by Mark Rutledge “The Machine”

Have I Told You This One?

Mark Rutledge 5/29/25 Mark Rutledge 5/29/25

Under the Tree at Nutshell

As I sit here a few days from my 65th birthday, I have taken some time to reflect on the past year. I am grateful for the blessing of making another trip around the sun especially in a year that a huge goal of mine is to “smell the roses” more and eliminate the stressors and things that are unfruitful and/or are a nonproductive use of time and resources. My goal was to focus on those people and events that add value and to pause or step away from the ones that are toxic and too much of a struggle. It was also a year that I purposely chose to focus on me, not in a narcissistic way but hopefully in a healthy way that will set me up for a few more laps around the sun that are productive for me, my family, my friends and my ministry.

A problem with being introspective is that I can be hard on myself at times and not hard enough at other times. I can become too focused on certain things and might miss other blessings because I’m over absorbed. There is also the challenge that emotions and personal accomplishment bring into the picture. I don’t want to be average. I want to excel in everything I try but that is a very high goal that most can’t hit, me included. So, as another year is winding down and, Lord willing, I get to keep going, I ask myself “how did you do Machine and what did you learn in year 65?

I did a deep dive into the misty mountain that is inside of my noodle and one of the areas that I was challenged mightily in this year was having to deal with so many very serious issues with me, my family, my friends and my faith. Although there was a ton to be thankful for and so many blessings, it was hard to stand up at times against the waves of bad news and against the times of waiting on the unknown. Waiting and wondering can be an all-consuming struggle. You know the drill right, waiting on blood tests to see if something major is wrong or life changing. Sleepless nights and unfocused days waiting for the phone to ring. Holding your breath as the disembodied voice on the other end brings the news you have been waiting an eternity to hear. The fast-beating heart leads to either a gigantic exhale or trying to accept the bad news without losing it on the phone. Realizing you have been holding your breath the whole time.

All of this is a test of faith, isn’t it? When asked to pray for someone or something, I do. I know God hears those prayers and my hope is that He will answer them. I also know that He is not a vending machine and that I should be praying constantly and not just when I need or want something. When stuff is happening to the kids or grands, the concern and worry crank up a few notches. I may go down the “bad road” in my thoughts which can take on a life of its own. I can start self-diagnosing my symptoms online and scare the crud out of myself regarding what might be happening. Thankfully, most times it turns out “good” and the scare subsides, and I return to whatever normal is. Sound familiar?

During one of my lengthy waiting periods, I was reading and studying in the book of Mark (awesome Fella that Mark!). In Mark 9:22-24 Jesus encounters a man whose son needs healing. The scribes and some of the disciples have not been able to heal him and the man is beside himself worrying about his beloved son. He is desperate for help. Ever been there? I have…A LOT. As Jesus approaches the group the father of the afflicted boy approaches Jesus, describing his son’s condition and the disciples’ inability to heal the boy.

The father, in his desperation, says to Jesus, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” Can you imagine saying “If you can” to Jesus?! But that is exactly what desperation can look and feel like. Jesus responds, “‘If you can? Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately, the father exclaims, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”. This candid admission reveals the father’s struggle between faith and doubt, a tension many of us experience in our spiritual journeys.

In this context, the father’s plea is a humble acknowledgment of his limited faith and a request for Jesus’ help to overcome his doubts. His statement reflects a sincere desire to believe fully and a recognition of his need for divine assistance. Jesus honors this humble plea, and He proceeds to heal the boy.

This passage reminds me that faith does not require perfection or the absence of doubt. Instead, it calls for honesty and a willingness to seek Jesus’ help in overcoming our unbelief. The father’s cry resonates with anyone who has faced the challenges of doubt and the desire for a deeper, more resilient faith (i.e. ME).

As is usually the case, When I’m seeking God, He has the exact response I need at the perfect time. But being human and being a person that doubts even though I believe, this past year has been full of those times where I needed help in overcoming my doubt and needed my faith reinforced. Perhaps it is just the phase of life that I am going through. It was one thing to say you believe but it is quite another to live that out in the trials of life.

Today’s blog is about a recent time where God did just that for me Under the Tree at Nutshell during a recent trip to Jamaica to serve some brothers and sisters on JA Rock. Thank you for giving this a read today and I hope this story helps you in some way that reinforces your faith and your knowledge of who He is in a powerful way like He did for me.

But First…A Joke:

A dog walks into a telegraph office and finds a bored clerk sitting behind the desk. The clerk looks at the dog and asks, “Are you here to send a telegram?” The dog paws at the ground and barks loudly.

