Driving Through The Fog

 

I was traveling out of town on a freeway when the weather turned bad and fog began to limit visibility. Traffic slowed and eventually became stop and go.  I decided to get off the freeway and exited behind a car that had a number plate that was outlined by a purple neon light. I couldn’t see very well but I could see those purple lights. As I was driving slowly through that fog I began thinking about the past five months.

 

A transition team I had been a part of was charged to find a new senior pastor for our church.  I was lamenting all that time spent in confusion and seeking direction. I now realized that this had been a process. It wasn’t about finding a new pastor it was about being humble and obedient to God.  Like the church at Ephesus, we had to be reminded, “You have forsaken your first love.”

 

  I followed that car for an hour and a half. It was as if God was using the neor light to say, “you need me, keep your eyes on me and I will lead you one step at a time.” The fog lifted and the car in front slowed to turn back onto the freeway. It was then I drew close enough to see the words at the bottom of the number plate. It read, “Jesus Loves You.”

 

Frank Burns

Dallas Texas

Along Life's Way                        Humor with a message

20 "The two most important days of your life is the day you are born and the day you find out why."

Mark Twain

A Mother's Prayer

 

 

Week of March 15th

 

My daughter Sandy was on her way back to college after a weekend home. About 45 minutes since she left our home, I was on the phone talking to a friend. I suddenly felt a strong prompting to pray for my daughter's safety.

"Gotta go! Gotta go! "I told my friend, "Call you later," I said as a hung up.

I dropped to my knees and asked God to protect her and keep her safe. I prayed for a hedge of protection around her. I added, "God I don't what is happening, or about to happen, but you do. Protect her please."

After Sandy arrived at Taylor University she called me. "Mom, we had a huge tire blowout on I-94,(the busy interstate between Detroit and Chicago). "We were all over the highway in heavy traffic. I didn't think we were going to make it.

I asked her when that happened and It was when God prompted me to pray for her safety.

God is so faithful. I thanked the Lord and praised him for keeping my daughter and friend safe.

Erika Lewis                                                                                                                                 

 Detroit, MI

A Frozen Coal Car

Week of March 1

 

In the fall following graduation from high school my best friend since the fifth grade and I decided to climb Mt. Washington in New Hampshire.

 

We didn't have any plans beyond high school and were just having fun one day at a time. Then the North Koreans attacked the South Koreans drawing the US into the "conflict."

 

I went to work part time in my step dad's appliance store and my friend enrolled in a post graduate high school program.

 

Christmas week I called my friend and asked if he would help me unload a frozen coal car for my step dad. The rail car was on a siding and had to be unloaded that day. We had no idea the task we were facing together.

 

We had to build small fires under the car to help thaw out its contents. While the fires burned we stood on top of the coal and chopped away with crow bars. It was back breaking labor.

 

By lunch we were exhauster and very little coal had made it down the shoot and into the empty bin. We were both covered with coal dust. We left dark finger prints on our sandwiches.

 

We both decided that day that we didn't want to be day laborers. I enrolled at Wentworth Institute and my friend went to college the following year.

 

I became an engineer with General Electric and my friend was heading a community foundation in Connecticut. He called me one day and said he had hired an assistant  who grew up in a housing project. He asked him what motivated him to leave the project life and obtain two degrees from a university.

 

” It was my uncle. He  asked me to help him unload a frozen coal car. That day I decided to make something out of my life." Go Figure.

 

I haven't seen a manual for dads (or uncles) that says to motivate young men, have them empty a  railroad car full of frozen coal.

 

Come to think of it, Solomon provided guidance when he said: " All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." (Proverbs 14:23)

 

Ken Maymon

Milford, NH

A Special Valentine

A SPECIAL VALENTINE

 

On June 11, 2011 God called Carl Anderson home after many years of illnesses and cardio events including a near death experience.

 

A few days after he died, Lyn, his wife for 35 years, receive a mailing from the local hospice. It was a printed message entitled, “The Colors of Honor." Lyn explained the message this way:

 

Scarlet Red:  you are deep in grief and in denial, “this can’t be true.”

 

Indigo Blue:  reality sets in, you are depressed and you realize your loss in permanent.

 

Soothing Lavender: This is when memories bring you comfort instead of pain.

 

 

A friend from work called and invited her to lunch for Valentine’s Day.  When Lyn arrived at the restaurant she couldn’t believe what happened next. Her friend handed her a Lavender rose and a message from Carl.  

(Carl had phoned the friend  just before he died. He told her what he wanted to say in the letter and asked her to bring Lyn a rose. He did not specify the color.)

 

The letter read:

 

“I know I am not here with you this Valentine’s day since I am in Heaven with our Father.

 

“My love for you is eternal and even though I am not here in the flesh, I will always be by your side in Spirit.

