All posts by David Todd

Health

Heart Procedure Tomorrow

4 Comments
It’s strong, and still ticking, but something ain’t quite right.

I don’t think I’ve written before about the heart concerns I’ve had for the last ten months. It started last June 1, when we were driving back to Arkansas from Orlando FL. We stopped for the night at a hotel in Meridian, MS. After checking in and getting the luggage to the room—which involved a lot of steps but no heavy lifting, I took a drink of tap water, and almost immediately felt pains on my right side, in the shoulder, armpit, going down my arm, and on the right side of my neck and under my jaw. The pain started slowly, I think about 8:00 p.m., and expanded its territory slowly.

I know enough about heart attack symptoms to know this wasn’t good. But here I was in a strange city for the first time, not knowing where a hospital was. Lynda was very tired from the trip and was out like a light as soon as she got in bed to read. What should I do? The pain was obvious, and disconcerting. But I had no pain in my heart or on the left side. My heart wasn’t racing. I took my pulse as best I could and thought it was normal. I decided to not go to the ER, but to sit up and monitor it. I couldn’t find my low-dose aspirin (though I had it with me). I found my Aleve, which is aspirin-like, and took one, thinking it couldn’t hurt and it might help.

As I sat there at the small desk in the hotel room, reading, monitoring my pain, it didn’t seem to be getting worse. At times, it seemed to be lessening. Then it might get a little worse for a brief time then less again. This went on for two hours. I drank some water, got up and walked around in the room, and prayed a lot, and messaged our kids to let them know what was going on and to be praying. I probably should have gone to the ER as a precaution, but didn’t.

Around 10 p.m. I moved from the desk chair to an easy chair and read there. I found myself dosing and fought it. The pain wasn’t changing much, but with each cycle of lessening and intensifying, the peaks seemed to become less intense. At some point I dosed off. I woke up around midnight, and the pain was almost gone. I decided the danger had passed and went to bed. Lynda had slept through all of this. I fell right asleep, I think, waking up around 4 or 5 a.m. and having no pain. Not a bit of residual pain. When morning came, it was as if nothing had happened.

We continued our drive home with no further episode. Of course, I called my cardiologist right away. Why do I have a cardiologist? Well, some years ago I learned I have a genetically different (should I say defective?) aortic valve. It is constructed differently from the standard heart valve. It functions fine, but it’s not as it should be, not as it is in most people. Back in 2017, my doctor ordered a carbon scoring test, which showed some build-up on the valve. But he retired, and the follow-up was lost. My current PCP was aghast that this hadn’t been followed up on and referred me to a cardiologist back in 2020. That cardiologist had some tests done, all of which showed my heart was fine. The report was written in what I call “medical-speak”, but at one point it broke out into plain English, saying “Strong Heart Muscle”.

They re-ran the tests after my latest incident, found the heart still strong, but some parts of it not getting enough oxygen. It was a change from the 2020 tests. The cardiologist decided to do a catheterization, see if I have a mostly blocked artery and, if needed, put in a stent. That happens Tuesday, tomorrow, at the hospital. If they find no blockage, I’ll get out that day. If they put in a stent, I’ll have to stay overnight.

When I posted something about this on Facebook last week, my cardiologist friend from high school and college called me. He said this was nothing to worry about. He’d done lots of them in his career, even had one done on him. I read to him the reports in medical-speak, and he said yes, I would probably get a stent. Easy-peasy. He also said my heart was in better shape than his.

That will mean I’ll be on restricted diet and movements for a few days. No driving. No walking. I’ve actually had to cut back on my walking. When I walk uphill (and you can’t leave our house without walking uphill), I get the pains in my throat/neck. When I walk on level ground or downhill, the pains go away. So obviously something is wrong. I’ll miss two writers’ meetings because of that, one on-line tomorrow, and one in person on Thursday. I regret that, but that’s how it must be.

So that’s where I am. I wish I were 20 or 30 pounds lighter going into this, but I love food too much and have lacked the discipline I need to lose more. Maybe after this I’ll be more careful.

