Month: April 2019

Golden Years….

Don’t you love the commercials expounding the wonders of living in our ‘golden years’? If you watched these parodies you could almost believe that life after 60 is so wonderful that it puts being young all to shame. There is only one problem, at least in my experience, I am not one of those glowing grey hairs portrayed on the screen. No, my life as a senior has left many things to be desired.

Like most of us who live in the real world, most nights I struggle with sleep and most days I struggle staying awake. After years of Ironwork, my joints are somewhat worn. They seem to creak and crack almost in a sad kind of rhythm. And I do not know if it is a result of the gallons upon gallons of booze I drank or the myriad lines of drugs I snorted or just that my brain is old, but it doesn’t work as well as it once did. Don’t even get me going on the joys of living with cancer with all it’s lovely hot flashes and night sweats. No, my golden years are certainly not an advertisement for the joy of aging. So, with all that being said, why do I live with more joy today than I did as a healthy youth? Aww, now we come upon the one true advantage of age for hard headed and hard-hearted guys like me: living long enough to know better! Through the grace of God, I have lived long enough to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So, in fact, I am in my golden years after all.

The truth is some people come to the realization of their need for a Savior at an early age. When I was first coming to the Lord, I could be just a little bit jealous of these folks. Their lives seemed so perfect. Their kids were happy and healthy. How come they are so blessed, I would think. Why did I have to struggle all those years to come to a place they knew from the get-go? For more than a few years I did not understand God’s timing or reasoning about this, and yes, I was a bit… no I was a lot resentful. But like so many things with us as hard headed humans, it took a tragedy in my life to finally allow me to see that I have been blessed beyond all reason. Let me explain.

I had slowly come to the Lord since 2009 and by 2012 I could say I truly believed in Jesus Christ and the Word of God as my plan for salvation. You could say I was ‘head’ saved. I knew all the stuff it took to be a Christian and for the most part I was living as one. I was no longer the scoundrel I had once been. Gone was the filthy language. No more drinking or doing drugs. I prayed every day and read my Bible come rain or shine. Yep, I was a bonafide Christian for sure or at least my head had been saved. Not so for my heart.

Then came the tragic year 2014. My already ailing wife went through one devastating health set back after another. Until shortly after Christmas she succumb to the cancer, she had lived with for over 14 years. All of a sudden, I was alone. Not just physically but emotionally and even more importantly, spiritually. Now it was time to sink or swim. I could no longer wade in the shallow end of the pool of faith and I knew it. But how? How could my ‘head’ salvation travel that 12” journey to my heart? The fact was it was time for my Romans 8:28 moment.

That verse says this: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) God was about to take the tragedy of death and use it to work good in my life as promised.

In March of 2015 still lost in the blackness of grieve and spiritually scared to death, a young pastor asked me to become his co-leader in Wednesday night prayer meetings. At first, I thought, man, this dude is crazy. Why would you want to put a guy who is doubting everything in front of a bunch of praying folks? This is a formula for disaster. But I went along just because I didn’t have the strength to fight it. And by the end of the first meeting I led, I was sure I had been right. I was not cut out for this. But the strangest thing happened. After the meeting I wanted to just sneak out, but I was surrounded by people thanking me for the powerful testimony and prayer time. My testimony was powerful? My prayer was meaningful? I wasn’t convinced but as it continued to happen, I saw God’s affirmation of who I was in his eyes and that led to deeper prayer and meaningful Bible study. I finally realized that all my life led to this place, this special relationship with Jesus Christ, a special relationship only we could have. I was all in! My hard heart melted!

I now feel blessed that I was allowed to live long enough to see God’s plan of salvation for me. I share my testimony wherever I can. God has shown me my lostness was a fertile ground of examples of how he never lets us go. We can never do anything so terrible that it cannot be washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. I am finally in my golden years and as many as I have left will be spent sharing his love and mercy as displayed in this man who was lost and now is old but found! Can I get an Amen!

