When Life Gets Hard

“Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards”—Job 5:3.  This was part of the argument of Eliphaz the Temanite, one of Job’s comforters.  His ultimate conclusion would be that Job’s calamities were the necessary consequence of his sin.  Anyone familiar with the book of Job knows that is not the point God is making, but consider what Eliphaz was saying for just a moment. Just as surely as the sparks from a fire fly upward, trouble comes to us all.  The Bible scholars tell us that the Hebrew word behind “trouble” could be rendered “hardship, affliction, anguish, or sorrow.”  Eliphaz’s conclusion may have been wrong, but this step in his logic is unassailable: All of us are born unto trouble.  

I know something about trouble, or I should say, the Lord is teaching me some lessons about dealing with difficulty.  In my 32^nd year of pastoral ministry I began to fall down.  Long story short, I was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition (70 people out of every million) and told I would slowly lose the ability to walk, to talk, and eventually to reason.  I retired from the pastorate and began looking for a path through this particular hard patch.  Doing so has supplied me with some resources that can help anyone, no matter what sort of trouble you are dealing with.

First, it’s okay to grieve.  You may not be dealing with a life-altering medical diagnosis, but I have found it is downright therapeutic to grieve over loss.  If your marriage falls apart, or you lose the dream job, or your son ends up in prison, it is okay to grieve.  To determine to “keep a firm upper lip” and forge ahead, thereby burying your trouble, simply will not work, nor is it emotionally healthy.  Those buried feelings will come out of the grave at the worst imaginable times.  It is far healthier to deal with them--perhaps through the help of a professional counselor, a pastor, or maybe even a trusted friend.  We are not all wired the same way, but some of us have found keeping a journal to be a way to get all of our feelings out.  I have kept a journal off and on since college, and looking back I can see my entries are always longer whenever there is some problem.  Of course, the length and depth of your grieving will depend on the nature of your trouble and even on your personality. You don’t want to allow your trouble to define you.  Grieve, and maybe continue to do so privately, but at some point move on.

What do you move on to?  I have found great comfort in God’s Word.  It is interesting how significant trouble will change the way you look at the Bible.  As a spiritual discipline I had read through the Scriptures at least once a year since my days in Bible College.  I had preached just about every Sunday since the fall of 1982.  I don’t say that to brag but to point out I was pretty familiar with the Bible.  Still, I have been amazed how many times I have seen things which I just had missed all of those other times I had read the same passages.  I suppose it would be more accurate to say I now see an application from a verse not to my congregation, or as a buttress for a doctrine, but as something that seems to be there for me.  One day I came to Psalm 37 and noted how the verbs in the first seven verses just spoke to my heart.  It begins “Do not fret,” continues with “Trust in the Lord,” and admonishes me to “Delight yourself in the Lord.”  What’s more the passage says “Commit your way to the Lord,” and finally “Rest in the Lord.” It was just what I needed to hear. I am not a mystic, but I believe the Lord led me to that passage on that day to minister to my need.  I fully believe God will do that for you as well.

Some may wonder why I would mention turning to the Bible before talking about prayer. Obviously, one of the first responses we all have to trouble is prayer, but I put it after devotional reading of God’s Word because of the guidance the Bible can give to our prayers.  I am not sure where I first encountered it, but several Christian leaders have advocated “praying the Bible.”  In brief, this is looking at a passage and applying it to yourself in prayer.  Take the first verse of the 23^rdPsalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”  I have prayed, “Lord I thank you for being my shepherd.  I know that shepherds do so many things for their flocks, and I can see those things in my life.  I rejoice in the fact that I have a vital relationship with You.  You are not just a shepherd or the shepherd but my shepherd.”  This approach to prayer is nothing new.  The earliest reference I can find to it is in the writings of Augustine. In his letter (#130) to a woman named Anicia Faltonia Proba, who lost everything when Rome was sacked in 410 A.D., the great theologian outlines this approach.  You will find similar advice about prayer from Martin Luther and John Calvin.  Timothy Keller has brought together much of this ancient approach to prayer in his book simply entitled Prayer. Other writers like Donald Whitney and Stormie Omartian have book-length presentations of this approach.  Speaking of prayer, it is a good thing to ask people to pray for you.  Sure, it will call for a degree of humility, but don’t let your pride stand in the way of God’s blessing.

Look for support from fellow travelers.  If your trouble is with some sort of addiction, there are all sorts of 12-step programs employing forms of the approach made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous. The folks at Saddleback Community Church saw the power of this and developed Celebrate Recovery, which has been helpful especially in the area of marital problems.  While actual personal interaction is better than social networking over the internet, I have found a group on Facebook that is made up of people dealing with my particular medical problem and their care givers.  I have traded information about the latest medical developments with people around the world.  If you can find people who are dealing with a similar sort of trouble you can both receive and give support.

Finally, remember that many of God’s most used people have been well acquainted with trouble. The “prince of preachers” Charles Spurgeon battled depression through most of his very successful ministry.  You can see this reflected in his very popular devotional book Morning and Eveningwhere he gives sound advice to those of us in trouble.  One of my favorite passages is the entry for the evening of November 11^th. “Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good.  Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder, and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work to the glory of God.”

*This blog post was originally written for the Fall 2018 issue of Fusionext, a magazine produced by Randall House Publications for their D6 Sunday School curriculum.  It was titled The Burden Best Suited to Your Shoulder.

A Better Place

It had not been a good day.  My legs were tighter than usual, walking was precarious,  and I just couldn’t seem to rally over the fatigue.  I decided that it might be a good thing to listen to some music.  I pulled up a playlist that I call “Driving Music 2” which is heavy on Jim Croce songs, one of my favorite artists.  It’s hard to feel blue when you are listening to “Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” or my pick of the Croce litter, “Roller Derby Queen”!  The music was having the desired effect of getting my mind off my problems when I found myself listening to one of Glen Campbell’s last songs, “A Better Place.” I had forgotten it was on this playlist.   I have history with that song. 