The clerk laughs and says, “Okay, what message do you want to send?”

The dog barks: “Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof!”

The clerk writes it down and then offers, “You know, for the same price, you can fit one more “woof” in there.”

The dog tilts his head and gives him a puzzled look and says, “But then it wouldn’t make any sense.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Driving past a cemetery:

Dad: I wouldn’t want to be buried in this graveyard.

Son: Why not?

Dad: Because I’m not dead yet!

A Verse to Contemplate:

Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words became a delight to me and the joy of my heart. - Jeremiah 15:16

Have I Told You This One?

I was fortunate enough to be able to serve on a Tres Dias weekend at a conference center called Nutshell in Trelawney a little way outside of Montego Bay, Jamaica. As the U.S. team arrived and started setting up for the three-day weekend conference, I noticed the cornerstone of this Baptist Union retreat center. It indicated that the building was dedicated in 1965. I thought to myself that this building was opened not too long after I entered the world in 1960. Like me, the center was showing its age. I mentally tried to imagine what it looked like back in the mid-1960s and how much of a celebration there must have been as prayers were answered, and resources were provided to make someone’s dream come true as the complex was opened to spread the Gospel to the people of Jamaica.

As I was standing on that very spot in 2025, the building clearly needed some TLC and investment to bring it back up to that standard from back in the 1960s. However, as banged up as it was it occurred to me that God was still doing work and ministry there through the rag tag group of brothers and sisters in 2025. Although it was pretty spartan we were excited to do whatever God wanted done. He still changes lives and gives hope even if we were not enjoying the blessings of air conditioning or comfy beds.

I have served several weekends and the risk of that can be that it becomes routine and since we have done it many times before we can rely on our own strength and ability and not reach out to Him. We can also think that it is for others and not for us. The truth is, He has something for ALL of us at the conference, not just the first timers.

As the weekend started, I went into performance mode and tried to do my parts as best as I could. However, I also felt weighed down by some recent medical news that I received just prior to leaving. In addition to waiting for those results I was also troubled by news of two of my daughters and a friend from high school that were also facing big time health challenges. I honestly felt overwhelmed and thought the weekend would take my mind from it for a while. I was wrong. As time wore on, it was consuming my thoughts, and I was troubled and heading down the “bad” path of what could happen.

I believe, help me with my unbelief!!

During the weekend, there are several men on the team that do nothing but pray for the team and the guys going through for the first time. In addition, the weekend is prayed for by members of the community every hour we are there. Nonstop. We are asked to submit prayer requests and are assured that those requests are prayed over. I submitted requests for me, my girls, and my school friend. Honestly, I thought they would pray for them, but I would not hear about it. That was okay, I just wanted those requests to be brought to the throne on my behalf. However, during a break, one of the guys on the prayer team came over and asked me to join them Under the Tree at Nutshell so the entire prayer team could pray with me and for me. I welcomed it and met them there.

The prayer team was four guys who are strong believers and could do some praying son! As we started, they asked me what I wanted prayer for, and I told them in detail. One of the team members asked me a direct question. He asked, “How will you feel when (not if) God answers your prayers?” I told him I would feel very grateful and relieved. He then asked, “What will you do when (not if) God answers your prayers?” I answered that I will tell everyone what He did for me/us.

They anointed me with oil, they laid hands on me, and started praying with confidence that I noticed was missing from my recent prayers. They took my requests to Him with confidence and belief just like we are instructed to do by God. They were bringing it! Not as a show, not trying to impress or talk God into anything but in a way that acknowledged the Great Physician and His awesomeness.

I must tell you all, I wept. That is not something I do very often. Through their prayers, I felt the world leave my shoulders. I went from hoping God would do something to believing He would fulfil His will in the lives of those I requested prayer for. Once it ended, I was spent.

I believe, help me with my unbelief.

After I returned home after the weekend ended, I was driving around running errands and listening to the radio and “Lying Eyes” by The Eagles came on the radio. I’ve heard that song a thousand times easy but there was one of the lyrics that hit me (proving God can and will use ANYTHING to get through to me) hard as if it was an epiphany.

In the second verse it says the following:

Late at night, a big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice

The line that hit me was “I guess every form of refuge has its price”

While The Eagles meant something totally different with it, the lyrics brought to light the struggle of my doubt and the need for my faith to be reinforced. How’s that Machine? Thanks for asking.

