Blessings in the Midst of Pain
By John W. Kennedy | March 3, 2009
Friday afternoon I brought in some wood from the front porch to burn in the living room fireplace. Because we have a huge fireplace, it’s not unusual for me to haul in huge logs. On Friday I carried one weighing about 70 pounds and set it on the floor next to the elevated brick hearth. Unfortunately, I forgot to leave any space for my hand as I set the log down and shoved it to the bricks. (See the re-enactment in the picture below.)
The resulting crush of my hand brought a sensation of physical pain I’ve seldom experienced. As I tore off my glove to inspect the damage, I discovered the skin of the top of my right ring finger ripped apart and dangling precariously. The finger had swollen to twice its size, as blood began spurting on the floor.
My wife drove me to an emergency room after preparing a bowl filled with ice cubes for my throbbing hand. X-rays showed that the bone at the tip of my finger had been pulverized into eight pieces, sort of like what Road Runner used to do when he dropped an anvil onto Wile E. Coyote from a cliff. Seven stitches saved the top of my finger from falling off. The emergency room physician predicted I will have use of the finger again in another three weeks.
As happens in such situations, I always try to look at the bright side. For one thing, this marked the first time in my 50 years that I ever had a broken bone. And there is much more for which to be thankful:
• Only one finger got hurt, not four; if I hadn’t been wearing gloves, the damage would have been more severe.
• Because this happened Friday afternoon, I had the weekend to recuperate.
• I had just finished writing a 3,000-word freelance story on my computer.
• The doctor and other staff in the ER showed great compassion and professionalism. And I didn’t have to wait (the bowl of bloody water probably helped).
• No permanent damage is anticipated. In the meantime, I’m able to type and write with my right hand almost as efficiently as if I didn’t have a bandage on it.
• Despite the doctor forecasting severe pain for several days, I’ve hardly had a twinge of discomfort. I credit friends and relatives we called for intercessory prayer right after it happened.
• The sudden surge of pain apparently scared the kidney stone that had been plaguing me for nearly four weeks right out of my body; I haven’t had any of that related pain since this happened.
Most importantly, I’m grateful for the atoning blood of Jesus. As I took Communion Sunday, the grape juice had a special meaning. I know what a shattered finger feels like. But Jesus endured a painful death, with both his hands and feet crippled by driven spikes. The pain of the Cross isn’t a truth that we should ever forget.
Topics: medicine | 1 Comment »
Time-Managing TV
By John W. Kennedy | February 24, 2009
I occasionally hear friends discuss what they watched on TV last night. And they sometimes talk about commercials that struck their fancy. I never know what they’re talking about.
That’s because I haven’t watched a commercial for years. It’s not that I don’t watch television. But I’ve invested in one of the greatest inventions in history: the digital video recorder (TiVo is the most notable name, but there are others that do the job as well.)
DVRs are a multiple blessing. Not only do I avoid obnoxious, banal and sometimes vulgar commercial pitches, I’m replacing that previously lost time for other activities, such as reading, conversing with my wife and going to sleep.
The DVR process, thanks to a few clicks of the remote, cuts a half-hour show to 22 minutes. I’ve even taken up the practice for sporting events. Typically I will set up the timer to record the game, then start watching about an hour into it. About the time the game is over it’s real time — and I’ve spared myself an hour of hearing plugs for beer, cars and products to fix male “dysfunction.”
According to the Television Bureau of Advertising, the typical adult watches
3.71 hours of TV a day, which translates into 1,354 hours per year. Most of that is commercial television, which now has an advertising frequency of 15 minutes per hour.
So that means TV audiences (if not on pay channels or non-commercial networks) spend a full two weeks annually doing nothing but viewing commercials. There is a better way.
Topics: television | 1 Comment »
Are You Sirius?
By John W. Kennedy | February 17, 2009
Media reports last week speculated that Sirius XM Radio may be preparing to file for bankruptcy, which would cause it to possibly cancel contracts with the likes of shock jock Howard Stern. That would be one blessing of the downward economy. The satellite radio network is $3.25 billion in debt.
For a company to pay $100 million annually to a 55-year-old man to make crude sexual and scatological jokes on the air is beyond me. I couldn’t believe the business decision three years ago when Sirius signed an agreement to pay Stern $500 million over five years. How many subscribers to the 130-station conglomerate are going to shell out $13 a month just to listen to him?
Of course Sirius signed Stern in the first place because of his outrageous behavior. Before moving to subscription-based media, Stern had become the most heavily fined broadcaster in radio history. If Sirius does give Stern the ax, some other media giant probably will scoop him up right away.
But it would be nice to think that in our strapped economy the media elite might realize Americans could somehow get along without hearing Howard Stern.
Topics: radio | 1 Comment »
Gifted Hands: Ben Carson’s Story
By John W. Kennedy | February 10, 2009
I watched an uplifting new television movie over the weekend, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story on TNT. The movie traces the life of the world’s foremost pediatric brain surgeon, showing how prayer and a faith in God have been instrumental in directing Carson. The movie, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., is being rerun occasionally, with the next screening at 11 p.m. Wednesday (Central Time).