Back in 2011 my friend Glen Poston asked me if I would want to hear Glen Campbell in person! Poston explained that Sirius XM was running a promotion that he qualified for and that he ended up with two tickets to hear Campbell in a relatively small room at the Bridgestone Arena. Of course, I went.  I estimated there were less than a hundred people in the crowd.  This was after Campbell had gone public with his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease.  The concert was not all that long, but we did get to hear most of the songs that made Campbell famous.  I don’t recall the exact way Campbell introduced the song that made my day, but I do recall him using the word “new.”  Before the band started playing I thought to myself “New?  This guy is suffering from dementia, and he is going to sing a new song?”  It was called “A Better Place.” The song goes, 

I’ve tried, and I have failed, Lord

I’ve won, and I have lost

I’ve lived, and I have loved, Lord

Sometimes at such a cost

One thing I know

The world’s been good to me

A better place -- awaits you’ll see

Some days I’m so confused, Lord

My past gets in my way

I need the ones I love, Lord

More and more each day

One thing I know

The world’s been good to me

A better place -- awaits you’ll see

It was hard to fight back the tears as I thought about how that song applied to a man who was slowly but steadily losing his memory.  He was reflective enough to admit his failures in spite of his success as a singer.  He sang of love and its cost.  Could this be a reference to his failed marriages or just the hurt all of us both give and receive going through life?  In spite of that negative note, he says in the chorus, “The world’s been good to me,” and he was looking forward to “a better place.”  The second verse in a brief but poignant way captures the truth of how much he would need the love and support of family and friends.  I thought of elderly members of my church who were over wrought with anxiety as the darkness closed in on them.  It was a very moving song.  I recall telling my friend Glen that I was sure we would be hearing that song played at funerals in the very near future.  I was wrong.

Maybe the song wasn’t popular enough, maybe it was too short, maybe the first line’s mention of failure was just too negative, but I have not heard it anywhere but on my iPhone. I have told my wife I want it played at my funeral.  Why? Well, like Glen Campbell, I have failed. I don’t think of myself as a failure, but I have failed at quite a few things in my 62 years.  I may be unique in this, but I can recall the major failures of my life in vivid detail.  There were so many things I shouldn’t have done that I did, and so many things that I should have done that I didn’t.  I am sure there were times that I disappointed those closest to me, and I am certain I disappointed my Lord.  It is the first step in redemption to realize you need to be redeemed.  Well, this song served as a catalyst for me to once again own up to my failures and to do what I could to make things right.  I am hoping the song will say to those who assemble for my funeral, he was honest about his shortcomings, and, more importantly, he served a gracious God.

The second verse of “A Better Place”says, “I need the ones I love Lord, more and more each day.”  I can identify with that as well.  Recently my wife celebrated a birthday, and I wrote in her card, “I don’t know what I would do without you.”  That is not romantic hyperbole--I really mean it!  Though I am fighting it every day, I am growing ever more dependent on Joy. Though she has been more than gracious about all the things she does for me, I just hate being a steadily increasing burden.  

If all you had were the verses of this song, it would be a cry of desperation, but then there is the chorus.  Campbell asserts “the world’s been good to me.”  I may be reading too much into it, but I think this is a way of saying that though the darkness was surrounding him he hadn’t forgotten the times of bright sunshine.  That is what I have learned to do as my world has gotten smaller and smaller.  Earlier I said that I knew I had failed, but I didn’t feel like a failure.  That is due to the extraordinary grace of God I can see in the rear-view mirror.  A major manifestation of that grace is seen in the people I have been privileged to know, the calling of God on my life, and the opportunities I have had to try to minister to others.  Yes, the world’s been good to me.

Campbell also sings of “a better place.”  Obviously, he is talking about heaven, but think for a moment why he uses the adjective “better.”  A place beyond the hurts and heartaches of this life, beyond the debilitating illnesses that wring the joy out of life.  I have come to deeply value the promise of Isaiah 25:8a, “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces…” That “place” will indeed be “better.”

I couldn’t tell you how many times I have listened to “A Better Place”in the past couple of years.  If indeed it is played at my funeral (there is some debate at the Corn household), I suppose some will think it is not overtly evangelical enough. There is no mention of salvation, and some might wonder why a man who spent his whole life as a pastor would want such a song.  I want it because of its honesty and how strongly I identify with it.  To counterbalance any concern about my theological credentials, I have requested that “Give Me Jesus” be played at the close of the funeral.  Campbell’s song is to me a statement of faith, his faith and mine, that God has prepared a better place for His children.  Yes, a better place awaits.  You’ll see.

Hope From Habakkuk

 I sincerely try to practice the spiritual discipline of reading my Bible daily. That is the sort of statement you expect a pastor to make.  What you might not anticipate is the admission that I do not always achieve that worthy goal.  Typically, I will try to “catch up” to where I feel like I should be in my reading plan, and that might mean reading several chapters at one sitting.  This morning I was in “catch up” mode, and after reading the pastoral epistles and about a third of Matthew, I turned to Habakkuk.

Maybe you are the sort of person that can read for a long time and get as much out the last few minutes as you do the first; if so don’t tell the rest of us!  Still, I was determined, and Habakkuk was this morning’s last book to tackle so I forged ahead.  I have mentioned in other posts that I am often surprised at what the Lord says to me through His word.  As I came to the close of the book, there was an application that jumped out at me.  In Habakkuk 3:16a, the prophet is describing being overwhelmed and says, “I hear, and my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones, my steps totter beneath me.”  It was the last phrase that grabbed my attention, “My steps totter beneath me.”  I can relate.

For some time now I have been fighting a losing battle with my balance.  Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD) is characterized as a “gait disorder.”  One of the things that I learned to expect from neurologists is an examination of how I walk.  There are just things that people with brain disorders don’t do the way everyone else does. In fact, the trained eye can pick up on details of how the patient walks and guess not only what is wrong but how far along in their disease they are.  

I once went to a neurologist at Vanderbilt who had me walk back and forth down the hall.  Apparently not satisfied with his own analysis, he then called in another neurologist to discuss my gait.  Maybe I’m a bit odd to think this, but I suddenly felt like a model on the runway at a fashion show!  It’s hard not to be self-conscious when almost every step is being scrutinized and the doctor repeats, “Just walk the way you naturally do.”

