I Begin Life on my Own

I made it back from Kentucky this afternoon. My dad’s viewing was on Friday, and he was buried on Saturday.

The first place where I had a meal outside of Florida was a Chick-fil-A in Georgia. I went to several Chick-fil-A’s on the trip. They treat customers so nicely, it made me feel better about everything. The first one I visited had fresh flowers on every table.

This, and not the food, is why Chick-fil-A dominates. People who hate Christianity will never understand that. Every employee is required to demonstrate an attitude based in Christianity.

The first place where I stayed was in Ooltewah, Tennessee. Very nice hotel, and very quiet. They had tourist brochures. I couldn’t resist taking one to read. Rock City. When I was a kid, and we drove to Kentucky or North Carolina, we passed endless mailboxes, barns, and outhouses bearing painted messages that read, “See Rock City.” My dad never stopped! I still wonder what I missed. He said it was a tourist trap. I forgive him, though.

I nearly took a side trip to another attraction, the Lost Sea, just to get a shirt. My dad actually let us see that one.

My caregiving experiences took over my life, and my blog reflects that. I don’t want to spend the next year as The Grief Blogger, trying to get sympathy from as many strangers as possible. Healthy people get over family deaths. They don’t milk them. I will try to keep that in mind as things wind down, but I still have a few things to say.

While my dad was going through his astonishing transformation, I routinely prayed for God to help him bear whatever fruit he could during his remaining days. God has been faithful to answer. Even before I left Florida, two boys who heard my dad’s story decided they wanted me to baptize them. My friend Mike, the hospice exec, sent employees to read my blog. In Kentucky, God added two more people to the list of those affected: my aunt and my cousin.

I will call my aunt Thelma and my cousin Louise in order to have names for them.

Thelma has been through a lot. She divorced young, and the aftermath was unpleasant. She has had a lot of anger and trials. Louise has also had problems. Her dad died in 2017, and it appears that she inherited very little. She says her brother and stepbrothers got what would otherwise have come to her. Her health is not good, and she has a son who has a serious heart defect. Things are not going well for her financially, and she hasn’t had a good relationship with God.

My mother’s parents had 8 grandchildren, and for some reason, two of them–Louise and my cousin JD–got much less attention than the rest of us. It’s a mysterious thing. I don’t know if they felt unwanted, but it always seemed like no one wanted to fuss over them the way they did over the rest of us.

Thelma had a stroke not long ago. I didn’t know about it. The family was blown apart by my grandparents’ failure to do proper estate planning, and by the way some people behaved after my grandparents died (If anyone I know is reading this, no, I did not get any of the good stuff), so communication is not what it used to be. That’s as much my fault as anyone else’s. She doesn’t appear to have any lingering effects from the stroke, but Louise is looking after her anyway.

Louise feels that Thelma, who was responsible for bringing her up as a Christian, focused too much on God’s anger and the end times. It turned her off and discouraged her. On my first night in Kentucky, the three of us talked until it was very late, and I told both of them as much as I could of what I had learned about God.

Louise has been hurt a lot, but she doesn’t seem bitter at all. She is very open to establishing a relationship with God. Before I left Kentucky, she let me pray for her, and we asked God to give her faith and show her he was real. I believe that was night before last. The seed was planted. Now I’m waiting to see what sprouts.

It’s a real privilege to be used to help someone in my family. Most of them won’t want my help (or anyone else’s) in the area of religion. For some reason, my relatives seem to think I’m stupid, even though I’m the most highly educated person in the family. I admit, I’m eccentric, but so are almost all of them. If my grandparents or any of their daughters had had a child that wasn’t eccentric, they probably would have taken it back to the hospital, fearing it had been switched.

You know what Jesus said. “A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” I’m not saying I’m a prophet; I’m just citing a principal that applies to all people, in every area of life. We tend to dishonor capable people who are close to us. Oddly, we tend to honor outright fools instead.

The viewing was strange, but I thought it was great.

Including myself and the funeral director and his wife, there were 11 people. One cousin couldn’t make it because his boss wouldn’t turn him loose. One lives in Illinois and may have been busy; I haven’t heard from him, but he sent some nice flowers. My sister didn’t respond to my efforts to communicate with her. One aunt didn’t go because she was having blinds installed, and her husband stayed with her. I think everyone else is dead.

My understanding is that people from the town where my mother was born–the town where my dad was to be buried–had a gabfest about my dad’s death on Facebook, so I was afraid there might be more people than I could handle, but that didn’t pan out. I have deleted my dad’s Facebook account, so I don’t know what has been happening.

There was no church funeral. I was very tired, and I had no help, so I kept things simple. Thelma and Louise would have helped round up musicians and so on, but I figured very few people would come, and I didn’t want to put the burden on them. I decided to have a viewing and then say a few words at the grave.

I got some photos printed at Walgreen’s before I left. One showed my dad at the assisted living facility, eating brownies I made for him. The other was a photo of the life jacket God used to try to get his attention. I put these photos up beside my dad’s Amazon urn, and I hung the life jacket on a rack meant for flowers. I knew it was an eccentric thing to do, but I didn’t care. It was my show. I felt like the little red hen, eating her bread by herself.

The photos looked very good. Walgreen’s had some nice frames for $12.99 each, but they screwed up when I went to get my photos, and I had to wait a long time, so an employee gave them to me for $10.00 apiece. I intend to keep them, even though I bought them in a hurry.

I told everyone about the life jacket miracles, and I told them how God had changed my dad toward the end. I gave them as much of his testimony as I thought they would tolerate. I’m satisfied. It was a precious opportunity to share important knowledge. I suppose most of the people I talked to won’t be changed, but a few may. I’m not responsible for the way people take the things I say, but I do have an obligation to say them.

Beside the grave, I reminded everyone that God is very real, and that he is there for everyone. I tried to make them understand how important it was to get to know him. I probably offered to help; I don’t recall. I would say the whole thing lasted 6 or 7 minutes.

There were two attendees I didn’t expect to see. They’re my second cousins. One was a judge, and the other works for the courts. I’ll call them George and Ruth. Their mother was a remarkable lady. It seemed like there was nothing she couldn’t do. My grandfather was a circuit judge, and she was his right arm for years. He would have been lost without her. My mother and father took her with them on a trip to Europe, along with my Aunt Jean. I suppose their branch of the family was the closest to ours.

They couldn’t have been nicer to me, not that I should have been surprised. That’s the kind of people they are. I expected my dad’s passing to be ignored by nearly everyone, but my cousins brought food for everyone, and I’ll tell you something else they did. It may be a private matter, but I don’t care. George gave me a card, and inside the card was a check for $100.00 for burial expenses. I couldn’t believe it. I do not need the money, and I didn’t even know, or send anything, when his mother died.

I got to talk to George about God before I left. We were all sitting in the kitchen at the funeral home, eating the food he and Ruth had brought, and I tried to give him as much information as I could in a short time. I learned that he hadn’t been taught a lot about God, so I tried to steer him away from some traps. I have been praying for him. I hope for the best.

I have learned some disappointing things about other members of my family. Apparently, they worked against George when he ran for re-election. After all his mother did for my grandfather, that was disgraceful. I had heard something about it in the past, but because of my familiarity with the rumor mill and its reliability, I hadn’t been convinced, but since then I have heard more. Now I know the stories are true, and so, I suppose, does everyone in three counties.

It was magnanimous of Ruth and George to even show up this weekend, but to treat us as well as they did, well, that’s going above and beyond. They didn’t say, “Your family hurt us, but we’re here anyway.” They didn’t bring the election up.

They had a sister named Debbie. Her life ended very poorly. When she was young, she was pretty and charming, and as far as I knew, everyone loved her. Later on, she married a selfish man, and he took her daughter away when they divorced. After that, her mental state declined, and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was never able to get it together, and she eventually died from lung cancer.

I always felt bad for her, and although I didn’t say much at the time, I prayed for her. I thought she was a wonderful person, and life was very cruel to her.

I should have been more involved with my relatives when I was young. I was too introverted. Also, because I grew up with so much abuse, I had a natural tendency to feel that people weren’t interested in hearing from me. I didn’t think they hated me; just that I was not someone they thought about or missed. I had the feeling that if I had called them, they would have wondered why I was doing it.

