Defining Weekend

January 31

I ask my wife how her retreat went.
"Remember how you felt when you had a defining moment?" she said. "Just imagine feeling that for an entire weekend. I didn't want to go home. I didn't know how to leave."

"Were you afraid of leaving God behind?"

"Something like that," she whispers.

“Well you didn’t," I offer, "God is never far away. We just need to stay in touch."

"For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21)

Wheelchair Story

January 30

A young lady tells me “ I need to tell you my wheelchair story.” After a few weeks in Florida she sits in an emergency room scared and alone. “Praying softly I hear God say, ‘I’m sending you an angel.”
She waits. She notices an older man in a wheelchair. They talk and after awhile her name is called to see a doctor. She realizes her fear is gone.. She thanks the man for talking with her and then adds; “I don’t even know your name. I’m Sherry.”
He says, “My name is Angel.”

“And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” Matt (21:22)

I Killed a Man

January 29

It’s true! I killed a man. A nice man some people thought. I knew differently. He appeared to be the ideal family man.
I knew differently
" He walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelry, drinking parties and abominable idolatry." (1 Peter 4:3) This man needed to be destroyed.

I killed him. I killed my old self. I'm a new person now. Alleluia! There is a second chance God. Praise the Lord. Now I really know differently.

“ I say to you, unless one is born again, he can not see the kingdom of God."
(John 3:3)

Ice Storm

January 27

Everything is glare ice," creek, crack crash. Branches are snapping off the trees like brittle spaghetti. It is still raining so
I retreat from the yard and stand under the overhang. There is a large crack and thud. A huge branch falls from the elm and is imbedded into the ground where I had been standing. I stare in disbelief.
Some would say 'thank your lucky stars.’ That is how I felt once, but now I say luck and stars has nothing to do with it.

“The very hairs of your head are numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."
(Matthew 10:30-31)

Watch, Be Alert

January 25

My Nephew is driving alone along Route 20 in Charlton Ma. A tractor-trailer drifts over the centerline and hits his van behind the driver's seat pushing him off the road. The rig crashes head on into the car behind, killing the driver. My Nephew is unhurt. The truck driver is arrested.

In an instant, a life is taken, one spared.

"Watch therefore for you do not know when the master of the house is coming-in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, -lest coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. What I say to you I say to all, Watch!" (Mark 13:35-36)

God's Birds

God’s Birds

January 24

Dr. Jerry Kirk, a preacher from Cincinnati said, "God's love for us is unlimited but our ability to receive that love is limited because our receiving mechanisms have been damaged by the world around us.” He asked Dora, twice a widow, what made her upbeat. "Every cardinal, I see I hear Jesus say I love you.”
The notion of damaged receptors speaks to me. The solution shared by Dora and Jerry has changed how I look at all birds.

"Consider the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap… yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

City Slicker

January 23

I was a teenager from the city and had never ridden a horse. We walked the horses across a divided roadway onto a trail. After a gentle ride in the woods we turned toward home. My horse took off. I was hanging on for dear life. She bolted across Route 1A, horns blasted, breaks squealed and I screamed.

God's angel directed traffic that day and even provided some mud for a soft landing when I fell off in front of the barn.

"He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways."
(Psalm 91:11)

Pat's Vision

January 22

How insignificant I feel when I think of the vastness of God's creation. How can God have time to care about me with all those stars and galaxies out there to be concerned about?

Pat shares a vision of feeling tiny and lost in a throng of singing worshipers. “Then Jesus, rising, says to the Father, 'these are the one's I have called unto you.' Laser beams emitted from His fingers fell on each head, including mine."

"Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:32)

Water Towers

January 21

Driving the rugged arid parts of Arizona and Colorado, I notice a single pile of rocks up on top of a mesa. I learn that these are called "water towers." These rocks tell travelers below that from this point you can see water.

Those Native Americans and pioneers who erected these water towers were truly being neighborly, pointing the way to survival. The water towers are no longer needed but stand as monuments of brotherly love. I need to be a water tower to my neighbors.

" You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 23:39)

Consultant's Nightmare

January 20

The report is not coming together. I can’t find my notes. I pace. I slam draws. My wife softly urges prayer and sleep. At five a.m.I am at my desk. My mind is going a mile a minute. I’m recalling missing details. By seven my bible class prays for God's hand over me. I pray in the parking lot before entering my client's office.By ten I make my presentation. All the department heads are there.