This battle with balance has meant a progression of adaptations to keep me upright.  I have moved from a cane, to a cane andmy dear wife’s arm, to a walker, and I am doing everything I can to avoid the next logical step, a wheelchair.  It is encouraging to me to know that not all CBD patients end up in a wheelchair, but many do.  I want to be part of the standing minority until I lie down for the last time.  

To that end I have looked for ways to keep my spirits upright as well.  I would be less than honest if I said I have never given in to depression.  Now, I don’t mean clinical depression, just a sense that there is no hope.  It is at times like that when the Lord has opened my eyes to see things like the last few verses of Habakkuk.  I have already mentioned that the prophet writes of his steps tottering beneath him, but that just serves to set up the contrast in verses 18 and 19.  The Scripture reads, “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.  God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds’ feet, he makes me tread upon my high places.”  Habakkuk lived in difficult times, in many ways far worse than anything I am facing. Still, he could move from speaking of “tottering steps” to being as sure footed as a mountain goat, and all in the space of three verses!  I think the key to Habakkuk’s stability is found in the first phrase of verse 19, “God, the Lord, is my strength.”  The lesson I take from all of this is that I may well grow weaker, but the Almighty never will.  I will undoubtedly lose more and more of my equilibrium, but God is not just as stable as a rock, He is the Rock.  What I have to do is lean on Him.  Just as He gave stability to Habakkuk, He will give it to me.

Prearrangements

Before coming to Ashland City and the Bethlehem Church, I pastored the Bethel Church in South Roxana, Illinois.  It was quite an adjustment for a preacher born and bred in the South to work in the Midwest.  More than once church folks snickered at my “southern” accent all the while not being able to correctly pronounce my last name!  Many of them turned Corn into Carn!  After six months of pointing out how my family had pronounced the name since we arrived before the Revolutionary War, I just gave up.

Among the membership was a good-natured man named Glen Gray who owned a Funeral Home.  In my interaction with funeral directors up to that time, I had always found them to be on the serious side.  Who could blame them when you consider the nature of their work?  But with Glen I got to see more than just the professional side of his character.  He was among the most consistent volunteers around the church, and I counted him a friend.  He could rub people the wrong way, but he always seemed to me to go out of his way to show support for his preacher.  That support often took the form of poking fun at me.  I like to think I gave as good as I got, but in hindsight he probably was on the winning side of those exchanges.  One of his most consistent remarks was about how I needed to make “prearrangements.”  The first time he mentioned this, I distinctly remember saying, “Prearrangements for what?”  The answer--my funeral, of course!  At that time I was still in my 30’s and hardly of a mind to consider my end-of-life arrangements.  I think the fact that I looked a bit shocked by his suggestion just about guaranteed that he would bring it up again, and again, and again!  

Fast forward a number of years to the end of my pastoral career.  In 2015 I had been diagnosed with Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD). When my neurologist first said those words I knew it was serious, I just didn’t know how serious.  I generally have the ability to cut to the heart of a matter, and so I asked Dr. Callahan, “Well, is this something that kills you or just makes you wish you were dead?”  Dr. Callahan looked as though such a direct question was a bit unusual. After a pause he told me, “No, it isn’t terminal in and of itself.   However, it does result in growing problems with swallowing, which often causes aspirational pneumonia, which can be fatal.  Of equal threat is infection that can become sepsis, and often a feeding tube becomes necessary.”  I would later learn that many CBD patients lose the ability to walk and to talk, and that dementia can be a problem.  The prognosis was typically five to seven years from diagnosis to death. Reflecting on my question to Dr. Callahan, I began to see it was the second option that I would be facing. CBD would make me wish I were dead.

Now, everybody is going to die.  No one I know disputes that fact.  As a preacher I have reminded people often of Hebrews 9:27, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”  Both theologically and experientially we know that death is a fact of life, but most of us think of it as so remote we can put it out of our conscious thought.  Suddenly I became preoccupied with the approach of my death.  What do you do when medical authorities are telling you your days are numbered?  That a relentless degenerative disease is closing in on you, slowly but surely taking away more and more of your life?  

In a sense I was prepared for this.  I have spent my adult life as a pastor, and that has meant I have seen people face death. Some have seemed overwhelmed by it, and no amount of family concern or pastoral care relieved their fear.  A few just lived in denial right up to the inevitable end.  As their minister, the one charged with the care of their souls, I would try to lovingly steer conversations around to the fact that God loved them, Jesus died for them, and God’s grace was there to sustain them.  I couldn’t just go along with their fantasy that nothing was wrong. At the other end of the spectrum were those who felt God had given them a raw deal.  Honestly, this is the worst sort of person to deal with as a pastor. No matter what counsel and comfort you try to give them, they throw it back in your teeth.  Their position is that you simply can’t know what they are going through, that all your advice is at best theoretical.  More than once I have just admitted to the dying I didn’t really know what it was like, but that I was certain Jesus knew all about it, and I was there on His behalf.

Thankfully, the reactions of fear, denial, and anger are not the only ones that I have encountered. Some have embodied the principles of God’s Word and the light of their faith just seemed to get brighter as the darkness settled around them.  I had a preacher friend who died of cancer.  I got to hear him speak perhaps six months before his passing, and one of the stories he told was of a particularly beautiful morning when he found himself saying, “I’m going to miss all of this!”  The thought then occurred to him that as nice as his home and its surroundings might be, they did not hold a candle to Heaven!  He also told of going to see his oncologist and being given a particularly bad report.  He decided that he and his wife should stop at his favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch on the way home.  At the end of the meal he cracked open his fortune cookie and began to laugh.  The fortune read, “You will move into a beautiful new home soon!”  As he told it, his wife didn’t think the message was that funny.  My friend’s thought was that God had sent that particular fortune cookie to him to put a smile on his face.

