Philippians 2: 4 & 5, “4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of
others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
I cannot begin to enumerate the blessings that I receive from
people in all the facets of my life, let alone give justice to them in
recalling them in any sort of story form. The three that I talk about here
stand out to me just now because of how timely they were regarding important
junctures and events. I find it interesting to look at them and see that they
are from three different aspects of my life; work friendship, home-church
friendship, and a friendship that transcends our old-church beginnings to carry
us throughout life. All of the men mentioned here exemplify verse four; they
looked to the interests of me and my family and not to their own. While they
are from different facets of life they are all tangential to the one point in
verse five; they all have the same mind that is in Christ Jesus.
I recently retired from AT&T after a 35 year career, 29 years
of which were spent in the Network Engineering Department. It was not my
intention to retire at the time but when the company came out with a short-term,
enhanced retirement plan I took a close look at it and determined that I needed
to take the offer. A lot of prayer, soul searching, spreadsheet reviewing, and
discussion went into the decision and so far, it seems right. A friend of mine
in the department, Herb Parker (whose career orbit and mine brought us into
frequent contact) and I talked about the offer. I have always valued Herb’s
company wisdom and insights; I value even more our ability to freely discuss
our faith. Herb asked what my plan was for retirement and when I told him it would
be time for me to put up or shut up for a story I’m writing he told me of a few
books that would be valuable for me as a writer. When I returned from lunch I
found a Vromans’ Bookstore bag on my desk with “On Writing Well” by William
Zinsser in it. Receiving the book and the book itself have been inspiring. I
appreciate Herb’s genuine interest in what I have to say as a writer as well as
his interest in my desire to improve my new craft.
 |
| Workday results |
On April 13, 2014 we hosted the backyard wedding of my son and our
wonderful new daughter-in-law and I officiated. We had a huge amount of work to
do since we’d never really done anything with our yard and it was a wilderness.
From the time of the decision up to just hours before the blessed event
something was being done in the yard to make this happen. I received offers of
help from two of my LCPC friends who I hike with when I can. The offer was for
four or five of the guys to come over and do whatever we needed done instead of
taking the Saturday hike. I accepted the offer and two weekends before the
wedding Scott Gossett, Greg Wolflick, John Holmquist, Darrell Fernandez, and
Steve Pedrini showed up and did in four or five hours what would have taken me
over a week of full days to complete. They restacked a dry-stack wall, set
native rock flagstones in a path and steps, set in a used brick deck, and put
up lattice under our deck. Their interest in our family event gave us the boost
we needed to have a signature event in our backyard and the prayers and love
that were poured into the workday were evident throughout our celebration
weekend. I love those guys!
As I have been in transition from the highly structured career
where I knew where I’d be on any work day to a writer’s life where I have to
provide my own structure some things have fallen aside, most notably for me,
Calvary’s Thread. Jim McClelland, one of my longest and best of friends (I have
three men from my youth that I use this term for: Doug, who we lost before he
was twenty, Mike Schermerhorn, and Jim), gave me “Hero” a devotional style book
by Derwin L. Gray. Reading just the Introduction and first chapter reignited my
desire for daily spiritual reading. I imagine that reading Hero will inform my
Calvary’s Thread writing for next several weeks as well as provide material for
the story that is in progress.
What better friends than these could a person have, that would see
to my own needs before they see to theirs? My challenge to us now is to sit
back and take stock of the blessings from our friends. My prayer for us is that
we end up sitting back in wonder at the love God pours out for us.
Luke 6: 38, “38Give,
and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down,
shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap.”
(NLT)
In His grip, jerry
