Many of you have been asking me how I am doing. I appreciate the concern because I know it is genuine. I know you are praying for me and I know that your prayers contain the power that wakes me each morning and causes me to get ready for the day. I also know that when you ask me how I am doing I usually do not go into any great detail and I know you understand that and let me get away with it. Like all things in my life, this has been a learning experience. (When my son was in high school, he got frustrated with me one day. Something had happened and I was explaining some point to him. He rolled his eyes and said, “Dad, does everything have to be a teaching moment?” For me, I guess so.) I understand now what it is to lose your spouse, not to death, but to someone else. In 1999, Marsha’s doctor told her she had maybe five years to live. It didn’t happen that way, but I did become very aware I was going to lose her. Each day was a special blessing. Then this all happened. I dare say, death might have been easier. You can look at death and see the cause. This, though, well, I still don’t know why it all happened. I have my own thoughts, but Marsha has never told me why. It doesn’t matter. She has filed for divorce and I suppose it will cost me, but I really don’t care about that at this point. However, I am not one to speak from the heart when it comes to myself. When I do relate something from my past it is usually one of those teaching moments my son found so bothersome. I am so used to others coming to me with issues. It is hard to tell others my woe. But you have asked, and I know you care……

          I mentioned it is a learning experience. It has been. Always, it didn’t much matter what was going on, I still got to sleep at night. Now I am finding out just how little sleep I can get by on. My hands are sometimes very painful from arthritis. Used to be, on Sunday morning I would sometimes have trouble buttoning the top button on my shirt and I would have Marsha do that for me. I have learned now that when I get to church, someone is always willing to lend a hand if I have a need. I have also learned that, if I want to, I can make my supper and eat it in front of the computer! Not all lessons are bad.

          But I have also learned that Satan is more than willing to hack away at me, taking my sorrow and frustration and using it to attack my mind. In the last few weeks, I have moved from the parsonage to a small apartment. Kitchen/eating area, living room and bedroom. A far cry from the parsonage. But perfect for me. No one person needs ten rooms and two bathrooms. I am fine with it. But I have also been working to get the parsonage cleaned out so it can be sold. With the heat I am taking a few days off from it, but I am getting closer. JUST SO YOU KNOW, THE FIRST WEEKEND IN AUGUST I AM HAVING A MOVING SALE. SOME FURNITURE, APPLIANCES, WALL HANGINGS, PRICED TO SELL. Anything left will be pitched.

          In doing this, I have been going through things. I had always assumed that when we finally downsized, we would go through these things together. I always assumed that I would have to spend a lot of time explaining to Marsha why we didn’t need this or that anymore. I was wrong. I am the one going through what were once treasures and keepsakes. This is where Satan is attacking. It has kept coming to my mind, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

          For the most part, it is easy throwing stuff out. I bring the garbage can in and fill it up. Kind of fun in a way. But I still have to go through everything. That starts memories and the memories are, right now, not pleasant. Even the good memories, and there are a lot of those, are painful and sour right now. The words from Satan keep coming to my mind, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

          The other day, it was stuff from seminary. This is where Satan was really hitting me. I was cleaning out an old filing cabinet. The first thing I found were the adoption paperwork for our son. That brought a smile. But, then, sadness. This has been really hard on him. I would rather do almost anything other than break his heart. Still, I had this paperwork. It just so happened that he called me at that moment. I told him about the paperwork and asked him if he wanted it. “Why would I need it? If you throw it out are you still going to be my Father?” It was a joke. He is 38. We are really not worried about some legal event happening. I told him to ask his wife. She might want have them. After we had talked, I went back to the pile. I came across my transcripts. Hardly earth shattering. Then I came across two of my three degrees. I don’t know where the bachelor degree, but my Masters and doctorate degrees were there. I just stared at them for a while. I was proud of those accomplishments at one time. Even had three nice frames for them and had them very nicely displayed on my office wall. They had meant something, they had been important. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” OK, what should I do with these? “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Yes, I know Satan! Back off!

          But then, the next item nearly made me fall. I set the degrees aside pulled up the next file folder. I opened it and stared at something I hadn’t seen in almost 30 years. Every spare moment for two years had been spent on this and I wasn’t supposed to even have it. “Divine Speaking; A Study in the Planning, Preparation and Presentation of a Sermon.” My doctoral dissertation.

