Lightning

I was driving down the dirt road to my house in my seventy-something Pinto station wagon after spending the night in town and I noticed the well house that stands near the opposite rear corner of the house. I told my girlfriend, Laura, that it was so odd seeing the well house, as I had never noticed it. As we got closer, it became obvious why I could see the well house.

My house was missing.

What happened?

I could see my dog kennels and the dogs barking so I knew that they were OK. But once I pulled in the driveway, all I could see remaining of the house was the foundation.

I remember getting out of my car and walking up to the front as the remains within it were smoldering, and thinking, “I’m screwed”. I know that probably isn’t the best language to use but it was my thought at the time, so forgive my low intellect and limited vocabulary.

I began rummaging through the ashes, seeing some rifle and shotgun barrels sticking up out of where there was once my bedroom closet. I used them to get oriented as I was looking for my coin jar and also for any remains of cash that I had hidden in the ductwork. I found the blackened mass of coins imbedded in the melted glass pickle jar and my cash had been reduced to ashes in the ductwork under a pile of smoldering stuff that used to be a wood floor.

The house is where I lived a somewhat double life, making a modest profit, as I raised and sold puppies from a half dozen Chows and a female Rottweiler, who had recently lost her entire litter to Parvo. I was also in the reefer business where I made a substantial income, for a college kid, selling pot by either the pound or by the several pounds at a time. I wasn’t some big drug dealer but rather a lower level reefer magnate. I sold pot to college students who sold pot to other college students. Sometimes they paid cash on delivery or it was a consignment arrangement. Either way, I made a grand or two per week on good weeks and a few hundred on bad weeks.  I had several thousand dollars stashed in the ductwork and all I found was handfuls of ashes.

I was sick to my stomach!

I couldn’t believe that I had just graduated from college, gotten a job in the timber business, and had created a stash of cash to improve my future, as I was getting out of the reefer business and going straight.

All looked good until the morning of July 17, 1982 when I recognized all was gone.

That’s when I saw the dust of a truck coming down the dirt road. Loy T was coming to visit after church. When he got out of his truck, I could see tears running down his cheeks.

He was broken for me.

Loy was a humble man of real character. I remember the day he needed me to help kill a steer for meat and as Loy stuck the barrel of his pistol to the steer’s head, he prayed and cried. He told me that as many cows as he had killed for meat, he had never gotten use to shooting them. He loved those animals, because he had raised them from calves, but a man has to eat and Loy liked beef.

Loy began the conversation by apologizing for my circumstances, as he had found out about the house getting hit by lightning the evening before from the farmer that had been plowing the field beside the old Jim Walters slat siding house. The farmer was on his tractor when a thunder storm rolled in and a lightning bolt struck the house before the rain began. The rain didn’t help as the house was quickly engulfed and soon gone. The volunteer fire department came but there was little to do, as the neighbors had already pushed my old Cutlass away from the house.

So here was my friend Loy T telling me about the events of the evening before and then he pulls an envelope from his hip pocket. He tells me that his church had taken up a love offering and he handed me $137 in cash and the tears started again. He apologized for it not being more, but that was the best they could do.

I was overwhelmed.

These people didn’t know me or anything about me, and my life at the time was not one that I would think a church would want to invest in. I was the moral failure their preacher possibly spoke of that morning, yet they took up something that Loy called a “love offering.”

What is that?

I stood there staring at the money for a moment and mumbled a timid thank you and felt guilty for taking it. Loy hugged me and drove off. I felt like crying but at that time in my life, I didn’t know how.

Does that make sense?

I continued to rummage through the ashes for a while longer and then got in the car with Laura and headed for Athens. I had the clothes I was wearing, two junky cars, $137, and a sick feeling in my stomach. I don’t remember that I even spoke to Laura on the way to town.

I had lost nearly everything, including the Bible that another man gave me the year before.

I believe that sometimes God has moved in my life in a way that most would think was brutal, but I know, looking back, that He was becoming impatient with my continued poor judgement and it was time for an adjustment.

He instantly removed some of my gods that day.

So, remember… I’m one of His favorites!

THOUGHTS OF THE HUNTER KIND:

I tried to give the money back to the church about a month after the fire and Loy told me that they wouldn’t take it, as it was a love offering, not a loan.

I thought, “What kind of church is that? They won’t even take back the money I owe them! They’ll go broke doing that! A love offering doesn’t make sense.”

Today, I have a little deeper understanding of a love offering, as I have participated in a few and have been moved to tears more times than I care to admit as I have encountered many broken people from many walks of life. I’ve found that the closer I got to Christ, the more compassionate I became.

Who would have thunk it!

PRAYER OF THE HUNTER KIND:

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”  Mark 2: 16-17

Lord, I pray someone reads this story and sees that You’re in the business of healing the sick in spirit, as I was at that time in my life. Jesus, I just couldn’t see how sick I was as I had clouded vision distorted by false gods and my own self-centeredness. Thanks for taking most of that away! Amen