I suppose there are a number of ways to face death.  Of these four, fear, denial, anger, or faith, it is my prayer that I will fall into the final category, but I don’t suppose you can really know until death is imminent.  Ever since the control of my emotions became questionable, I have worried a bit about how I will come across to those closest to me.  Will my tears say to them that I am filled with fear rather than faith? I don’t know, but perhaps that is when a written record like this will help answer their questions.  

A few years ago I visited with an older minister who was slowly slipping into dementia.  I had greatly respected him through the years, and he was a man of sterling reputation.  As I was departing he gave me a prayer request.  With tears in his eyes and a quiver in his voice he said, “Please pray that I won’t do anything that will ruin my testimony.”  I assured him that I would pray.  At the time I didn’t understand his anxiety; now I do. As far as I can figure it, facing death is one of those times that calls for faith in God’s sustaining grace.

One aspect of that sustaining grace has come in unexpected ways, ways that put a smile on my face.  No, in spite of eating a lot of Chinese food I am yet to get the same fortune as my departed friend!  With me, one such event occurred when Joy and I went to a local funeral home to make the aforementioned prearrangements.  We sat across the table from a pleasant lady who explained the process to us.  The last item was to actually pick out a casket. First we looked at some pictures, but then we went into the “display room.”  I was surprised at how much variety there was to it, but we came to a decision after a minimum of deliberation.  There are few things more somber than picking out your casket, so I naturally thought this would be a good time to lighten the mood.  Turning to the lady I said, “Do you ever have people actually get into the casket to try it out for size?”  Since I said this with a straight face, she couldn’t tell if I was serious or not.  She responded, “Well, yes, that happens about once every couple of years, but, Reverend Corn, if you are thinking of doing that let me just say, caskets are not built for comfort.”  At this point an exasperated Joy told the funeral planner, “He’s just joking!”

No, caskets are not built for comfort, at least not the comfort of the occupant. Someday, and only God knows when, I will be in that casket and some of you reading this sentence will be looking at the casket and its occupant.  When that happens remember that I really won’t be in that casket.  I will be with “the God of all comfort.” 

Just a sinner saved and sustained by the amazing grace of God.  That is a comfort to me; I hope you can find comfort in it as well.

Homecoming

The first Sunday in May has been special to me for more than two decades.  That is the date for the Homecoming service at Bethlehem Free Will Baptist Church in Ashland City, TN, where I served as pastor for twenty-one years.  I retired due to a progressive disease called Corticobasal Degeneration, which made it impossible to do all that a pastor must do.  This was my second year to attend as the former pastor.  I was struck by how much has changed.

The building has changed.  After an interim of nine months, the church called a new pastor, Shiloh Hackett, before last year’s Homecoming, but the church leaders hadn’t really had time to change things much before that annual service rolled around.  I had heard that this year the church was working hard to do some renovations and that their goal was to have most of it done by Homecoming. On Sunday, May 6, Joy and I arrived at a church that had gone through a significant facelift.  It really is something what new carpet, pew cushions, windows, and paint can do!  I had the fleeting thought, “Why didn’t we do some of this while I was here?”  In answer, I reminded myself that this was not the same church it was when I came in 1995! 

The people have changed.  One significant shift that occurred during my tenure was on my deacon board.  At the outset of my ministry the man closest to my age was ten years my senior, and the rest of the men were old enough to be my father.  When I left the church, the deacons were young enough to be my sons!  That shift in leadership reflected a change in the age of the core constituency of the church.  We certainly had the retired crowd well represented, but there were times when I felt like I had buried a generation of the congregation.  

On this Homecoming day, I was greeted by formerly-little girls who now seemed more like young women and boys who were looking a lot more like their fathers.  I have always thought that children deserve the attention of their pastor.  That attention from a genuinely caring pastor can be one of the first steps toward God. The caring begins with being among the first wave of visitors when the child is born.  On more than one occasion parents have wanted a picture of me holding their brand new baby.  (I don’t suppose they could have an old, used one!)  At the Homecoming meal I got to talk with a young man about his first year in college, all the time thinking about the picture of me holding him as an infant that I had kept in my files for years.

It also struck me how many people in the crowd were folks I didn’t know.  Often, especially in the last years of my ministry, I thought I was the only person in the church who knew everybody.  That’s not to say the church was cliquish, far from it, but I have always thought people are sort of like Lego blocks.  They can only be connected to so many other people.  More than once through the years someone has called me aside to ask for an explanation of who “so and so” was.  Now, Homecoming always generates visitors, but there were a significant number of people who have joined the church since my retirement. I like to think that my exit had nothing to do with their entrance!  I do know that Pastor Hackett has been aggressive in his outreach, and the church has followed his leadership.  As I sat in the pew I thought all those new people were the tangible answer to one of my most persistent prayers--that God would bless Bethlehem.  I believe He has and will continue to do so.

Finally, I have changed.  When I left Bethlehem as pastor I walked out with the help of a cane.  By Homecoming last year I had taken to using a cane and holding my wife’s arm with the other hand.  This year I came through the door on a walker.  I knew that my voice was more of a problem, but the most significant issue I was dealing with was the control of my emotions.  I have mentioned before that CBD often results in Pseudobulbar Affect.  In my case it means I cry easily and often; it also means, though, that fighting to control the urge is exhausting.  This has a domino effect; my legs tighten up, making walking even more difficult and my voice harder to understand.  Seeing the church and everyone in it, being greeted by so many friends, was almost more than I could take.  Still, I held everything together until the announcement time in the service.  Pastor Shiloh acknowledged our presence and told of the contribution Joy and I had made to the church.  He then produced a certificate, which acknowledged a commemorative brick had been bought in our honor for Welch College’s “Pave the Way” campaign.  Try though I might, I could not prevent the tears from flowing.  As the pastor came to our pew I knew that I should stand to receive the certificate, but I just couldn’t.  I wish I could remember exactly what was said, but as I received the certificate and shook Pastor Hackett’s hand, the congregation stood and applauded.  I am 62 years old and that was the first standing ovation I have ever received.  