Blessings and Happy Sabbath,
John
4/12/19

A Glimpse of God…

I was born in Chicago. I guess you could say that I was a city kid and in most ways am still pretty much citified. I remember as a kid going on a Boy Scout weekend where it was necessary that I set up a pup tent and sleep in a sleeping bag. And even though we were just in what are called in Chicago ‘forest preserves’, I still felt a million miles away from my comfort zone. That would be my own bed, in my upstairs bedroom, conveniently shoved under the slope of the roof (don’t sit up suddenly or it could cause head damage), in the ‘Cape Cod’ house on Whitehall Avenue. Yeah, the great outdoors would never be my thing…. Or would it?

The strange thing is that as a kid, I never dreamed of living any further then maybe over in Stone Park or one of those ritzy neighborhoods I would ride my bike through. Instead, I spent a lot of my adult life living in rural America. Yeah, I have lived in big cities, L.A., Salt Lake City and in the Bay area, to name a few. But I have also lived in Hanover, Indiana, St. George, Utah and Green River, Wyoming. And it was in the Green River area where I became acquainted again with sleeping rough, in a tent and yes, in a sleeping bag.

I have written a few blogs about these times. It was in the first days of ‘cell towers.’ Cell phones themselves were still pretty much an oddity. Our company had purchased two of them, but they were big and bulky. They kind of looked like the walkie talkies used during WWII. All the same we had a contract to install the tower bases for several of them in the mountains around Green River and where they were being installed there were no accommodations, hence tent living.

Of course, by this time in my life I was no longer that kid who had the security of a permanent home. My life had taken many twists and turns. I had lived in fancy homes and slept in my car. I had spent months living with a bunch of guys in a man camp and I had spent more than a few days being locked down for varies crimes and arrests. I no longer was afraid of the great outdoors, but I still was not a great lover of it. I would say, a lot of that changed in those weeks spent in the mountains of Wyoming.

Have you ever been there? Maybe not Wyoming, but in the mountains at night. If you have you would know that there is something beyond words that is on display every night. It is meditative and restive all at once sitting below the enormous canopy which is only visible in the thin air and total darkness of the mountains. And if you want it to or not it changes you.

In those days, I was at the height of my atheistic hatred of God. I was among hardened and hardcore guys, like myself, who wanted nothing to do with all the nonsense espoused in the ‘Good Book’ or by those phony Christians. But strangely enough under those skies, the talk which normally centered around sports and sex, changed. A disquieting awe washed away the late-night bawdy talk, to be replaced by and almost reverent conversation about this magnificent spectacle we were seeing. One night a young man and I were the last ones up. I have written about our conversation before. But it is worth writing it again. Because that night I think both of us, if only for a moment caught a glimpse of God.

Those of you who know the Old Testament stories of Moses might know that he once asked God if he could see his glory. Moses wanted to see God. Well, God told him you could not handle seeing all of me. So, he hid Moses in the cleft of a rock and just showed him his back. The whole story is in the book of Exodus 33: 17-23, it is a beautiful read. I don’t know what Moses saw, but I have come to believe he saw God, the Creator, and the beauty and majesty of it must have blown his mind. I don’t think we saw all of that on that night so long ago, but we caught a glimpse of it.

When we did, still passing a bottle of booze between us, our conversation went to one question. The young man asked me, “Can you sit here and look at this and not believe some one created it?” Oh man, I wanted so badly to say, “There is no God! This is a product of the big bang, nothing more!” I wanted to say it, but I couldn’t. For that one night. Maybe for that one moment, when I like Moses, got a glimpse of God, I could not deny him. Not in the face of this enormous sky.

In the morning light, most of that was gone. We returned to being hardcore Ironworkers. The question he asked that I never answered, did not come up again. But each night before I slept, the awe of that moment would disquiet me, and I would try to drink it away. I never did that either. I now relish it because I can read these words and relive it, now knowing the truth: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2) As a stone cold atheist I saw the glory of God and lived to tell the story.

For some reason, I have been in the mountains at other times since then but have never experienced what I did that night. But when I get the chance, I still want to be under that Big Sky to relive it. Maybe when you are planning your next vacation or just traveling take the time to find a high place where it is dark and quiet. For some that might even be your back yard. If you look God is trying to reveal himself to you. I know it is true.

Blessings
John
4/10/19

Revenge is not mine….

I bet most of you reading this have had a boss who you either loved or hated. In my over 40 years in the construction trades, I have had a lot of them. I have to say for the most part I got along with most of them. And even the ones I could not tolerate, I did my job, shut up and stayed under the radar. But there is always that one guy who no matter how you go-a-long to get-along still finds ways to get under your skin. In my career that was, Jim ‘Big Daddy’ Rathe.

