THE BOOGIE MAN

Floyd Finding Floyd 8 Comments

If you’re lucky, or blessed enough to be around little kids hunting for Easter eggs this weekend, you might be on an invisible hunt of your own. More than a few of us have lost our composure, as of late, that is. Some of us are fearing the boogie man like the little ones distracted with an Easter egg hunt often do.

“Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (NIV)

The real boogie man wants to “sift you like flour”. But he has no rule over any of us until God gives him the green light.

In this special season and celebration of the One who yielded once and for all as the only “Perfect” sacrifice on our behalf, it’s a time for celebration and thanksgiving, not fear of death.

Death has been conquered. Death has no sting. And God knew before you or I walked on this rock the number of our days and the number of the ones that would be taken by this virus.

I read some interesting facts checked by fullfact.org;

“One of the worst days so far for Coronavirus was the 10th of February. On that day 108 persons in China died of Coronavirus.

But, on that same day 26,283 people died of cancer

24,641 died of heart disease

4,300 died of diabetes

and on that day, suicide, unfortunately, took more lives than the virus did, by 28 times.

Moreover, mosquitoes kill 2,740 people every day, humans kill 1,300 fellow humans ever day, and snakes kill 137 people every day.

Take a deep breath and wash your hands.”

There have been worse days since then, but the point is spot on.

Fear sells, and if the masses think this virus that has been around for decades, and will take far less lives than the flu this season, is so big and so powerful, they’ll give up more rights… And for a security that a government can’t give.

Only God can give security eternal. As we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ lets do it with thankful and fearless hearts. For HE is risen indeed!

Happy Easter to all!

DIRTY LAUNDRY

Floyd Finding Floyd 7 Comments

They say music is timeless, you won’t get an argument outta me. Lately one song in particular seems to be stuck on the turntable of my mind, with the arm up. I hear the keyboard. I sing it; duuuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Repeat. Then the heavy drum intro; duc-u-doon-duc-u-doon, “I make my living off the evenin’ news… just give me somethin’ – somethin’ I can use. People love it when you lose. They love Dirty Laundry.”

That little Don Henley ditty from ’82 speaks to the human condition and emotions. “It’s interesting when people die, give us Dirty Laundry.”

With the news of uncertainty, and a good dose of speculation tossed in, it’s easy to get caught up in the growing hysteria that is sweeping our nation and the world.

According to Newsweek, the week before this last one Fox saw its ratings jump 89%. CNN soared up 193% and all the other major and cable news outlets increased significantly as well.

I guess Don Henley was right; people do love Dirty Laundry. Business is booming for the news outlets. The more watchers, the more they charge for advertising. They’re going to squeeze every last penny and human emotion they can out of this crisis. They’re not about to let a good crisis go to waste.

Being informed is one thing, but letting our entire lives be consumed by this crisis is another.

For one, I cut all the overhead I could from within our company that I could and worked even harder and longer than before. But the most effective action I took? Dropping to my knees.

I studied countless Bible verses on “fear”, Old and New Testament. With time, study, and prayer God granted me peace in the midst of the storm. While I still have moments of anxiety in this crisis and face, once again, risk of loss in all ways, I have gained enough wisdom to know that God’s will is going to be done… regardless of my emotions.

In a nutshell, from back in the day, I gained a deeper understanding of how fear separates us from God. Our God, who promises to never leave us or forsake us, has no fear.

If and when we give more reverence to a crisis, or anything, that sits in the palm of His hand with us, we spiritually slap the face of the One who is sovereign over His creation.

I’m not a doctor, but I highly recommend lowering the daily doses of Dirty Laundry.

TOILET PAPER

Floyd Finding Floyd 7 Comments

It’s a crazy world. That’s not new news… We just haven’t been reminded of how crazy until the next crisis comes around. I rarely write about personal or controversial things, but today, I’m gonna make an exception. Today we tackle toilet paper…

People are actually getting in physical altercations at stores over grocery carts and toilet paper. The world has gone mad. Anxiety and fear over the pending pandemic have a strangle hold on them.

I was out of town this week and came home to an Old Mother Hubbard kind of cupboard and frig, even the mustard bottle was on reserve.

