The worst thing that I experience with my Parkinson’s disease is the pain that I have in my muscles most of the time. It is sort of like a Charlie horse or what you feel when you have worked out super hard after not doing any exercise for months. There are a couple of situations when the pain goes away. One of them is when I am peddling my stationary bike. It takes about 5 minutes of peddling before it is mostly gone. The first 5 minutes it is much worse and then goes away. I think that initial increase in the pain is what keeps many Parkinson’s people from exercising much. The second situation where I have zero pain is when I am preaching or teaching. At first I thought it was just a matter of not noticing because I was so focused on my message, but this weekend I really paid attention, and I am sure that almost immediately when I start teaching that the pain is totally gone. This morning in the first service that starts at 9 am I was in more pain than usual as I was walking around the foyer before the service welcoming people and handing out bulletins. I was smiling and cheerfully greeting people, but inwardly I was groaning. After a couple of worship songs I got up to welcome people, make some announcements, and pray and ask God’s blessing on the service. It was very difficult getting out of the chair and walking up the two steps to the pulpit, and I thought to myself, it is going to be a long morning. After a couple more songs and a “special music” I got up to preach, and by the time I finished the first point I was totally pain free. The second service was the same and I was even more attentive to if it was really gone or if I was just imagining it to the point that I lost my train of thought while speaking. Thank You Lord. I guess I will have to increase the time I spend teaching and preaching.

This morning (Saturday) we had our monthly Men’s Breakfast. It starts at 7 am with all the bacon you can eat along with eggs, fried potatoes with gravy, pancakes, and of course coffee. Our speaker this morning was Chris Robertson who spoke on how to be a mighty man, and challenged us to follow Christ so that we could be a mighty man for Him. We have lots of men’s events coming up including a “Wild game feed” which is a potluck where guys bring something that they”Shot, caught, or ran over”. No vegetables are allowe except for chili beans. I am going to bring some mountain lion meat from the one I got in Wyoming this past December. We haven’t eaten any of it yet, so I have no clue what it tastes like. We will find out November 20th. Probably tastes like chicken 😄 Then in February we have our Sportmans Show at the Linn County fairgrounds. Lot’s of venders will be there who are fishing guides, hunting guides, those selling boats, campers and everything under the sun that a person who hunts, fishes and camps could possibly want. I enjoy very much these activities with guys who love the outdoors and hunting and fishing as much as I do. Great fellowship. What I like best about these three events, Men’s Breakfast, Wild Game Feed, and the “Sportsmans Show is that guys from our Church lead and direct the entire thing. Zero involvement on my part other than showing up and being a positive participant. That is my favorite job at JBC, being a positive participant.

I am reading another book, “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey”. The second habit that the author talks about is “Begin with the End in Mind”. It is basically asking the “Why” question before you start something to be sure it fits with your values. When I think about myself and what are key strengths that I can see in myself as I read these books about what successful people do and their character, habits, and values, I would say that this habit of “beginning with the end in mind” would be a major strength of mine. I don’t do it quite like the book suggests, just more complete. I believe according to 2 Corintians 5:10 that all believers in the gospel of Jesus when they die or the Lord returns, whatever happens first, will all stand before Jesus and give an accounting of their life. This event is called “The Judgment Seat of Christ” and believers in Jesus who have done well with their life will receive great rewards from Jesus. These rewards will be amazing and very much worth working diligently for. I begin every day visualizing what that day will feel like, sound like, look like. I imagine the glory I will recieve from Jesus if I do well, and I also imagine the shame and remorse I will feel if I stand before Him with nothing. Every morning I pray a prayer of commitment and a key part at the end is “today I will live my life as if it is the last day I have before Jesus comes back or I die and stand before Him to give an accounting of my life to Him”. What I would like to hear,” Here, let me give you this spot close to Me on my throne because you served Me well during your life”. Begin with the end in mind” I do that every day.

I am reading a good book called “The Intangibles of Leadership”. The author over the years has studied successful leaders and looked for common traits that are not normally studied in the lives of highly successful people. The first one is “wisdom”. Wisdom is different than I.Q. Wisdom is making right choices and saying right words through the course of a day that add up to regular “wins” in life. Anybody can become wise, but few do because the price is high. Wisdom requires a great deal of personal reflection in regards to our successes and our failures and accurately assessing the reason for both. These bits of wisdom remembered and reflected on, meditated on, and combined systematically with all the bits that we have collected results in a disciplined way of thinking that allows us to quickly make decisions and choices that are right. Part of becoming wiser quickly is using the experiences and reflections of others as well as our own. We do that by talking to wise people and asking them great questions. Those who are longing for more wisdom are always looking for these kinds of people and are humble enough to seek wisdom from them. Those who are looking for wisdom like gold, silver, and precious treasure also read books written by winners and listen to messages and talks that wise people have given. I want to be wise, I want to be wiser wiser and wiser. I will pay the price. Help me Lord.