Big Daddy got his name because he resembled the actor and singer, Burl Ives. I know that name is a blast from the past and for some of you younger folks he may not even register. But back in the day he was well known and to 50’s and 60’s movie goers his best and biggest role was in a movie version of Tennessee Williams ‘Cat on a Hot, Tin Roof’. There he played the patriarch of a southern family; the Pollitt’s and he was known as Big Daddy Pollitt. The movie was a yawner for me, too stereotypical in every way, even with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor heating up the screen. But like most folks, I could not help but love to hate Big Daddy. And Jim Rathe not only resembled Burl Ives physically, it seemed to me he studied the movie character, because he played the Big Daddy part pretty well every day of the week.

I met Big Daddy when I was working on a TVA dam resurfacing job. We were working 7/10’s (7 days a week, 10 hours a day) That was the reason I had boomed into this project for the overtime and the money it paid. It was a nasty job from the get-go, mosquitos, gnats and deer flies 10 hours a day. Along with some of the hardest reinforcing work I had done in my career. But it was made all the worst because Big Daddy was on the job and on my case.

I was never sure if it was because I was a northerner or because I was a long-haired hippy type, but it started the minute I walked onsite. I handed my referral to him at 6:00 AM, in plenty of time for a 6:30 start but it did not seem to please my boss, he said, “John Weston. It says here you are a Local 1 boy. Well, I guess up there in that local you fellas can mosey on to the job any old time. But here we like to get the jump on it. We startin’ at 6:00 you should have been here a half hour ago.” With that he was out the door saying over his shoulder, “Seein’ you is already late, grab that spool of cable yonder and let’s see if you can weave me some 20’ chockers.” That put fear in me right off the bat, I had not wove cable since my apprenticeship and I am sure Daddy guessed that, because I saw brand new store bought chockers in the gang box. He was going to test me and hope I failed. I did not and that seemed to irk him even more. From than on it was a contest. Insults and giving me every nasty job, he could think of did not chase me down the road. His constant calling me ‘long hair’ even though half the guys on the crew had longer hair, did not sway me. I hung in for the full duration of three months. I thought the day he was signing me out, then at least, he would give me a small nod of approval. He never did. In fact, as I was picking up my gear, he said, “Son, you are a sad example of an Ironworker, but then, I guess I couldn’t expect more from a scrawny, long-haired boy like you!” I knew he wanted me to take a swing at him, but I just said, “Big Daddy, someday you will live to regret you ever said that. But for now, ____ ___” I won’t write the words I used, but they were full of venom.

I have often wondered how I would have reacted to Big Daddy if I was a follower of Jesus back then. I look at it now and know that I tormented him as much as he tormented me. I thought I was being the ‘bigger man’, I mean he started it and kept on me, but the worst part of the story is a held a grudge about it for a long, long time. And in the end, I did get revenge on Big Daddy. I will tell you about that but first I want to say, I have regretted and confessed it along with my other litanies of sins.

The book of Romans says this, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. (Romans 8: 19-21)

In my life before Jesus I lived for revenge. Holding on to grudges for years. And nothing gave me more pleasure than finally giving someone their comeuppance. I never saw how holding on to that hatred, ruined my life more than theirs. And I wish I could say that today, the attitude of the verse above was how I always live. But anger and revenge still well up in me. But, all praise to God, there is a difference. I now see it for what it is and with the power of the Holy Spirit turn it over to Him who had no guile, who died saying, “Forgive them Father they know not what they do.” How big is that? How little is my puny vengeance? I can now, sometimes with effort, lay this sin at the foot of the cross. Thank you, Jesus!

As I said. I did get my revenge on Big Daddy. He came to work on a nuke plant where I was a foreman. Even though he did not work on my crew, I found ways of making his life miserable. Such a waste of time. Such a waste of energy. Too much of my life has been wasted in anger. If you are struggling with it: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” Peace, my friends, it is wonderful!