Ruth invited me to the family reunion that’s coming on Labor Day, and I might actually go. My sister stole a bunch of family photos when my grandmother died, and I have been too lazy to sort and scan them and see if I should turn any of them over to other people. I thought that if I took them to a reunion, people might be able to figure out who was in the photos and where they were taken. I can do some of that myself, but some photos are mysteries to me.

Every time I get away from that town, I feel like my family and heritage are lost to me forever, so I quit thinking about them, but when I go back for funerals, it all comes back to life.

I gave Ruth my email address. She says she’s going to make me a copy of the family cookbook. I didn’t know it existed. I thought those recipes were gone forever.

Aunt Thelma claims she has my grandmother’s recipe for country ham. I sincerely hope she does, because no one could cure a ham like my grandmother and my great Uncle Charlie.

We all talked about Eastern Kentucky and its shortcomings. The simple truth is that it’s not a good place to live because too many of the people are backward. The area is crippled by intense racial prejudice, sexual sin, a deteriorating work ethic, and a perverse love of ignorance and drunkenness. I was surprised to hear Ruth agree with my assessment. She says she advises her grown children to make lives for themselves somewhere else.

I have an aunt who defends the area, but the obvious truth is that Eastern Kentucky is like a Christmas tree with very few lights working. When my mother was a kid, the region was so backward the rest of America sent missionaries there, and for decades, bright people have been moving elsewhere. The endless flight of the best minds has taken a heavy toll.

Regarding the brain drain, Harry Caudill, author of the book Night Comes to the Cumberlands, said everyone who had any get-up-and-go got up and went. I don’t know how original that thought was, but he was correct. My second cousin Byrd was a circuit judge, and he bemoaned his loneliness as an educated person. He said, “Just once, I’d like to use a three-syllable word.”

I heard an interesting story about bigotry while I was there. My grandfather died in the 1990’s, and a black woman showed up at his funeral. In the town where he died, this was a startling event. She was an attorney. She worked in Breathitt County, which was part of his circuit. Breathitt is a very dark place.

She said my grandfather had helped her with her career when she showed up in town. This is why she came to pay her respects. It must have been very scary for her to live in that area by herself, so I suppose she was touched when anyone reached out to her.

Some time after that, someone burned her house down. I assume she got the message and moved on.

I don’t think my grandfather was terribly advanced when it came to race relations, but he wasn’t an idiot.

There are smart people in Eastern Kentucky, and there are good Christians there. The problem is that they are few and their influence is small.

After the burial, I drove around with Thelma and Louise. We went by a 120-acre farm my family sold after my grandparents died. But for the dark cloud over the area, I wish I could buy it back and live there. It’s remote, and the back portion of it drops off in sheer cliffs overlooking the Red River Gorge. I can afford to buy it, but it won’t work. Not unless I can get used to hearing the N-word and dealing with people who don’t want to grow up. I have so many black friends, and I have two black godchildren…how would people treat me after they started visiting?

Here is the gate to the farm.

Here is a view of the farm in the distance. The grey barn is on the property. The barn to the left is not. My grandfather dropped a cow on me in that grey barn. Long story.

Right now, I live in the South. My nearest neighbors are from Alabama. Backward, right? No. The husband is a math major. The wife is in some medical field or other. Wonderful Christians. Kind people. You don’t have to be a fool to be from the South, and being from the South is no excuse.

On the way back, I took a couple of detours into Tennessee. I found myself driving through the Smokies. It was wonderful. It was so much like the Gorge. Mountain laurel everywhere. A babbling creek with pools and rapids. Trees I could actually identify. Here, as wonderful as the area is, everything is either a trash oak or a palm tree.

Most of the time, I was in a national park, but I wonder if there are similar areas where I can buy land. I wonder what the people are like. I’m told they’re not too trashy. Tennessee has its bad areas, but I don’t think it has ever been as disappointing as Eastern Kentucky. As you drive from Eastern Tennessee into Kentucky, everything starts to look less shabby and unkempt. It’s as if an invisible hand had shown up and shoved the buildings to make them stand straighter.

I’m too tired to write any more. I drove 500 miles today, which is 5/6 of my personal limit. I’ll get back to this tomorrow, in all likelihood. There isn’t that much more to tell.

I never got to see Rock City, if that’s what you’re hoping. I still have time, though.

Time to go Get the Ashes

I intended to post this yesterday.

My guests are gone.

I invited people to come on Saturday and remember my dad. Most people could not make it. The ones that made it didn’t fare well. One friend, and one of her sons, got sick. Another friend had a one-person wreck in her own yard, totaling her husband’s pickup truck and requiring x-rays. My neighbors had the strangest story of all. They went to Valdosta to see their granddaughter play in a college soccer game. When they arrived, she told them the game was on Sunday. When they tried to come home, the road was jammed, and it delayed them for an hour. To make matters worse, the wife stepped in a hole and sprained her ankle.

Sometimes it’s obvious when Satan wants to prevent something from occurring. When things started happening, I began praying for the safety of my guests.

In the end, the sick lady, her sons, the lady who wrecked the truck, her husband, and my two closest neighbors made it. This was the best we could do.

The neighbors brought food, and I made brownies and cookies. I used to take brownies and cookies to the ALF where my dad lived, so I thought I should make them for the event.

I spent about half an hour relating my dad’s amazing testimony, and people were very impressed by what God had done. It was very hard to speak at times, but I managed to push it out.

The lady who wrecked the truck is named Leah. Her husband is Scott. I’ve known them for quite a while. They drove from the Pensacola area. Leah got to know me back when I was on Facebook. She was interested in prayer in tongues. She got the baptism, and she even drove to Miami more than once to visit my church.

Scott and Leah stayed two days, and that was helpful. Had everyone simply left, there would have been a very abrupt transition, and the house would have felt very empty.

I am still working on getting my dad buried. My expectation is that I will have another grueling week, and then things will taper off. I have to travel to Kentucky, and then I have to drive back. Then I have to get to work on the estate.

Ordinarily, I don’t write about traveling until I’m finished. It’s like inviting people to rob your house. This time I’m making an exception, because before I go, I will be taking measures to protect my property.

I decided to drive. I can drive to Gainesville and then fly to Kentucky, but it’s expensive, and the drive to the airport is long. Taking a firearm will be a hassle, and the airline may make me jump through hoops in order to take my dad’s ashes. Also, I would like to see the South one more time, and I can’t do that through a plane window.

If I drive, I’ll be able to carry in every state I visit. I can also pick up whatever small items remain from my mother’s estate. My aunt is holding some things.

I carry my dad’s 9mm Glock now. Have I written about that? Years ago, I bought him a Glock for his birthday or Fathers’ Day or something. Later, I put a Crimson Trace laser on it. He hardly ever carried it. The pocket holster I got for him looks nearly new. I have been getting tired of my heavy 10mm, and I was considering carrying my own 9mm. One day after my dad died, I thought about his gun, and it seemed natural to start carrying it.

The gun was already my property. He gave me everything he owned, without exception, before he died. You don’t need a will to give someone a watch, a gun, or any other item of household personalty.

The 10mm is a far superior weapon. It fires a 180-grain Speer Gold Dot hollowpoint at 1250 FPS. I’ve been thinking about it, though. Being shot with a 9mm may not be quite the same, but it’s very bad indeed, and the reduced weight will be an improvement.

I like the laser. I used to think it was hinky because it couldn’t possibly line up with the barrel as well as a guide-rod Lasermax, but that was totally untrue. Also, a Crimson Trace turns on automatically when you grab the gun.

While my friends were here, we talked a great deal. We exchanged bits of Christian info. We prayed together, and that was pleasant, not to mention important.

There isn’t a whole lot left to do with regard to transferring stuff from my dad to me. The banks and so on only require a couple of simple forms, plus death certificates. I have to get myself appointed as the estate’s personal representative, and then I should have the authority to put his car in my name. I guess after that, I pay off his credit cards and close the estate.

I can only do so much per day, so I am not really on top of the court process yet, but I do know where to find the rules.

I now live in “my dad’s bedroom.” That’s what I’m trying not to call it. Everything here is mine now. I keep trying not to say “my dad’s” and “we.”

Having weekend guests gave me a good reason to start sleeping in the master suite. It’s not bad at all. I’m learning about the problems with the bedroom. I had to get on a ladder late at night to fix a blinking LED on a smoke alarm, and the next night, I learned that the dishwasher beeps for about half an hour when it stops running, so I had to make an adjustment for that. My dad had the ability to sleep through things like major hurricanes, so he never complained when he lived in that room.

