Run For Their Life

    The first time I heard the word blog was about 3 years ago. Our preacher Mike was talking about today's ways of communication and how it could be used to spread the Gospel. If you had a blog, that would make you a blogger. At the time, I had no intention of starting a blog or becoming a blogger.  A blogger sounded like something that came from my nose. No thanks.
  Yet, here I am.  Blogging away, trying to reach as many people as I can. Why? Because I have something in my heart that I need to share. At times, I sure this will sound a bit odd or maybe even far fetched.  But, that's who I am. My loving wife of 39 years refers to this as The World According to Les.

Reality Sets In
  I met Jacob about 7 years ago.  I was his 8th grade Sunday School teacher and I also helped out with most of our Youth Group activities. i.e. Youth Conventions, HALO fests at my house, Ultimate Frisbee in the park and so on. As time went by we became friends. Not the kind of friends that throw their arms around each other and say I LOVE YOU MAN, but a competitive friendship from playing the games and Ultimate. For me that is the best kind. I love to compete. However, I am about 37 years older. So trying to keep up and play the game of Ultimate Frisbee with him and the rest of the Youth Group often proved to be very challenging, and sometimes in order to make up for my lack of sprinting speed and general skill of the game, I would get more physical with him to try and slow him down. Now, there was only so much of this that he was gonna take before he would get mad and get in my face about the illegal contact.  Ultimate is suppose to be a none contact sport. It was times like this that let me know we were really friends. Now, is that ODD?
Anyway, most times, when we were on trips together, he would ask my wife Charlyne to put one of his Cd's in the player for everyone to hear. His style of Christian music bothered Charlyne and he knew it. Then he would ask her for a piece of gum. He was always asking her for gum. I think sometimes just to see if she had some. We were friends.

  Now Jacob's music didn't bother me--much. I am a musician and my mind is a little more flexible in that area. I play rhythm guitar and sing on our praise team almost every week. From the stage I can see almost everyone in our congregation. And  usually while trying to read the words and chords of  the songs we are doing I try to look out at my church family. Because to me, there is nothing more beautiful, than to see them with their hands raised and smiles on their faces as they sing Praises to God. And it's usually pretty easy to find any particular person in the group, because, for some reason we all sit in the same place every week.  Not sure why, we just do.  So, one Sunday while we are singing, I see my friends mom with a new hair do. Every hair was in place. It seemed as though it had been straightened and perfectly molded to her face.
The next week it was the same and the week after that the same.

  Now you don't spend 57 years on this earth and not understand that in time everything changes. Especially a woman's hair. It was that 3rd Sunday that my heart sank and I felt a deep sorrow for my friend.
  As Reality Set In I realized, my friends mom had cancer.