While we were eating lunch following the service I got to talk with several folks, and I noticed a couple of times that they referred to me as Pastor Corn.  One lady began her conversation with, “How is my pastor doing?”  I successfully fought the urge to respond, “I don’t know, but Brother Shiloh sure seems to be doing well.”  I know that there was no innuendo in her innocent question, but it did emphasize to me the fact that while I will always have a pastoral concern about the folks at Bethlehem, I am not their pastor.  

At my retirement reception I had told the church that one thing you never really know as a pastor is how much of a difference you are making.  So much of the pastoral task is intangible that often you feel like you are pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again.  It can be frustrating to be a pastor, but there are moments when it is extraordinarily fulfilling.  This Homecoming was one of those moments for me.

As things were winding down, it became obvious that it was time to go home.  Whenever I sit for any extended period of time I stiffen up.  The result is that my first few minutes on my feet are exceptionally difficult and almost always draw the attention of those around me.  In this setting, with so many friends present, my halting gait resulted in an over abundance of help getting to my car.  As Joy drove us home and we talked about the day, I thought about the fact that I had tried to help Bethlehem’s people with their Christian walk for two decades.  Now, among a great many other things, they were physically helping me with my walk to the car.  Maybe their demonstration of concern and love for me was an indication I had made a difference in their lives.  As we headed south on Highway 12 I thought of what I had told the congregation on numerous occasions, “I will always be proud of the fact that I can say I was the pastor of the Bethlehem Free Will Baptist Church.”  

Hope

This past Sunday I heard the first sermon in Pastor Bess’s series on 1 Peter.  It covered the first two verses of chapter one, and he introduced it with the quotation of an old saying, “Where there is life, there is hope.”  That saying is credited to Cicero, the famous Roman statesman of the century just before the Christian era.  Scholars tell us that this saying has been applied to dying men and women down through the years.  I guess the idea is, “They aren’t dead yet, maybe something will change.”  It is sort of a hope against hope thing.  Brother Wayne went on to quote one of my favorite authors (and apparently one of his) Warren Wiersbe.  Dr. Wiersbe sees hope as the predominate concept of 1 Peter.  In fact, he titled his commentary on that book Be Hopeful.  Wiersbe writes, “It is not the fact of life that determines hope, but the faith of life. A Christian believer has a 'living hope' (1 Peter 1:3 NASB) because his faith and hope are in God (1 Peter 1:21). This 'living hope' is the major theme of Peter’s first letter. He is saying to all believers, 'Be hopeful!'”  The overarching idea of the Brother Wayne’s message was that Christians have hope beyond the circumstances of this life.

I have heard for years that you can tell what a preacher is going through if you listen to enough of his sermons. I readily thought about the fact that my friend Wayne had a son who died an untimely death and now has a grandson, still in high school, who is battling with cancer.  It was an uplifting message, a message that Wayne needed to preach and that I needed to hear.

The truth is that I was not very hopeful as I entered the Ashland City Free Will Baptist Church that Sunday morning.  The previous Sunday I had preached there, and before I began my sermon I shared a prayer request with the congregation.  I had applied to participate in a clinical trial of an experimental drug.  I had passed the preliminary qualification, and they were in the process of evaluating my medical records before a final decision would be made.  I wanted to participate in the clinical trial because it offered some hope.  There is something soul crushing about being told you have an incurable degenerative disease.  As you lose more and more of the normal things of life, there is a fear of what will go next.  More than once I have thought, if it would only stop here I could adjust and learn to live with my situation, then the realization hits that something else has become too hard to do.  It can make for a dark world, but when I read about this clinical trial I saw a flicker of light.  I even joked with the congregation that I was approaching this with hope and apprehension. Hope, because this medication had worked on rats, and apprehension because it would be administered at the University of Alabama Medical Center in Birmingham!  I know I just lost the sympathy of a lot of U of A fans with that line, but why couldn’t Vanderbilt have been doing this study?  In any case, the Wednesday after that prayer request I got word that I did not meet the medical criteria for participation in the study.  That flickering light of hope had been snuffed out.  One of the manifestations of Corticobasal Degeneration is Pseudobulbar Affect, or an inability to control one’s emotions.  I am not too proud to admit that after getting that news I just sat in my Study and cried.  

I was not looking forward to Sunday since I knew it would inevitably result in questions about the clinical trial.  While I had posted on Facebook the fact that I didn’t make the cut, I knew not everyone is into social media.  I worried that I would not be able to maintain my composure if asked to repeat the bad news.  Some would express sympathy, and some who were yet to hear the bad news would have to be informed.  It happened pretty much the way I anticipated, and my dear wife fielded most of the inquiries. I did get a bit tearful but thankfully by that time the service was starting, I could focus on something other than myself.

As a pastor I have often told congregations that in worship the focus should be on the Lord, that we should lay aside our problems and be guided by the Bible into a more profound understanding of God.  Now that I am just a listener, a listener who can’t escape my problems, I think I would modify my pastoral admonition.  No, I think it is better to bring our problems and preoccupations with us to church and apply the truth we encounter there to them.  Sometimes, like with me at church that day, the whole service will seem like it was tailor-made for you.  It felt like the message, the songs, the prayers, and the concern of fellow believers was just for me.  It brought light back into my darkness.  

Now, I know that my friend Wayne, and the song leader Doug, hadn’t gotten together and conferred about how they could minister to me on that Sunday.  No, the arrangement of things came from a higher source; I believe this was part of the work of the Holy Spirit.  God took all of the elements of the service and applied them to my wounded heart.  After reading that sentence you might conclude that I must have a pretty high opinion of myself to assume the God of all creation cared enough about me to go to all of this trouble, but you would be wrong.  The high opinion I hold is not of myself but of the God that loved me enough to save me and care for me as the Shepherd of my soul.  On that Sunday the good Lord fulfilled in my life one of the most precious promises of the Shepherd Psalm-- He restored my soul.  What’s more I firmly believe God does this sort of thing for His children all the time, at least He wants to.  The truth of the matter is, I strongly considered not going to church that morning.  Besides being depressed I was more tired than usual, and as Vince Lombardi once said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”  As I have already said, I was a bit fearful of my reactions to people’s questions--but just think what I would have missed had I given in to my fear.  

