3/6/2020
“Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb”—remember that old saying about the month of March? Well, here on the mountain it came in more like a salmon swimming upstream. We’ve had so much rain! The locals say they’ve never seen as much rain in the first part of the year. Personally, it is interfering with our remodel project making any real progress. Ah, well. Someday soon!
But the “lion” of the old saying showed up a few nights ago, across a wide swath of Northern Tennessee. A devastating and deadly tornado which, at last count had taken 23 lives and destroyed many hundreds of homes and private properties, as well as hundreds of businesses. We’re seeing an amazing outpouring of support from neighboring areas and, in fact, from all over the nation. We who cannot go and do can certainly pray. There is still a goodly number of people missing and possibly going to make the loss of lives even greater. Our prayers should be directed toward the families who mourn, the survivors who will be traumatized for a long while, and the dis-placed employees and business owners effected.
This morning we have sunshine, so we see the “lamb” of Spring in our minds, hoping to not again be inundated with rain so much as to keep our workers and ourselves from making progress. At least, we’ll enjoy this beautiful day! Maybe give us a taste of the promise of every Spring season—new life in the earth! It always lifts our spirit.
Speaking of a lift to our spirits, the Gatlinburg Bible Conference last weekend truly fit the bill for uplifting! A whole bunch of really great Bible lessons from good Bible teachers while enjoying the fellowship of folks from several states from Illinois to Florida! I especially enjoyed meeting the beau of a good friend from Virginia and seeing how genuinely happy she seemed. The young man also seemed of a great good-nature and glad to be in our midst: always a good sign, don’t ya know.
Met a couple of young guys from Southern Illinois who are making the rounds to Bible conferences this year, praying it is a wonderful experience for them and at each stop, they learn a bible application for the rest of their lives.
On the way to Gatlinburg, Barb and I follow the “back road” entrance to the Great Smokey Mountain Park which takes us through Maryville, TN. So, we were privileged to drive the long winding road alongside the rapid mountain stream, lazily ambling along while giant snowflakes come down (but not sticking to the road) and filtered through the bare naked trees to gently float down into the river bottom rocks—absolutely beautiful! We enjoyed it very much. On our way home Sunday, taking the same road out, the weather was warm and the sunshine gave the same scenery an altogether different hue and yet, that too, was utterly beautiful. Hope you can get that same joy from driving through this or something similar real soon.
Sunday, we stopped in Maryville at our favorite restaurant in all of Tennessee, Sullivan’s Downtown, with 5 of our favorite friends from the conference. Great food and fun conversation with this “Nation Wide” group: we live in Alabama, a couple were from Kentucky, one each from Minnesota, Virginia, and Florida. We just about covered the Eastern half of the U.S!
Next conference is just 70 miles from home. My brother, Jack Lockhart, with his wife, Nancy and their congregation host a Bible Conference next weekend in Arab, AL. Some of the same preachers will be there, but also some others, a couple of which are even older than either Jack or me. One is 87, one is 92, and this makes for some interesting studies, I guarantee ya! After that, the next conference is near the end of April in Round Rock, TX. That’s just North of Austin. We spent 27 years there, living just South of Austin in New Braunfels. I travelled and taught Bible classes, some around Austin and North to D-FW area, so we are looking forward to seeing many old friends at that conference, as well.
During all this time, our duties will include getting this house ready to sell and seeing to it that the contractors get the smaller home down the hill in Fort Payne ready to move into. Remodels always have surprises, but the rain has made this challenge stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. Nevertheless, somehow we’ll prevail, I reckon.
Stay tuned for more exciting tales and adventures in the “Elder’s blogging life!”
Thanks for reading,
The Elder
the Elder's Blog 