2006
One other Eureka! moment from interim pastoring involved a different kind of guidance. This two-year interim pastorate (2005-2007), my 7th, was at a church located in the mountains above San Bernardino. In February, 2006, I started down the mountain at 10:30 pm on a Thursday night after a Board meeting. Due to a recent snowstorm, the white line on the outside of the winding road was obscured by what was left after snowplowing. There was a steep, 700 foot drop if you went off the road. Not long before, I had a hospice patient in Orange County who told me that she and her husband’s car had gone off the road in those mountains, and down what she called “a 700 foot embankment.” Her husband was killed, but she survived despite (she said) almost every bone in her body being broken. With that conversation in the back of my mind, I started down the mountain, this February night. I soon entered fog, and couldn’t see far ahead of my car to turn with the curves. Neither could I see the obscured white line on the side of the road. In the worst terror of my life, I cried aloud, “Lord, I can’t see!” No sooner had those words come out of my mouth, than a set of headlights appeared, coming toward me and turning from my right to my left—revealing the approaching curve in the road to me. Then I knew how I needed to steer my car to stay on the road. Relieved, I thanked the Lord. I continued to drive in and out of fog, and three more times I cried out the same words in gradually decreasing terror, “Lord, I can’t see!” Each time, a set of headlights immediately appeared, coming toward me and enabling me to know where the road was ahead of me and how I needed to steer my car. The fourth time I expected to see headlights, and said with less terror, “Lord, I can’t see.” Again, there came the headlights! Then the fog lifted, halfway down the 15-mile descent to San Bernardino. That night God was very real to me. The lesson lingers in my mind to this day: When life is a terrifying fog, we can trust God to show us the way, as he promises:
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.” (Psalm 91:14-15) “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.” (Psalm 107:19) In my distress I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.” (Psalm 118:5-6)
One month before my terror-in-the-fog experience, I had a funnier Eureka! moment on January 2. January 1 had been on Sunday, so Monday was a day off from work, the day of the Rose Bowl parade and the New Years’ day bowl games. California takes pride that “it never rains on the Rose Bowl parade.” But this day was the exception to the rule—the skies poured down rain during most of that morning. It was our last day in a home we had bought five years earlier. The previous owners purchased it back from us at the end of 2005. The house was scheduled to be tented for fumigation on Tuesday, January 3 at 8:00 am. We had been moving all weekend, and on Monday morning the house was empty except for piles of junk in the garage. Sharon and I were standing in the garage, watching the downpour through our open garage door, when I suddenly realized that we had to have all this junk taken away in less than 24 hours, and today was a holiday. Sharon commented, “We need to get a dumpster.” I responded, “But today’s a holiday. The garbage company won’t be open today.” Sharon turned, went into the empty house, and said, “I’m going to pray.” In a state of pessimism, I thought to myself, “A lot of good that will do!” And it did!
I remained alone in the open garage, watching the downpour and blaming myself for not having a dumpster brought the previous week. Five minutes later I was shocked when a flatbed truck with two dumpsters drove slowly by our home and stopped in front of our next-door neighbor’s home. I watched as the driver of the truck ran through the rain to the neighbor’s front door, rang the doorbell, pounded on the door, waited, and then ran back to the truck. When he started to back the truck up to leave, I ran through the rain to him. He opened his window. “What are you doing?“ I asked. He responded, “I’m supposed to leave a dumpster for your neighbor, but I can’t do it if they aren’t home.” I suggested, “How about leaving it at my house? I’ll let the neighbor know what happened when they come home.” The driver said,“Ok, but I need $55.47 in cash.” I ran into our house and put together the money between Sharon and me, then ran it back to the driver through the rain. He left a dumpster in front of our house. When there was a break in the rain, I filled the dumpster to overflowing in just 30 minutes. But we still had more junk in the garage, so I called the garbage company. Sure enough, they were open despite it being a holiday. I explained how I got the dumpster, and asked if the truck still had the second dumpster because I needed another one. The receptionist called the driver, then called me back and said, “Sorry, he’s already dropped it off somewhere else. But he can bring you another one by 7:00 am tomorrow if you want.” The next morning at 7:00 am, the driver picked up the full dumpster and left another empty one. By 7:30 am that January 3 morning—30 minutes ahead of the fumigation company—all our junk was out of the garage and in the second dumpster. As I left that home for the final time, I thanked God for providing for us again in a moving pinch (as in 1989 when we moved from Colorado), and for providing me with a praying wife! Later I remembered a verse that says that God knows our needs, and sometimes starts provision on its way to us before we even ask: “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)
Hospice: When I started doing interim pastorates in 1998, I continued to serve full-time with Promise Keepers. I was working about 80 hours/week between the two ministries. Then, during my second interim pastorate in Alhambra, California, Promise Keepers announced on December 2, 1999 that it was closing all its eight regional field offices. I heard this on a national staff conference call that day. All field staff were invited to apply for a few jobs in the Denver home office. I hung up the phone and asked the Lord, “Now what should I do?” The thought occurred to me to call the hospice I had worked for before I started with Promise Keepers in 1996. I had a good relationship with the clinical coordinator of this hospice, my former boss, and she answered the phone when I called. “We don’t have any open chaplain positions,” she said when I explained my need. “In fact, we are shutting down our operations in Orange County. But I know another hospice that is looking for a chaplain. Let me call them for you.” She did, and the oldest and largest hospice in the United States offered me an interview three days later. I was hired that day, and served about 5,000 hospice patients and their families over the next sixteen years. They gave me a flexible work schedule that I needed for my interim pastorates, so I completed my second interim pastorate and did six more while doing hospice full-time, until six months before I had quadruple bypass heart surgery in 2010. During this period of hospice chaplaincy since 1999, the thought occurred to me one day that my role as a hospice chaplain is also like being a tugboat: I come alongside small boats, adrift at sea, whose occupant has just been told by their doctor, “There’s nothing more we can do for you. You have six months or less to live.” Like a tugboat, I guide them into port, helping support them through this life’s final journey while serving a John-the-Baptist function of helping those who are receptive to “prepare for the coming one!” (the coming life after death). For some, like the hospice patient God spoke to me about, “Make sure about _____’s salvation,” I am given the privilege of helping them “prepare for the coming one” by receiving the gift of God’s forgiveness through faith in Christ before they die.