “the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church” isn’t just a trite saying.

Because of Stephen’s death the Christians in Jerusalem were scattered to Judea and Samaria and eventually the uttermost parts of the earth.

In some sense we are recipients of the impact of Stephen’s death.

Teresa and I met with a dear saint yesterday afternoon with whom we have become close because she started reading the blogs.  She encouraged me during a difficult time in my life.  Recently, she has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.  She knew that I understood when I took her hand and prayed for her.

Through God’s grace, I believe that one of the reasons that God has thus far allowed me to stay in this world is because of the impact that the blogs have had on some others.  

Maybe I’d better get back to writing more frequently.  I’d still prefer that the gain doesn’t come anytime soon.

     I have been mulling over this theme in my mind for 5-6 days, but for some reason I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to write it today.  It may be time sensitive for some reason or some person.
     Last week I met with my local oncologist who oversees the treatment plan from Mayo.  This doctor is a believer and has seen the blessings that I have experienced from the hand of God in the past 18 months.
     Like I do, he attributes my healing to the combination of thermotherapy and the power of God.
     I shared with him that I have somehow become a source of hope for other multiple myeloma patients, as well as other cancer patients.  I think that is one of the reasons the Lord encouraged me to write these blogs, though I had no thought of that happening.
     It wasn’t long before our conversation shifted to our “blessed hope” that is found in Christ Jesus.  My doc said something that has stuck in my mind since our conversation.   He said, “In 50 years all the patients who have myeloma right now will have died.  Healing in this life won’t really matter then.”
     He is right.  Though I may be a source of hope for people who are dealing with myeloma or some other illness now, I ought to be a source of a greater hope for what ultimately matters—spending eternity with Jesus through resurrection healing.
     Every follower of Jesus ought to be a source of that hope for others.
     More than once in these blogs I have shared Paul’s great words of hope, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
     That is our hope.   Physical healing is a marvelous blessing.  I enjoy living in this world.  But our time in this world is not even a blink of an eye in the next life. 

     I am sitting in the lobby of a Comfort Inn in Columbia, TN, as I write this blog.  It might be one of the last places where you might expect to find me.  I’ll give you the reason in a bit.
     It’s been a couple of weeks or so since I have written a blog.  Speechless seems to be the operative word since then.
     It started more than two weeks ago on Sunday morning when at the close of worship our Elders’ Chair, Mike Carter, came forward with an announcement.   This time of year is Pastor Appreciation, which usually goes by without much notice, except for a card or two.
     Mike said that there was something the church had wanted to do for us for some time.  The double doors of the Worship Center that open to the parking lot were opened and in drove Rich Overmyer on a golf cart. 
     When things looked far grimmer last year than they do now I had looked for a golf cart to make the “trip” to the lake easier for me and for Teresa.  With what we paid for the repairs on our house, I hadn’t given a golf cart a second thought this year.
     I was speechless, then and now.  Somehow a thank you that morning, a card of thanks, expressing thanks in the Newsbreak, and now in a blog just do not seem to be enough. 
     The love of folks moved my heart.  It’s a marvelous thing to be loved as a pastor.
 
     Speechless #2 came early this week when we went back to Mayo Clinic for our six-month check-up.  The initial blood work in Lexington looked positive, which made us hopeful.
     Dr. Leung, who has overseen my care, is a man we have gotten to know and love in the past almost two years.  He sat down with us and looked over the blood work.  One test wasn’t back yet, but he was elated with where I am.
     He talked about the good results brought on by the chemotherapy treatments.  I concurred and added along with the touch of God.
     I am an anomaly to him.  The science says one thing, but not what he usually sees.  Sometimes people with unusual intelligence have difficulty seeing anything beyond the science.  But he knows that I am an unusual case so far when it comes to multiple myeloma.
     Teresa then hands me her phone and I play for him a video of me water skiing last month.  He was the doctor who told me that I would never and should never water ski again.  He was speechless.  The look on his face was priceless.
     He did tell us that the protocol for myeloma patients continues to evolve.  We had two consecutive “MRD” negatives from the bone marrow biopsies, but both of those were within six months of each other.   The new protocol is that the space between them needs to be a full year.  That means that when I return to Mayo in the spring of 2025 the results of the bone marrow biopsy will be extremely vital.
     Until then I will live as we have.  We will take each day as it comes and rejoice and be glad in it.
 
     Speechless #3 comes as a part of the reason that we are where we are this morning.  Several weeks ago our good friends, Dave and Missy Cheeks, agreed to go to a concert with us.  Going to a concert is enough of a stretch for us, but going to a concert over four hours a way should make anyone who knows me speechless.
     It was a Crystal Gayle concert.  The four of us love her music, which includes songs that we have sung in worship like “Thank You Jesus for the Blood Applied” and “I Speak Jesus.”
     The trip was more than going to a concert.  Missy’s mom had passed into the arms of Jesus earlier this year and the four of us simply wanted some time together.
     The church where the concert was held is a Pentecostal Church and Charity has that leaning in her background.  I have told Teresa for 40 years that the Lord was going to give her “the gift” someday.  I told her that this might just be the venue.
To add to that, the night before we left, Missy had a dream that the four of us got “the gift” at the concert.
     Well, let’s just say that we are “the gift speechless” after the concert, just in case some of you were wondering or worried.   Maybe it will happen on the ride home.
 
     Speechless #4 has been brought on mostly by my actions.  If you were in worship last Sunday, you know that I was fighting a cold.  I had worked way too much to get ready to go to Rochester and I was feeling the results on Sunday.
     The quick trip to Mayo on Sunday didn’t help, and the late-night drive on Monday until we stopped must have pushed me over the edge.
     By the time we got home on Tuesday I was considerably worse.  I headed to the clinic.  It isn’t Covid.  Just a terrible cold.
     The concert was outdoors and I tried not to sing very much, but if I had to preach this morning, you might be thrilled, because I’d pretty much be speechless.       I guess we will see between now and Sunday!
     I must admit, as I stood last evening singing, there were moments when I felt something of what it will be to stand around the throne of God singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy worthy is the Lamb.”  I look forward to that day coming.
     I pretty sure that will be Speechless #5.