So, I’ll report back to you on Friday with how it went, earlier on Facebook. That’s assuming I’m not that one person out of a thousand for whom the procedure doesn’t go well. My cardiologist friend said not to worry about those chances, that in his long career he had only three of these not go the way intended. I said good, but I’d rather the odds were 1 in 10,000.

Bible study, miscellaneous, Writing

Taxes Done, Up For Air

Leave a comment

Dateline Thursday, April 14, 2022

For the last three days, I have been working on our income taxes. No, it didn’t take me every waking hour during those days to complete them, but ours are somewhat complicated because of the two businesses we run (one my writing business). I completed them Tuesday, took Wednesday to proof them, make copies, sign, put s check in one, and mail them. Done for a year. I even created the folders and files for next year’s taxes.

Now, I need to get back to my writing, back to the two Bible studies. But it’s a beautiful day. Sunshine, not a lot of wind, heading to mid-60s for the high. I might get out and do some yardwork, or walk a little way. I have need to go to the post office and the bank. A year ago, I would have walked to them.  But lately I’ve had some heart pain, mainly when walking up-hill. Actually, not heart pain, but pain at the base of my neck, in the front. So I’ve curtailed most of my walking until I have a procedure next week. More on that in Monday’s blog.

I feel as if I’m on vacation today without that tax thing hanging over me. I caught up on correspondence, both e-mail and snail mail. I filed a few things. I think I’m going to take the day off from writing, and will spend most of the day tomorrow catching up.

See you all on Monday.

Bible study, Christianity, self-publishing

Juggling Writing Two Bible Studies

Leave a comment
This is my first Bible study. It’s done fairly well but is by no means cracking a bestseller list.

In my progress and goals posts, I have mentioned that I was working on writing two Bible studies. They are actually part of a longer study having six parts. Let me explain.

Some years ago, when my co-teacher and I were discussing the curriculum for our Life Group, he said it would be nice to go through the events of Holy Week as a study, ending up on Easter Sunday. I took a look at it, and discovered there were almost 70 separate events during Holy Week. It would take us over a year to go through it all without combining some of the smaller events. Actually, more like two years when you consider the occasional Sunday when we don’t have Life Groups and the interruptions for all-church studies.

I decided instead that we would break this up into six parts and do some every year leading up to Easter, and going beyond Easter when necessary. I planned it all out, and I guess it was in 2019 that we did Part 1, on the Triumphal Entry and the events over Sunday-Monday-Tuesday of Holy Week. That was a bit long; I should have broken it up into two parts. Then there was the Olivet Discourse during the pandemic interrupted 2020. Last year was the Last Supper, and this year is Gethsemane, Arrest, and Jewish Trial. Next year will be the Roman trial, execution and burial. And the year after next will be Easter Sunday.

All has gone well. We get through this seven to fifteen lessons per year. The class seems happy. The pace is good.

At some point between last year’s series and this year’s series, I decided that, if I were going to write and publish another Bible study, maybe this series was what I should write. In January, when I finished two other writing projects and decided I’d do a Bible study next, I went to work on the Last Supper study.

I immediately ran into a problem, however. I had my teaching notes from when I taught the classes, but they were months old. They were suitable for teaching when the material was fresh but not for writing when the material was stale. I found I had to re-study a lesson again in order to write a chapter in the book. As a result, I made very little progress in January and February.

The first Sunday in March, we began the new part of the study, Gethsemane, etc. The day after I taught the first lesson I set down to write it in book form. The chapter came out very easily. In three days I had it written. At that point I switched back to last year’s study, and struggled along.

The next week, I decided to make that the pattern. Here’s what I’m trying to do.

  • Study on Saturday for the current lesson.
  • Teach the lesson on Sunday; come home and begin to write the current lesson into a chapter.
  • Work on and complete the current lesson chapter Monday-Tuesday.
  • Work on last year’s study Wed-Thus-Fri, hoping to complete one full chapter, but being satisfied with whatever I can do.

Since I started that at week 2 in the current study, it has worked well. I have all chapters in the current study complete through Chapter 5 and am working on Chapter 6. On last year’s study, some weeks I’ve been able to do a full chapter; other weeks I’m a little short of a full chapter.

As of April 10, I have written approximately 31,000 words in last year’s study, and 29,000 words in this year’s study. That’s substantial progress.

