One day, when I was a 14-year-old high school freshman, school was dismissed early for a teachers’ meeting. I conveniently neglected to tell my parents about the change and arranged to bring my girlfriend over to my house. We weren’t planning to study.
As we were going up the steps, my neighbor, Mrs. Nolan, poked her head out of a window and said, “You’re home awfully early, Jerome.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, improvising a lame story about how we had planned to review algebra problems.
“Does your mother know you’re home this early,” Mrs. Nolan persisted, “and do you want me to call her?”
I gave up. “No, Ma’am. I’ll go inside and call her while Kathy sits on the porch.”
Mrs. Nolan saved our careers that day. If Kathy had gotten pregnant, she might not have become the doctor she is today. And my father had warned me that if I made a baby, the mutual fund he set up for me to go to college or start a business would have gone to the child. I’m glad Mrs. Nolan was at her window, looking out for me.
Jawanza Kunjufu in Restoring the Village
Death
Bob Russell, senior minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, told this story:
When my father died, there was too much snow at our home in Pennsylvania to have a funeral procession. At the end of the service, the funeral director said, “I’ll take your dad’s body to the grave.” I felt we were leaving something undone, so I gathered five of my relatives, and we piled into a four-wheel-drive vehicle, plowed through ten inches of snow into the cemetery, and got about fifty yards from my dad’s grave.
The wind was blowing about twenty-five miles an hour. The six of us lugged that casket down to the grave site. We watched as his body was lowered into that grave.
I wanted to pray before we left. “Lord, this is such a cold, lonely place.” I got choked up and battled to keep my composure. Finally I just whispered, “But I thank you that to be absent from the body is to be present in your warm arms. Amen.”
Preaching Today
Faithfulness
While I was preaching one Sunday, an elderly woman, Mary, fainted and struck her head on the end of the pew. Immediately, an emt in the congregation called an ambulance.
As they strapped her to a stretcher and got ready to head out the door, Mary regained consciousness. She motioned for her daughter to come near. Everyone thought she was summoning her strength to convey what could be her final words. The daughter leaned over until her ear was at her mother’s mouth.
“My offering is in my purse,” she whispered.
Eric Hulstrand Binford, North Dakota
Indifference
An estimated 500,000 tons of water rush over Niagara Falls every minute. On March 29, 1948, the falls suddenly stopped. People living within the sound of the falls were awakened by the overwhelming silence. They believed it was a sign that the world was coming to an end. It was thirty hours before the rush of water resumed.
What happened? Heavy winds had set the ice fields of Lake Erie in motion. Tons of ice jammed the Niagara River entrance near Buffalo and stopped the flow of the river until the ice shifted again.
The flow of God’s grace in our lives can be blocked by cold indifference.
Merle Mees Topeka, Kansas
Legalism
The following hand-lettered signs were prominently displayed around a drive-in restaurant in Pine Grove, California:
Do not back in.
Restrooms are for customer use only.
(On trash can) Not for diaper disposal or auto trash.
Local checks for amount of purchase only.
Vanilla frosties only dipped one size only.
Please order by number.
Observe all signs.
“Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Rom. 10:4).
Phillip W. Gunter Los Alamos, New Mexico
Perseverance
In 1968, the country of Tanzania selected John Stephen Akhwari to represent it in the Mexico City Olympics.
Along the racecourse for the marathon, Akhwari stumbled and fell, severely injuring both his knee and ankle. By 7 p.m., a runner from Ethiopia had won the race, and all the other competitors had finished and been cared for. Just a few thousand spectators were left in the huge stadium when a police siren at the gate caught their attention.
Limping through the gate came number 36, Akhwari, leg wrapped in a bloody bandage. Those present began to cheer as the courageous man completed the final lap of the race.
Later, a reporter asked Akhwari the question on everyone’s mind: “Why did you continue the race after you were so badly injured?”
He replied: “My country did not send me 7,000 miles to begin a race; they sent me to finish the race.”
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Heb. 12:1).
Tommy Winstead Stafford, Virginia
Teamwork
Herman Ostry’s barn floor was under twenty-nine inches of water because of a rising creek. The Bruno, Nebraska, farmer invited a few friends to a barn raising. He needed to move his entire 17,000-pound barn to a new foundation more than 143 feet away. His son Mike devised a lattice work of steel tubing, and nailed, bolted, and welded it on the inside and the outside of the barn. Hundreds of handles were attached.
After one practice lift, 344 volunteers slowly walked the barn up a slight incline, each supporting less than fifty pounds. In just three minutes, the barn was on its new foundation.
The body of Christ can accomplish great things when we work together.
Joseph F. Mlaker Stanton, Michigan
Thanksgiving
while on a short-term missions trip, Pastor Jack Hinton from New Bern, North Carolina, was leading worship at a leper colony on the island of Tobago. There was time for one more song, so he asked if anyone had a request. A woman who had been facing away from the pulpit turned around.
“It was the most hideous face I had ever seen,” Hinton said. “The woman’s nose and ears were entirely gone. The disease had destroyed her lips as well. She lifted a fingerless hand in the air and asked, ‘Can we sing Count Your Many Blessings?’“
Overcome with emotion, Hinton left the service. He was followed by a team member who said, “Jack, I guess you’ll never be able to sing that song again.”
“Yes I will,” he replied, “but I’ll never sing it the same way.”
The Pastor’s Update (5/96) Foreign Mission Board, SBC
Wealth
Jeff Ferrera of Waukegan, Illinois, was reconciling his checkbook and called First National Bank of Chicago to get his current balance.
“Your primary checking account currently has a balance of $924,844,204.32,” droned the electronic voice. Ferrera was one of 826 customers who were almost billionaires for a day because of the biggest error in the history of U. S. banking. The goof amounted to almost $764 billion, more than six times the total assets of First Chicago NBD Corporation.
“I had a lot of people saying in jest to transfer it to the Cayman Islands and run for it,” Ferrera said. But, like most of the others, he simply reported the error to bank officials, who could say only that it was a “computer programming error.”
It pays to remember that all earthly wealth is just as temporal.
Chicago Tribune (5/18/96)
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1996 by Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP, journal.
Last Updated: October 8, 1996
