Avoiding Evil

It started off this morning to be anything but a typical day. I woke up in a strange bed, in a strange house, with a strange beast lying next to me licking my hand. I bounced awake and took a moment to realize that I was still house and dog sitting for my pastor who is on vacation. The strange beast licking my hand was Beamer, the dog. I got up and immediately called the veterinarian and began to explain the problem. Not the fact that he was licking my hand when I woke up, but for the last couple days Beamer has been licking his side and gnawing at himself. I’ve told him to quit several times, but of course he continued. Last night I noticed that he had gnawed a little sore into his own flesh, which turned out to be a nasty looking little spot on his side where he has completely rubbed all the hair off and gnawed a bit of the flesh away. Not wanting the dog to eat himself alive I asked the lady at the vet what was going on and what I should do about it. She immediately recognized this as what they like to call a hot spot. This is a place on a dog where it has been bitten by a tick, spider, or some other insect and has started to itch. The dog immediately licks and gnaws at the itchy place until it basically chews a hole into its own flesh. This is common she said. So, she prescribed a steroid cream that I have to apply to his side a couple times a day.

Next on my list of not normal things for the day I had to go and do my last Chaplain visit at the hospital for this week. I went from room to room introducing myself to the new people as the chaplain on call this week and checking up on the patients that I had been seeing throughout my time. On my way out I realized that I had missed a room and went back to check on this fellow before I left the hospital. Unfortunately for me this last visit was my most difficult of the week. Not because the guy was mean, in fact he was exceptionally nice and glad to see someone, and he really wanted to talk. It was a bad deal because he could not hear. I spoke up, louder, louder, and louder and yet the man could not hear anything I was saying. He then broke off into a story about some hearing aids that he purchased for thousands of dollars that never worked at all and after using several curse words and saying some things so fast that I could barely make it out I tried to speak again, only to get a “Huh? I can’t hear you.” Everything I said was to no avail because he couldn’t hear me. So I finally just had to wave to let him know I was leaving and he thanked me, said it was nice to meet me and I left waving. I know the guy has no clue who I was, and I have no clue who he was or why he was there… the only thing I know is that he bought some expensive hearing aids and the didn’t work.

I finished the book The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard today. It was a pretty good book about the power of sin and how it is defeated. This book was actually written and taken from a couple works that were written by John Owen. The whole premise of the book is to basically explain what sin is, its particular nature, and what we as humans living with sin must do about it. It is meant to help focus your mind on what sin is in your life so that you can recognize it and take the necessary steps to defeat it. I really enjoyed the read and I will probably need to read it again just to refresh my mind now and then about the power of the flesh that leaves us in a constant struggle each day.

To put the icing on the cake, the last part of my strange day was my trip to St. Louis. We went to see The Village, which is an ok film but nothing to write home about. The other thing we went to do was to take Michael out for his 38th birthday, which is on Monday. Knowing that his favorite restaurant was Red Lobster I just knew that is what he would pick to eat and so I set my wallet and my taste buds for some tasty seafood this evening. When I pulled into Gumbo Bottoms/Chesterfield Commons I told Michael he could eat anywhere he wanted for his birthday tonight, and knowing that he would choose Red Lobster I was preparing to pull in there when suddenly he says, “Olive Garden.” In that very moment the space time continuum ruptured and the world as we knew it came unglued, time stopped, earthquakes rolled through the hills of Missouri and the earth cracked open to swallow us whole! We all sat in utter amazement at Michael’s choice. It was so strange, especially when we were all so sure that he would choose Red Lobster, because he always has. Amazing, simply amazing.

This wraps up my strange day, and now I am going to take some time to view this new Fuel material released from LifeWay Christian Bookstores. It’s supposed to be good. We’ll see.

Pressed