Yesterday, I went to The Dungeon after church and began writing, and found myself completely out of gas. Problems sleeping Saturday night had left me tired. I wrote maybe 300 words on the current lesson, and decided to pack it in. I’m not sure how much I’ll get done today and tomorrow, due to the need to finish my income taxes. But there’s no law saying I can’t take the entire week to write that chapter, and save work on last year’s study till next week or the week after.

I’m enjoying this writing. I don’t know how this will proceed. I know I’ll finish these two, publish them, then see if I’ll write more of them over the next couple of years.

goals

March Progress, April Goals

Leave a comment

I don’t know what came over me. Last Friday was April 1st. That was my day to write out my progress for March and goals for April. I had something on my mind for last Friday, however, and went with that, not even remembering what I had planned for that day. So here is last Friday’s post, being written on Tuesday April 5th. I’ll give progress through today.

  • Finish pulling my research notes for the church Centennial book together into a format and organization that will make the job of a future researcher easier. I made a good start on this, but didn’t finish, and will include it in April’s goals. I feel so much better about it, however. The notes are much better organized.
  • Continue to shepherd the church Centennial book to publication. …Almost certainly this will go to the printer in March. This did go to the printer in March and production is underway. The books are scheduled to be ready by the end of this week. The church is thinking for a May release.
  • Continue to plug along on There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. I’ll finish going through it this last time, getting critique on two more chapters, while waiting on beta readers. I’m not sure of the timing of the cover, but should know this week. Not much change in status. Still waiting on beta readers. I did meet with the cover designer. We worked through her drafts, selected the one to use for the final, and came up with the design that looks good to both of us. I haven’t heard from her since that meeting, but I assume she’s making progress. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to run chapters past the critique group until the cover is ready. At that point I’ll publish, whether I have beta reader feedback or not.
  • Make good progress on the Last Supper Bible study. I’d like to finish three more chapters in March. I accomplished this! I have fallen into a rhythm of writing, switching off between the two. I’ll have a blog post about that before long. This stands at approximately 28,000 words, a little more than half done.
  • Begin work on a Gethsemane Bible study. Since I’ll be teaching it beginning next Sunday, I hope to make my notes this time in publishable format, being essentially done with it by the time the study ends. And this goal was met as well! Today (4/5/2022) I finished chapter 5 (of 7 chapters), at 29,000 words. That doesn’t mean I’m 5/7th done, however. This will need lots of editing, as will the one from last year.
  • Attend writers groups. I expect this will be three online and three in-person meetings.  Done, except one on-line meeting wound up being cancelled.
  • Blog twice a week on Monday and Friday. And I did this, not missing a blogging day.
  • …revamp the “Available Works” page on my website. I made a small beginning on this in February, and would like to make significant progress on it in March. I did some of this, though actually not until April. I’m creating sub-pages for my published works, making the whole thing more organized and, I hope, easier for someone to go through. I wish I had finished, but I’m very, very happy with the progress made.

So, now the goals for April. It will be a shorter month for goals, given that I’m going this late.

  • More work on those pesky research notes for the church Centennial book. I don’t know that I’ll worry about whether I finish it or not. Another hour or two will result in being close to done.
  • Continue inching along with There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Not much for me to do but work with the cover creator and do a little more editing, by myself and with the critique group.
  • Work on the two Bible studies hand-in-hand. I anticipate finishing the “guts” of the one for this year, on Gethsemane and Arrest. The one on the Last Supper I don’t expect to finish, but who knows? I’m actually ahead of where I expected to be by this time, so maybe I can get the “guts” of it done too.
  • Attend writers groups.  Three will be in-person, and three on-line. I anticipate missing two however, due to a scheduled heart procedure that may require an overnight stay in the hospital.
  • Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. I’m not quite as well organized on this as I was in March, but I ought to be able to do it.
  • Continue work on the “Available Works” part of my web site. Based on how much I have done, I ought to be able to do this.
  • One irregular item: Work on and finish the presentation I’m scheduled to make to the Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers Society on May 10. I have what I want to say planned out, have begun writing it, and have pulled together some graphics for a power point presentation.

That’s a good amount of goals. I’ll be doing well if I accomplish them all, what with everything else going on.