Pretty soon I’ll be sleeping near Chattanooga, and not long after that, Winchester, Kentucky, home of Ale-9-One, the world’s finest soft drink. Then I’ll get my dad buried and head home. I may drive through the Smokies for no reason at all. I loved Gatlinburg and Cherokee when I was a kid. It will add two hours to the trip, but when will I see Appalachia again? It should be worth it.

The town where my dad will be buried (where my mother grew up) has a hotel now. As I could have predicted, their Hotels.com reviews say they have bedbugs and a bad attitude. Eastern Kentucky isn’t poor because we don’t send them enough money. It’s poor because the people make it poor. They have what I would call a “can’t-do attitude” about everything, and Lyndon Johnson wiped out their work ethic with the War on Poverty. A local humorist named Clennie Hollon called it “the War on Progress,” and he was right.

The hotel where I’m staying is part of a national chain, and it gets good reviews, so I should survive.

The Devil Doesn’t Want You to Visit Me

It’s surprising how much work is involved in leaving this earth. I always look forward to leaving my obligations behind, but it’s a mess for the survivors.

God has blessed me by streamlining things extremely well, so taking care of my dad’s final arrangements isn’t as bad as it could be.

I donated all of his clothes to the Salvation Army. I got him cremated. I deposited his will and a death certificate with the court. I arranged for him to be buried. I deleted his Facebook account.

I looked up the rules of probate court, so now I have some idea how I should handle things.

I wanted to have a gathering tomorrow for friends here at the house. Things are not going well for the people I intended to invite. My friend Mike had a toe amputated over the weekend, two days before my dad died, and now he’s penned up in live-in rehab for 11 days. My friend Amanda got the flu or something like it, and two days ago, her temperature was 102.4.

My friends Leah and Scott decided to come and stay Saturday night. She just texted. She has been in a wreck, and she is getting an x-ray.

Something doesn’t want people to hear my dad’s testimony. I would appreciate it if people who read this would pray for the opposing spirit to be defeated.

It doesn’t matter, because Satan can’t come up with a roadblock God didn’t know about in advance. However things shake out, Satan will be disappointed.

It appears that my dad’s car is the only thing that will have to go through probate. Today I read the applicable laws, and it turns out the law exempts two vehicles per decedent. I’m not sure what “exempts” means. I assume I’ll still have to tell the judge the car exists, but there must be some benefit. Maybe the court will give me a letter authorizing me to have the title changed.

Anyway, I intend to keep driving it. It appears that the intent of the law is to avoid confiscating cars from people and forcing them to buy new ones during probate.

One surprising thing is that I feel love flowing through me more freely than I did before my dad changed. I have been praying for this for years. He used to be a bit like a porcupine. When people tried to love him, he provoked and upset them, so it was a challenge. That changed when he changed.

Since he moved out in January, I have developed the habit of talking to the birds just to have noise in the house. I talk about how much I love my dad and what a wonderful father he was. The more I do it, the more the love flows. I’m so glad he didn’t die while there was tension between us. I’m hoping the flow of love will continue. Christians need to love God and other people. It’s not a pleasant luxury. It’s a need.

Unequal yokings can make it hard for love to pass through. You have to be very careful who you get close to.

I feel a little better every day, and I slept all night last night. God is faithful to heal and help.

A Picture of Grace

I related my dad’s testimony elsewhere, including the life jacket story, which you can read about in an earlier post. I decided to include a photo of the jacket. It’s downstairs by the fireplace. I took the photo and posted it, and then I realized something about the picture was moving me. I didn’t know what it was. Then I saw it.

Take a look at the neck opening on the jacket. Do you see anything?

I didn’t pose the lion there. It was just standing there when I walked over to take the picture. It’s a bookend my mother bought my father. I put it there while I tried to decide what to do with it. It has been there for weeks or months.

Jesus is the Lion of Judah.

The picture is remarkable, and it just happened. It was not planned.

I had a revelation night before last. I thought about the old people I had met at ALF’s, and I thought about the unbearable burden of trying to reach out to them all. It occurred to me that if I tried to help too many people, they would pull me down with them, like drowning people pulling a lifeguard under.

Suddenly, I thought of Peter trying to walk on the water. He only succeeded when he looked at Jesus. He ended up sinking anyway, but when Jesus took his hand, he rose and walked on water again.

Water represents the carnal world. The fish in the Sea of Galilee represent people waiting to be saved.

In the story of Peter’s walk on water, Jesus did what I wished I could do for ALF residents. What he did for Peter was a picture of Jesus reaching down and pulling a person out of the world through salvation.

It makes me realize my dad got his life jacket, and I don’t mean the one in the picture. No wonder God used a life jacket in his miracles! It was the perfect choice.

All those years ago, he knew I would take this picture and show it to people. Think of it.

There’s more. The jacket is bowing. See for yourself.

It’s chilling to think about. God is not being subtle at all.

Probate About to Begin

Today I decided to see if the court clerk would allow me to deposit my dad’s will. I had it with me, and I figured I should give it a shot even though I did not have a death certificate. The clerk has a sign that says they don’t give legal advice. But of course, they did.

They advised me against giving them the will at this point, and they mentioned various concerns regarding the way his property had to be treated. I took their advice, but I was a little disappointed. I don’t like having a will anywhere except in the hands of the court clerk.

I don’t mind getting legal advice from clericals. Sometimes they know things lawyers do not, even though they’re not qualified to practice. There is no point in being stuck-up and pretending you know everything.

I had been very concerned about the will, fearing it would be lost or that some other problem would pop up. Then I thought about it. As far as I know, the only thing that will go through probate is my dad’s car. Everything else has legally passed to me already, even though it won’t be fully documented until the death certificates are sent out. It appears that the will is relatively insignificant.

His attorney is a lifesaver. She showed me how to remove all of his real estate from probate during our first consultation, which was free. I did the work myself after I left her office. I was afraid to wait for our next meeting. The work took about half an hour and cost nothing at all.

I can’t help feeling bad because she got to do so little work. If I were a layperson, she could have billed me for more time. Those are the breaks, though. She has done some research for us since I last saw her, so she will definitely be compensated.

Today her secretary was talking about setting me up with a probate paralegal, but I don’t think I need one. To transfer a used car? Surely I can handle that. I really am a lawyer.

I don’t have any idea what I’m supposed to do with the car during the probate process. I plan to keep driving it, probate or not, unless the highway patrol comes and tells me to knock it off. My mom died, and nobody came and put a boot on her car. Same for my grandparents. I assume no one cares.

I got so used to ferrying my dad around, I quit driving my own vehicle. I still have it, but I have gotten really comfortable with his SUV. My vehicle is an enormous diesel pickup. I don’t really want to use it every time I leave the house.

There is no other beneficiary, so it’s not like I’m embezzling the use of the car from anyone. Maybe I’m embezzling it from myself. I probably won’t press charges.

Maybe I could blackmail myself and get money for not turning me in.

I donated his shower chair and the remaining medical supplies from his closet to the ALF, and I took all–ALL–of his clothes to the Salvation Army. I want all of that stuff GONE GONE GONE. It was depressing to see his favorite houseshoes on a shelf and his suits on hangers. When I put the suits in bags for the Salvation Army, I could smell him on them. They smelled the way his closet did when I was a kid. I don’t need that. This process is hard enough as it is.

While I was at the thrift store, I looked to see if they had anything good. Thrift stores are great places to buy cast iron cookware. The store was small and had very little that would interest anyone. I went next door to the Humane Society thrift store, and it was much larger. It was packed with merchandise. That upset me. People care more about dumb animals than they do about human beings. They should be ashamed. It’s despicable.

If it turns out the work I did on my dad’s real estate is sound, probate should be a snap. I was hoping to confirm it with the attorney this week, but my dad died before I made it to her office. I think we’re in the clear, though. It wasn’t a difficult legal problem to understand or solve. I’ll find out when I talk to her.

Because estate stuff isn’t my field, I will not take a chance and say I’m sure everything is fine. Good lawyers don’t shoot from the hip. They do research, or they refuse to issue firm conclusions.

This may be much easier than I had thought.