I was praying but not really believing 100% in whatever I was praying would come true. Somehow the confidence was not present. There seemed to be so many unanswered prayers. I knew in my mind that God can and will answer prayers, but He seemed distant because my recent prayers were not being answered in the way and at the time I wanted, or at all it seemed. I realized that, over time, I had built up walls of unbelief to protect myself from being disappointed which places me in refuge, but, there is a price to be paid for that refuge. In this case, a weak prayer life and doubt.

So, as the chorus goes:

You can't hide your lying eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes

It now means something to me that I’m sure the guys in The Eagles never meant it to mean.

My time Under the Tree at Nutshell changed me. All believers struggle from time to time with doubt and with life banging on us. He is Sovereign, He loves us, He has a plan for our lives, and He is very capable and willing to answering our prayers. He even provides our strength to believe when we can’t.

I believe, thank You for helping me with my unbelief.

A Prayer:

Good Father, I am undeserving of Your love and forgiveness - but that’s what makes it extravagant. Thank You for washing me and embracing me with arms wide open.

Book Recommendation:

Unhindered Abundance (Restoring Our Souls in a Fragmented World) by Ken Baugh (2021)

Music Recommendation:

Love and Scars by Jerry Gaskill (2015)

Quote of the Day:

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson

A Cool Place to Visit:

Bainbridge Island, Washington

Mark Rutledge 5/12/25 Mark Rutledge 5/12/25

One More Lap Around (Copy)

Isn’t it funny what your brain can recall when you just sit and let it grind? On the one hand I can’t remember a phone number without looking at my phone. When I had to dial it, I knew all of them by heart it seemed. Now, Apple and Siri do that for me. On the other hand, I can remember intricate details of something that happened 50 years ago that means absolutely nothing to my current life. One such passing thought that made an appearance in the misty mind of yours truly this past week took me back to football practice in high school in 1977 (I think).

As I recall, I had a detention for something, (shocker!) and I had to serve it right after school on this day. The problem with that is that football practice was also held right after school. Since I didn’t have an evil twin clone to serve the detention (let’s call it a misunderstanding by the school against one of its finest students), I had to serve my debt to society with all the other low lives of the day. I did my time and was set free to go to practice, albeit an hour late. Side note: Coach was not big on anyone being late.

As captain of the team, the coaches looked poorly at one of their leaders being late for practice, especially for being delinquent of school standards (most likely talking in class and not paying attention). Any who, I was informed that after practice I would have to pay the team and coaching staff some laps on the track. This was not a normal occurrence for me but on that day, I joined the other misbehavers to pay for my sins and to pledge that with all my heart I would never do something so heinous again.

Practice comes and goes, and it has been a full day. I am looking forward to going home and getting a shower and something to eat. Hoping that the coaches may have forgotten (RIGHT!), I start heading for the fieldhouse. A booming voice comes from Coach Croyle, “Hey Rutledge, are we forgetting something?” Poop, he clearly was on top of his game. Me and a few other rule benders marched over to the track for payback time. We are fined with a one mile run or four times around the track. Not bad as punishment goes in those days. I once saw a guy run twenty miles to get back on the team after being kicked off for smoking some illegal weed like substance that smelled like burning rope.

As we go around once, we all notice that it doesn’t appear that Coach is paying real close attention to us as we slowly move around the track. We put our heads together and come up with a plan to get out of one of the laps. We decide that when we come around to where he is sitting in a chair reading a book to all say, “well that’s three” instead of the actual second lap we had just finished. We do as plan, and he says nothing. We all have a great feeling that we pulled one over on him and we might get out of a lap. As we come around again for the (hopefully) last lap we cross the finish line and say, “Well that’s four!” Without even a budge, he looks over the top of the book and says, “One More Lap Around boys, and if you don’t finish it a LOT quicker, I’m going to add some more, get stepping!” We finish that lap and now we are huffing and puffing pretty good, and he adds another lap for screwing around. We look at each other, don’t say a word, and finish our sixth lap and look at him hopefully as we seek redemption for our wayward actions. He says, “Any more questions fellas?” “No sir”. Okay, hit the showers.

Today’s blog will likely be a bit heavier than some of its predecessors. If you are looking for a laugh riot, this one is not going to be that. Life, at times, has a way of knocking the starch out of all of us. It makes us run extra and keeps us from doing the things we want to do. Like you, I’m sure, it makes me weary and leads me to ask some tough questions about what exactly is going on. It makes me wonder why it must be so challenging. Especially if everything had been going relatively well. Today’s blog will be about the One More Lap Around in life we seem to have to do.

Thanks for your time reading this and I hope you enjoy it, even if it is in a different way from normal.