 

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: Luis Palau

Leave a comment
This little book is a good read about a good man who had a good ministry. Well worth reading.

One of the books we picked up used, somewhere along life’s way, is Luis Palau by Terry Whalin. It’s part of the Men of Faith series by Bethany House Publishers (since bought by others).

Palau was an Argentinian who grew up in difficult economic circumstances. He had limited schooling at an early age, though finally went to a European-run boarding school in Argentina. Slowly, God got ahold of his heart and he embraced Jesus as Lord.

He became interested in spreading God’s word and, in the 1940s, became aware of mass evangelism. This seemed a great idea to him. He found mentors and organizations to guide him, and his ministry took off. A few years later, he was holding crusades throughout Latin America. As bilingual, Spanish and English, he was soon called upon to hold crusades around the world. Along the way, he had emigrated to the USA, married in the States, and they had children.

The book was written while Pilau was alive and holding crusades. The author, Terry Whalin, is someone I’ve met at writing conferences. He has been active in all parts of the publishing industry: author, editor, agent, publisher. He also spent time with Wycliff Bible Translators. I’ve corresponded with Terry off and on over the years.

This is a good little book. If you get ahold of a copy, it’s well worth reading. Our book was a strange critter. We began reading it aloud. We got to page 32, and the next page was 65. At page 96, it went back to page 65. We saw, stamped on the bottom of the book, “Seconds”. We obviously bought a defective copy.  Not to worry. It was probably a 50¢ purchase. But, we aren’t going to pass a defective copy on to someone else, and into recycling we will go. We were able to find a copy of the book to borrow at Internet Archives, so we were able to finish it.

Bible study, Christianity, Writing

“We Are Unworthy Servants”

Leave a comment

I’m now down to the third Bible verse that I use to start my day. [If interested, you can see an overview of this series of posts here, and the first verse here and the second verse here.] Here’s the third verse.

So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ [Luke 17:10 NIV]

Pouring over old record books held at the church was the first place to start in my research.

This is at the end of a passage sometimes titled “Sin, Faith, Duty”. Jesus talks about how a person who has a servant will not, after both servant and master have had a busy day, serve the servant. He will expect the servant to continue in his/her duties until the master’s needs are met.

Yet, Jesus says: If all you, as a servant, have done is your duty—if you have not gone beyond your duty and done more than asked—you are an unworthy servant.

This verse struck me several years ago. I think I was still working as an engineer when I found this and knew right away it had to be one of my life verses. I was closing in on retirement and was kind of skating, doing the minimum I had to to keep my job. Then this verse came anew into my life, and I knew I had to change. About a year before retirement my boss gave me a difficult assignment, to assist (and eventually take over for) a design professional who was overwhelmed with problem projects. I dug into it, and for fourteen months had a wild ride bringing those projects into some kind of resolution. I think I did my duty with them, and more than my duty.

That also hit home last July. In June I had finished writing the book for our church’s Centennial, at our pastor’s request. This meant monthly virtual meetings of the committee, and lots of research and writing. The deadline for the book kept getting pushed out as our celebration kept getting delayed due to pandemic and construction. I decided to stick with it as if the deadline was close, finished it about 10 months ahead of schedule, and set back to rest awhile.

But one item nagged at me. The church had 12 known charter members, but supposedly 63 charter members in total, the names of the other 51 never having been properly recorded, or, if recorded, the records were lost. A new pastor came a few years into the church’s life and established record books. Henceforth, members were added and deleted as they joined and left or died. But he also reached back in time and recorded, I’m sure to the best of his ability, the names of everyone who had been a member before he became our pastor. It included some members who had already left. That was a total of about 170 names.

Something inside me said I ought to dig in, do the research, and see if I could determine who those other charter members were. But, I protested to myself, if there are 170 names, and 12 of those are known charter members, that means I have to research about 158 names and try to sort them out as to which to include in the 51 and which to exclude. It was a monumental task and I decided I wouldn’t do it.

July rolled around, and I began proofreading the book at a leisurely pace. I came to the point of there having been 63 charter members, 51 one of them unknown but buried among 158 names, and I had to stop. The verse came to me, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.” I had done my duty; the book was done, and done early, leaving plenty of time for editing and proofreading.