That’s all that’s happening right now. I still have a lot of pain, but it’s not like it was before. I love my dad very intensely. I feel like I lost a child. The last two days were hard, but no matter how strong grief is, time wears it down.

I was much closer to my mother than my dad, and she adored me. Somehow, losing her hurt less. Maybe it’s because my dad was so dependent and because he became so effusive with his love.

Today was good. I think tomorrow will be better.

Pain is Tempered by Expectancy

I keep getting great comments on my experiences with my dad’s decline and death. I want to thank everyone again.

I’m not wasting a second, getting things in order. Today I went to visit the cremation people, and I made all the arrangements and paid them. The total was $945. That includes everything, plus 10 death certificates. They would have provided an urn free of charge had I not bought one already.

I’m also getting the house and grounds fixed up. I keep my house very clean for the most part, but disorder is a problem. The yard is a mess. I started mowing again this week, and today I sprayed glyphosate on the weeds.

I may have people come here to observe my dad’s passing, and I don’t want to embarrass myself too much. I know I live like an eccentric, and that will always be true, but I have to try to make things as normal as I can for guests.

I stopped by the ALF today and dropped off what remained of my dad’s special supplies. They told me some of the residents were poor, so this stuff could be helpful. I don’t want it near me. That part of our lives is over. I could take them his shower chair, but I don’t want to go to the ALF again.

I miss going to the ALF, but I have to move on and get a feel for my new life.

One of the ALF staffers asked if we were having a service. She said they would like to come. I was very touched. They only knew him for a few weeks.

My neighbors called and said they would watch the house and care for my birds if I had to go to Kentucky. That was wonderful. The people here are tremendous.

Social Security has been notified. The insurance companies have been told to stop billing. When the death certificates roll in, I can deal with banks and so on. We…I…still own my dad’s house in Miami, and as of today, it’s for sale. His death put an end to my huge capital gains problem.

The grief is maybe 70% as intense as it was yesterday. I don’t mind it. I’m glad he became the kind of person I can miss a lot.

Yesterday I did something a little strange. I didn’t feel good in the evening, emotionally. I also felt I needed food. I decided to have breakfast. Breakfast is the most cheerful meal of the day. We eat it while we still are still full of hope. It reminds us that life is full of new beginnings. I had a fried egg, toast, and decaf. It made me feel a lot better.

A close friend asked how I felt today. I said I felt a mixture of grief and eagerness. I don’t have to explain the grief. The eagerness comes from losing the burden of caring for him. Now that he’s gone, there are many things I can do that I couldn’t do before. I can get on top of my responsibilities. I can sell things I’ve been wanting to sell. I can travel when I need or want to.

I’m dying to get my tools moved here. As much as I hate Miami, I may drive down this week, check things out, and make some decisions.

It may sound crazy, but I’m considering building a workshop. I have a house and a shop for the tractors and some of my tools. I have been planning to put my machine tools in my garage. It would be ritzier and more ergonomically sound to put them in a separate building.

I’ll need to find out what it would cost. I think the best thing would be to contact the builder who built the house, since they did such a fine job.

I think about things like this, and then I think about how much I love and miss my dad. When you lose someone you love, emotions come and go in waves. I know I’ll feel better tomorrow than I do today, and by the time we bury my dad, I should feel very good about everything.

I heard from some of my relatives today, and we had a great conversation. I feel like some members of my mother’s family have drifted off, and others are still on board with me. I should make an effort to tighten things up with the ones who are still interested.

I also had a long call from a young friend who is in law school at FSU. I remember meeting her when she was 17, at Trinity Church in Miami. She found out I was a lawyer, and she started asking me if I could write recommendations to help her get into school. She was already sure she wanted to be a lawyer, but she doubted herself. She thought the work might be too hard. Now she’s doing great, and her second year is coming to a close. I give her the best advice I can. Anyway, if I hold an event here, she wants to come. I told her I’d pay her fare.

She’s funny. Calls me “Esteban.”

My friend Amanda said she was going to bring food tonight, but she has a fever, so that’s off. She and her kids are sick all the time. They used to come every weekend. I believe something is trying to keep them away, because I tell them about God. I would appreciate it if people would pray for them.

Sometimes I feel like my dad is still alive. For example, I come in the house, and I feel like I need to start preparing for my daily ALF visit. Sometimes I feel like I should check my calendar to see if he has any medical appointments. Then I come to my senses.

I don’t want his memory to fade. I don’t look forward to a time years in the future, when he seems to be part of a distant past, as my mother does. It will happen, if God allows me to live. I can’t prevent it.

I don’t want to think of him as a dead person.

Things will get better, and I suspect God has someone who will appear and fill the void. Maybe a wife. Maybe new friends who will be involved in some kind of ministry with me.

I’m extremely glad my dad didn’t die in Miami. I was afraid he would end up in a home run by calculating mercenaries, surrounded by old Cubans who didn’t speak English. The people who care for him were great, for the most part, and everyone I have dealt with here since he died has been warm and helpful.

The funeral home director from the cremation place told me he wasn’t sure all of my dad’s remains would fit in the Amazon urn I got him. I told him I wasn’t going to be difficult to deal with. I said we could take whatever wouldn’t fit in the box and scatter it here on the farm. He said that was exactly what he was going to suggest. Very thoughtful.

Dad used to sit in a chair on the front porch and read his newspapers and do his puzzles. I would scatter the ashes on the lawn around the porch.

If I hold an event here, that’s what we’ll do. It’s a little unorthodox, but I don’t care.

That’s how things stand. I am still here, so I have to go on. My dad is in heaven, without a care in the world, surrounded by love and complete protection. I have to stop feeling sorry for him and start living.

The Way we Die Needs to Change

I suppose it will seem strange that I’m blogging again on a day like this, but I have to report on what’s happening.

I have been very down since my dad died. It hasn’t been 8 hours yet. I have been thinking over and over about how much I love him and how I wish I had done a better job for him. I wish I could spend a few more minutes talking to him and hearing him talk to me.

People have been calling me all day. I have also heard from them on Facebook. I put an announcement on my dad’s page, and his relatives have responded. Oddly, my mother’s family has not. I don’t know what to make of that. I wonder if they have believed some crazy lie my sister told them about me.

I may not have his funeral in Kentucky. My friends are very supportive and enthusiastic, and almost all of them are in Florida. If my relatives don’t show any interest, I’ll have a gathering here at the house, and then I’ll have my dad buried in Kentucky. My family has had a lot of funerals, and we did them all pretty much the same way, so I had assumed I would follow the pattern, but there is no point in it if my relatives aren’t on board.

I have received emails. I have received blog comments. I am grateful for all of it, and I thank everyone who took the time to say something.

I heard from my friend Mike, the hospice executive, and my friend Freddly, a former CNA who is now a nurse in some kind of management position. They know a good deal about death. Mike is getting a faith-based hospice running, and Freddly has seen many people die. Mike has been keeping up with our story, and tonight I told Freddly about it.

Mike told me some shocking things. He said he was amazed by my dad’s story. He said it was inspiring. He said he had required employees to read my blog. Imagine how surprised I was.

He feels things have gone exceptionally well. He gives me more credit than I deserve; God has stepped in over and over. Nonetheless, Mike tells me people usually die without peace, and their families aren’t much help.

Freddly told me she had only seen two people die the way my dad did, in peace. Two. She has probably seen hundreds of deaths. She said relatives don’t come to people’s bedsides. Families tear at each other. Dying people are in fear while they die; they fight it.

It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that half of the people who die in America have bad deaths, but it was surprising to hear Freddly say she had only known of two people who hadn’t. What has happened to this country? I realize she works in the Miami area, where witchcraft is mainstream and people are hard and shallow, but the statistics should be better.

I haven’t written about my dad’s passing, so I’ll do it now.

This morning, he turned down food and water, but he could speak. I thought I had a few days left to be with him. I started calling around, making preparations for his death. I thought I’d go see him in the early afternoon, and things would be fine. We’d spend some time together, and maybe in a few days or a week, he would leave me.

At around 12:30, if memory serves, someone from the hospice called. She told me that, based on her experience, things were not going well. She said I needed to get over there.

I grabbed my mom’s old Bible, and I went to the ALF. I still thought he would survive the day. When I arrived, he was breathing heavily, and he couldn’t speak. He was on oxygen. He had the death rattle. He looked terrible. I can’t explain it, but it was as though I could see his bones through the skin of his hands and arms.

