Last One Picked

A couple of years ago, I went to one of our monthly Deacon’s Meetings. Instead of meeting at the church like we normally do, this meeting was set up at our church annex, which is a small house that our church owns. This change was made so that we would be able to meet in a smaller more personal setting.

After all of the Deacons had arrived, we had gathered in the living room and began the meeting as usual. After going over the prayer request, old business and new business, Mark, our Chairman of the Deacons quietly got up and turned on some music. Without tipping his hat as to what was going on, he started a song by Casting Crowns and quietly signaled for one of the deacons to follow him.

The mood had been set. Without knowing what was going on, we could all sense that the atmosphere had quickly changed from that of a business type meeting to that of a serious time of worship and meditation. The room was filled with a sense of reverence and anticipation when the first deacon who was led out silently returned only to take another deacon with him.

There were about twenty of us in all that night, and one by one we were picked to follow the previous deacon through the door into the other room. I began to feel a little anxious and started thinking that I was being passed over for one reason or another. As the number of my brothers in Christ who were left in the room dwindled, the tension in my heart only got more intense.

Finally, Bob, one of the deacons who was known for being bold and outspoken turned his eyes toward me. The secret that was awaiting me was about to be revealed. As I was humbly led into the other room, I was still unsure of what was going to happen. A lot of the other deacons were still in the room. Some were privately praying, while others were standing on with watchful eyes.

Bob guided me to take a seat in the lone chair in the middle of the room. About the time that I noticed a basin of water and an empty pitcher, Bob grabbed a towel and knelt down before me. He was about to wash my feet, just a Jesus had done for His own disciples. This was one of the most serious and reverent times of my life, except for one thing. I have two artificial feet.

My mind suddenly shifted from thoughts of wonder to “what should I do?”. While Bob obediently and worshipfully proceeded to unlace my shoes and removed my socks, I couldn’t decide whether to let him wash my rubber feet or to volunteer to remove both feet and let him wash my stumps. Either way, it was going to be awkward.

With the mood in the room still as quiet as a urologist’ waiting room, I was afraid to suggest that I should take off the entire legs, so I went a head and let him wash my artificial feet. This was going surprisingly well until I made the mistake of looking up. When I did this, I made eye contact with my best friend Tracy. As far as I could tell, we were the only two in the room that found the humor in the whole situation.

As our eyes met, I must have let a sheepish grin slip. In the ever so slightest of moments, I saw his serious demeanor replaced by an uncontrollable twitch of hidden laughter. To his credit, he fought off the sudden gush of humor by turning and leaving the room. I am so glad that he did, because I think that we both would have ruined the Holiness of the moment. Whether anyone else noticed how close we were to destroying the powerful lesson that was learned that night, I do not know. I do know however, that tears rolled down my face that night. I am just thankful that these tears that were produce from holding in the laughter were able to be mistaken for tears of humbleness.

Submitted by Woody Thornton

Don’t Wave Buster!

My good friend and fellow amputee, Buster, was driving a group of men from our church to Atlanta for the Promise Keeper’s 2006 meeting. One thing that you should know about Buster is that several years ago, he had three of his fingers on his right hand amputated at the knuckle due to an accident with a table saw. Despite missing those three fingers, Buster serves God and our church with a passion, so driving our fifteen passenger center-isle bus through the congested Atlanta traffic was something that Buster has done many times over the years.

Well, on this particular trip, Buster had merged into heavy traffic from an off-ramp and inadvertently cut right in front of another vehicle. The irate driver honked his horn, sped around our bus, pulled up next to Buster’s window and held up both hands as if to say, “Watch what your doing?”
After realizing what he had done, Buster offered a gesture of kindness by waving his right hand at the man as if to say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you”. But, when I had realized what Buster was doing, I had to reach out and stop him. You see, when the doctors took Busters three fingers, they took his index finger, his ring finger, and his pinky. All three of these fingers were cut off at his knuckle and the only finger on his right hand that didn’t get amputated was his middle finger!

While Busters’ intentions were honorable, you can only imagine what the other driver must have thought when the driver of our church bus who just cut him off, proceeded to give him the finger. Well, as Buster often says when telling about his accident, “God definitely has a sense of humor”!

Submitted by Woody Thornton