But, the thought kept nagging me: if I only did my duty, I was an unworthy servant. I made the decision that I would do the research and see what would result.

Thus, July and August were consumed with research of those 158 names, trying to find a reason to choose 51 of them as charter members. First, I developed five criteria of what would make me include or eliminate someone as a probable charter member. Then I went by family groups, then those not in family groups. Using various internet research sites, I applied the five criteria to each person.

Slowly, everything began to sort out. I was able to make educated judgments and narrow the list of probable charter members down from 158 to around 60. After that, it was just guesswork, but I came up with my list of 51 names and added them to the Centennial book.

But, I didn’t mean for this post to get into the nitty-gritty of the task. I wanted to show how this Bible verse spoke to me and helped guide my behavior. It probably sounds like so much patting myself on the back. I don’t mean to do that. I know there have been plenty of times when I was that unworthy servant, doing only my duty or even less than my duty. But using a real illustration of the principle resulted in the back patting.

I hope this verse will help you as you develop a strategy for completing the work that life has assigned for you to do, or that you have taken on voluntarily. And that the three Bible verses in this series will encourage you. The sun is just breaking the horizon on this cold (28°) spring morning. It is time for me to awaken the dawn!

 

 

Bible study, miscellaneous

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Leave a comment

I had a different post planned for today, one that is mostly written, but have decided to change course. Yesterday, Sunday, was a typical day for us. Church in the morning, take-out for lunch, rest and writing in the afternoon, also a walk in the afternoon, leftovers for supper, a little bit of television, and reading, both aloud and silently.

As to writing, I did quite well on the Bible study I’m currently working on. It’s the same one I’m teaching to our adult Sunday school class. I managed to add over 1,650 words to it and organized the chapter I’m working on. I also found a couple of flaws in my Harmony of the Gospels for this passage of scripture, and was able to work that out and correct it. I still have to type the changes in the master file.

What made the day different is what happened on our walk. Both Lynda and I are not in as good a physical shape as we would like, so we are not walking very far. Plus, I’m limiting my exertions until I go through a heart procedure on April 19.  But we went a little farther today, 1.26 miles according to the app on my phone.

It was a bright, sunny day, with a strong breeze, quite pleasant to walk in. Few cars were on the road to bother us. We saw another walker or two out, but not close. On the return leg we saw a man walking his dog. Well, we thought it was a boy until we got right up to him. He pulled the dog off to the ditch when a car approached in one direction and we in the other. As we came up to him and he remained in the ditch with the dog, ostensibly to let us pass, I flipped the switch and decided to talk to him.

Yes, I had to flip a switch inside of me. To talk with a stranger on the street is something I don’t do by nature, other than a quick nod and “Hello” and keep going where I’m going. It doesn’t really get any easier to do more than that.

But yesterday I did, and said, “What a handsome dog. Is it a beagle?” He replied with thanks and said the dog was part beagle. The dog made friendly lunges at us, putting his paws up high. He was never really still enough to let us pet him. We had a pleasant conversation with the man, lasting maybe three minutes. He was the son of people who lived down one of the side roads, just visiting and walking their dog for them. We never did get his name nor give him ours. I should have asked him his parents’ names and which of they two houses down that side street was theirs but, alas, didn’t think of that.

On with our walk. As we turned to go up the street that our circle connects to, a gray, short-bed pick-up passed us, a Ford Maverick, with the temporary plate of a new vehicle. Both of us remarked how quiet it was and wondered if it was electric. It pulled into the drive of a house we would soon pass. A man got out of the truck (not the neighbor who lives there, so apparently a visitor) and, being still 30 feet away and approaching him, I called out, “Quiet truck. Is it electric?”

I’m sure many of you would say something to the effect, you dummy, of course a Ford Maverick is electric. But I don’t follow vehicle names and models, so I didn’t know, nor did Lynda. He said yes, a hybrid. He had ordered it in July 2020, I think it was, and it had just come. He got it for the 2020 price and was pleased with the bargain. We talked about the truck and its features, benefits, gas mileage, performance, strengths, and weaknesses. It was a pleasant conversation.

