What have I been up to? Well, at one point I was up to near 300 pounds! ...This won't take long. I started out preaching at a small country church in Pitkin, Louisiana. Glade Branch Baptist Church (SBC) had some wonderful people. I really hated to leave there but I felt that I needed more training and started out to return to college. Linda and I stopped by to visit our parents before going on to school in Chicago - we never got away! I was asked to be an interim pastor at the Galesburg Holiness Chapel and then, when the Christian Faith Chapel was formed, I was called as their pastor. For a while I was in a "circuit rider" mode, pastoring the Prairie City Community Church while at the Chapel. I've had several radio programs and a very good ten-year run on local T.V. I've also written quite a bit and edited a small bi-monthly magazine, "BQM Reports..." I've been somewhat active (Not near what I'd like to have been - time and circumstance just seem to constantly elude me!) with the Dean Burgon Society. This is a group of outstanding men of God (They let me fellowship with them!) who are committed and convicted as to the reliability of the Traditional Text of the Word of God. Honest; He never lost control of His Word!
Linda, my wife of nearly 32 years, passed away on 15 May 2000. It was a very easy homegoing for her. Our daughter (a CNA) was holding her hand, taking her pulse, when Linda just stepped from this world to the next. No pain. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumor just four months before. She will be, is ALREADY!!!, seriously missed. Somehow most of the luster of life left with her. I still find myself wanting to talk with her, to tell her some stupid thing I've heard or done. Well, the Bible does promise that I'll see her again in Glory. How do people get through this type of pain without the Lord and His promises.
Was put on disability (July 2003) retirement myself. Doctor said I had "Congenital Heart Failure." Two things came to mind: "Doc, could you put the word 'potential' in there somewhere!", and, well no one can say of me, "He's fat, ugly, and old, but he's got a good heart." I don't. No problem:
I've written three books: "Days of Whine and Rousing," a book of editorials on the days events in light of a Christian outlook. "From Brats to Wurst," over three hundred illustrations from daily life. (If you really want to hear about my grandkids, this is the book!) And, "Study on the Virgin Birth," which contains my complete outline to the book as well, of course, as the bibliography. I'm working on "The Order of the Day of the Army of the Redeemed" where I will compare the Great Commission to a military order. (It is!) Also, I hope to complete a study on the transmission of the Biblical text of the New Testament. I'm intending to speak on that subject at a Bible Conference in Wisconsin later this summer and hope to have that book in print by that time.
Old?
Guess I am.
I have trouble mowing the lawn.
Can't walk everywhere I want my feet to go.
But, I do have the precious memories
Of a dull lifetime.
I remember the birth of our first child.
This wrinkled, red, and helpless little creature...
We marveled as she grew and learned
To walk, and talk, and ride a bike.
And our second, born before his time...
Now he awaits the second of his own.
The joy and the pain.
Watching my girl friend,
A vision in white
As she danced the Lohengren March.
Sitting by the bed of my wife of thirty plus years
As she lay dieing.
Losing my best friend of forty years
As she left to Glory.
Old?
Yep; wouldn't have it any other way.
Experiences, joys and tears
That could only be purchased
By the time
Of this life
Of mine.
To extinguish my light
I've had a pretty good run.
Some times were sad.
Most not too bad.
I'm ready to meet the Son.