 

“Please remember the love we have shared, along with the laughter and joy. I wish I had more time with you. I want you to know that I will always love you and thank you for being my best friend and my wife all these years we have spent together.

 

“I will be waiting for you.

 

“Love, Your Husband."

 

 Adapted from Go Figure America

Shared by Lyn Anderson

Three Lakes Wisconsin

 

Monster Tornado

 

 

May 23, 2013 will long be remembered in Moore, Oklahoma as the day when 17 square miles of this city were blown apart by a Force 5 Tornado packing winds of up to 200 miles an hour.

 

The devastation was a mile wide and nearly 17 miles long. “It is amazing anyone survived this,” the Mayor said. Twenty four didn’t including nine children seven of whom perished in an older elementary school which was completely destroyed. Hundreds of people were injured.

 

But scores of children and their teachers did emerge from the wreckage of Plaza Tower Elementary. Several teachers were lying on top of numerous small children as the horrific winds tore through the school.

 

First responders, digging with their hands, were pulling children from the wreckage and handing them to arriving parents and friends who formed a makeshift bucket brigade.

 

One dazed teacher standing outside the debris told a television reporter, “I laid on top of four children huddled in a bathroom. One boy said, ‘are we going to die with you today.’ I shouted "No one is going to die.”

 

She paused and told her interviewer, “I did something I guess I’m not suppose to do as a teacher, I prayed-Lord don’t take these children today.”

 

Nurses at one hospital in the path of the tornado delayed labor for one expectant mother and stayed with her throughout the storm. They transferred her to an undamaged hospital where she safely delivered an eight-pound boy.

 

The medical staff immediately nicknamed the baby Twister. But his grateful mother had the last word and called him Emanuel, which means God with us.

 

From media reports

Moore, Ok.

Baby Catapulted out of van

Week of January 4,2015

                                                      "Watch Out"

 

We are driving home from lunch after church in a driving rain.  As usual, I’m sitting in the back seat of our van beside our six-month old baby, Rachel. She is strapped in her rear facing car seat and is having a serious crying episode.

 

After several minutes of trying to comfort her, I realize that she has a very soiled diaper. No wonder she is screaming. I said to my husband, Bob, who is driving,

 

“Brace Yourself, I’m taking her out of her car seat for a minute to change her diaper.”

 

I place her on the carpeted floor and change her diaper and remove her stained pants. I think I was still leaning over tying the dirty items in a Publix plastic bag when I hear Bob yell, “WATCH Out!”

 

Our van is T-boned, hit right in the back seat driver's side door. The impact busts out the window beside me and sends our van spinning in the middle of the intersection (Bahia Vista and McIntosh. Rd.)

“Oh my God,” we are in a wreck and Rachael is not in her car seat. Glass is raining over both of us.

 

 All I see is little Rachael in mid-air seemingly suspended there for a moment, her bright blue eyes looking right into mine. And then woosh…she sails out the window…floating like a frisbee through the rain…across that intersection landing in a puddle, on her bottom, screaming and crying.

 

I am yelling,, “my  baby, my baby.” My sweet Bob turns around to see about us only to find me pinned in my seat frantically pointing across the road screaming, “Go get her, please. Go get her.”

 

A kind man in a light blue sweater, who sees the accident, gets out of his car to help. He cautions about  not picking her up. Try telling a daddy he can’t pick up his crying  baby who has been thrown 30 feet, landing  inches from the metal base of  a utility pole.

 

Bob says he knew she was “whole” when he put his hands under her to lift her into his arms. The kind man in the blue sweater,  holds a poncho from sea world over Bob and baby and walks them back as I crawl over the front seat and out of the van.

 

The ambulance arrives with the EMT’s who see our baby bleeding from the mouth. They immediately strap her on a back board and take us all to Sarasota Memorial Hospital. Several tests are made while we wait three hours for the storm to pass so that Bay Flight can air lift her to All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg.  Only a patient and flight crew can go in the helicopter. Our pastor drives us to St. Pete.

There are four days of MRI’s, CT scans and other tests. Everyone is amazed there are no broken bones, or internal hemorrhaging.

 

The bleeding from her mouth turned out to be a small glass cut. Doctors and specialist kept coming in and out of Rachel’s room, all amazed and totally not accepting that she is really ok. They all keep telling us that when someone is thrown from a spinning vehicle the ending is always severe injury or death.

 

Finally everyone agrees. this is a miracle.

Bob and I are so thankful that our baby was not seriously injured and following checkups have confirmed she is 100% fine. She truly was touched by an angel.

 

Lesson learned: Don't ever unbuckle your child while

the vehicle is moving.

 

Our baby is now teenager and we look at every day as a true gift. Thank you for reading Rachel’s story and pass it on. Choose to live your life every day to the fullest and with gratitude.  

 

Dundie Crisp                                                                                                                                   

Sarasota, Fl