Had a truck wreck, but it's good

3/7/14 Friday

            I am finally getting over this illness. Still get tired easy and am weak physically. Lost about fifteen pounds. I don’t believe anything happens by accident and I know that in Job the devil had to ask God permission to afflict Job with disease and disaster so I must accept that God had a reason for me to be this sick for this long. Some of those reasons I will talk about later.

3/8/14 Saturday

            Whew. So much so fast but we are grateful for God’s hand in our lives. Had a wreck today. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been and that I give thanks to God for. Lately so many things are simply not happening regarding A-1 that I understand God has dried up the well and that He has a reason for doing so. I can’t reveal what the reason is but the Father’s discipline is seldom comfortable. A job did not come through this morning so I took Daniel home and then headed home myself. Traveling down business 20 and approaching the new overpass they built for Loop 250 I noticed a white pickup stop in the far right lane. “Nuts, what is he up to?” I wondered as I moved to the left lane. Speed limit is 70 in this part of the road but I started slowing down, unsure what was going on. Then the truck turned on his left turn signal and turned left right in front of me. Fortunately I was kind of on alert so I swerved as quickly as I could, almost running off the road and praying this guy would see me and stop. Nope. He never saw me and kept coming. I thought I might of missed him as the nose of my truck made it past but then BAM he hit the truck. That sent my truck sliding sideways and I found I was heading back across the highway towards the bridge columns that held the overpass. Steering hard to stay on the road I found the truck fishtailing the other way. Try as I might I could not straighten out and the truck ended up spinning around and the back end slammed into the guard rail. Whew!!! I came to a stop.

   

My truck       

 Seeing I was halfway on the road I quickly drove forward and got on the right shoulder. Then I got out and looked back. The truck I hit was still in the middle of the intersection. I was mad and yelled “What’s wrong with you” and started walking toward the truck I hit. A witness had run out and I saw him check on the driver of the truck I hit. Then he came towards me asking “Are you alright?”. “I’m fine” was my reply as I stormed to the truck I hit. When I saw it was an old man and his wife, guessing them to be near 80 years old, I quickly lost my steam. He reached out his hand and said “I’m ___-___” so I took his hand and introduced myself. “Are you ok” I asked and he said yes. It was cold and windy so we agreed to sit in our vehicles till the police came. I went back to my truck, looked at the damage, and drove back to where he was, closer to the impact site.

  The old mans truck         

 If I hadn’t swerved that old man and probably his wife would be dead now because I would have broadsided him right on the driver’s door. Praise God for His hand on the situation. As it was no one got hurt and the damage was not bad considering I was moving probably 65 MPH when we hit. Come to find out he was from out of town and had just left the house of the son of his friend, who had just died. He had called the son who came to the scene and informed me of this. I was so glad no one got hurt and glad I didn’t express any anger at the first contact.

            I called Cherie, who was in town to get

some things we need. She dropped everything and came to sit with me while we waited for the DPS trooper to show up and take the report. I am so blessed that God restored our marriage for she is truly a wonderful woman. When the DPS trooper came and asked me what happened I explained that it looked like the old man was unsure where to turn and perhaps confused. Actually that was the case because he was from a town hundreds of miles away and not at all familiar with this area. Besides the new overpass is not clearly marked when it comes to where to get on or off. He was cited and was able to drive off and I was able to drive home.

            We went to Rankin to visit one of the A-1 employees, who had been arrested for his third DUI. That makes it a felony with the possibility of a ten year sentence. Mondo had been doing so well and had sworn off drinking, evidently successfully until this event. He had driven to San Antonio, where he was given a car by his father. Somewhere in the process he had fallen off the wagon. As he drove through Rankin he was pulled over for flicking a cigarette butt out the window.

            I feel this was a Devine appointment. I had warned Mondo a few weeks prior that God was going to put His foot down and it would not be nice. Mondo tells me he has given his life to the Lord. I believe him. He said several times that he is tired, sick and tired, of the life he lives with drinking and all that goes with it. He was so grateful I came down to visit him in the jail. We talked of God, of life, and about what the future might hold. Mondo tells me he wants to serve God the rest of his life and I promised to help when I can. There are so many I see, who are destroying life with the drugs, drinking, and so many other things that come when you refuse to submit to the creator of the Universe. But the few who find the source of life and freedom are wonders to behold.

            Soon I suspect God will move me to a place I can spend more time helping others find that freedom.

Time to get back to blogging

3/3/14 Monday

            I have been sick for nearly a month, since February 6. This thing just won’t go away. It is a sore throat with fever and bloody sinuses. Went to the VA and got 7 days of antibiotics. When those ran out I went back and was told I did  not need any more so should gargle with salt water and tough it out. Tried that for two weeks and then Cherie caught it from me. “Heck with this” I said so we went to a health clinic in Big Spring. It cost us over $300 but we need to get well. Last night had another fever and woke up again to a soaking wet bed. Cherie had bought new pillows because the other ones were pretty much ruined from all the sweat generated during this. On top of all that my gout flared up with a vengeance. First one foot and then the other got bad. Felt like I had broken the bones in my feet when I tried to walk. Just getting to the bathroom was quite a challenge. Hopefully we are over it. I have to wonder why I got so sick for so long. Was God trying to get my attention? Did I have some sin in my life that would cause this? Or perhaps God just needed me to slow down. I don’t pretend to know. I know that all things 0work out to the good of those who love God and are called by Him so will accept that there is good that will come from this pain.

