The Pastor’s Piece – April 30, 2023

The Pastor’s Piece

FCFI

April 30, 2023

Some random thoughts  … 

A few years ago we replaced the roof on our house. It was a DIY project. It’s a two story house, and not being in the roofing business, it was a big job for a novice. I’ve helped replace a few roofs in my lifetime – both shingle and steel. The biggest project I ever did was to put steel on my 50 x 100 foot machine shed. I had some help, but it was my project all the way. About that same time, we reshingled our house roof with asphalt shingles. Over the years, we’ve replaced smaller roofs and patched a few as well, so I know how to roof when I have to. When we did our house, I borrowed my brother’s telehandler and we extended the arms all the way up to the second story and were able to use that as our scaffolding. My dad was 85 years old at the time and he insisted on helping so I put him in the telehandler. He had a lot of experience driving tractors but a telehandler was somewhat foreign to him so he climbed out and proceeded to climb up on the roof and help with the manual labor part. My wife came out the door and saw my 85 year old dad on the peak of the house and wondered why I’d put him up there at his age while I sat comfortably in the operator’s seat below. I told her it was his choice, I had no say in the matter. 

On the highest part of the two story section of the house, the people who lived there prior had mounted a tv antenna that was capable of picking up the local channels. We had satellite tv at the time and were able to get the local channels through that process, so I took the old antennae off the house and discarded it and covered over the place where it had been with shingles. Well, a couple years later, I decided to cancel our satellite subscription. Now we didn’t have any tv so we bought a streaming device and that satisfied our tv watching as now we could watch what we wanted, when we wanted, and not have to put up with the networks. 

One day, a notice came up on the screen that our remote needed to be charged. I assumed that meant the battery needed to be changed. I attempted to split the remote and find the battery and get a new one. But it would not come apart. So I got out my tiny screwdriver and pried the two pieces apart only to discover that it wasn’t supposed to come apart. There was no battery inside and now I had bent the thing all up and it wouldn’t go back together like it was supposed to. But I did the best I could to put humpty dumpty together again, but now, only half the controls worked. Between the tv remote and our streaming device remote, my wife figured out how to operate the tv. She tried to explain it to me, but to no avail. The result is that now, when she’s not home, I can’t watch tv because she’s the only one who knows how to make it work. I suppose I could purchase a new remote, but that would make it too easy.

A while back my brother asked me to do his chores while he and his wife got away for a couple days. That seemed easy enough. He said there would be a dozen eggs a day in it for me if I said yes. Of course I said yes – eggs or no eggs. He left me instructions on how to feed his sheep, goats, ponies, horse, heifer calves, Longhorn steer, dogs, cats, rabbit, pigs, and chickens. It’s a regular petting zoo over there. He was right, his chickens laid about 12 eggs a day. The morning he left, the temperature dropped from about 50 degrees down to a high of around 20. At night we went into a deep freeze which meant everyone’s water froze and if I didn’t gather the eggs in a timely manner, they would freeze too. So I found myself trekking over to his place a couple times a day with a 5 gallon bucket of hot water to thaw out the drinkers and the blocks of ice in the bottom of the buckets for the calves and other animals. It reminded me why, when we sold our cows, we decided not to keep a few animals around. If you have a couple, you might as well have 100. It’s about the same amount of work.

At one of our church meetings not long ago, a man was holding his two year old son as he shared a very heart-felt testimony about God’s faithfulness in his life. As he spoke, his voice cracked and tears began to stream down his face. When his two year old realized what was happening, he reached up with his gentle little hands and wiped the tears from his dad’s face. It was the most intimate moment one could ever imagine. It reminded me of the words of the Apostle John in Revelation 21 where he says that in heaven God will wipe every tear from our eyes, (Rev. 21:4). It’s a picture of love and tenderness. 

Have a great week!

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).