I sat down with him, and I made sure his oxygen apparatus was situated in his nose correctly. He was touching it, and it seemed to be farther from his nostrils than it should have been, so I fixed that. I sat with him and prayed, and his color improved. He began to look like a human being again. That’s the best way to describe it.

I got my Bluetooth speaker out and played Christian music on it. I told my dad everything I thought he needed to hear. I told him he was the best father a man could ask for, and I meant it. Whatever he was in the past, he became an ideal father over the last few weeks. I told him he owed me nothing. I told him there were no problems between us. I told him I loved him, and that I would not leave him. I said, “If you want to go, you can go. If you want to stay, you can stay.” I said that if he left, he would be with Jesus, and if he stayed, he would be with me.

I told him he had nothing to worry about, and that God was ready to receive him. I reminded him that my mother was waiting. I said I would be with him soon. I can’t remember all the things I said, but I poured out all I had.

I meant everything I said.

I remembered that he liked Derek Prince, so I looked for a video on Youtube. I played the audio from a sermon about thanks and praise. After I chose it, I realized how appropriate it was. He was probably about to enter God’s throne room. I had help choosing that video.

He relaxed. His breath grew less labored. His coloring looked nearly normal.

I remembered something. When I had played Derek Prince for him on other days, he had relaxed and sunk into it to the point where I was afraid he was dying. I asked myself if I was hastening his death by playing the video. He might just let go and sail off with the angels. I felt it was right, however, so I let it play.

I kept my hand on his arm almost the whole time. I rubbed his shoulder. I made sure he had contact. I didn’t know what he could perceive, and I felt he would be aware of my touch even if he couldn’t turn to look at me.

I spoke God’s opposition to any spirits that might be making things difficult.

He stopped making the rattle, and his breath grew extremely calm. He drifted off just as he had during other videos I had played. I couldn’t tell whether he was improving or getting worse. He had color. His hands were warm. He wasn’t agitated any more.

A time came when he was barely moving. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or dying. Lately, he has slept silently, with almost no movement. He used to snore, but he stopped.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t see any motion at all. His eyes were open. His mouth was open. I nudged him to see if I could get a reaction. I shook his arm a little. Nothing.

I went to the lady who ran the ALF and asked her to send someone to check him, and she confirmed that he was gone.

He was able to hear me when I arrived. I believe he heard every helpful thing I said. I believe he left this world knowing there was nothing whatsoever between us any more, apart from love.

This is the story I told Mike and Freddly.

Mike is so upset by the way most people die, he wants me to talk to his chaplains. I’m not sure what to do. His hospice isn’t confined to one faith. The brutal truth is that I can only help Christians, and by that I mean Bible-believing Christians who accept the work of the Holy Spirit.

As wonderful as it was to see my dad go peacefully, and as much as I would like to see other people have that experience, a pleasant departure from this world is not a satisfactory goal for me. It’s a temporary blessing, and it’s a by-product. I was always working to get my dad into God’s arms for eternity. The help he got at the end was just the tip of an infinite iceberg. It was a foretaste.

I can’t help Muslims or Jews. I can’t help Mormons. That’s just how it is. I am not here to promote “faith,” as though every religion were equally good. There is only one way to God. People who reject Jesus go to hell. I can’t sit at someone’s bedside and try to make them feel better while the demons wait to take them.

I didn’t make my dad feel better. The Holy Spirit did. I can’t make him show up at the bedside of someone who rejects Jesus. To try would be whoredom on my part.

One of the worst problems Americans have is our pathological determination to force each other to approve of every religion. It’s good not to offend people, but Satan has taken us beyond that, to the point where we tell each other all religions lead to God. It’s not true. Jesus was not tolerant at all. He said, “No man comes to the Father but by me.”

My dad is in heaven right now, with my mother. That’s what matters. God helped with the transition because we were on the right track and we submitted, not because he wants to make life on earth perfect and stress-free for everyone.

Listening to Mike and Freddly made me feel great. It cut the legs out from under my grief. I feel much better than I did earlier. I had been wondering how I would endure the night, but now I can rest.

I feel great because now I see how blessed my dad and I are. Very few people get what we did.

I wonder if I can help anyone else. I almost feel like volunteering to adopt ALF residents and help them prepare. I don’t think that will happen, but I wish I could do something. This world is full of poor seniors everyone wants to forget, and they need help. ALF’s are warehouses we use to get people out of our sight and out of our way. They should be processing centers for Jesus, where the hopeless, lonely, and forgotten fall into God’s arms.

Tomorrow I’ll visit for the last time, as far as I know. I’m going to donate a bunch of things my dad doesn’t need any more. After that, there will be an abrupt end to my practice of going every day. I’ll miss it. It was a burden in some ways, and I need to be free to travel and do things, but I almost always felt great when I walked in and caught sight of my dad. I knew he would be elated as soon as he realized I was there, and we would get to talk and pray. I will also miss a few of the other residents.

I suppose most of the residents I met will be gone in a few months. The turnover is very fast.

Freddly has problem parents, so while I was talking to her, I told her some things I had learned. Maybe she’ll stick with it and get what I got. She says she plans to call and talk regularly.

I can sleep now, so I believe I’ll go do that. God has blessed my dad and me beyond anything I could have imagined. God is faithful, and he is ready to give us more good things than we can guess. Keep pursuing him, and you will find relief you never knew was possible.

World’s Best Dad, Eating the World’s Best Brownies

Victory is Here

The best father a man could ever want escaped the confines of this earth at about 2:00 p.m. It was very peaceful. I was beside him. Now he is with our Lord and my late mother, in a body that will never fail, with a mind that will always be clear and sharp.

Thanks to all who prayed for us and gave me support.

Dad Refusing Food

A few days ago, my dad prayed for salvation again. We were listening to Derek Prince, and he suddenly blurted, “I’m on the verge!” He said he was on the verge of salvation. I reminded him that he had already prayed for salvation, but he said he had had reservations, so we did it again.

Now he is not eating.

It’s hard to get straight talk from care providers. I have never had a provider give me anything resembling sufficient warning of a loved one’s impending death. It seems like they never say, “Your relative only has days to live,” no matter how obvious it is. You have to figure it out yourself. My common sense tells me that if he’s not eating, he can’t survive more than a few days.

My feeling, which may be wrong, is that his spirit kept him going because he needed to make a good solid agreement with God. Now that he has done that, it may be that his spirit has decided it’s okay for him to leave.

I will not have him force-fed. Death is normal. Shoving food down a dying person’s throat is not. It’s an act of desperation and denial. If he will not eat, and there is no physical cause which can be treated without unnatural efforts, I intend to control myself and let him go. I don’t know how I’ll stand it, but I’m sure it will be less painful than taking futile actions in a state of panic.

While I was working on getting his DNR in place, the people at the ALF told me what resuscitation was like. They manhandle the patients, pumping their chests and trying to revive them. If it takes half an hour for an ambulance to arrive, that’s how long it goes on. Then they go to the hospital, where they are connected to machines whether or not they’re truly alive. The staffers had been through it before, and they wanted no part of it. Once they had described it to me, I agreed.

I don’t know what more God could have done to give us a graceful and peaceful run-up. He reconciled us to each other, with no lingering reservations. He reconciled my dad to him. He prepared my dad’s estate and showed me my errors. He helped me get the documents in order to assure that my dad would not be tormented by care providers. One of the hard things about being a Christian is figuring out exactly how much God is willing to do for you. This experience has shown me that I have underestimated him.

My old friend Mike had a bad experience this week. He learned he had MRSA in his left big toe, and the next day, it was amputated. Now he’s on IV antibiotics. He has been observing my dad’s progress. He told me how much it moved him. His mother died suddenly, in a car wreck. When his dad died, many things were not resolved. I can understand how my dad’s story would affect him. Anyway, he told me he had been planning to fly down to help me. He was going to go with me on the drive to Kentucky. That’s real friendship. It may not come to pass, but it shows how things are working to make this passage go smoothly.

I’m going to call and look into cremation today. I suppose I should call the funeral home in Kentucky. I don’t want to get caught flat-footed.

I wish my dad had gotten to know God 60 years ago. So much has been wasted. I wish we could have attended church together and prayed together for years. I wish my family had lived in an atmosphere of love and safety instead of darkness and torment. Nonetheless, God has done astounding things with the poor materials we gave him. As the Bible says, the end of a thing is better than the beginning.