To conclude the service Pastor Bess had us sing This World Is Not My Home, which is hardly a typical invitation hymn.  Once we got through the first two verses, he wanted Doug to lead us in the first verse again, but Doug suggested the third verse instead.  Since it was hardly the time for a debate, the Pastor agreed that the third verse would be fine.  That third verse says,

I won’t have long to stay, My work is nearly done.

I’m happy now to say, My race is almost run.

So long my eyes have set, On heaven’s open door

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

The first two lines of that verse pretty well summed up my situation.  I’m striving to make the final two true as well.  Wouldn’t you know it, my friend Wayne called on me to close the service with a word of prayer.  With that third verse still in mind I prayed, “Lord with all the things of this world crowding into our field of vision, help us to keep our focus on the promise beyond this life.”  God had used that day to make a change in my life.  I had come in the door feeling hopeless.  I was leaving feeling hopeful.

The Providence of God

 “Providence, then, is the preservation, superintendence, and teleological direction of all things by God.  It is the divine governance whereby all possible events are woven into a coherent pattern and all possible developments are shaped to accomplish the divinely instituted goal.”  That is the way the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia defines the providence of God.  I have been thinking a lot about God’s providence in the past few days. It is a rare thing to be able to trace the hand of God in one’s own life, but I think I may have caught a glimpse of it.

The genesis of this revelation was in finally getting around to watching Haddon Robinson’s memorial service on YouTube.  Robinson was a professor of homiletics at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.  He authored a number of books, the most important among them Biblical Preaching.  It is by far the most popular book in that crowded field and a volume that I have read at least three times since it first appeared in 1980.  I heard Robinson lecture on preaching and even had the privilege of talking with him over lunch when he came to speak at Welch College a number of years ago.  

As I watched the memorial service, I thought all of it was excellent, but I was particularly struck by the tribute Robinson’s daughter, Vickie, gave to her Dad.  I had not heard the reason for Dr. Robinson’s death until she mentioned it.  He had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Plus, the broad name for a spectrum of diseases, one of which is Corticobasal Degeneration.  As she described the loss of his voice, the frequent falls, and the persistent exhaustion I could readily identify.  What are the odds that I would be dealing with some of the same issues as one of my homiletical heroes?  

The most instructive part of that eulogy was when Vickie told of asking her dad if he was angry with God.  She said that he seemed perplexed by the question and answered from his hospital bed, “Why would I be angry with God?”  His focus was on the blessings that God had sent his way throughout his long life, not upon the way that life was ending.  As I sat watching this, I found myself wiping away tears and realizing that Dr. Robinson’s approach to suffering was preaching a sermon to me.  The big idea was that God’s blessings far outweigh the difficulties I am facing.  That is a hard lesson to learn, but as I see it, the only alternative to gratitude is bitterness.  What’s more, I know there are people watching to see how I handle all of this.  I want to leave a testimony to the goodness of God and the work of His grace in my life.

Watching that memorial service was providential.  It got me to thinking about other ways that God has blessed my life, in particular as it relates to preaching.  

Recently, I was asked by my friend Wayne Bess to fill the pulpit of the Ashland City Free Will Baptist Church.  This would be the first time for me to preach this year.  I was more than willing to do it, but as the date drew closer it just seemed like events conspired to make it difficult.  I had three falls in the weeks just prior to my preaching opportunity. The third of these falls seemed to just knock something out of me.  I simply could not get up out of the floor, even with the help of my wife.  One of our neighbors had to be recruited and through the effort of all three of us I finally got vertical.  Once upright I found that my balance was even more compromised than it had been.  I have had to replace my cane with a walker. 

If that wasn’t bad enough I began to have more problems with my voice.  One particularly distressing issue was what can only be described as “going nasal.”  My speech therapist explained that this was due to the nasal cavity opening not closing properly and that this was another manifestation of CBD.  If it happens when I am speaking for an extended time my voice becomes unintelligible.  There are some techniques to get my throat to cooperate, but the only sure fire solution is to stop speaking for at least five minutes.  I know some preachers use dramatic pauses to great effect, but were I to take such a break in the middle of a sermon it would probably lead the congregation to assume I was having a stroke!  In the week leading up to my preaching opportunity I diligently did my vocal exercises, but I realized I might be delivering a shorter sermon than I intended. I prayed for God’s help and committed the results to Him.  I did have one short “nasal episode” in the middle of my message, but it quickly disappeared and I was able to complete my message to a very receptive congregation. In my prayer just before the message I reminded the congregation, myself, and the Lord that the Word says, “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”  I was certainly weak; it was time for God to show Himself strong… and I believe He did.

After the sermon I got a heavy dose of appreciation from the listeners, and I heard again something I had not heard before I was diagnosed with CBD and had to resign from the pastorate, “You are an inspiration!”  I really hope that people don’t think of me that way but rather give thanks to the God who carried me through the message.  That comes closer to the literal meaning of inspiration, the Spirit of God within a person.  Along that same line a dear lady said to my wife, “I just love that man!” Who wouldn’t appreciate something like that?  Still, it is the Master and not the servant who deserves the praise.  I am just glad that God, in His providence, gave me a place to deliver the message.  He knew I needed to deliver it even more than the church needed to hear it.

Finally, when it comes to my preaching and God’s providence, my mind goes back to 2014. That year our National Convention was held in Fort Worth, Texas, and I was invited to deliver the message on Sunday night.  To say that this is a big deal for a run-of-the-mill pastor would be an understatement.  As a young pastor I assumed that the committee that selected the speakers was always looking for the best they could find.  However, attending enough of the conventions convinced me that was not always the case.  As a middle-aged pastor, I began to think speaking at the National was a matter of denominational politics.  I don’t doubt that considerations of region and differing viewpoints on issues of contention has had its impact, but I don’t think that is the bottom line either. No, it is far too simplistic to see a single reason for the decisions the selection committee has made through the years.  As a retired pastor I now see speaking at the convention as a combination of various factors. In my case, it was due to at least three human factors and one beyond human knowledge.  