Blessings,
John
4/8/19

Thrilling life…in Jesus

“What are you a funny guy or something?” the man across from me said. I looked at him as seriously as I could, then said in return, “I did not mean it to be funny, do I look like I am joking?” With that he was silent and seemed to be trying to assess the situation. I could see he was coming to a decision and with a couple long nods of his head, he said, “OK, partner, you seriously want me to get you into the red zone? If I do it, it is going to cost you!” With that he took a long pull off of his drink, then held the empty glass toward me. I knew that buying him a drink would be the cheapest part of the bargain we were about to make.

In May of 1980, I had moved from Denver, Colorado to Washington state. There were several nuke plants under construction in the state at the time. A few in the Pasco area and two near Elma, in the Olympic National Forest. I chose the Elma project known as Satsop or WPPSS #3 & 5. It was my plan to work these until completion. Little did I know how much disaster was awaiting the project, the state and my own life. Within a week of my arrival, Mt. St. Helens let go a massive eruption burying eastern Washington in ash. And a week later it did it again this time sending its ash over the Western portion of the state where I lived and worked.

The effect of that was devastating. Causing loss of life and in my case loss of work and pushed my already disintegrating marriage closer to the brink. But along with that it fascinated me. I was living within a few hundred miles of an active volcano and like so many others after seeing pictures of it on TV and in the newspapers, I wanted a closer look. Now I sat across from one of the people who could get me there.

After a little more negotiation, it was settled. The price was steep, but I had expected that. He had also warned me that, yes, he could get me into the red zone but once I was in, I would be on my own. Giving me directions how I could slip out without getting caught, there would be no guarantees. It bothered me little, I was willing to risk it just to get some pictures and see this cataclysm close up.

A week later he picked me up at the same bar. The ride was pretty much silent, the only conversation was more warning of the danger and more warnings of the cost if I was caught inside the zone. For my part there was a lot of head nodding. Within an hour we were approaching the restricted area. He stopped long enough for me to climb into the back seat of his Chevy Blazer. Soon I was under a tarp and other items, well hidden. The ride from there was short and except for a stop at the red zone road block there was no trouble. I was in! In another ten minutes we came to a stop and he let me out of my hiding place. With a last warning he dropped me off saying, “Fifteen minutes, no more. Don’t move beyond where we are. The road we just came in on should be traffic free. I am the only guy surveying the damage here. Back track until you see the check station then take the path on the map, I gave you. Your chances of getting caught are 50/50, but that is what you signed on for. Lastly, if you rat me out. I will make sure you pay big time.” With that he rolled up his window and headed out. Leaving me in a place that resembled another planet.

From the time I was a kid, I guess you could say I was a thrill seeker. I mean, I chose a profession where danger, injury and death were part of the job description. But that never seemed enough. I craved more. Getting involved in extreme sports such as free climbing, without ropes and hang gliding. Some folks said I was just plain crazy, and others were pretty sure I had a death wish. Looking back on it now, I think I was just trying to fill the empty void that was my life. It seems all my addictions, all my attempts at relationships and yes, even my thrill seeking was tied to the fact that there was a hole in my life, and nothing seemed to fill it. For years now that has changed.

I haven’t lost my zest for life. In fact, I am still living on the edge, but not the edge of this world. The edge of eternity. And let me tell you something, there is nothing more thrilling then living the life as a follower of Jesus Christ. The difference is, that I am no longer seeking to fill that void, He has done that. I now find that the risks I take might still mean death and there are a whole lot of people who knew the old John who say I have really gone crazy, fanatical now. And they would be right. My thrill now is leading others, lost as I once was to know Jesus. It is a full and exciting life. The Apostle Paul said it well, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20) When you take this verse on as your life statement, everything changes. Life takes on a whole new meaning. The challenges and thrills are out of this world, literally!

Sometime in 1981, I stood in that devastation, thrilling at being inside so near to that still erupting volcano. It was awesome and really expensive. Within ten minutes I was arrested. I never knew if the guy who got me in set me up. Either way, my brand-new Pentax with wide angle lens was confiscated, I never saw it again. I paid a large fine and escaped without jail because the courts were overloaded with ‘thrill seekers.’ At the time I still thought it was all worth it. Today, I am thrilled to get up in the morning. I no longer hang glide or hang off shear face, but I seek each day to do the Father’s work and there is little this side of heaven that gets me going like it does. I am now blessed to share those thrills with RuthAnn. No more voids, a full life. NO FEAR, that is what I am talking about.

