October 3, 2024 - Speechless Times Four

     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.