            There is so much that has gone on I must work to catch you up. The place on the interstate we have been working to purchase finally happened. It was rough going for a while. In fact we had just about given up hope that this vision we had for a future would ever materialize. I worked to let our friends and acquaintances know about the opportunity we saw here and asked if any would be willing to help for over a year. There was a mixed response, which was expected. Not everyone is in a position to invest in a startup business and even if they were it would be wrong to simply expect them to desire to get involved. That is not how it works and I knew that. But in the end God put this together. Right at the very end. I had toiled to get things together and had attracted some interest but when it came down to it the owner of the property was done being patient. A year earlier we had investors lined up but then the title was found to be “Cloudy” so much of that funding disappeared. Now we were told by the owner “You have until Friday or I will sell it to someone else”. That is when everything suddenly seemed to come together. When all is said and done we will say “Look what God did”.

Wrote this two months ago, never finished

1/6/14 Monday

"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

          Almost everyone is familiar with John 3.16,” For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It is wise to study the context of all scriptures for failing to do so could mean you miss some important points. I have watched the truth of this scripture happen many times, and it often brings great sadness. There are so many we have known who feel the need to hide what they do or have done. Like rats scrambling to dark holes when a light switch is turned on these people work hard to not allow others to know what they do. The saddest part of that is these are often church people, and some are even pastors. Don’t they know that everything done in darkness will come to the light? In Luke 12 we find Jesus saying this “ Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. . 2 "But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. 3 "Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

            It is interesting that Jesus, the Son of God who knows all things and will ultimately be the judge of us all, speaks of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees as a prelude to announcing that all things will be exposed, that there will be no secrets. The Pharisees were the religious leaders, the pastors of that day, the ones who taught and shepherded everyone regarding the things of God. In their minds they were all that, holy and even exceptionally better than everyone else. They were proud and with that pride came arrogance. There is a deception that comes with such self-righteous pride, a deception that blinds such people to their own heart. Can you imagine this? They had the Son of God walking and talking in their midst, performing miracles such as had never been heard of before. But Jesus constantly exposed their hypocrisy, and was a light in the midst of great darkness so these self-righteous, holy, educated, leaders of the people in all things Godly, decided to kill God’s Son.

            This is nothing new, because almost every prophet that God sent to warn His people that they were living wrong and because of that some bad things would happen if they did not change, was killed, beaten, ridiculed, and rejected. No one likes being told they were wrong, or at least very few people do. Personally I appreciate someone pointing out an issue in my life. This is because my life belongs to God and I understand that everything I do reflects on that. If I am doing something that will cause another to reject God, or despise Christians in general then I want to recognize and change that behavior. For one thing I understand that I will answer to God for every idle word I speak and that if my actions cause someone to turn their back on God then that person’s blood is on my hands.

            But it is important to look at the last part of Jesus’ words in John 3. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." This is the other side of that coin. If you are living a life that you know is good and correct then there is no shame, and nothing to hide. It is interesting to note that this person does not come to the light so that everyone can see how good he is. Nope, that is not a part of the equation at all. It says “So that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God”. There is no pride, no “look at me” allowed in true righteousness. When all is said and done we should recognize that even the ability to do good only comes through God’s grace and for God’s glory. We need to understand that pride is the root of all sin. God has no pleasure in pride Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD ; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished. Proverbs 16.5

It has been a zoo

1/6/14 Monday

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. Things have been a zoo lately. So much going on it is hard to keep up

"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21 "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

          Almost everyone is familiar with John 3.16,” For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  It is wise to study the context of all scriptures for failing to do so could mean you miss some important points. I have watched the truth of this scripture happen many times, and it often brings great sadness. There are so many we have known who feel the need to hide what they do or have done. Like rats scrambling to dark holes when a light switch is turned on these people work hard to not allow others to know what they do. The saddest part of that is these are often church people, and some are even pastors. Don’t they know that everything done in darkness will come to the light? In Luke 12 we find Jesus saying this “ Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. . 2 "But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. 3 "Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.”

            It is interesting that Jesus, the Son of God who knows all things and will ultimately be the judge of us all, speaks of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees as a prelude to announcing that all things will be exposed, that there will be no secrets. The Pharisees were the religious leaders, the pastors of that day, the ones who taught and shepherded everyone regarding the things of God. In their minds they were all that, holy and even exceptionally better than everyone else. They were proud and with that pride came arrogance. There is a deception that comes with such self-righteous pride, a deception that blinds such people to their own heart. Can you imagine this? They had the Son of God walking and talking in their midst, performing miracles such as had never been heard of before. But Jesus constantly exposed their hypocrisy, and was a light in the midst of great darkness so these self-righteous, holy, educated, leaders of the people in all things Godly, decided to kill God’s Son.

            This is nothing new, because almost every prophet that God sent to warn His people that they were living wrong and because of that some bad things would happen if they did not change, was killed, beaten, ridiculed, and rejected. No one likes being told they were wrong, or at least very few people do. Personally I appreciate someone pointing out an issue in my life. This is because my life belongs to God and I understand that everything I do reflects on that. If I am doing something that will cause another to reject God, or despise Christians in general then I want to recognize and change that behavior. For one thing I understand that I will answer to God for every idle word I speak and that if my actions cause someone to turn their back on God then that person’s blood is on my hands.

            But it is important to look at the last part of Jesus’ words in John 3. “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." This is the other side of that coin. If you are living a life that you know is good and correct then there is no shame, and nothing to hide. It is interesting to note that this person does not come to the light so that everyone can see how good he is. Nope, that is not a part of the equation at all. It says “So that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God”. There is no pride, no “look at me” allowed in true righteousness. When all is said and done we should recognize that even the ability to do good only comes through God’s grace and for God’s glory. We need to understand that pride is the root of all sin. God has no pleasure in pride Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD ; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished. Proverbs 16.5