When I think of my dad, all I see is the frail, gentle, loving man I know now. It’s hard to picture him as he used to be. I’m grateful for that. I want to remember the wonderful dad I have now. The weakness of his image doesn’t bother me because I see his new heart.

Maybe he’ll get better. Maybe he’ll start eating and live another five years. I’m going to prepare anyway.

I’m going to miss him like crazy. I already do. But our parting will go gently, and my regrets will be overshadowed by my awe and gratitude for the way God has helped us.

New Cough; no Appetite

My dad seems to change every day.

Today I went to see him. He was seated for dinner. His food and drink were untouched. I thought maybe he had just arrived at the table. He told me he didn’t want to eat, so I rolled him out to the courtyard so we could talk.

He has been losing weight rapidly for four months, but he has also been eating normally. It’s hard to get solid information on his changes. I know that it’s normal for people who are nearing death to lose weight because they stop eating, but there is less corroboration out there for the notion that heart failure patients who are nearing the end lose weight while eating normally. His cardiologist seems to think it’s normal. She said she thought it was heart failure combined with his other problems, which she termed “co-morbidities.”

He was losing weight while eating normally. Now, at least at the moment, he is not eating normally.

He also had a cough, and it sounded like things were rattling around in his lungs, the way they would if he had chest congestion. He said he had a lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away, and he mentioned a burning feeling. Later on, he had a good cough and said the lump was gone. It’s hard to know what the truth is or whether he knows what it is.

I called the hospice, and they said they were sending someone. I don’t expect them to cure him, but they might be able to fix the cough or do other things to make him feel better. I’m sure they will call me when they look him over.

We listened to Derek Prince again today, but my dad didn’t remember the things that happened while we listened yesterday. He didn’t remember praying for salvation or saying he felt emptied. He didn’t remember giving up his reservations. I suppose that’s all right. He still said what he said and did what he did.

Today while we listened, he didn’t get as engrossed as he usually does. About 10 minutes before I expected to quit, he announced that he wanted to go to sleep. He never does that. I took him to his room and turned down the covers, and then I went home.

It made me a little nervous when he got agitated and prayed yesterday. I was concerned God might be getting him ready for his departure. Today I took care of a minor estate detail that needed to be handled, and I had the feeling that I was handling something that had to be gotten out of the way so my dad would be able to leave. The more wrapped-up his affairs get, the more imminent his death seems. It makes me reluctant to move into his bedroom and do other things that confirm the finality of his situation. Day before yesterday, I finally threw out a quart of half and half I bought before he left. I don’t use half and half, but I felt like having it in the fridge somehow kept him alive.

He may be having new heart failure symptoms. He may have pneumonia. If it’s something infectious, he could be gone by Sunday. I am never sure what’s happening.

He looked more frail than ever today. I think he’s still wasting.

I could not ask God for a smoother transition. His estate is in order. He has a burial plot and an urn. He keeps drawing closer to God. We have had a beautiful reconciliation. I don’t know what God could do to make things better.

I’ve answered the phone and learned that a close friend shot himself in the head. I’ve watched my grandfather die over three days after a sudden heart attack, intubated so he could not speak in order to get closure. My mother lost consciousness unexpectedly, and I didn’t get to say goodbye while she was awake. Until now, I didn’t now what death was supposed to be like. It can go smoothly, with joy and minimal suffering. It can bring peace and increased togetherness.

We almost always do it wrong.

At the age of 85, my great grandmother, a fanatical charismatic, told her kids she was going to die. She seemed fine. She got in bed, and she passed away. My grandfather wasn’t there. He said she had indigestion. He didn’t believe her. I think we really need to learn how to die. We are suffering a lot because of our ignorance.

I can’t predict what the weekend will bring, but my dad and I are prepared if the end comes, thanks to God. We have an amazing testimony now.

New Testimony

My dad was a contemptuous atheist for about 75 years. He developed dementia. I put him in an assisted living facility at the end of January. In February, he forgot his atheism, and since then he has been very enthusiastic about God.

I always try to include a little background, so a person who comes here and only reads one blog post will have some idea what’s happening. If you want to know more about my dad’s change, you can read other posts here.

Things have been changing over the last week. I used to bring him brownies and cookies to eat during my visits, but he started turning them down, so I stopped bringing them. Day before yesterday, I started to feel guilty about not bringing him his newspapers. I had assumed he was not able to enjoy them, but three days ago, I saw him with a recent paper someone had given him. I brought him his newspapers again, and he looked at them and asked me what he would want with The Wall Street Journal. I took the paper back, and I realized there was no point in bringing newspapers any more.

Over the last few weeks, his habit has been to talk a great deal, asking me the same questions over and over. He stopped doing that. To fill in the time, I started playing the audio from Derek Prince sermons. Youtube is full of them. Instead of complaining, he listened intently, in spite of his diminished attention span. He took them in like a dry plant at the end of a drought. His thirst was obvious.

Yesterday, I wheeled him to a quiet place, and I played another sermon. He relaxed and seemed to sleep. This is how he always reacts. The sermon, if it matters, was about love.

Maybe 30 minutes in, he made a sudden exclamation. He said, “I’m on the verge!”

I didn’t know what that meant. I thought he might be referring to death. I asked him to explain.

He said he was on the verge of accepting what he was hearing. He was very excited, and he wanted to do something about it in order to get relief.

He prayed for salvation last year in October, but he backslid later and denied it. He has prayed for salvation since then at the ALF, and I had felt he was sincere. I didn’t understand why he was starting over again, but I realized he might have held something back.

I got up, laid one hand on him, raised the other in worship, and led him in prayer. I explained all the things he needed to believe and affirm. He had to believe Jesus was God and that Jesus had been crucified for his sins. He had to admit he had sinned. He had to ask for forgiveness. He had to expressly forgive every person who had sinned against him, and he had to ask God to forgive them. He had to ask God to fill him with the Holy Spirit. I’m sure there were other things. He complied, enthusiastically. “Desperately” is a better description.

I had him raise his hands in worship, and I had him say he was worshiping.

I asked him how he felt. He said, “Emptied.” Then he said, “I feel emptied, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior.”

I didn’t tell him to say that.

Then he said, “I had reservations.” He said, “Now they’re gone.”

It’s very strange to watch God do these things. I’m not pushing my dad. I barely do anything. I play audio and sit. I encourage him, of course, and I try to tell him useful things, but the effort is minimal.

On the one hand, there is something disconcerting about having God take over. It makes you feel a little bit like an attendant running a carnival ride, paid to sit in a chair and push the same button over and over. You don’t get to use your gifts. You definitely don’t get much credit.

On the other hand, I want God to take over, very badly. I don’t want to carry heavy loads any more. I don’t do a good job, and it’s an unpleasant way to live. I want to sit back and watch God act. Whatever disappointment I feel when I consider my lack of involvement is negligible. It means nearly nothing to me.

I don’t know why God gave me gifts. That’s a puzzle I can’t work out. They are clearly unnecessary. I enjoy them, however.

The Bible doesn’t say, “Get out there and fight, and let me know if you need help.” It doesn’t say, “Lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.” It says, “Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool.”

As of yesterday, my dad has started to slur his words. I don’t know if that’s a permanent thing. It could be a new symptom, or maybe he was just tired. In any case, he’s kind of a rush job. He has to prepare for death before he loses the ability to think. Yesterday, he tied up another loose end.

I don’t know why we are so blessed. Maybe it’s because my dad’s hostility toward God was sown in him by a preacher. The pastor of the church he attended as a child told his sister to tell everyone her father had died from drinking moonshine, which was true. It’s strange to me that God worked for such a long time to save someone who was such a hard case. I can see how he might take accountability for offense caused by a foolish servant.

My dad’s sister was two years older than he, and she didn’t receive salvation. She developed dementia, lost her mind entirely, and died an atheist. Why didn’t she change? She was a cruel sociopath. My dad had a black heart when he was in his prime, but she was worse. Maybe the preacher wasn’t the reason for her unbelief. Maybe she was lost before her father died.

I made sure I worshiped in my dad’s presence. I lifted a hand while we listened to Derek Prince, and I lifted a hand while I prayed with my dad. I can tell it makes a difference. Every Christian should do this.