I didn’t get his name, nor did he ask us ours. The conversation was a win-win item. We got information and he got to show off his purchase and knowledge of it.

Just a quiet day in the neighborhood, trying to break out of my natural introvert cell. Maybe some day I’ll move to learning names of people and remembering them, but for now, that’s enough.

Bible study, Christianity, Genealogy, technology woes, Writing

Light and Momentary Troubles, Part 2

Leave a comment

Dateline: 24 March 2022

Not too long ago, I posted about the second of three Bible verses that I try to start each day with. This one, 2 Corinthians 4:17, talks about our troubles on this earth being light and momentary, and will result in an eternal glory that far surpasses the troubles. My focus of that post was that I wasn’t experiencing the glory because I wasn’t using the troubles as a spur to personal growth.

This photo doesn’t really show how my workspace was torn apart from moving stuff to get to devices and cables. Will wait a little to everything back in place. Maybe I’ll even organize it a little.

Wednesday was one of those days, when troubles seemed somewhat more than light. The power company was working in our neighborhood and had alerted us that they would be turning off our power for a couple of hours in the morning, and that they would come by and tell us before they did. The day started out normally. I was at my computer by 7:30 a.m., doing writing and stock trading tasks. It was about 10:00 a.m. before the power company came by and gave us a 10-minute warning.  I closed out of all programs, keeping only a couple of Word documents open, closed the lid on my laptop, and left The Dungeon.

Sure enough, the power soon went off. I took the occasion to make my weekly grocery run to Wal-Mart. Normally a Tuesday task, a long meeting then had caused me to delay a day. I went and did my shopping, for a change finding everything on my list. At the self-checkout, all worked well.

The man at the self-checkout station next to me had some unusual items in his cart: a dozen cans of salt and that many gallon bottles of vinegar. That seemed strange, and I did something I never do: I started a conversation with him, asking him about the oddity of his purchases. Understand: I never do that. If at all possible I go through the store and consider it a good time if I don’t have to talk with anyone.

Although, earlier in this trip, I did talk briefly with a woman shopper in the pharmacy section. A rock and roll song was coming over the loudspeakers and I was humming it. This woman and her adult daughter came in my direction and the woman was singing it. She caught my eye and stopped, embarrassed. Then I started signing it and so she started again. Three seconds later we had passed each other, on with our shopping.

Back to the man and his cart of salt and vinegar. I assumed he was buying for a restaurant, but he said no, it was for his concoction of killing weeds in his rock yard. He told me his formula. Since I have the same problem and have considered hiring a lawn service to spray deadly chemicals on it, I was interested. I learned something from this conversation, this impromptu, hard for me to start but easy to continue conversation.

Back to light and momentary troubles. When I got home, the power was still off. The power company had said two hours, and we weren’t there yet. So I went to the sunroom and read. The temperature was 40° out and the sunroom was getting cold with the space heater not working. I was about done with my daily reading quota in this particular book when the power came on, just shy of three hours since it had gone off. The power company had said it might take as long as that if they ran into any problems.

All was good. The trouble of no power was indeed light and momentary, and I thought I had redeemed the time well. A brief lunch, and downstairs to The Dungeon to resume my activities, only to learn…no internet. No problem. I rebooted the modem; still no internet. I rebooted the router; still no internet. I waited then repeated those two steps. Still no internet. I finally found a number for our internet provider. They did a remote reset of the modem; still no internet. I got on a text chat with a rep of their company. He did various things. I tried to explain the situation. Two hours of texting; still no internet.

I took note of the steady light showing on the modem and the all-lights-flashing status of the router, assumed a router failure, and texted a friend who is an IT guy in his job and arranged for an evening call. I wondered if the router experienced a power failure when it came back on. I also considered that the internet provider had sent an e-mail a week before, saying they had increased speeds and I would have to reboot the modem to take advantage of that. I hadn’t done it yet, but the power shutdown was actually a forced reboot. I now have 866 mbps speed—but no internet. Could it be that this old router was incompatible with the higher speed?