The Spirit takes over the meeting. For every question raised an answer is given by someone else at the meeting.The hour ends with applause. Go God.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." (Philippians 4:6 NIV)

We get to Choose

January 19

“He is 18, on drugs, is unemployed and has been arrested for stealing. She is 17, pregnant by him and drinks heavily. Both are school drop outs.”

The speaker, a minister, lecturer, and author, is addressing a men’s retreat. He asks, "You are the parish priest and this couple comes before you, wanting to marry. What do you tell them?

After the laughter fades, he says “That couple was my wife and I twenty three years ago.” His point is we are in life exactly where we have chosen to be.

Life is a result of the choices we make. We can choose to believe or not. It is our choice.

“He who believes in Him is not condemned but he who does not believe is condemned already…”(John 3:1)

In Whose Ima?ge

January 17

Genesis says God created man in His image. My wife asks, “Do we see God in our image rather than seeing ourselves in His image?"

I'm sure my perspective is seeing God in my image. That means God has feelings, emotions, thoughts and memories. OK so far. However, holding God in my image would also mean God has limits, weaknesses and hangups. That's not good. That is not God.

So how do we see ourselves created in His image? It begins with belief! God created us in His image.

Isaiah. knew in whose image he was created.
"Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint."
(Isaiah 40:31)

MLK Day

JANUARY 16

Today I'm remembering the only time I saw Martin Luther King Jr. in person. It was a Sunday and he was the guest preacher at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. I don't remember specifically what he said that day so many year ago but the theme was loving each other.

He was tragically gunned down the following Thursday.

We don't know what tomorrow will bring but today let us honor his ministry by heeding the message to love one another.Afterall it is not a new concept.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." (John 13:34)

John's Miracle Recovery

Week of January 15

In mid July 2009 on the island of Kauai, Hawaii I became very sick. I had been healthy all my 63 years and this was a new experience for me. After a week of high fever, aches and waking up with the sweats I called my doctor friend in Montana. After hearing my symptoms Dan said I needed to see a local doctor.
I did and he thought it was a sinus infection. After a few days I started getting vertigo, and seeing double. I decided if I didn’t feel better in the morning I would go to the emergency room.
In the morning, still feeling lousy, I took a cab from where I lived outside of Koloa to the hospital on Kauai where I was admitted with what was originally thought to be double pneumonia. It was not.

While my lungs sounded clear x-rays revealed two white clouds. I was transferred by air taxi to the Staub Medical Center in Honolulu. Here I tested positive for Wegener’s granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the organs of the body. I my case it was the lungs.

I do not remember of lot of the initial weeks in intensive care as I was drugged and in an induced coma. I was not expected to live very long and my wife and three daughters were called. They came from Montana to visit me for the last time. I did not know they were even there.

My body weight went from 167 to 132. Massive doses of steroids were given me as part of my treatment. When I awoke from the coma I was on a ventilator and had all sorts of tubes in my body. I was literally a rag doll and could only move the muscles in my neck. An emergency button to call for help was draped over my shoulder so I could press it with my neck.

I remember thinking. How am I going to possibly come back from this. I believed I couldn’t and became totally depressed.

The bed I was in was a special physical therapy bed which could be set to do a wave like motion under the body. It wasn’t suppose to be on for me but it was. The motion caused me to move sideways and my body became lodged between the mattress and the sideboard. I was being squeezed with my arms dangling helplessly over the side of the bed. I could not move my head to press the call button. I was crying out “nurse help…nurse help!”

Then a strange thing happened. It was as if my spirit had left my body. I was sitting on the edge of a small stream with tall wet grass along the banks. A mist was rising from the water. I knew if I just lay down in the wet grass it would be over. No more struggles. There would be peace. My spirit was ready to give up.
Then a hand gripped my shoulder. I “sprung back.”

A voice said, “Can I help you?”