Blessings and Happy Sabbath,
John
4/5/19

He built me a road….

The room was cold when I woke up. I knew that much but was not sure about anything else. Trying to calculate what time it was or even what day. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, no answers there. Reaching over to the table near the bed I picked up my watch, 4:41, A.M. I assumed. Pulling the thin blanket up below my chin, a feeling of dread and loneliness crept over me. It was not the first time and from my track record it would not be the last.

As I lay there, I felt tears beginning to well and I wanted to scream, “Stop. Why are you crying? Man-up!” but instead the tears came, and I began to sob uncontrollably. My life was a mess. My second marriage had ended after months of accusations and violent fighting. Drug usage which had slowed to a trickle was now becoming a torrent again. And I was soaking up the booze at a level even out of control in my eyes. Even my boss who tolerated a lot from me was starting to question my employment. I needed to get my act together, I knew it…. but.

Grabbing the pack of smokes from the same rickety table I lit one up. I was now remembering the night before and it was another night of too much booze, snorting a few lines in the bathroom of the club and then driving home completely wasted. In fact, I remembered having a bottle of whiskey next to me on the seat of the truck, taking hits off of it as I drove. How crazy is that, I thought. What a sad loser, I am! Was my next thought.

But even as I lay there, repenting my life, in the next instance the urge to wash it away, forget it all, swept over me. Was that bottle in the room somewhere? I could down just enough of it to get rid of this dread and aloneness. Where was it? Flicking on the lamp next to the bed, a pale-yellow light filled the room. And as I searched this dingy place, I now called home, I spotted the half empty bottle sitting on the old chair by the door. For a minute I was torn, I knew I should resist the urge. Let it go. Start this day as the first day of my new life! Yes, I should! But within a minute I was out of bed and grabbing the bottle with shaking hands. Just a few to stop the demons, that is all I need. Knowing deep within me that if I fed these demons just a little, they would want more and more, they always did. I was a loser, I was lost!

I hope none of you who are reading this have ever been in the place I have just described. But if you have or if you are. I do not write these words to discourage or say there is no hope.

Yes, I can truly say, that morning as I recall it now, there was no hope. I absolutely knew that. I was defeated and, in my mind, there would never be a time when I would not wake up repeating this pattern day after day. For those of you who have never experienced this depth of lostness, the only way I can accurately describe it is like living on the edge of a deep chasm. Out in the distance you can see a place full of beauty and peace but there is no road to it. The chasm is where most all your attention is held. Daily it seems you are being drawn closer and closer to it. And eventually you know there is only two choices you live each day; each moment being led into the void or you jump into it instead. That is what my life of hopelessness was like!

Don’t get me wrong. There were days when it seemed the road to that beautiful place was opening up. I could feel hopeful, but that road was being built on sand, bolstered by temporary, worldly things. Moments of passion or extasy. Or seeing the innocent joy a child showed. But soon the booze and drugs would rob me of those hopeful thoughts. Something was missing.

Jesus said it this way, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)

That is what I was missing in my life. I had no solid foundation in Jesus and in the Word of God. I know many people have been able to overcome addictions with programs or even AA, but few of those who I have talked to made it to this beautiful land without faith and believe in the higher power. That higher power if people admit it or not is Jesus Christ. For me he became the road builder. And he built it strong, through his Word. It took him years to get me to this land I saw out in the distance years ago. But he knew I needed time along that road to stop and look back at the void behind me, see it receding into the distance. Then turn to see I was ever closer to the peace of HIS land, the land of joy and eternal life.

I now live at the edge of that beautiful land. I am awaiting the soon coming of Jesus Christ. There are times when I still turn to see that chasm far distant from me and Satan calls from it saying, “You need to find that bottle you lost!” But now I am able to turn away and see the cross and the one who wants to spend eternity with a ‘loser’ like me. My friend, if today you find yourself standing at the edge of that chasm, don’t wait, get help. Seek out a Christian program or at the very least say this prayer, “Lord, Jesus, help me a sinner! Save me from this darkness and bring me to the beautiful land. Build the rock-solid road for me!” He will do it, I live to tell you, it is true!

Blessings,
John
4/3/19