But First…A Joke:

Stan was 26 over par by the 8th hole. He had landed a dozen balls in the water hazard and dug himself into a trench fighting his way out of the rough. When his caddie coughed during a one-foot putt, Stan exploded.

“You’ve got to be the worst caddie in the world!” he screamed.

“I doubt it,” replied the caddie. “That would be too much of a coincidence.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: What do you call a spider with ten eyes?

A: Spiiiiiiiiiider

A Verse to Contemplate:

As it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” - the things God has prepared for those who love him - these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. - Corinthians 2: 9-10

Have I Told You This One?

Luke 16:10 is a very important verse to me. It says, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” Another way to look at this is, if you are unfaithful with the small things, how will He entrust you with bigger things?” It illustrates the type of person I am, regardless of the circumstances and people involved. I should be the same person when it is going easy as I am when things are difficult.

Lately, I have been worn down by bad news. It has made me weary. It has zapped my strength, and it seems like it takes a bigger effort just to power forward. My spirit and resolve seem to have taken a hit. I feel like I bow up when the storms come and take the fight to the enemy, but recovery seems to take longer and is less victorious. It seems like it takes all I’ve got to take One More Lap Around. People have let me down. Trust in others is a challenge. Failure has knocked me down. Our “leaders” show themselves to have clay feet and weak resolve. Work is not fulfilling. My friends and family are constantly being attacked by health issues. Some very serious. People I care about are addicted to drugs and alcohol. Divorce and broken relationships seem routine and normal. Deaths of loved ones is painful.

Fatigue and discouragement have replaced energy and excitement. It hurts so much. Where do you find the motivation and strength to do One More Lap Around? The greatest energy drainer is trying to deal with all of this is in my own strength. It’s exhausting. I’m aware that no one promises you or me an easy life and typically it is hard when everything is going “right.”

In my own circle, I’ve spent 40 years dealing with a brother with sobriety issues. I can’t count the times I had to decide to take One More Lap Around. Why do it? What will change? Is there a point to it?

My family has been chased by a curse of kidney failure for 50 years. When I hear about another one visited by this demon, I think, he we go again, One More Lap Around. When it’s your kid, it’s heartbreaking.

A lot of this is just “life” but it wears on you. Weariness is an opportunity for the Lord to strengthen me and you. He uses His people to energize and encourage one another. We are all needy, and it is just a matter of time before we learn how to receive strength from Him. The Lord wraps his strength around the gift of a prayer warrior - someone who storms heaven on your behalf.

This week a lifelong friend that I met in grade school informed us that she had cancer and asked for prayers on her behalf and for her family. “Life” didn’t leave them alone because of one concern as they also lost a parent in the same week. My heart hurts big for them. I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself and rally around my friend and her family. What came to mind was that I couldn’t do anything to help in my own strength but allowing the Lord to work through me in prayer was the best approach. Christ’s strength comes from being still. He strengthens my soul by ceasing to strive and allowing Him to work. This total trust in him is what I saw in my friend and that energizes me. Here is a person facing a mountain that seems immovable, but she has all her cards played and trusts in the only One that can make it worth One More Lap Around.

Why go One More Lap Around? The good parts are why. Someone is watching how we handle things. They see what we really believe when it looks the worst. God trusts us with more when we are faithful in the small. I am honored to pray for her. He tells us to come to him with confidence and expectations that He will answer our prayers. I don’t know what will happen to the things I’m dealing with or what my friend is fighting but I know this: He is Sovereign, He loves us, and He has a plan for each of us.

Her fighting spirit picked me up out of the dumpster I was in and energized me to get up and fight with her. Please join me and believe that He is the Great Physician and anything and everything is possible. It is always worth One More Lap Around.

Fight like hell my friend, I’m praying and I’m not stopping.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I draw my strength from You. I want to seek You with all my heart. When I’m weary, I need Your refuge. Take this beaten and broken spirit of mine and fill it with courage, endurance, and unrelenting faith to face each day You have gifted me with purpose and grace. Plant in me a desire to spend intimate time with You because I know I will never be the same after being in Your presence. Lift me in my hurting so that I may be a source of Your strength to others. Make my weakness a strength. Make my strengths a glory to You.

Book Recommendation:

A Fire to Win, The Life and Times of Woody Hayes by John Lombardo (2005)

Music Recommendation:

The Wolves Are Coming by Philip Sayce (2024)

Quote of the Day:

“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!” - Tom Lehrer

Cool Place to Visit:

West Palm Beach, Florida

Mark Rutledge 5/12/25 Mark Rutledge 5/12/25

One More Lap Around

Thanks for your time reading this and I hope you enjoy it, even if it is in a different way from normal.

