Thinking back

Today is my birthday! I have celebrated by staying inside and napping off and on all day like I have for the past couple of days. I've been running a low grade fever and have a steady cough and sore throat. I'll call the doctor tomorrow and see what's going on, but this is not the way I planned to celebrate my birthday.

Since I've been pretty much confined to the house for the past few days it has given me time to reflect back over the past 61 years. I've thought back to the days when our family had dairy farms and my summers were spent working in hay fields, corn fields, and tobacco fields. Oh yes, there was also the opportunity to milk cows twice a day every single day of the year. I have thought back to the time when Faye and I first met, in 1965, and began dating. By the end of 1966, at the ripe old age of 18, we were married. I've thought about our children and now our grandchildren, and I took some time to thank God for each of them and for the blessings they have brought into our lives.

This evening while we were eating supper I could hear one of those Time-Life commercials on television. Micky Gilley was selling a collection of old time country classics. I could hear those songs playing on the TV while we ate, and it reminded me of my Navy days. Many an evening I would sit in a restaurant or bar and play those songs. Back then you could play six songs on a jukebox for a quarter. Faye and I spent a lot of months apart in those days as my ship went back and forth to Vietnam, and I dropped a lot of quarters in jukeboxes.

I then began to think of how God had reached down into my life in the late 1970s. A couple of years later He called me to serve Him as a minister, and within a few months I was called to become the pastor of Hebron Baptist Church as their bivocational pastor. For the next 20 years I served that church until He opened up a new ministry opportunity to become an Area Resource Minister. He gave me the opportunity to write books and speak to ministers and church leaders in various parts of the US and Canada.

It's been a fascinating birthday. One moment I could actually see myself sitting in a restaurant in Bremerton, WA drinking coffee and listening to Jeannie C. Riley singing "Harper Valley PTA" on the jukebox and the next moment I saw myself standing behind the pulpit at Hebron. God has brought me a long ways in these 61 years, and I believe He isn't through with me yet. I have more books to write, more sermons to preach, and more life to live. With God's grace I have a lot more hugs to give my children and grandchildren and a lot more walks holding Faye's hand. I have been blessed beyond measure, and I want to give God thanks for everyone of those blessings.