And So

"... and so we came to Rome." Acts 24:14b

With this brief little statement Luke wraps up the harrowing adventure that had taken months and months across miles and miles. When we move forward in our lives we must find a way to sum up the past in just a few words. I sense Luke may have said this almost a little 'tongue in cheek'. We have all seen movies or television series that were about the harrowing adventure of a vacation or a 'three hour tour'. All of us have been part of life experiences that got way more complicated than they were planned. It is a common plot ending to have the adventurous group all looking at one another and just with their eyes saying, "I can't believe we survived that". But Luke, Paul, Aristarchus and the other 276 passengers did. Just like the movies, just like Gilligan, just like us. Our life experiences are sometimes life threatening and we don't die. We somehow manage to move on.

How do you tell your story? How do you explain why you are here? I have sure had my share of harrowing adventures that could have been the end for me. I almost died at age five when gangrene set in after my appendix ruptured, sirens on ride to the hospital in a Sheriff's car, with my dad driving and laying in my mom's lap. The last thing I remember was counting backwards as they put the ether mask on me and my mom and dad standing there with the pastor from Brown St. Baptist Church.

I have had a handful of car accidents, one fiery one with several fatalities. I have taken a loaded gun away from a drunken man in a situation that could have gone very bad. Like many of you who may have had even closer brushes with death, I too, am still here to write about it. I do not know how many times God has spared my life over the years. Like the early disciples, I have to wrestle with the question of 'Why didn't I die?' Over the years that question has changed to 'Why am I still here?' Good question. Why does God keep me here? Have you ever thought of it that way? Instead of what could have happened, what didn't happen? I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but there are a couple other things that have happened in my life that could have ended my ministry too. But, they didn't. I don't understand why, but I do understand why not.

Like you, God isn't finished with me yet. That may not be true tomorrow, or even before you read this. But, for now, I move on. I do so by faith in my living God, only knowing that I take one breath at a time and thousands of them without even thinking about it. Someday it will be different.

For now it is the same.... and so I sign off in Him,
Pastor Fred

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