The Tilapia that I am raising like warm water. They grow fastest in water that is 80 degrees. The nice thing about that is that the grow beds that the water goes through is nice and warm and along with the high nutrient level of the water because of the fish poop, the plants that I am growing in the greenhouse are growing like crazy. Heating the water has been the biggest expense of raising Tilapia in my aqaponics system. Today I took 70 feet of 3/8 cooper tubing and rapped it around and around the stove pipe on my wood stove and plumbed it into two pec lines that I had running to my greenhouse that are insulated and buried. Got everything hooked up and turned on the pump and it all worked like a charm. The water coming out into the tank where the fish are is about 90-95 degrees. I think I will take care of most of the heating expense with this plan. It is always fun to have a problem and then to invent a solution for the problem that works. We were created by God in His image and likeness. The proneness that all of is have to create, to invent, to solve problems comes from God, and is a lot of fun. I wonder what I will create tomorrow.?

Samson was asked by Delilah over and over what the secret of his great strength was. He refused to tell his secret and finally he gave in and told and that was the end of his secret and his strength. What is the secret to having amazing strength today. The answer is simple, wait on the Lord. Isaiah 40 says, “Those who wait on the Lord will mount up with wings like Eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not faint, yeh I love that word about not fainting, even in ER. To wait on the Lord is to do nothing except focus on him. A personal quite time of 15 minutes or so works great when we simply seek to draw near, to grow in our ability to focus on Him alone with no distractions. I am 67 years old, not real old, but at the age where most are retired and I have Parkinson’s which causes severe tiredness. But in spite of that I have more passion and fire and desire to bear more fruit for God now than I ever have in the past. When I get tired I pray for awhile and ask God to give me strength. I wait and wait and pray and pray with great importunity until I feel motivated and strong. It is much more a discipline than it is a secret. We tend to think that a secret is easy, but being devoted to prayer is not easy and very few pray to God with any kind of sacrifice to the point that they experience Isaiah 40. The tireder I get the more I pray, that is the secret of amazing energy.

I like to write. I often jokingly say about Patty that she can’t think without talking. That is how she sort of clarifies things in her mind, by talking about it. I on the other hand can’t think without writing, at least that is when I do my most creative thinking and that is how I most successfully solve problems. I periodically will write out my vision for the future, my ideas and thoughts for a better tomorrow. I do this almost exclusively about the church I have pastored for 39 years, Jefferson Baptist Church, JBC. I love the church, I have given my life for the church, most of my thinking during waking hours is about the church, and I am constantly dreaming about the future when she is more holy, healthier, reaching more people, and doing wonderful things for families. I like to just write for a long time about projects that our church could do, events that would be fun and attract lots of people, growth that we will have, ministries that be improved and started. Over the years of doing this it is quite amazing how much I saw and wrote down actually is who we are today. I have been writing a lot of late about my vision for the future of JBC. As well I write about the obstacles that that there will be to keep the vision from happening, and I conquor those obstacles in my writing by writing strategy, goals, solutions. I never share these writings. They are purposefully wild, over the top, extreme, crazy, like a “Alice in Wonderland” story or a “Starwars.” Adventure. Because no one will read them I can just go crazy and dream extreme as I pastor JBC.

They gave Patty some prednesdone and breathing treatment and we are on our way home. They said she had COPD, and she will be fine, very common. WhenIget homeIwill ride on my stationary bike to get the wooziness out of my head and I will be fine. Fun night😀

One of the concerns of doctors for patients that have had major surgery like a hip replacement is blood clots. So when Patty started having breathing problems that didn’t respond to her normal asthma treatments we called the doctor and he said we needed to go to Emergency and have her lungs checked for blood clots withs CAT scan. So here I sit in the ER waiting room waiting for the results of the CAT scan that were done a few minutes ago. They said it would be around 45 minutes for the results. Sherri, our daughter is in with Patty texting me info as she hears it. I am in the waiting room because I tend to get nauseous and faint inside hospitals and I become an unneeded distraction. Even here in the waiting room I make regular escapes to the outside to breath some cool air and clear my head. It helps to sit in the far corner away from the normal activity in an Emergency Room reading and writing. I am reading Psalms and meditating on the words and praying them back to God. Writing in my journal my thoughts and feelings as I wait for news about Patty and writing this blog. Oh here comes Sherri. She looks calm, things must be ok. I will finish the story tomorrow.

We had a fun time at the Hallaween event at JBC tonight, “Trunk or Treat”. 50 parking spots in our parking lot had cars, pickups with candie and decorations and games. The kids and parents go from “Trunk” to “trunk” getting candy. In the gym was free hot dogs, chips, and hot chocolate with a big bouncy house and other games for the kids to play along with face painting and a photographer taking pictures. In the sanctuary was a magic show for the kids with a Bible story along with it. We had a bus shuttling people from other parking lots and the bus was going non stop and our own parking lot was full as well the entire evening. We thought it might be poorly attended this year because of the weather, but I think parents realized that it was better to walk between parking spots and have a warm gym to go into as it was was to walk the streets in this pouring rain. We had a huge turn out. I took my 49 Ford pick up and had one of those fold out canopies to sit under in my lawn chair drinking coffee handing out candie to kids. It did pour rain, like a monsoon. Almost every spot had a canopy and the kids would go from cover to cover having a good time. I drank about 5 cups of hot coffee and ate way to much candy and by the time it was over I was way hyper. I think it will wear off before I preach in the morning. It was nice to take an event like Halloween that has no redeeming value, and turn it into a safe, enjoyable time where they can hear the Gospel. Yep, it was a good time.