Two Fine Young Men

In two hours Friday night our son Donald fixed some computer challenges I’ve struggled with for two weeks.

What a blessing!

He added a new feature to the sidebar of my blog—a Bluefish Books search box right under my Bluefish logo. Now readers can search my books for any subject I’ve ever written about and be taken directly to one of my books that addresses that topic….Er, at least that’s the way it will work once all 22 books have been processed by the Google Books Partner Program (only nine books have been processed so far, but they are working on the others).

I’m tickled.

Donald told us that he updates his early morning video Morning Seminary talks each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It was so funny to see one of his cats climb on him while he talked about dispensationalist ideas in today’s clip.

The church he and Helen attends has a building fund in progress. But recently the congregation became aware of a woman living in a dilapidated trailer. They decided that getting this person decent housing was more important and withdrew money from their building fund to buy her a decent newer mobile home.

I’m impressed.

Another thing impressed me as Donald took Ginny and me to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Ginny often tells me about office problems when she gets home from work. But, over supper, she unloaded her heart to Donald. I think they forgot I was even at the table. I think Donald has a pastor’s heart and his mother was responding to that at a deeper level than she could respond to me.

That really makes me happy.

The other young man I encountered Friday was Reggie, the air conditioning man, who came out to give us an estimate on replacing our 19-year-old system. He is the fifth repairman to give me an estimate on the work.

He explained technical things to me that the others glazed over. It seems that one reason so many companies offer low prices and specials this month is that next year government regulations will phase out the use of freeon coolants because of ozone layer damage and replace that gas with another substance. Therefore some companies are pushing the old-style systems to clear their stock before the new regulations appear.

I’ve picked up hints of this from the other estimators which made me suspect something but I was not sure why they kept encouraging me to look at the 13 seer machines when the tax credit only covers 15 seer and above.

But, aside from air conditioner stuff, Reggie and I talked about local history, gardening, and God. I dug up some bromeliads, firecracker aloe, and pineapple lilies for him to take home to his wife. And we talked a bit about prayer and price.

Reggie’s company charges more than any of the others I’ve talked with.

That may prohibit us from buying from them.

Ginny and I have gathered all the information we can. We’ve prayed about our decision—and even about whether or not we need to make a decision. We are evaluating the various offers and looking at our finances to determine what, if anything we can reasonably afford within our perimeters, budget and plans for Ginny’s retirement.

Price is a big factor for us.

I told Reggie about how driving to a restaurant one evening we stopped at a light and read the bumper sticker of the car ahead:

If You Die Tonight, Will You Be In Heaven—Or In Hell?

I asked Ginny, “If we die tonight will we be in Heaven or in Hell”?

She said, “John, if we die tonight, we’ll still be in debt”.