As I put my thoughts to work this Monday morning, I have to smile (even though I woke up with an aggravating headache). Yesterday was a bit different than my usual Sunday (as you may well gather from the supplied picture). But let me back up the story a little to give you all a better understanding of my mindset.
As many of you know, your paper comes in the mail on Thursdays (as does mine). It is usually at that time that I either submit the next story for the coming publication or at least begin to look for a theme to base my writing on. Sometimes there is a project that requires me to do some traveling (and sometimes, that piece is a result of what has come from a certain journey).
I had decided to hold off on putting anything together this time around, with the feeling that something may come up just before my submission deadline (and this is where the following storyline comes in). Sunday morning came upon us, and as many people of faith do, we got ourselves together and headed to church. The sermon was uplifting, and we came away from the morning activities feeling powered up in the Spirit to face the coming challenges for this week.
As we do on so many Sundays, we headed from there to meet with friends at a local restaurant, and being as we had close to a dozen friends in our party, it was decided that Beef O’Bradys would be best suitable (as we never have to wait a long time for a group table to be put together). Of those gathered around us, our “snowbird” friend and his daughter were joining us. We were paying for their dinners as a small thank you for him assisting me with a large appliance swap out the day before.
The fellowship was good (and so were the meals), and we were heading home. I made mention to my wife that I could hear the Lazy Boy (easy chair) calling my name! As we came into our little neighborhood, there was some commotion going on about two blocks from our house. A neighbor that has helped me in the recent past had septic tank troubles and had to clear a path on his adjoining property so the septic company workers could gain access to his drain field.
As many of us do in our community, he called upon an acquaintance (that owns heavy equipment) for some help in cutting a path through his wooded lot. Now, his friend usually did not work on Sundays, but as this was a favor to be done (and his equipment was tightly scheduled for the weekdays to come), they were busy moving ground and trees with a medium-duty track hoe.
As we neared his property, I looked out the window of the car to see the bottom of this machine (that should have been facing the ground)! Apparently, as the operator was attempting to bring it back up onto the roadway, one of his tracks met the culvert running alongside the roadway, and (being as it was still muddy, as many culvert ways are) the track quickly sunk in past what was a safe angle of operation.
I slowed down to see if I could render some “neighborly assistance.” The man that owned the tracked vehicle asked what equipment I had that would be able to get this thing righted and back on a safe footing. I told him that I had my trusty 3/4 ton pickup truck with a 12,000 lb. winch. He kind of gave me this “look” and said oookay, and we pulled away from the site. My wife could be heard saying in a low (but discernible) voice, “there goes the easy chair time.”
I got changed and went out to the shed to gather some logging chains, and in a few minutes, was back where the incident took place. Now, of all the tools I possess, the greatest one for any (and every) occasion is the one that the good Lord put between my ears. As I have done on countless endeavors, I assess the situation at hand and look for a “hidden blessing” to help me get the job done, and this time around, there happened to be a massive Elm tree directly across the street from the flipped machine. I put the old workhorse into 4-wheel drive and backed it up to the edge of the ditch (so as to use the tree as an anchor point).
By now, some of the other neighborhood men had come out to help in the procedure, so I got them to drag my chains around the tree and affix it to the hitch on the rear of the vehicle. We soon had the winch on the front of the Dodge hooked to a heavy recovery strap, and in less than 10 minutes, the machine was righted and pulling up on the hardpack.
It was about that time that I had an interesting thought come about (with a Sunday twist to it). In the Bible, and in the book of Luke (Ch.14, vs.5-6), Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, and when He is confronted by the temple elders, offers up this statement to them, from Luke 14:5 (King James version), “And He answered them, saying Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? And they could not answer Him again to these things.” It is always interesting how a message within a message can be found. And I did not have to go out looking for this story. It came to me. Y’all be blessed, and have a good week!