But First…A Joke:

“You’ve got to be the worst caddie in the world!” he screamed.

“I doubt it,” replied the caddie. “That would be too much of a coincidence.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: What do you call a spider with ten eyes?

A: Spiiiiiiiiiider

A Verse to Contemplate:

Have I Told You This One?

Fight like hell my friend, I’m praying and I’m not stopping.

A Prayer:

Book Recommendation:

A Fire to Win, The Life and Times of Woody Hayes by John Lombardo (2005)

Music Recommendation:

The Wolves Are Coming by Philip Sayce (2024)

Quote of the Day:

“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!” - Tom Lehrer

Cool Place to Visit:

West Palm Beach, Florida

Mark Rutledge 4/22/25 Mark Rutledge 4/22/25

On A Journey to Find Home

Hey there! It’s been a while. I decided to take a step back for a tick and spend some time unconnected. It is amazing what turning the TV and radio off can do for you and for your well-being. The “hate meter” seems to be at an all-time high lately and everyone has an opinion as to why. I’m just not interested anymore in joining in, so I just don’t most days. When serious trials come to visit, the rest of that stuff just seems so trivial. The last several years have really had an impact on what I really care about and what stuff is fluff (or is that the medication talking?).

As I have been trying to re-enter the mainstream of life after stepping back for the last three years or so, a lot of things I was happy to leave behind are making their appearance known and felt. Deadlines, keeping the train on the tracks and moving straight ahead, paying the bills, if my ministry is making any impact, concern about the schedules of others, the ups and downs of dating and wondering if I’m just better off alone (major stressor), trying to keep people happy (yeah, right), finances, health and just attempting to keep from losing my mind over some of the people I share oxygen with on this planet. Short story long, I felt the walls closing in on me, so I decided to go on a few journeys/trips and just relax and have some fun. That is one of my ways of getting back to center. All that to say, I’m very happy to have the autonomy to say “Hey Rut, let’s get the hell out of here and go find something fun to do and let the others drive each other crazy, I’m out. There is nothing more exhausting for me now than having to sit and listen to someone complain about work, their spouse, the government, the stock market, their kids, their neighbors, etc. I know I should probably be more accommodating and a better kinder friend, but I’ll get back to that when I get back home. There is so much to see and experience in this world.

As our friend Willie Nelson sang:

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again

I got the traveling bug after I graduated from college (Go Zips! Fear The Roo!). Up until then I had not been very far from the Rubber City (Akron, Ohio) except for a few trips to Florida in the 60s. I had never been on a plane until my first assignment at my new job in 1984 when they sent me across the country to San Diego, California. The gates opened wide after that first one. I worked for an international valuation consulting firm, and I started traveling a TON. It was like going from 0 to 100 and I was all in. Being a music lover, there are endless songs about life on the road, traveling non-stop, seeing new things, experiencing different people and different cultures, and always wanting to head back HOME.

I have been to 42 of the 50 states. I’ve done some international travel too. I’ve been to Mongolia, India, Myanmar, Bhutan, South Korea, Belgium, Canada, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cozumel, Virgin Islands, and horrible places like Michigan (sorry, had to!). Not a lot of places but enough to have experienced that the rest of the world is not necessarily like Akron, Ohio or Woodstock, Georgia. I am a 2 million miler traveler on the airlines, primarily Delta, over the last 40 years or so. I know what “it might get a little bumpy” usually means. I’ve got stories for days about small town America over my journeys around the country. I switched from loathing to loving big cities after experiencing all that there is to see and do in those places. I have also had the “joy” of mostly horrible hotel room views over that time as well. My late wife even made them into a book for me. One of my best gifts ever!

It is an absolute blast to go someplace that you like or someplace new to explore. The anticipation, the planning, the freedom, and the high I get from seeing a place that I had previously only read about or saw on TV or heard about from a friend’s story. Taking a loved one for their first trip to the ocean and watching their eyes get big when they see it and seeing them turn around and give you a hug because they are so happy. Watching the eyes of an older person seeing something they have always wanted to see or perhaps returning to seeing it after being gone for so long. To see the tears roll down their cheek as the memories come flooding back. Or maybe going someplace that your late parents or spouse wanted to go with you. Taking in God’s awesome creativity and excellence and (for me) realizing that there is indeed a Creator and that I am here for a purpose and that all of this can’t be due to a random explosion.

However, for me, the best part of any trip is heading back HOME. Looking forward to having a place I call my own and to seeing people who love me and care about me. Going to MY church, My restaurants, My friend’s houses, My traffic jams, My idiot politicians, My neighbors, and My one-of-a-kind family.