After getting me help I found out that the man who touched my shoulder was the pastor at the hospital. He told me that he received a call 30 minutes earlier from my friend Jim in White Fish, Montana who asked that the Chaplain to look me up.
From that moment on I never had depression again. In fact, during the rest of my hospital stay I was even joyful. My spirit was strong and I made dramatic progress physically. Within two weeks I was completely off the ventilator and oxygen.
I still could not move a muscle but my therapist thought my muscles were ‘firing’ and I believed him. He began by massaging my muscles and moving my limbs.
I was moved from Intensive Care to the sixth floor of the hospital where they put patients who are closed to being released. I worked hard and talked and joked with almost every aide and nurse on that floor.

One day the doctors looked at me and my progress and said “John you are a living miracle.” They suggested I be transferred to a nursing home in Montana where I would be near friends and my support system.

Flying Nurses International flew with me from Honolulu to Salt Lake City and onto Glacier International Airport in Kalispell, Mt.

It wasn’t until I was back in Montana that I learned that my doctor friend Dan and Jim, who I knew from my appraisal business, had been meeting and praying for me daily throughout my ordeal.

You see, the doctors were right, I am a living miracle. And I was right, I could not come back on my own. I have no doubt that God through His grace spared my life and used my friends and that Chaplain to help me back.

John Woods
Kauai, Hawaii

Whose Your Neighbor

January 13

The publisher came into the city room yelling "whose old Plymouth is that out front?" It was my second day as a student intern at the Westerly (RI) Sun. He escorted me downstairs to remove my car.

Later, Abe, the city editor, lead me to the rear of the building. “You park there,” he said; pointing to a large paved area behind a temple. “ If anybody says anything tell them Abe sent you." Abe was my neighbor that day.

A lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"
Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan and asks; "so which do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?
The lawyer says, "He who showed mercy on him.”

"Then Jesus says, 'Go and do likewise." (Luke 10: 36-37)

My Sister's Class

January 12

My sister, fresh from graduate school, began teaching in the high school where I was a senior. I was enrolled in her journalism class. One day she walked into the room just as I was throwing a pear at another student. She took one look at me and said sternly, "Get out!"

I reported to the assistant principle. Without looking up he asked, “Why are you here?”

“My sister threw me out of her class.”

He stopped writing. I was given two weeks detention and I was grounded at home. I gained new respect for all my teachers, including family ones and a greater appreciation for learning.

"Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go; keep her for she is your life.”(Proverbs 4:13)

R U in a Rut?

January 11

One night, when I was a boy, my mother told me a simple story. A little frog landed in the middle of a deep tire track in a muddy road. Jump as he might he couldn’t get out. The other frogs headed back to the pond for the night. Splash- little frog was back.

"How did you get out,” the others demanded?

"I just jumped out," said the exuberant little frog, “you see a truck was coming.”

Deborah Deford writes in The Simpler Life, "We get into a rut and all of life takes on the color and texture of old mud. But staying in a rut is a choice.”
I was in a worldly rut for years. Then I saw the truck coming and made the choice to jump free.

"For the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10)

A Dusty Dog

January 10

One weekend my sister and I took our dog Dusty to a park. Suddenly head down and nose to the ground he followed a trail down an incline. We watched from the top of the hill. A rabbit appeared and hopped up on a large flat rock. Dusty sniffed right by that rock and continued down the hill. When he was a safe distance away, the rabbit darted off.

There have been days and even years when I have been so focused on living my life that I haven't looked around me. Like Dusty, I was too busy with what I was doing at the time to look up and see the prize. I need to stop sniffing out what I seek and pay attention to what God wants for my life.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV)

Dinner Conversation

January 9

Joy and I are dining in the home of a minister friend and her guests. A marriage counselor says he worries about couples who say they never fight.

I pipe in with a brief version of a tiff that Joy and I had earlier at home. Joy wisely said for us to pray and God brought love and gentleness to both of us.

Driving home Joy says, "My heart soared when you had the courage to be vulnerable and say what you did at dinner. I love you all the more.”

She could have been embarrassed or angry. Instead she is filled with love and compassion. These are clearly God-given attributes!

"Let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." (Ephesians 5:33)

Trusting the Pilot

January 8

A winter storm is howling at BWI Airport in Baltimore. My flight to Tampa is delayed as crews plow the runways.

Finally it is our turn to take-off. While I pray the plane roars down that snowy runway and up into the swirling storm clouds. The aircraft shutters and shakes for until we climb above the storm. It is a smooth flight to Tampa.

When I entered that plane I had totally given up control and put my life in the hands of that pilot.
So why struggle giving the controls of my life to the Lord? Why can't I trust God to pilot my life’s journey? After all, who has had more experience?

"Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)

Homeless Man with a Bible

January 7

He said his name is Bill Young and he was looking for work and needed some money for breakfast.
I handed him a couple of dollars and mentioned softly that he might have a better chance of getting a job if he didn't have alcohol on his breath.

I asked him if he knew Jesus. He took a small Bible from his sack. He turned to Luke 16-19,"you read it," he said. handing me his Bible. It is about the rich man and poor Lazarus eating crumbs.

“ The poor man died, and angels took him to the place of honor next to Abraham." I stopped. "Read the next line," he urged. “The rich man also died, was buried and went to hell and was suffering terribly."

I stood convicted of my arrogance and smugness.

"Judge not that you be not judged. (Matthew 7:1)

Important Message

January 6

At age 14 I started smoking. I felt dizzy and was sick to my stomach but I continued to smoke.
At 30 the Government warned tobacco could be harmful to your health. I continued to smoke.
My dad finally quit when his doctor said he had emphysema. I continued to smoke. After some chest pains, I switched to a pipe and decaffeinated coffee. I continued to smoke.

One night Rob, then seven, asked, " Dad can you get heart disease from smoking a pipe?"

I hadn't heeded the other warnings, but when God sent my son, I heard the message. I quit! For good.
Come to think of it, God sent His only son with an important message for all of us. Hear him!

“I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” (John12:47)

Latch Key Children

January 5

This year my granddaughters became latch key children. Their mother joins their dad in the work force to make ends meet. A grandson is in day care.

The worry side of me goes wild thinking of what could happen during those few hours after school. Movies like "Home Alone" just add fuel to the what ifs? Their parents say, “The girls are eleven and twelve and they know what to do.”
Then I hear, “Remember when you were ten?” The world was at war and my Mom went to do peace work. After school I returned to an empty house.

I WAS A LATCHKEY CHILD.

"Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

Leaving Home

January 4

On a walk around my neighborhood, I notice a small boy pulling a little red wagon with a suitcase in it. He starts down the street. As I near the house a man comes out, looks in the direction of the boy.

"Leaving home are we," I ask? The man nods.

That boy is testing his boundaries but what he really wants to know is that his parents still love him.

As a child of God, I have walked away from my heavenly Father. I didn’t get far and I desperately wanted to know that God still loves me.

God tells us all the time that He loves us. We just have to pay attention and listen.

"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good!
His faithful love endures forever."
(Psalm 136:1 NLT)

A View from Space

January 3

It is a full moon and a pleasant night to walk around the neighborhood. I muse how the ancients viewed this same moon, fearing it and even worshiping it.

John Glenn, the first American to orbit our planet and have a moon’s-eye- view of earth, takes another trip 36 years later. Now 77, Glenn catches the world’s attention on his "flag lap" around earth. Walter Cronkite is back to report the event and the Australians light up their country for Glenn, as they did in 1962.

From space Glenn says, " Looking at the Earth from this vantage point, looking at this kind of creation and to not believe in God, to me, is impossible."

Right on.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

Airport Delay

January 2

My flight from Hartford to Sarasota is canceled.
I call Joy and she says "Look around and see who you can help. Go do the Lord's work."

As I hang up the phone I spot a man in a wheelchair looking at his ticket. I wheel him to the next gate.

The agent redoes his ticket and turns to me.

"Oh I'm not on his flight," I tell him, “I ‘m going to Florida but my flight to Charlotte was canceled."

"I can get you to Tampa. Will that help?"
Tampa is only an hour away. I arrive home in time for dinner.

" Lord when did I see you a stranger and take you in? Surely I say to you when you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it to Me." (Matthew 25:38-40

New Years Day

January 1

It isn’t a typical start to a New Year.

My wife Joy wants to let God orchestrate this New Year. At Christmas Joy asked that we give Jesus something on His birthday. We realized that meant giving something of ourselves. Lord, I thought, give me the opportunity to share this idea with others.

The day after Christmas the associate pastor of our church called saying,” I was praying for someone to talk on New Years resolutions and how they differ once you become a believer…and your name kept coming to mind.”

What a way to begin a year, in His will.

“In all your ways acknowledge Him.
And He shall direct your paths.”
(Proverbs 3:6)