I wrote about worshiping the other day. I related an experience in which Jesus visited me. I fell asleep in his presence and then woke up with both hands raised in worship. I told about a friend of mine who was hospitalized. He had an episode in which he awoke with his hands raised. This morning, I listened to Derek Prince’s testimony, and he said the Holy Spirit raised his hands, too. He raised Prince’s hand at an altar call while he was seeking God for the first time, and later, when Prince tried to contact God in prayer in order to get to know him, the Holy Spirit raised his hands in worship.

Worship is very important. It’s like connecting a wire to a power source.

I believe failure to worship sufficiently was the blockage that caused me to plateau and suffer anxiety over the last few years.

It wasn’t because I didn’t give away all my wealth and wear a hair shirt on a street corner. It wasn’t because I didn’t go to Africa to preach to primitive people. It wasn’t because I wasn’t behaving well enough or confessing and repenting enough. It was a simple misunderstanding of the way things work.

I like to pray in tongues while I drive, because there is no better way to redeem the time. I’ve started holding one hand up while I do it. I turn it to the side when other drivers approach, so they won’t think I’m trying to signal them. Instead, they’ll just think I’m eccentric, which is fine, because it’s true. I combine prayer with worship when I can.

In other news, two days ago, I had an unexpected conversation with a lady I dreamed about twice in recent weeks. Not sure what’s up with that, but it shook me.

I don’t know what God is going to do next. I feel much better than I did even a week ago. I feel like important parts of the puzzle have fallen into place.

Give this stuff a try. If it works for me, it will work for you. God didn’t go through the crucifixion so one person could get a bunch of blessings while other people who were no worse got nothing.

Plus the Ease of Moving in God’s Will

God keeps adding to my testimony. Yesterday, he did something extraordinary.

My dad was an atheist from 1943 until this winter. He was contemptuous of Christians. God changed him recently, and he forgot his doubts. We began praying together every day. This week, I started playing Derek Prince audio for him at the assisted living facility, and to my surprise, he loved it.

I started doing this three days ago. I played audio from a few short videos. I couldn’t do it day before yesterday, because my dad was asleep when I arrived for my visit.

Yesterday, I had problems when I went to see him. He was halfway undressed for bed. We always sit outside during my visits, and it was cool, so I tried to find one of the two new jackets I got him. I couldn’t find it. They were gone. I couldn’t find the new T-shirts I got him. I had to settle for taking him to the ALF’s activity room, where it was warmer.

I should add that our visits have been changing. He used to talk a great deal. He would ask me the same questions over and over, taking up time so I didn’t have to think of ways to keep the conversation going. He stopped doing that a few days ago, and he also stopped eating the cookies and brownies I brought him. I didn’t know what to do. The questions and the food had been helping us pass the time. Derek Prince’s videos replaced the questions and food. When my dad stopped talking so much, it gave me the opportunity to play audio for him.

We got to the activity room, and I set up the bluetooth speaker. I played a bunch of videos. I wondered how far I could push my dad. Could I get away with videos that were 5 minutes long? How about 10? How many could I play before he objected?

I played something like 45 minutes’ worth of video. He leaned his head back, and his mouth fell open. He looked lifeless. I actually looked at his chest to make sure he was breathing. When I saw that he was breathing, I wondered if he were awake.

When it came time to stop so we could pray, I went to him and nudged him. I asked if we were asleep. He said, “I heard every word.” He had been resting in God’s presence.

God is really taking over for me. This is how successful ministry works; you don’t have to push it. You don’t have to chase unwilling people down and beg and bribe them, the way most–MOST–big churches do now. God will put people in front of you when they’re ripe. He will show you where to cast your net. If you have to beg and bribe, you are out of God’s will, plain and simple. You are not pleasing God. You are disobeying him, and your ministry is not sanctioned.

This is so much better than flailing away with ministry ideas I came up with on my own. That’s what most people do. They may fly off to Africa, on missions God has nothing to do with. They may open orphanages God doesn’t want them to open. Then they struggle and suffer, and instead of realizing God isn’t on their side, they glorify themselves. “I do it all for God.” “Christian life is so hard, but I refuse to quit, because I’m so holy.”

If you have to do all the work yourself, why would you glorify Jesus? Why would he want glory for things he didn’t do?

I’ve been involved in all sorts of carnal ministry ideas that went nowhere. Never again.

In other news, I’ve been writing about the meaning of the word “worship.” Modern Christians think it means playing loud music and nothing else. The Bible does not say that. It describes worship in other ways, including prostrating oneself and lifting one’s hands. Well guess what? I just found a Derek Prince video in which he agrees with me.

He mentions several physical acts which constitute worship: bowing, lifting the hands, and kneeling are examples. I’ll post his video here.

Prince encourages people to kneel. I don’t like kneeling because it’s uncomfortable and impossible to do for long periods, but I will listen to Prince. I still don’t think God wants me to kneel so long it becomes uncomfortable and distracting, but I will do it if God tells me to.

God tells all of his servants the same things, through the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible for two believers to disagree by the Holy Spirit. Impossible. There is no such thing as “healthy debate.” If we disagree, one of us is wrong. “Healthy debate” is like “Christian pride.” It’s an oxymoron, and belief in it demonstrates dangerous ignorance. God told me worship involved physical movements and positions, and he told Derek Prince the same thing. It’s true, and it works.

Excessive Familiarity is Disrespect

Yesterday I wrote about Biblical support for the practice of raising one’s hands to God. I forgot to mention something.

These days, many Christians think “worship” means “music” and nothing else. Instead of calling their bands “bands,” churches call them “worship teams.” It’s a damaging misconception.

The words translated “worship” in the Bible generally don’t describe music. One Old Testament word means “serve.” A Greek word used in John means, more or less, to prostrate or otherwise humble yourself before your god. A Hebrew word used in Exodus means the same thing. These words include things like bowing and falling on one’s face. The worship they describe involves assuming postures physically to honor God, just as yoga involves assuming physical postures to honor demons and fallen angels.

Biblical figures knew they were supposed to make physical gestures of submission to God. Sometimes they fell on their faces when angels showed up. They thought the angels were God, and they knew they were supposed to prostrate themselves in God’s presence.

Obviously, raising your hands to God is worship. You can worship God while music is playing, but there is more to worship than turning church into a disco.

Kenneth Hagin was a well-known charismatic preacher. He had his flaws, and he associated with some oily, dangerous bums, but he knew a few things. He knew the prosperity gospel was trouble. He summoned a bunch of big-time charistmatic preachers in 1999 and told them they were doing the wrong thing. Of course, they didn’t listen.

He invited Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Jerry Savelle, Jesse Duplantis, and others. Copeland, Dollar, and Duplantis have disgraced themselves by asking their servants to give offerings so they can buy jets costing tens of millions of dollars. Copeland is extremely rich. Many people think he’s a billionaire.

Hagin wrote a book about the evils of the gospel of greed. It’s called The Midas Touch. I have a copy somewhere.

Hagin had a healing ministry. I saw him preaching about healing on one occasion, and he talked about working with a person who complained that God wouldn’t heal him. Kenneth asked him if he worshiped God. Then he had to explain. While he worked with the man and prepared to pray, he told him to raise his hands before he prayed, praising and calling out to God. This, to Hagin, was “worshiping.” He considered failure to worship a serious prayer flaw which could block healing.

God is humble, but he still has to be God. He has to be praised, feared, and worshiped. These things open the channel to him.

Speaking of fearing God, a lot of people have funny ideas about it. There are preachers out there who say the words translated as “fear” really mean some sort of warm, fuzzy reverence. That’s completely wrong. Go look for yourself. They mean FEAR, like the kind of fear you feel when you realize a grizzly bear is chasing you.

Fear of God is very important. It’s connected with a lot of blessings, according to the Bible.

If God loves us so much, why would he want us to fear him? I think he helped me understand. Imagine yourself in a restaurant on the top of a skyscraper, sitting hear a waist-high safety railing. You wouldn’t be shaking with fear while you sat in your chair, but you would be terrified of climbing the fence and walking over the edge. That’s how God is. You shouldn’t be in terror all the time, but you should be very afraid to cross him.