First, a friend who has the ear of the Executive Secretary told me several times through the years that he had mentioned my name.  In fact, the Executive Secretary told me so at least five years before I was selected.  The second factor was having a personal friend on the committee who brought up my name in the process of selection.  That introduces the third, and I believe decisive, factor.  The selection committee tells the denomination, especially the pastors, that they would welcome input on the selection of speakers.  You would think this invitation would result in a flood of letters and emails but it seldom does.  It seems everyone wantsinput, but few take the time to exercise it.  Unbeknownst to me, a friend had sent in a letter on my behalf.  When my friend on the committee mentioned my name, the Executive Secretary produced copies of the letter for the other members with the comment this was the most reasoned letter for having a particular speaker that he had ever gotten!  Needless to say, I was put on the list of people to speak at that year’s convention. 

Those are the human factors in my selection, but I am convinced there was a superintending hand behind it all.  2014 would be the last National Convention where I would be healthy.  I was suffering none of the effects of CBD and would be at the top of my form, such as that was, on that Sunday night in Fort Worth.  My wife told me that it was not the best sermon she had ever heard me preach, but that she was proud of me.  Her uncle, a great preacher who has spent his ministry as an evangelist, sent me an email that night having watched the service streamed on the internet.  Among other things he said, “You did an outstanding job, and folks who know me know that I am not given to flattery.”  I would get quite a few compliments the rest of the week.  It was probably the high point of my preaching ministry.  To borrow the words of an earlier generation of preachers, I delivered my soul.

God, in His providence, gave me that as the capstone of my preaching ministry.  By the next year’s convention I would already have a preliminary diagnosis and be asking friends at the convention to please remember me in their prayers.  2015 would be the last convention I would attend.

As I said at the beginning, it is a rare thing to see the providential hand of God in your life. Watching that video of Haddon Robinson’s memorial service helped me to glimpse some of what God has done and is doing. It is a reminder that God has blessed me in the past and is blessing me in the present. 

They say that the last mile of a marathon is the hardest.  It won’t be easy to finish my course, but that is what all those earlier miles have been about.  I don’t want to quit just short of the finish line.

Vulcan Wisdom

The original Star Trek came on the air when I was 10 years old.  At that age I was not in charge of channel selection in our home.  Dad decided what we would watch, or to be more accurate, what he wanted to watch.  You could say that he controlled the clicker, which in those day was, “Randy, get up and see what’s on channel four.”  Thankfully, there were only three channels.  Otherwise I might never have gotten to sit down.  Dad was never a fan of sci-fi, so I didn’t see Star Trek until I stumbled across it in reruns somewhere in my teen years.  By then we had fulfilled a small part of the American dream and had become a two-TV family.

I was immediately hooked.  Had it been possible to sign up for Star Fleet Academy, I would have!  I have followed all the subsequent spin offs and the movies that still seem to come out with regularity.  I have a small collection of Trek memorabilia, the crown of which is a poster autographed by William Shatner, Captain James Tiberius Kirk himself!  You might think that would mean he was my favorite character, but you would be wrong.  For me, the star of the show was the half-human, half-Vulcan science officer, Mr. Spock.  The “mind meld,” “neck pinch,” and total control of emotions thru the relentless use of logic were all, as Spock might say, “fascinating.”  But occasionally a bit of Vulcan wisdom would drop into the dialogue.  My favorite saying was, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”  Avid fans will recall that this phrase is a key to the end of the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan, and the sequel, The Search for Spock.  I never thought I would apply that bit of Vulcan wisdom to myself, but it was bouncing around in my brain in 2015.

2015 was a year I will never forget.  I noticed that my left leg just wouldn’t cooperate.  I couldn’t go over a fast walk.  If I did, my left foot would just “stomp down” as though I was trying to make a sudden stop.  In the spring of that year, I went to have a cardiac stress test done, and this “stomping” happened while I was on the treadmill.  The technicians assumed it was some sort of cardiac event and practically lifted me off the treadmill and planted me in a chair.  My cardiologist was mystified by all of this, but told me I had given them enough information to say my heart was ok.  Along with this leg difficulty I seemed to spontaneously lose my balance.  I think I fell down about once a month through that year.  Thankfully, I didn’t hurt myself in this series of falls, but on one of those falls my wife tried to catch me.  Picture this:  my 100-pound five-foot-three-inch wife trying to catch all 250-pound six-foot-three inches of me.  She did succeed in breaking my fall, but in the process I kicked her, delivering what she called a “puncture wound” as well as a significant bruise to her left shin.  That cut just wouldn’t heal, and our family doctor wanted to know how she got such a wound.  She told him the story of my fall and that this was becoming a regular occurrence.  Dr. Brown sent her home with a prescription and a message, “Tell Pastor Corn he needs to come see me.”  When I did, he quickly focused on my reflexes.  I could tell from his reactions that I was not close to normal.  He referred me to a neurologist who had an MRI and a nerve conductivity test done, which led him to a preliminary diagnosis: corticobasal degeneration.  He sent me for a second opinion to Mayo Clinic, and they cautiously concluded like he did that I was one of the 40 out of every million people who has CBD.

As I mentioned earlier, the Vulcan saying, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” kept coming to mind.  I had been a pastor my entire adult life.  It wasn’t without its headaches, but I can honestly say I loved being a pastor.  It was all I wanted to do, but now my ability to fulfill my responsibilities was seriously compromised.  My voice was a constant problem.  I had difficulty controlling my emotions.  I probably cried more in that year than in the previous 20 combined.  The congregation was seeing my walking deteriorate before their eyes, and I am sure I scared many of them by almost falling at church on more than one occasion.  I began to wonder at what point my health problems would hurt my church.  In my pastoral life I had seen three churches, two of which I was closely associated with, where the pastor developed life-altering health issues but continued to hang on.  Maybe these men couldn’t afford to retire, or they thought they were not as sick as they really were, but I knew their churches had been hurt, one crippled. 

