True Story That Is Funny As A Heart Attack
by Pastor Ritchie on Jan.27, 2010, under Insights, Random Thoughts
My grandpa Phillips – my mom’s dad – was a Scott-Irish tobacco farmer who scratched his living from the rich but reluctant foothills of North Carolina. His father and grandfather had, by sheer force of back-breaking labor, become merchant-land barons of a sort. Pa Wendell, as I called him, possessed the gift of a “Welsh tongue.” He was endlessly entertaining, a captivating story teller, and possessed a lust for life that made everyone around him feel alive. I think I inherited my gift for telling stories and public speaking from him. Even as a child, I loved being around him.
One of the stories I told at his funeral captures his wit and his “everything-is-going-to-be-OK” attitude. When he was around 50 he suffered a massive heart attack. It would be the first of several, but he grabbed life by the throat and would not let go until he was 72. During that first heart attack he lay on the hospital gurney in the emergency room and actually died. He was shocked back to life a couple of times and finally was stabilized. My grandmother was hysterical, as you can imagine. When she was allowed to see him she held his hand and with tears in her eyes asked if he “saw a light” like many have described seeing when they were on death’s doorstep. He got a grin on his face and said, “Well, at first, I thought I saw the Devil…but I woke up and it was only you.”
She slapped him right there in the hospital.
Ah…family dysfunction. It’s what helps make a heart attack funny.
So today, no matter what you face, laugh a little. It will be cathartic and will help you through. Just watch out for little, nunchaku-toting, ninja grannies. They slap sometimes.
Ritchie
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January 27th, 2010 on 6:36 am
Great Story Ritchie, I enjoyed our prayers last night. I have a devotional for anyone interested on faith.
Faith That Trusts
Wednesday, 27 January 2010 12:00 AM EST Smith Wigglesworth Daily Devotionals - Smith Wigglesworth Devotional
And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God. —2 Corinthians 3:4–5
We want to get to a place where we are beyond trusting ourselves. Beloved, there is so much failure in self assurances. It is not bad to have good things on the lines of satisfaction, but we must never have anything on the human plane that we rest upon.
There is only one sure place to rest upon, and our trust is in God. In Thy name we go. In Thee we trust. And God brings us off in victory. When we have no confidence in ourselves to trust in our God, He has promised to be with us at all times, to make the path straight, and to make a way. Then we understand how it is that David could say, “Thy gentleness hath made me great” (2 Sam. 22:36).
Ah, thou Lover of souls! We have no confidence in the flesh. Our confidence can only stand and rely on the One who is able to come in at the midnight hour as easily as at noon-day and make the night and the day alike to the man who rests completely in the will of God, knowing that “all things work together for good to them that love God,” and trust Him. And such trust have we in Him. The Lord has helped me to have no confidence in myself but to trust wholly in Him, bless His name!
In Thee, Oh Lord, do I place all my trust.
I will not trust in myself or in human
flesh, only in Thee. Amen.