I’ve interviewed the soft-spoken and humble director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions a couple of times, including last year in Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.
The movie shows how Carson, guided by his skill, knowledge — and trust in God — pioneered surgical techniques that others had been unwilling to risk. But at a deeper level, the film shows how God transformed a ghetto kid from Detroit who had been abandoned by his father and was flunking in school. As a hot-tempered teenager, Carson thrust a knife toward a friend’s belly, but providentially the blade hit a heavy belt buckle, snapped and fell to the ground. Carson realized his anger had raged out of control, and he cried in anguish for the Lord to remove his temper. His prayer answered, Carson calmly overcame subtle and overt forms of racism that cropped up at school and later in his career.
A real hero in the inspiring drama is Carson’s mother, Sonya, who worked two low-paying jobs to support herself and her two sons. She made Ben memorize multiplication tables, limited his TV watching to two programs a week, and required him to read and write a report on two library books weekly. Such lessons are even more applicable for parents today.
Topics: faith | 1 Comment »
Rethinking Our Priorities
By John W. Kennedy | February 3, 2009
This is a serious time in our nation. The economy has tanked on so many levels, it’s difficult to imagine life ever being as comfortable as only a few months ago. And maybe that’s OK.
When unemployment goes up and the stock market goes down week after week, it’s time to rethink what’s really important. A factor behind the recession is that many Americans are accustomed to cutting corners to get ahead, of greedily trying to make a killing in investments, of buying huge houses on credit and new vehicles they don’t really need. Despite the claims of name-it, claim-it televangelists, that’s not what a life of faith is all about.
Jesus didn’t teach His followers that the accumulation of wealth should be a priority. Rather, the Lord told us to invest in other people. When the country is in financial crisis, it makes non-Christians more desperate to hear the gospel.
So let’s proclaim that the most important thing in life is a daily relationship with Jesus, not the size of our savings account or the summer vacation we plan to take. Austerity can be beneficial if we don’t become anxious. If we spend more time in prayer and Bible reading because we don’t have funds to go out to eat or to the movies, so be it.
I realize it’s tough. I, along with many others, have seen retirement funds dwindle. I have faithful friends losing their jobs and homes. Clearly, the Bible teaches that Christians aren’t immune from troubles.
The last time I remember such a difficult time was 1982 — when it took me six months to find a job after graduating from journalism school. The economy, including the newspaper industry that I became a part of, bounced back. That’s not so certain this time. We may be undergoing a major economic upheaval that will leave us with a much different looking country.
With so many economic indicators in the doldrums, recovery is a long way off, no matter what incentives the government may devise. Let’s remember to keep going to church, to keep tithing and to keep giving to missions. This is a time when churchgoers can be counterculture by not giving in to fear.
Topics: economy | 1 Comment »
Adventures in Flying
By John W. Kennedy | January 27, 2009
Whatever the weather conditions, I figure once I’m in the air headed for Springfield I’m home free — although there’s always the possibility of being diverted to another airport. But in inclement winter conditions, it’s comforting to lift off the runway in a connecting city. It means I won’t have to spend the night sleeping in a terminal far from Missouri.
Monday afternoon my plane took off in the Dallas fog, 20 minutes late. Yet I was grateful because other flights were being canceled left and right. A little more than an hour later we touched down in Springfield without incident. But as the pilot turned the plane on the runway toward the terminal, the tires hit a patch of ice, sending us into the frozen grass. A plane that landed right behind us got turned around on the landing strip. The airport quickly closed.
Both planes had to be towed in by trucks to the terminal. Our pilot, with the plane’s left tires sinking in the mud, said he never had experienced anything like it in 22 years of flying.
Sitting there in an airplane showed how small and helpless we are compared to God. Despite all our technology, we still must rely on Him for our safety. Obviously, the situation could have been more dire if the plane had skidded on landing and we rolled.
The ice storm that hit Springfield Monday night continues Tuesday morning. Assemblies of God headquarters is closed. I’m grateful that I made it back to Springfield. With this weather I might have been stuck in Dallas for a long time.
Topics: flying | No Comments »
God’s Generous Giving
By John W. Kennedy | January 20, 2009
To many people it seems logical to stop giving to church and missions in an economic downturn. But after we lose our job isn’t the prudent time to cut God out of the family budget.
All we have comes from God — and all we have belongs to God. My wife and I started tithing early in marriage. But there’s one period in our lives where God showed us the benefits of tithing as never before. God provided for us miraculously after I lost my job and the family’s primary income in 1990.
I had been fired from a small daily newspaper for helping to organize a pro-life group in town. Yet we knew God would see us through our time of need. The story about my firing spread quickly in the media, both mainstream and Christian.
Consequently we began receiving checks in the mail from people all over the country, people we didn’t know but who had read about what happened. Those checks —$5, $10, $20, $50, some even as much as $100 — sustained us. We tithed off of each financial gift.