Let me ask you a question. Do you do like I do when you go someplace you’ve never been and after you look around a bit and take it all in, ask yourself or somebody with you this question…Do you think you could live here? The question really is…Could THIS place be My home?

I have been gone from my first home in Tire Town for 41 years now. I was there for 24 before I packed all my worldly possessions in a Ryder truck and moved to Atlanta, Georgia. When I return to Akron to visit, it always FEELS like HOME. I even say to my friends and family before I leave, “I’m going back HOME for a visit.” When I’m away for work or vacation and they call the plane for Atlanta, I say “I’m going HOME.” I ask the person sitting next to me, “Are you going Home or to work?”

Today’s blog is a trip my Sis and I took recently and how it relates to my Journey to Find Home and how that has changed over the almost 65 years of my life and how the different journeys in my/your lives have been pivotal in defining what HOME really is. Thanks for indulging me a little longer. I hope you find it worth reading.

But First…A Joke:

“I’ve determined the addictions that plague all of you,” a psychologist announced to the support group he was leading. “Your obsessions can be seen in what you decided to name your children.” Turning to one woman, he said, “You ma’am, are addicted to money, which is why you named your daughter Penny.” To another participant, the psychologist said, “You have a problem with food, which explains why your daughter is Candy.” Another man got up and headed for the door with his son in tow. “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said to his child. “Let’s go home, Watching Football on TV.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Hostess: Sorry about your wait.

Dad: Me, too. I’ve really packed on the pounds since college.

A Verse to Contemplate:

“I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to Me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in Me will ever thirst again.” John 6:35

Have I Told You This One?

If you are going on a trip, any trip, there are certain things that are common for each one, (1) there are things you know, (2) things you hope to find out, and (3) there is always something unexpected or unplanned that you must deal with.

My Sis and I just got back from a 10-day trip out to Arizona. I have recently fallen in love with that state and the awesome beauty that can be experienced along with the history, modern cities, historical places, great food and the unlimited things to do. It is so different from either Ohio or Georgia it feels like I am in a totally different country sometime.

My Sis had never been out there before so I asked her if she would go on an adventure with me. I was out there last year at about the same time of the year but really wanted to go back. Thankfully she said yes so, we started planning. Like most trips and journeys in life the “fun part” takes forever to get here. As we were sitting waiting for our plane to Phoenix to be called, we looked at each other like little kids. I had always wanted to do this with her, but life has a way of getting in the way. Once we boarded and buckled in the rush of adrenalin hit and we were off!

Life’s journeys are like that too, right?

The first time is always the most exciting. We are trying to figure out what we know, what hope to find out and have concern about the unexpected or things we didn’t think about that we now have to deal with.

The first time you care about someone deeply and they say that they feel the same about you it is definitely a rush and quite a good feeling. You hope the way you feel about each other will last forever and you are really enjoying being with them. But then, they get sick, or they get tired of you, or they find someone else, and you must deal with the unexpected and unplanned and the rush is of a different type and your heart is broken and you must decide what’s next as you wrestle with all the questions and issues.

So, my Sis and I travel to Sedona after visiting with family and checking out the big city of Phoenix and the historical city of Prescott. We treat ourselves or are treated to the better things of life for a few days. It is going great, but I keep telling her to wait until you see what’s coming next. Again, the adrenalin starts to pump. As we are driving into Sedona through the curvy mountain roads the red rocks and beautiful rock formations start to come into view and Sis has her breath taken away. Around each curve she lets out another WOW. She gets quiet for a minute, and I look over and see that she is crying from the beauty she is taking in for the first time. I reach over and hold her hand and nod in agreement, it is beautiful and I’m glad we are seeing it together. I’m so happy that she is that happy. “Just keep driving Mark, I can’t speak right now.”

Life’s journeys are like that too, right?

The beauty of new beginnings brings so much joy to your heart. Realizing that God loves me and knew me before I was born. That He cared enough to send His only son to die for me so that I could be free and live eternally in a place that the beauty is endless and the joy never ending. Out of all the billions of people in the world He cares this much for me (and you). Seeing beauty from a different pair of eyes and from a different perspective. Feeling it so much in your soul that it brings tears. You thought you knew how beautiful life could be but now you find out that it can be so much more, and you wonder how you will even deal with all of it but can’t wait to get started.

