Who Let Loose the "Oopsie" at the Thanksgiving Table and Why We Still Need To Be Thankful--Grandpa's Complete Thanksgiving Story...

We have so much to be thankful for. I wrote this short story to start as a traditional reading for my family with the hope of teaching my kids the true origins of Thanksgiving. I sometimes wonder why so much has been lost I translation over the many years since that first Thanksgiving. 

Perhaps it has been in our ease of forgetting where our true blessings come from. Black Fridays; Cyber Mondays; Taco Tuesdays. It all runs together and blurs out the one thing that we need to always remember: We serve a great and compassionate God who sent His one and only begotten Son to die for us so that He could have a relationship with us...so that not one of His lost children would stay lost.

Christmas is next on the calendar. Let Thanksgiving be the time to prepare your heart to be grateful and remember the Reason for the Season—Jesus Christ.

I hope you enjoy sitting with nine-year-old Tommy and listening to Grandpa's Complete Thanksgiving Story… 

...From the Pages of Grandpa’s Complete Thanksgiving Story…

“Mom used to put the Vick’s rub on my chest. This time, she put it on my feet! She said if you put Vick’s on your feet and wear wool socks to bed, it helps your cough. Uncle Berry said that’s an old wives tale. Dad sad that’s okay because Mom is an old wife. Mom said Dad will be sleeping on the couch tonight…”

Happy Thanksgiving.

Writer's Log: December 11, 2008: Trust Only in God's Timing

I have kept work journals of every major writing project or the last twenty years. At the end of 2008, God led me to write Roger Munchian's story. The title, "Rescued Not Arrested", would not be decided on until the last pages of the manuscript were completed nearly five years later.

The day I opened the blank Microsoft Word page and began typing that critical first sentence (which changed over a dozen times since the inception date), I would never have imagined a
five-year journey. God used every moment not only to move the project toward completion--but also to move His purpose in me one step closer to completion. Trust only God's timing.

Sunday, December 14, 2008
8:15 a.m.

Started a new project two weeks ago--the story of Roger Munchian.
I'm running short on time right now--I'll chronicle details later--but it's a huge project--one brought to me by God. I'm certain it will be a blessing of multiple reasons to serve His purpose.

Drugs and Violence Reduced $150k of Machinery into a Death Trap--and Launched a Ministry

From the Pages of Rescued Not Arrested...

"Nine-one-one,” the voice came muffled, the phone engulfed in his bloody, trembling hand.  “This is the nine-one-one operator,” the voice repeated. 

He lifted the phone to his ear.  “I …”

“Nine-one-one, I hear you sir.  What’s the emergency?”

His lips were thick, tongue swollen.  “I was in an … killed two people.  Car accident.” His slurred voice, raspy from the bile bubbling in his throat. 

“Sir, where is your location?”

He looked around, the world a haze.  The road stretched endlessly, north and south.  Location.  Where is your location?

“Sir?”

He shut his eyes tight, trying to remember, trying to see the road signs, where had he been?  He saw the road racing toward him at a hundred-thirty miles per hour; felt Alma’s touch; heard her laughter. Electrically alive only moments ago.

God help me!’

 “…you said there were fatalities?”

He nodded at the phone.

“Sir?’

“Help.  Send help.”

“Are you injured sir?”

He hung up.  Are you hurt?  Why are you not hurt?  You should be dead … deserve to be dead.
            His eyes focused on the wreckage.  Funny.  Sitting there, a crumpled heap, slightly askew in its lane, but he noticed that it was pointed in the right direction, sitting in the northbound lane, heading due north.  Had it not been crippled by the flattened tires and garroted undercarriage, he’d be driving now.  He’d be driving home.

And then he started to laugh.  Not a giddy laugh, but a hopeless cackle; the kind of despondent snort that echoes off of the emptiness of forlorn toil, the mind’s last tranquilizing defense against the onset of insanity.  Home was only a few miles away.  A few more miles and sweet Alma would be surrounded in downy luxury, trundled away and giggling in a king-sized playground, sparkling with life and surrounded in the zest of frivolity and carnal adventure. 

Life.

Instead, she lay in a forever sleep on a cold, shard-covered asphalt slab, drenched in the violent butchering and harsh elements of a nightmare—mercifully at an end for her—the beginning of a nightmare for him.