          I have never been pleased with my preaching. My calling is to be a pastor. A preacher is a different critter and a different Spiritual gift. Early on, I started to get books by some of histories very best preachers so see what they said on the subject. When I got my Masters degree in Ministry, I figured my educational odyssey was done. But a particular professor urged me to go for more. In the doctoral program there was a subject called homiletics, which is the cool sounding name for preaching. This professor had plans for me. Marsha urged me to go on, too. “You’ve already read all the books. How hard could it be?” Yeah, right. The professor, Dr. Leroy Benefield, wanted me to get a doctorate. He was working to set me on a path. First, be involved in a church start. Second, pastor at least five years. Then, go into a really bad church situation and turn it around. Go from there to one of the Southern Baptist state conventions and specialize in working with churches that were having problems and then, at around age 40 or so, wind up in a Southern Baptist seminary as a professor, teaching students how to deal with all the problems churches can face. Dr. Benefield was a highly regarded Southern Baptist professor. I do not know why he took an interest in me. I really do not know. I do know that he meant more to me than any other man in my life, before or since. When he died, his wife sent me an e-mail asking me if I could come to Oklahoma (where they had retired to) and take part in his funeral. Dr. B saw a need for a course of study in crisis in the church and he thought I could be the person to implement that course. He had the pull to get me started. I would, however, need the doctorate.

          (And you folks thought you knew all about me, didn’t you?)

          So, I started the course of study in homiletics. After all, as Marsha said, how hard could it be? There was a lot of study involved. Several papers to write. More study involved. Required reading beyond what I had already read. The deeper I got into the project, the more important it became to me. It is what I thought about when I had time to sit and think. My wife and son got to where they didn’t want to hear it. I used to love to fish, but even that fell by the wayside. This was really important.

          Meantime, we were following the path Dr. Benefield started. Marsha and I were commissioned as home missionaries through the Southern Baptist Convention, working a new church start on the outskirts of an old steel town on the Pennsylvania/Ohio border. Then I pastored an established church for almost ten years. Then the church that had one of the worse problems I have ever seen. Fixed the problem. Now, all that was left was working at the State convention for a while and then a posting at a Southern Baptist college or seminary. And getting that doctorate. I was a few years behind, but I had pastored the church longer than planned

          The seminary had a rule. You submit the dissertation and it immediately became the property of the school. They could then use it as research for new text books or whatever without having to worry about paying anyone. When I started, that was no problem. But as it went along, I became very proprietary about the work. It was my creation. I didn’t want to give it up. Of course, I had to give it up. That was the whole point…..

          The dissertation had to be at least 100,000 words long. It had to have in it some new ideas and concepts. It had to be fully referenced and notated. And, particularly hard in a day when computers were not being used in homes and word processors were very expensive, it could have only five grammatical/spelling mistakes. All written on a typewriter. I found out quickly that if I wrote five pages and then went back and reread those five pages and found that I made a mistake in the second line on the second page, I not only had to rewrite the whole page, but since the rewrite would likely change the dimensions of the page, I would have to rewrite all four pages. But it was important. And the rule said that when I presented it, there was to be just the presentation.  

          Last August I stumbled across the rough draft. All inked up with corrections, written on an old typewriter, no references or annotations. It made me laugh then. But this was different. I sat down and recalled what I had done. I had made a complete copy of the original. I told myself that it was just in case something happened to the original. But, when it was all over, I had slipped the copy away into this file folder. I leafed through it there the other day. With sweat pouring from every pore, I looked at this piece of work that was the most complete scholastic work I had ever done, and the words came to me, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

          Instead of taking that state level convention job, I felt God leading to another church. I was warned that taking that church would end my career path. We went with the church and abandoned the plan man had made. Satan has pricked me with that decision many times since, but it has been easy to shrug it off. Sitting there, however, and burning up, my wife living with another man and having just filed for divorce, the words came, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” No, to hear Satan tell it, by now, if I had wanted to, I would have been a retired seminary professor, probably living somewhere around either big water where you can’t see the far shore or mountains. There would have been no reason for the wife to have left and we would be quite happy. I would be in contact with former students and would be giving words of advice and encouragement. And I would have a dog. Buford. I certainly would not have been sitting there in the heat with a broken heart.

          But, that was Satan’s story. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” My mind worked it out pretty quickly. There was a plan. A great plan. But it wasn’t really God’s plan. It could, at this very moment, be much worse. I remember back to the moment that I walked away from that plan to go to the church God had for me. I struggled with it at the time, but I went His way. And I have never wanted to go back. Sitting there in the sweltering heat, I took a big slug of water and thought about it all. There are things that I wish had happened differently, but those are things out of my control. The things that I have done, that I controlled, I actually have no regrets over. I have followed the Lord. I wish Marsha had never left, I wish I wasn’t a diabetic, I wish some of my friendships and relationships had turned out differently. But, leaving the plan behind, doing what God wanted me to do, it is all good.

          I am good. Not great, mind you. I miss my buddy. But I cannot answer for what other people do and I wish harm on no one.

          I get notes quite often from people I have known. I got one on Monday from a lady named Ingrid. Out of the blue, really. “Old friend, the day is coming when you will hear the words, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Does Ingrid know something I don’t know? HAH! I doubt I will merit that high praise, but it will not be for lack of trying.

          “How you doing, Pastor Larry?” “Oh, I guess I’m doing OK.”