The grocery store parking lot was jammed. It had more cars in it than I’d ever seen before. I had to park by the McDonald’s.

As a young man I was a little embarrassed to buy toilet paper. I’d have been proud to have some in my basket the other day, but there’s not a stitch of it at the store. The shelves look like something from the depression.

It’s peculiar how you can see fear in people’s eyes. Tough times are like truth serum; it exposes people for who they really are. The manners, for the most part, were gone. It was every person for themselves.

I know I might say it too much, but I have to remind myself that God either causes or allows all things. To fear a situation more than we do the One who caused or allowed it is to bring dishonor to Him. The Coronavirus is sitting right next to us… in the palm of His hand…

My dad was born into a cotton picking sharecropper’s family. He was smack in the middle of nine kids. I suppose the first time he ever saw indoor plumbing was at school.

Old habits die hard. I recall as a little kid my dad rubbing folded toilet paper together. It looked like someone trying to warm their hands up, only with the paper in-between his hands.

I learned that when he was a kid they didn’t have, nor could they afford, toilet paper. They had the Sears and Roebuck catalog sitting in the outhouse… They made their own toilet paper.

There were a few times as a kid we’d run out of toilet paper. And I learned first hand, or hands, that you can turn a piece of notebook paper into a soft piece of toilet paper… it just takes time.

I suppose if the world doesn’t come to its senses we can all use the stacks and stacks of junk mail that gets delivered to our homes every day and turn it into toilet paper.

We all have some anxiety and fear, some more than others, but I refuse to give into the enemy and let running out of toilet paper occupy a second of my life.

When it’s our time to go, God doesn’t need a virus to fulfill His will. And as Paul pointed out, it’s better to be absent from this body and to be present with The Lord.

Where we’re going we won’t need any toilet paper…

IN LIVING COLOR

Floyd Finding Floyd 7 Comments

The neighborhood looks different, older, a little tired. Like me. Of course everything looks different if you add over forty-five years to the equation.

As I drove north on the street my mom still lives on, a memory hit me. I don’t have a lot of choice as to when I stroll down memory lane, especially when I’m driving on the lanes of my childhood. I looked for the house on the east side of Eastwind.

Back in the day it sat all by its lonesome. All those vacant lots are history. I searched for the short and steep driveway. The once offensive bright orange front door was long gone or painted.

I was hanging out with my buddy Dave D. All kids in junior high are looking for fun… Even if the fun is at the expense of someone else. Using the telephone to ask the local store owners if they had Prince Albert in the can doesn’t last all night… especially in a small town with only a couple of stores.

Occasionally we’d knock on a door or ring a doorbell and run like the wind. I admit that night it was my idea. It was my neighborhood after all.

I slowed my truck to a crawl. Yep. The steep driveway and the wide front window between the driveway and the front door brought that night in nineteen seventy five back to me in living color.

There aren’t but a handful of streetlights in Lake Havasu City and there are still none within five miles of that street. The night was pitch black. It was hard to see the top of our tennis shoes walking.

There were people inside the house. It was winter and the front window was open. We could hear them talking inside.

I was half way under the wide window when I glanced back. Dave had stalled a couple of feet from the window. I waved him toward me silently, fighting back a snicker.

Dave was having serious second thoughts. Then again, he and JC were the smartest ones in the class. He shuffled backwards and headed back down the driveway.

I never did make the trek under the window to the front door. Still crouched in the middle of the window, hidden by the stucco area underneath it, without a coherent thought, I acted.

I jumped with my arms up like a gorilla, “AHHHHHHHH!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

All four of them jumped, but none higher than the middle aged man with the glasses, hands locked behind his head, reclining on a green sofa, right next to the window.

I didn’t give much thought to that steep driveway. Not until I was sprinting full speed toward the road that I couldn’t see.

I can’t recall if I tore my jeans or shirt that night, but I remember vividly all the skin I tore off my palms skidding on the pavement. That’s close to instant justice.

A few days later, back at home, there was a group text going around the family. It was a video of my grandson, Mr. B, at his aunt Ali’s front door. Her Ring picked up a video of him ringing her doorbell and running… He’s three…

I think God has a sense of humor…