When we moved to the Olympic Peninsula, we hoped to meet a few brothers and sisters in the Lord and decided to visit a small independent country church. Before going, we talked about our intents and purposes and resolved to keep mum about our history, gifts and callings. The very first service we attended, the new pastor was introduced and within 5 minutes of hearing him boast, I said to Karen “he will destroy the sweet fellowship here”. When the service was over, I chided him about a gross contradiction between his message and the men’s program he promoted. He threw his head back and laughed, dismissing what I said by the Spirit of Truth. In hindsight, that should have been our first and last visit, but we decided to check out the Bible study prayer group meeting the following Wednesday.

The leader was spirit filled and conducted the Bible study with learnedness and sensitivity for every person’s participation. Her devotion and preparedness was obvious and we regarded her a genuine sister. Midway, the study broke for refreshments, where my dear wife boasted to the woman who asked about us “my husband is a songwriter and worship leader”. “Ooooh!” said the woman as she rubbed her hands together “we’ll have to put him to work right away”. So much for keeping mum and avoiding church work.

(This post was originally published in April 2017) I’m not a fan of writings that for the most part seem assembled from the quotations of scholars, historians, and theologians, weaving them together like some great tapestry of spiritual enlightenment. To me, such writing seems oddly disconnected from the soul of the author which leaves me cold. I’d so much rather read a personal testimony from the author’s own life experience. What was your condition, how did the Son intervene, how were you healed or blessed, what did you learn? That’s what I want to know, for no derivative or commentary ever touched my heart like the open, honest, and vulnerable testimony of a brother or sister in the Son.

And yet, it was a daily devotional I receive by email that had me on the receiving end of the Lord’s chastisement several times during a health scare. Whoever is in charge of publishing excerpts from an author who died in 1971, had obviously been spying on me and selecting them with intent to hit me squarely between the eyes.

It first happened while lying on a gurney in the emergency room, strapped to an EKG monitor, and with an IV in each arm. I’m sorry, this is emotional. There I spoke frankly to Karen about the possibility of my death. She refused to hear it of course, admonishing me to speak faith but still I wanted her to know that I loved her and she was free to return to her family in Illinois, leaving the care of my elderly father who lived with us, to my siblings. Again, Karen spoke words of encouragement, even while I lamented the garden I’d started in faith but now could not finish because of the heart attack.