We live with all sorts of fears. If you own a gun or drive a car, you fear doing the wrong things with them. You also fear the consequences of committing crimes. You fear things like electric shocks and walking in bad neighborhoods after dark. The fears are real, but they’re dormant, not active. They’re helpful. They don’t produce stress unless you do something wrong.

Healthy kids fear their parents, even though they feel very safe near them.

God may be our friend, but he is not our beer buddy. He is very great. He is the most terrible enemy there is. No one can save you from him when he decides to fight you. Modern charismatics have a tendency to treat him as though he’s a pal. That’s not right. Fear and worship are important.

I believe the notion that I should raise my hands to God came from God, himself. Judging from the Bible, I’m in very good company.

Raise Your Hands for Service

Couple of interesting things today.

First, I have been trying to get my .204 Ruger rifle and ATN X-Sight II night scope working again. I have had a certain amount of success.

The X-Sight is low-end for night optics, and it’s full of gee-whiz features (often an indication of a focus that is not on quality), so I don’t expect the world. I have had a few problems. First, the battery life is so bad, you pretty much have to buy their external battery pack. Second, the battery pack is hinky. Sometimes you have to unplug it and plug it back in to make the scope boot, and you can’t tell when it’s about to shut down for lack of juice. I haven’t upgraded the scope’s software in a while. Maybe they’ve fixed this.

The scope keeps shutting down after very few shots. I bought 200 rounds of ammo, I have used the rifle three times, and I am still on the first 50-round box.

That being said, it’s a pleasant rifle to shoot, when you can shoot it. I am shooting a consistent 2 MOA at 100 yards, including what I think of as flyers. I’ll post a photo of a target representing what I think is around 13 shots. It’s hard to keep count when you’re aggravated.

Will the rifle do better? I have no idea. I can’t shoot it long enough to find out. Also, my setup is not good. I have a rabbit ear rear bag, a bipod, and a cheap Caldwell front rest. Sometimes the target is at a level where neither the bipod nor the rest will allow me to aim at it comfortably, and the bag keeps sliding around on me. I don’t know what I’m doing. I have to work on that.

The ammunition is fairly cheap. It’s Fiocchi, with 40-grain V-Max bullets. Fiocchi has made a lot of inexpensive ammunition, but the quality is excellent. They have a big factory in Italy, with real machines and everything. It’s funny how you can’t assume price is related to quality.

Another “cheap” ammo maker, Sellier & Bellot, has a magnificent factory you wouldn’t believe. You can “tour” it on Youtube. They do it right. On the other hand, CCI, which is an American maker with a great reputation, has a facility that looks like a converted garage.

Anyway, the ammunition is cheap, and I don’t know what it can do. Some cheap ammo is laser-accurate. I use Hornady .17 HRM ammo, and it will do sub-MOA at $11.50 for 50 rounds. You can’t assume anything without experience.

Speaking of .17 HMR, when my ATN battery died unexpectedly, again, I got the .17 HMR out and shot a while. At first, I was all over the target. I was adjusting the scope knobs between shots, so it was not pretty. On the second target, I shot pretty well, with a couple of flyers. I was coping with the sliding rabbit bag and so on. I’m convinced flyers are caused by concentration issues, period, and when the rests slide around, it makes you want to forget about concentration and get the shot over with.

I cheap out on targets by firing off-center. I pick a place where the yellow lines cross, fire a few rounds at it, move to another place, and so on. If you fire everything at the center of the target, you go through targets fast.

I’m thinking of getting a real glass scope for the .204 Ruger. The ATN is fun, but it’s getting on my nerves. I have a couple of Burris Fullfield II scopes, and they seem very nice. I have a Leupold which cost more, and the Burrises seem just as clear. I may get a Burris Fullfield E1, which is a newer model. It has an illuminated reticle.

Magnification is hard to choose. A scope that only has one setting will be cheap, but you’re stuck with that setting and field of view. When a variable scope’s magnification is maxed out, the field of view shrinks, and it makes it hard for you to find animals that are moving around. If you have variable magnification, you can crank it down and see more of the area where you’re shooting.

Some people say nothing more than 9X is needed, up to 300 yards. I can’t believe that, but then I’m used to shooting targets, trying to get sub-MOA accuracy. I want serious detail. When you shoot animals, 3 MOA is supposedly fine. Not sure how that can be true, since it means you would be hitting somewhere in a huge 6″ circle on a little scrawny coyote, but it’s what I’ve read. Seems like it would be easy to miss.

I would like 20X, but I’m thinking maybe I should grit my teeth and settle for 14-ish.

If I knew what I were doing, this would be easier.

My Leuopold is 20X, and it’s not currently on a rifle. I took it off my .308 for some reason. I was planning to put it back on, and I don’t like playing musical scopes, so I would like to have one scope for each rifle. I could put it on the .204 temporarily, but the idea bothers me.

In other news, I seem to have stumbled onto some powerful information about God. Maybe I should say he directed me to it. There appears to be something about lifting your hands in worship that improves prayer.

Generally, God is not overly formal in his relationship with us. He doesn’t want us to buy books of prayers other people have written and recite them verbatim, for example. He doesn’t require us to use Hebrew when we address him. He doesn’t care whether we call him Jesus or Yeshua. Sometimes, however, he expects us to do things a certain way.

In 1986, Jesus visited me. I have written about it. I was trying to sleep, and a beam of supernatural energy shone down on me and roamed around over me. Wherever it touched me, I felt complete peace and joy. The beam was Jesus. I knew it, without doubt.

I didn’t know what to do, and after a while, I fell asleep. I woke up instantly, on my back, with both hands raised in worship. I felt energy running into my palms, like arcs of electricity flowing into anodes.

A friend of mine was an armorbearer at Trinity Church in Miami. His name is Cedric. He went to the hospital for heart problems. One night he had some sort of issue, and he woke up on his back, with both hands raised in worship. Like me, he hadn’t raised his arms, himself. Something raised them while he was asleep.

In Exodus 17, Moses and the Hebrews fought the Amalekites. Moses held his hand up, holding the rod of God. As long as he held his hand up, the Hebrews prevailed. When he took it down, they began to lose. Aaron and Hur put a stone under him to sit on, and they held his hand up. It was acceptable for him to sit, but it appears that human beings had to hold up his hand. Otherwise, they would have propped it up somehow.

While Job was suffering, one of his friends told him to stretch his hands out to God and prepare his heart so he would be delivered. He obviously believed the raising of the hands was important.

In Psalm 28, the author asks God to hear him “when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.”

In Psalm 44, the author defends Israel, saying they haven’t stretched out their hands to a strange “god.”

Psalm 63 says, “Thus will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name.”

Psalm 68 predicts that a defeated Ethiopia will stretch out her hands to God in submission.

Psalm 88 says, “I have called daily upon thee; I have stretched out my hands unto thee.”

Psalm 119 says, “My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments.”

Psalm 134 says, “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord.”

Psalm 143 says, “I stretch forth my hands unto thee; my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land.”

Psalm 141 says, “Let my prayer be set before thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Lamentations 3:41 says, “Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.”

Praising God, Habakkuk says, “The deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.”

In the New Testament, believers laid their hands on people to heal them, to impart the Holy Spirit, and to initiate them into leadership.

Obviously, something is going on with hands. God moves power through them. It seems that God wants us to show him our palms when we want his power to flow.

I got this idea the other day, and I tried it. I held my hands up during prayer, for a long time. I could sense new faith and power. It was wonderful. I believe I was doing things God’s way, finally using the lesson he gave me in 1986.

Many preachers tell us to kneel. I don’t do it. I don’t like it. Kneeling is mentioned a few times in the Bible, but it doesn’t work for me.

I have no problem with lying down, sitting, or positioning myself on all fours in God’s presence, but kneeling is uncomfortable, and it makes it hard to look up or raise your hands. Daniel kneeled to pray three times a day, but he probably had a lower center of gravity than I do. Maybe he had a special piece of furniture that helped him.

The Psalms mention communing with God while lying in bed. That’s for me. That or sitting. I want to focus on God, not on effort. Also, when you’re on your back, it’s easier to raise your hands. When you stand, you have to pump blood over a vertical expanse of around six feet and when you lift your hands, you may be pumping blood seven feet up in order to reach them. It’s tiring. When you recline, your heart has less work to do, so you don’t feel burdened.

Anyway, I plan to continue raising my hands for long periods. It seems to make a big difference. I should have realized God was trying to teach me this.