This trouble was turning out to be worse than light and not all that momentary. I found other things to do, mainly going through an old genealogy research notebook and getting rid of a bunch of stuff I no longer need. I read the instructions for the air fryer we’ve had for three years but never used and planned to cook some veggies in it. Supper came and went, and I had the call with my friend. We talked through the internet problem. He agreed with me that it sounded as if the router had gone bad. Based on our set-up, he talked me through a work-around, and poof! we had internet.

From there the conversation rolled into other areas to fill the hour. Technology, internet, CATV vs streaming, cost increases, even a little into politics. We ended when he was expecting another call to come in. It was a good hour.

So how would I describe these technology troubles. Light? Momentary? In hindsight I would guess so, though it didn’t seem like it at the time. But since the time was redeemed, and redeemed well, I would have to say they were indeed light and momentary, and that God used them toward the goal of eternal glory.

book reviews, Christianity

Book Review: George Mueller

2 Comments
A short bio, but full of information, and well-written.

In our quest to reduce clutter and dis-accumulate years of accumulation, Lynda and I pulled a few books from obscure shelves in the basement family room, and will read them next. These are all “non-keepers”, books we will discard. One of these books was George Mueller. Not too long ago we read that aloud in the evenings.

I’ve known about George Mueller and his life of faith for a long time. I’ve read about him in various books and articles. I included him in a chapter of Acts Of Faith, my book about Bible people and Christians who had special faith experiences. But I had never read a biography of him.

This was a short book, possibly geared towards teens, though actually a good read for adults. It covered Mueller’s growing up in Germany, his wild youth period, his conversion, and his growth as a baby Christian. He gave up a prospective marriage to a woman who did not appreciate his desire to be a missionary.

He made contact with a missionary society that wanted him to work among the Jewish people in England. He went there, but it didn’t work out. He became co-pastor of a church. Before long, he started a Bible distribution ministry. Not long after that, he took notice of orphans in Bristol and their plight in the workhouses. He decided to develop orphanages, which he had seen in Germany but were a new concept in England. Over the years, he developed multiple orphanages, first in the heart of Bristol, then on the outskirts.

This includes a chapter, or rather part of a chapter, about George Mueller.

The act of faith? He did all this without ever soliciting donations. Not for renting property. Not for staffing the orphanages. Not for provisioning them. Not for buying property and building multiple orphanages on it. He prayed for the needs and trusted God to supply.

The book concentrated on the orphanage years. There were times when they had nothing for breakfast, and a bread truck broke down in front of the orphanage. There were times when a 5 pound bill was due, and an envelope came in the morning mail from someone they didn’t know. Mueller had faith when he needed a shilling and was trustworthy with it. God then gave him faith for tens of thousands of pounds and trustworthiness with that.

The book was an easy read. Not terribly long, but long enough so that by the end I felt like I understood Mueller’s life fairly well. Now I’m sure that, in a short book, much was left out. I want to read a fuller biography of this.

I highly recommend this book, which I give 5-stars. But this little paperback is long out of print. If you can’t find this, grab any bio of Mueller and dig in.

This book is not a keeper. However, we might give it to our grandchildren to read. It’s quite readable at that age.

 

Bible study, Christianity, The Forest Throne, Writing

Into a Writing Rhythm

Leave a comment

Dateline: 17 March 2022

Moving this 7 foot high woodpile about 60 feet downhill might interrupt my writing rhythm.

I haven’t looked back to see what my writing goals for March are, but I know I’ve been busy writing. I’m into a rhythm of sorts. I need to be since I’m working on two projects at once, while still waiting on two others to truly finish and drop off the radar.

The two waiting to be finished are the church Centennial book and my MG/YA novel There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. The former is done  and sent to the printer. At least the insides are. The cover has lagged due to the designer’s busyness. She sent it to me on Tuesday. I immediately shot it to our pastor and committee chair for approval. Both wanted tweaks or changes, one involving a new photo. That photo arrived in my inbox today. I sent it on, and the cover designer says I should have the revised cover tomorrow. Once I send it on to the printer, that project will be truly done.