Sis and I leave Sedona (reluctantly) and head for the Grand Canyon. She doesn’t believe me when I say that “You’ve not seen anything yet!” She can’t believe that anything can be better than what we just saw and experienced. She asks, “what is it like?” I say that it is so hard to explain, and I pause to try and get the right words. As we are driving and getting closer, we see snow covered mountains, beautiful cloud formations, and incredible scenery. I told her that for me it was like seeing the ocean for the first time. I was in complete awe and no matter how many times I see it I never get enough of it. We park the car inside the National Park and head for our first glance and the big hole in the ground. BAM! It hits her (and me) head on. She keeps saying “I can’t believe what I’m looking at, it’s surreal.” We hiked around for a few hours and now we must head back to Flagstaff where we are staying.

Life’s journeys are like that too, right?

We know certain things in life are going to be awesome no matter how many times we experience them, but the question is, which ones? There are things that we deeply want to experience or have happen to us like getting married, having children, having our own home, having a good job that encourages us to thrive, watching the kids do well in whatever they choose, hearing the kids laugh and enjoy life, going to their weddings and walking them down the aisle, having grandchildren, and living a comfortable life with someone who you love. You hope that you find out that there is even more than you knew about and that it makes you feel completely and fully happy. But life happens to all of us. There are things (sometimes many things) that don’t quite work out as we planned, and it hurts us. Accidents, health issues, the kids make bad decisions, you pick the wrong job, you pick the wrong whatever, you make some bad decisions that impact your life negatively and you don’t feel like it will ever get better. We may have to leave the awesome and go back to less. But I want to stay at an awesome place! Why do I have to leave or do something else. It’s not fair.

Back in Flagstaff Sis and I stroll into one of the many brew houses in this college town after dinner at this great little noodle place. We may or may not have had a few frosty adult beverages and tried our hand at trivia night when the 20 something college folks started rolling in. We looked like someone’s parents, and we certainly could have been, but we don’t care. We are enjoying a night out that we haven’t been able to do in forever. The frosty goodness is going down easy, and we decide to stay for trivia, at least for the first round. We can’t go back to the hotel and call it a night yet! So, the first round starts, and the topic is The Sopranos. I’ve never watched it and know nothing, and my Sis knows some but as it turns out, nothing about the specific questions asked. Out of the six questions, we get one right. The question was “What is Tony’s wife’s name? Our answer…Mrs. Soprano. “Goodnight, everyone, we’re out.” We must drive to Phoenix tomorrow and go home.

Life’s journeys are like that too, right?

There are a lot of fun things and celebrations during life. Enjoy them all and don’t worry about whether you fit in or not. Typically, it is some lie you are telling yourself anyway. Those young folks welcomed us into their place, and we had a great time. I learned not to be so hung up on appearances and just let all the silliness go away. At some point we all must head back to the responsibilities we left behind, but we can still have some fun and build some great memories. Mrs. Soprano agrees with me, so you take your victories and celebrate, no matter how small they may be. The journey is the fun part, not the destination!

After taking the red eye home from Phoenix, we arrived in Atlanta, and I was HOME. Sis had one more flight before she would be HOME back in Ohio. I walked her to her gate, and we knew what was next. Saying goodbye again for the umpteenth time. We were both tired but satisfied with our journey but were both looking forward to being back HOME and back to the familiar but thankful for the new memories made and the new experiences.

Life’s journeys are like that too, right?

I love to travel and my life and yours have been a long, strange trip (to quote a famous band). The journeys are what make it a full life. Not necessarily the trophies and awards (It’s a major award!). We think we know how things are going to go, and we are for sure hoping to find out some new things along the way, but we also know that there will be some setbacks and unexpected and unplanned things along the way. I am On A Journey To Find Home and I hope you are too. I know where my HOME is, and I hope to find out new things about that HOME every day. This temporary place is not my forever HOME, and I am reminded about that every day. Each day is a small journey of a much bigger journey. The travel experiences are good and not so good. Some treat you well and others clearly do not. Tomorrow will always bring something unplanned and unexpected just like a trip. Enjoy what you know and hope for the unknown to be great and deal with the unplanned and unexpected the best that you can. As Bad Company sings in the song “Moving On” … I’m fastening my safety belt again and taking off again and I’m movin’ on, movin’ on down the line.

Thanks for your time to read this. God bless you and your family.

A Prayer:

Holy Spirit, help me to sit in the stillness. Forgive me for searching for satisfaction in so many wrong places when I already know that You alone will satisfy my soul. Burn in me that You are enough and always have been.

