9/22/2018
Well, the weekend started very well as I expected, with a wonderful time of fellowship and great bible message from a good friend. He, unfortunately, had to first suffer through listening to me. But, the food was excellent and the fellowship sweet! Oh, and to my two friends who tend to think all the peanut butter fudge is theirs….you weren’t there, so I ate your pieces, too!!
SIMH today was one I heard last night, so the tradition is a little trite. But, the song is terrific. It tells the complete story of how personal salvation is achieved for us by our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: I’m sure you’ve heard many times, One Day. Verse by verse account of Christ coming from glory, being born, taken to Calvary, crucified, risen, and gone into glory once more, only to return for us. “One Day He’s coming, Oh glorious day!”
When we moved to Texas, we lived in a town whose population sign read 23,700 or so. Large city by this Indiana farm boy’s standard, but a nice size city. An old man(about the age I am now) came to our bible class and told me I should go to a drugstore close to where I lived for coffee each day to get to know some guys there. I did that and he wasn’t there so I sat down at the first table on the right, ordered coffee and began to observe those who were there.
A man walked in and sat down at a middle table, looked at me and said, “I know you, your wife and you were just in my store a few days ago to get her new glasses.” I said I remembered. He got up came over and re-introduced himself and asked me to join him. I did. We remained good friends and had coffee together for 27 years. He introduced me to more men as they came in. Soon there were 5 men at the the table for 4 and all were as friendly as the first! What a place! In a little while the old man from the bible class came in, smiled at me, nodded and went to another group whom he usually sat with. When he left, he said in passing, “I see it worked” and went on his way.
The old man sat with us some and after a few weeks made our table his table as well. He was a little irritating at times because he knew so much. And he really did know a lot about nearly everything. If he arrived first and I came in and ordered coffee, when I would sweeten it with artificial sugar, he would go into a rant about how poison it was! I would agree with him and then it became personal with, “Well, then why do you do it?! Don’t you know you’re killing yourself?” So, if he was there when I got there I just drank black coffee. Finally, after a few days in a row of drinking black coffee, I decided never to drink it any other way. So my friend had cured me of addiction to artificial sugar and introduced me to black coffee. I thank you, sir.
Truth is, the old man taught me many things. His stories went all the way back to the early 1920s, and started in Nebraska. If you read this blog, you’ll hear from him.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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