I was out of work for about 4½ months, until being hired as a copy editor of a big-city newspaper. The day I started my new job the checks from supporters around the country stopped. Coincidence? I think not. We came to understand that God provides abundantly from resources we never imagined — if we honor Him with what He entrusts to us. Even if we lose our livelihood.
And it’s OK to be lavish with what funds we do have, even if it’s less than we were making before. As 2 Corinthians 9:7 reminds us, “Everyone should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
Topics: tithing | No Comments »
Facing Up to Facebook
By John W. Kennedy | January 12, 2009
Family members, co-workers and church acquaintances all have urged me to sign up to join Facebook, the social networking site that “connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them.” I’m not sold on the concept.
For one thing, being on Facebook would seem to be a massive investment of time. As someone who already maintains a blog at least weekly and who checks two e-mail accounts repeatedly on a daily basis, I’m concerned that Facebook would constitute Internet overload. I’m not sure that the payoff to expand my list of “friends” would be worth the time it takes me away from the person I’m closest to: my wife.
The glimpses I’ve seen of Facebook from her account usually leave me grateful that I’m outside the realm. Several Christians I know seem to think others need an hour-by-hour description of their activities and thoughts:
“Joe is trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast.”
“Nancy is angry with her husband for forgetting to take out the trash.”
“Bill is goofing off on the computer when he should be studying his homework.”
“Jane wants chocolate right now.”
“Frank went shopping and got irritated with the crowds.”
“Isabel is exhausted because all her children decided to be difficult today.”
The Internet has a great potential to tell others about the goodness of the Lord and how He changes the lives of Christians for the better.
Unfortunately, at least among some of the people I know, Facebook writing has become an exercise in minutia. Rather than focusing outward, postings become inward ramblings of how lonely, bitter, angry or unfulfilled a person is about some minor irritation of life.
I’m grateful that my wife decided to give away her laptop last week. She found she spent too much free time on the computer, in part checking postings that left her guilty for wasting time. I periodically have had to detach myself from spending too much time surfing the Internet or watching television. Good technological tools are harmful when they become obsessions.
The apostle Paul seems to offer a better thought pattern in his exhortation to the Philippians (4:8): “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”
Topics: Internet | 2 Comments »
Farewell to a Man of Prayer
By John W. Kennedy | January 5, 2009
I attended the funeral of Larry Mather today, a day he and his family fully expected him to be home from hospitalization. But heart surgery doctors didn’t foresee complications before the New Year’s Eve operation. On New Year’s Day, as his family sang the Doxology around his bed, Larry went to his heavenly reward, four days after his 75th birthday.
I didn’t get to know Larry until late in his life, after he and Jo, his wife of 53 years, had moved to Springfield. Mo. By this time, Larry already had retired after pastoring the same Minneapolis-area Assemblies of God church for four decades. But rather than quit serving the Lord, Larry got involved in support ministry. He taught a Sunday school class on intercessory prayer and led an intercessory prayer group at an AG church plant that we attended.
Larry didn’t mind no longer being in the spotlight. He understood the importance of going to the throne of God in the dimly lit prayer room. What my wife, Patty, and I appreciated most about Larry was his humble manner of mentoring others about prayer. He understood that prayer is privileged communication with God. We don’t always get what we want and the person we’re interceding for may not change, but it’s important that we go to the Lord anyway. As Jo said in greeting us before the service, “God is good.”
Through Larry, the Lord taught us lessons in patience, humility and gratitude. And we remember Larry as a faithful encourager. He was a gracious, kind, sweet-spirited man of solid faith — and good-natured humor. A day before the surgery, Patty talked to Larry on the phone. He joked about how he decided to bring in the new year in a Springfield hospital rather than in a fancy Branson resort.
“Jo and I could have spent New Year’s at Chateau on the Lake, but we decided to stay at Chateau at St. John instead,” he said.
Larry, you will be missed.
Topics: prayer | No Comments »
Board Games Never Go Out of Style
By John W. Kennedy | December 31, 2008
A strange phenomenon occurred as my family gathered on Christmas to open gifts. Package after package laid at my feet seemed to be the same size. By the time all the wrapping paper had been ripped asunder, half-a-dozen board games surrounded me.
My adult sons bought these gifts for me unsolicited. I suppose it’s only natural. In their younger years I gave them plenty of board games, which provided hours of relatively inexpensive enjoyment. They are a great source of learning, fun and family togetherness. When the brood gathers for holidays, playing board games is certain to be on the agenda.
The fact that I received so many board games is a testament to their staying power. Manufacturers continue to come up with new ways to make games entertaining, relevant and intelligent. The togetherness factor is a key reason games continue to be popular in an age when much other written material struggles to survive. Although people play all sorts of competitive word scrambles, puzzles and trivia games via computer, it’s difficult to match the tangible community relationship level of being hunkered over a board in the living room.
For the record, the new cache of mine is: Million Dollar Password, Identity Crisis, Buzzwords, Origin of Expressions, Trivial Pursuit 25th anniversary edition and Pass the Popcorn. We’ll be gathering again this weekend for more friendly rivalry.
Topics: family | No Comments »