This scenario really is close to an impossible situation for a church.  They want to be compassionate, they pray the Lord will intervene, and they certainly don’t want to fire the pastor.  I loved my church.  They had gone out of their way to show that they loved me and were very concerned about my health.  Could I have “hung on” for a few more months, maybe a year?  Possibly, but I was getting to the point where, besides all of the other problems, I was dealing with exhaustion.  No matter how good a night’s sleep I had, I would have to take a nap sometime during the day.  It was with all of this going on that the Vulcan aphorism haunted my thinking.  The needs of the many (my church) outweigh the needs of the few (me). 

Somewhere in this time frame I sat down to watch The Wrath of Khan for the umpteenth time.  The climax of that movie is where Spock exposes himself to a lethal level of radiation to save the Enterprise.  As he is dying he says to his friend, Captain Kirk, “The needs of the many…”  Kirk responds, “outweigh the needs of the few.”  Spock then concludes, “or the one.”  I don’t want to be melodramatic, but I saw my resignation as my valuing the church more than myself.  The church accepted all of this with tears and the pledge to help me in any way they could.  In scores of ways the church has been a blessing to us.  At our retirement reception my wife explained our thinking to a young woman who had grown up during our 21-year ministry at Bethlehem.  Her response was, “Do you know how noble a thing that is?”  I don’t think it was noble.  I think it was what I needed to do, and I was confident the good Lord would live up to that adjective and be good to both me and to the church I had pastored for 21 years.  He has done that in ways that are too numerous to list.  The needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.  A Christian addition to Mr. Spock’s bit of wisdom might be, “The Lord cares about the many, the few, and the one.”

Chain Breaker

I am not a follower of contemporary Christian music.  In what have been called the “worship wars,” I was always on the side of more traditional hymns and what some might call a formal approach to the musical side of a worship service.  I have tried not to be antagonistic to those who have different tastes, but I doubt I could name one song or artist who has won a Dove Award.  With that as my background, I was somewhat surprised when I came across a contemporary Christian song that moved me deeply. 

I often have the TV in my Study tuned to the Youtube Channel and zeroed in on music, which is often little more than background as I read.  One day my attention was arrested by a song entitled Chain Breaker by Zach Williams.  I went back and listened to it a second time, and as the chorus repeated I began to see how that song spoke to my need.  The chorus says,

If you’ve got pain, He’s a pain taker

If you feel lost, He’s a way maker

If you need freedom or saving, He’s a prison-shaking Savior

If you’ve got chains, He’s a chain breaker

Now, I fully realize that the intent of the songwriter is to say how Jesus can save our souls and untangle the web we often find ourselves caught in, but I had a different application in mind.

If you’ve got pain, He’s a pain taker

I can’t complain of major pain, but I do have pain.  How much to attribute to CBD (Corticobasal Degeneration) and how much is the result of a broken hip I can’t tell.  I often have sharp pain in my left shin and ankle, dull pain in my hip, and continual discomfort in my left arm.  If I sit for more than a few minutes I will stiffen up, making my gait look more like that of Tim Conway doing his “little old man” routine.

If you feel lost, He’s a way maker

I apply this to the dark cloud of depression that seems to move in like an unexpected cold front.  I am not clinically depressed, and I am anything but suicidal, but every which way I turn I find more restriction.  My world seems to be shrinking, and the relentless nature of this gets me down.  I admit it--often I feel lost.

If you need freedom or saving, He’s a prison-shaking Savior

Freedom means different things to different people.  I am sure that prisoners think of freedom as being on the other side of the bars and outside the walls of their prison.  I don’t deal with that sort of confinement.  I suppose you could say I am under a sort of “house arrest,” but it is a very nice house and I don’t mind spending far more hours at home than I ever have in the past.  Sure, cabin fever will make an occasional appearance, but it doesn’t stay long.  The freedom I miss is to walk without effort, to be sure-footed enough that I don’t have to constantly either be looking down or anxious about my next step.  I suppose freedom and independence are not quite synonymous, but they do go together.  About a year and half ago my neurologist asked me if I was still dressing myself.  I was a bit taken aback by the question and wondered if it would come to that.  It has.  What’s more, at my last visit to Dr. Callahan we talked about my giving up driving.  My argument has always been that it is primarily my left side that is affected by CBD, and you work the gas and brake with your right foot.  The neurologist pointed out that my reactions would not be as good as they used to be even on my right side, and that if I ever were involved in an accident my neurological condition would probably be used against me.

If you’ve got chains, He’s a chain breaker

Yes, I have chains and I am not too proud to admit it, but I also realize Jesus is a chain breaker. Having reflected on what chain breaking would mean in my situation, I can think of only three possibilities.  The first is some sort of medical intervention. Having scoured the internet for possibilities, I come again and again to the line, “There is no treatment for CBD and nothing that has been shown to slow its progress.”  The second possibility is divine healing.  I should point out that I don’t see medical treatment and God’s intervention as mutually exclusive; in fact, medical treatment might well be the way the good Lord answers prayers for healing.  That caveat aside, I have begged God for healing.  I know multitudes of people have prayed and will continue to pray for me, and I am fully convinced that God is more than capable of miraculously healing my degenerative disease.  Something tells me that is not God’s plan for me.  While I have not had the experience of the Apostle Paul recorded in 2 Corinthians 12 about his “thorn in the flesh,” I believe the Lord is saying to me, “My grace is all you need.  My power works best in weakness.”  Paul went on to say that he would boast in his weakness.  I am not there yet, and I may not ever get there, but I am resting on the phrase, “My grace is all you need.”  Finally, and ultimately, I know Jesus can break my chains by calling me home.  I have a recurring dream where I fall down, which has become an ever more frightening thing, and before I realize what I’m doing I almost spring to my feet.  In the dream it occurs to me, I can’t do that, and then the realization dawns on me that I must be dead!  Nothing hurts, and just as I begin to walk, I wake up.  Let me say again, I don’t want to die, but I have every confidence that making the inevitable step into eternity will be when I hear the clank of my chains falling away.  You see, He’s a chain breaker.