It is about 5:00 p.m. and normalcy (if such a thing exists) is beginning to return to my life, at least for the moment. I took an afternoon walk around the campus of TAA after having taken a short nap after coming home from my morning preaching commitment (and a tasty pot luck). I have no commitments this afternoon, although I am planning to be present to make a plug for TAA at the Jesus Loves Jeans Youth Event this evening.
My evangelistic meetings ended this morning at the Central Valley SDA Church. I realized this morning that the 35th Avenue church is the same church I visited when I was an 18 year-old back in the late 70s. I had come to spend the summer with two friends who had convinced me I should sell religious books door to door in Phoenix. In Phoenix! In the summer! In spite of the apparent lunacy associated with that decision, the summer ended up being a watershed time in my life. I met some fine people who still live in the area. Tom Bledsoe I believe was treasurer of the conference at the time. My immediate literature evangelist supervisor was gentleman by the last name Reedy, I believe. He was enthusiastic as all get out!
I met Mr. and Mrs. Parra, who welcomed my friends and I as family. They were wonderful people. I found out a cousin of mine who I had not seen for many years was student at TAA. My canvassing buddies and I spent a good portion of the summer living in a trailer with no air conditioning. The swamp fan had no water attachment, so it served an alternative use—clothes dryer. I do remember spending at least a couple of nights in the comfort of the TAA dorm. That was incredible! I didn’t sell many books that summer. But I had a spiritual reawakening. In the long run that was a more valuable result that the money.
It’s interesting how things that seem to be totally disastrous often end up changing the entire direction of a live—for the better. Others, for the sake of full disclosure, end up being outright disasters. But I have learned that even those may reap collateral results that produce something positive. Life is a string of events that together form a tapestry of our lives. Some of those patterns or designs appear at the moment they are taking shape to be dissonant or out of place. But when the entire masterpiece of our lives is seen from the perspective of eternity, they will make perfect sense or have a unique beauty to them in the context of the whole. I am thankful for that. God is good—all the time!
I, for one, at this particular moment, am delighted to be enjoying the Sabbath hours without the cacophony of life. There is a calming effect to the Sabbath that God knew we needed at least once a week. Happy Sabbath, everyone! Enjoy it while it lasts. The work week begins in a few hours.
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