A Note from Tom: September 25th

Hey, everyone!!

Hope you’re having an awesome week! If you’re not, here’s an old idea fer ya…”If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness, they would tell you to make it a rule to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity befalls you, if you can thank and praise God for it, you will turn it into a blessing!” (A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life -1728)

There ya go!

Speaking of thankful…I was super thankful that Tina got to come with me on my trip to Espana!! We had a blast(!) together!! And I realized something this trip. Usually, when I have to go on a trip, I’m kind of a little bit freaked out, nervous, and squirrely before I go. Sometimes a little bit more than “a little bit”. Lee says it’s for the same amount of time I’ll be gone. If I’m going away for three days, I’m nutty for three days before. If it’s a week, the week before I’m a bit of a nervous wreck. I’ve never understood it and always thought it was some kind of “spiritual battle” or sumpthin. Now I know what causes it.

I don’t like leaving that girl of mine!

‘Cause this time it didn’t happen!

Lee asked me before our trip, “Are you OK with this trip to Spain?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Well I haven’t heard you cry and freak out ‘bout anything. It’s weird.”

“Huh. Hadn’t thought about it. Come to think of it, I’m not nervous at all about it. Wonder why…”

Then  a bulb went on. We both knew why!

“It’s because Tina’s going!”

That’s what I’ve freaked out about all these years! It’s not a plane ride 37,000’ above the earth, weird food or sleeping with mice! It’s that…I don’t like leaving her!

Besides being cute and my best friend of all time…she has a way of trusting God, hugging the discouraged, laughing through the day, and crying at just the right moment with the heavy-hearted that makes me stronger. She just helps me trust God more.

Kinda like Jonathan. David was super discouraged and “Saul's son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God…” (1 Sam 23.17) Actually, in the Hebrew language, it says that he helped David “strengthen his hand in God”…hold on just a little tighter to Him!

That’s a friend!

Later on, when his pal wasn’t with him, David was really upset. But he’d learned to think like his buddy… “David was greatly distressed …but David found strength in the LORD his God…” (30.6) He “strengthened his own hand in God”

(By the way…we have guys that meet on Saturday mornings at 7:00 and it’s pretty much what we do. We get together to “help each other find strength in God.” …Need some? C’mon!)

Maybe if I have to go next time without her, I’ll be mature enough to find my own strength in God.

Maybe.

But it’ll still be better with her!

The only downside to having Tina on the trip was that I almost missed my favorite moment of my trips. That’s when I land in K-town and come through that revolving glass “arrivals” door there at McGhee Tyson and she’s waiting for me to get home! I’m always looking for that cute face!! But as Foghorn Leghorn would say…”I almo…I say, I almost” missed my favorite moment! But…this time, I had to wait on a bag we had to check at the airplane door so Tina said she’d go out and wait on me and pretend I was just getting home after 11 days away!

“There you are! You’re home!”

It wasn’t quite the same, but I was still happy to see that face after seven minutes!