The other project is also done—sort of. I’m waiting on five beta readers to give me feedback, four of them in the target age group. I’ve given nudges but hear nothing from them. The cover is under preparation by a different designer. I think, once that is done, I will publish it with or without the feedback from the five. If they give me good suggestions for substantive changes, I can always make the changes and republish the book. Meanwhile, I’m giving my critique group a chapter every two weeks and getting good feedback. Alas, as adult writers, they aren’t in the target demographic. Both of these projects are taking very little of my time.

My Bible commentaries are out, resting one on another on the kitchen table, and likely to stay there for a couple of months. I see blank paper to write on, but what did I do with my notes?

Now, as for current projects, they are two Bible studies that form a pair. First, some background. Last year, Feb-Apr, I taught a Bible study on the Last Supper, 13 weeks I think it was. It was Part 3 of a larger study, A Walk Through Holy Week. We are studying it in our Life Group, one part a year, based on the harmony of the gospels I wrote. I realized that the entire study would make a good series of books. I didn’t do anything with Parts 1 and 2, but Part 3 seemed especially suitable for a Bible study book.

Alas, when that study was over, I was fully involved in the Centennial book, and when I had it mostly finished by June (with a research supplement not done till Aug), I moved straight into the time travel book because the iron was hot and I wanted to get it done. Meanwhile, I preserved my teaching notes, some of which were handwritten and some typed. Whenever my schedule freed up, I would be ready to write it.

That happened around mid-January this year. I gathered my notes, merged and organized them, then created the book file. I labored at it for a month. Yes, labored, for I found it very difficult to write. My plan was to have one chapter for each week’s lesson. Chapters would be organized into seven sections, making for a reading a day should the reader want to proceed that way. I was able to make some headway on it, starting the seven readings for Chapter 1 and completing some of them. I got some “days” done, others not. By around March 3rd, I had perhaps 12,000 words of a book that I think will be 50-60,000. Not great progress, but some.

Then a dilemma hit me. On Sunday, March 6, we were to start Part 4 of the Holy Week study. I immediately thought I couldn’t work on both studies. Teaching the new one would consume so much time, and cover different material, that writing Part 3 while teaching Part 4 would be difficult. But the thought came that maybe I should just write the new one and lay Part 3 aside. That way, I could write the chapters (again, planning for seven readings in each chapter) as I was teaching it. The material would be fresh, and hopefully the writing would go fast as well.

I taught the first lesson of Part 4 on March 6. The day before, Saturday, I did an intensive study for it. Coming home from church on Sunday, I went to my computer and began writing the new study. As I hoped, it was easier. I was able to incorporate class discussion and thoughts not in my notes that came to me as I was teaching while all was fresh on my mind. Sunday, I wrote one complete reading and part of another. I also organized the chapters and readings. Monday, I did two more readings, Tuesday two more, and Wednesday, two more, completing the chapter. Yay!

That left me Thursday and Friday to return to the Part 3 book and see what I could accomplish. What I found was I really needed to re-study the material just as if I was going to teach it anew. I did that on Thursday, and on Friday I wrote two days of readings. My writing time on Saturday had to go to study for the next lesson in Part 4.

So it seemed to me that this was a viable rhythm. Saturday: study to teach a lesson in Part 4. Sunday, teach the lesson and work on writing the chapter in Part 4. Monday-Tuesday write the Part 4 chapter, hoping to finish by Tuesday evening. If I couldn’t, continue with Part 4 writing on Wednesday. When that was done, shift to Part 3, hoping to study a chapter and write it on Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.

It worked out like that this week. I completed the second chapter of Part 4 on Wednesday, early enough to give me some time to shift to writing Part 3. As of the time of this writing, I should finish tomorrow (today when you read this) the most difficult chapter to write in Part 3. Then, it’s on to Chapter 3 of Part 4 and another chapter in Part 3. I hope this is making sense.

Part 4 finishes on Easter Sunday. The week after Easter I have a medical procedure scheduled that will prevent me from writing a whole lot. I hope to finish Part 4 by the end of April—the first draft, that is. I’ll be very surprised if I am even half-way through with Part 3 by then, but maybe I will be.

As of yet, I have no publishing schedule for either of these. I don’t know if I’ll publish Part 4 when done, and Part 3 a couple of months later, or if I’ll withhold Part 4 until Part 3 is done and publish them together, or maybe a month apart. Once I know, I’ll let you all know here.