Book Recommendation:

Don’t Believe Everything You Think (Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning and Ending of Suffering) by Joseph Nguyen (2022)

Music Recommendation:

Fastway by Fastway (1983)

Quote of the Day:

“I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.” - Lily Tomlin

A Cool Place to Visit:

Cooperstown, New York

Mark Rutledge 3/27/25 Mark Rutledge 3/27/25

Hope Springs Eternal

For me, today is one of the best days of the year. Opening Day is the official start of the major league baseball season. When I was working, I typically took a “personal day” and stayed at home and watched the triple header on ESPN. From Opening Day forward, I will watch a LOT of baseball. Even in my 60’s I can’t get enough of it. For those of you who think baseball is boring, I have one suggestion. Go join a local team and try and do what they do and for kicks try and make it look as easy as they do it. It has always been incredible to me. Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports in my humble opinion.

Back in Ohio growing up it also seemed like an unofficial end to the cruddy weather we had been dealing with for the past four months or so. Even though it was “iffy” that the weather would hold up in late March in Cleveland for an opener it always seemed warmer with baseball being back. Games were rained out, snowed out, “colded” out, but the hardy folks from northeast Ohio filled up the Stadium to welcome back baseball and revive the hopes of “this is the year”.

It has now been 76 years since the Tribe enjoyed being “World” champs. But every year the most loyal fans in the entire universe allow themselves to believe that this is the year it’s going to finally happen. Hope Springs Eternal indeed for the Erie Warriors. If you ever want to get married and are looking and hoping for a loyal partner, choose an Indians or Browns fan because if nothing else, we are loyal without a doubt and you can probably throw in optimistic, romantic and delusional.

Even though I have lived in Atlanta, Georgia for the last 41 years, a lot of the way I view the world and other people was placed in me growing up in northeast Ohio. As I got older and started traveling around the country, I started to realize that the world didn’t rotate around my community in Akron, Ohio and in fact there were two or three people that had not even heard of my hometown (the horror!). However, one thing about us “guys” from Ohio is that we have a somewhat large chip on our shoulders from people taking shots at our beloved homeland. We seem to defend her honor with some oomph. One of the results of that (to me) is that it can build an attitude in you that will keep you in the “fight” until they have to drag you out of there. You might beat us once, but you better pack lunch because tomorrow you are going to have to do it again.

One of my greatest memories of Opening Day was in 1975. The Hall of Famer, Frank Robinson, became the first black manager in the American League and was also a player-manager for the Tribe. I was in the 9th grade and really wanted to see the game and experience this part of history being made just 40 miles up the road from Akron. Back in those days we didn’t get to see every game or have the ability to stream games on our phones. We had transistor radios. That’s as advanced as it got back in the mid-1970s for this tire builder’s kid. School was pointless on opening day. Even though my beloved Tribe was always picked to finish last or next to last every year, Hope Springs Eternal. The tough guys from Cleveland would show the world that we could compete with the Yankees, Red Sox and other big city teams in the American League East. So, I’ve got my earpiece in for my radio that is hidden in my gym roll (like about six or seven other guys in the class) and Frank Robinson pinch hits HIMSELF into a close game. The bat goes on forever it seems, and me and my buddies are eyeballing each other and then BOOM!!! Robinson hits one out. Joe Tait and Herb Score announce to all of us…” It’s Outta Here!! In unison, all of us listening to the game on our radios leap out of our seats at the same time yelling “It’s Gone!”. The teacher was not amused. I definitely think she was a Yankees fan. She collected all the radios, and I never saw that one again. Who cares! That was GREAT!! I’m in my 60’s and I still get excited remembering that. Trust me, soccer will never do that for me.

One of the great things about baseball is that all the “experts” will pick their picks every year (and it usually is not my guys) but you still have to play 162 and anything can happen. Sometimes the team you least expect to get on a roll and surprise everyone and win the whole thing or at least make a long run in the playoffs. It does seem to give hope that anything is possible and if you work at its good things can happen.

Today’s blog is my attempt to relate Hope using baseball as a backdrop. Thanks for giving it a go today, I appreciate it. Let’s Play Ball!

But First…A Joke:

A cowboy from Michigan walks into a bar. “What can I get for you?” the bartender asks. “A double whiskey, neat,” he replies. As the bartender from Ohio pours, she asks, “How’s it going today?” “I have a problem with my horses,” the cowboy admits. “I want to train one of them to be a racehorse and the other to be a workhorse, but they look so similar I can’t tell them apart!”

The bartender thinks it over for a minute and says, “How about you cut off one of their manes?” “That’s actually a great idea,” the cowboy says.

One month later, the cowboy returns to the bar, looking depressed again. The bartender asks, “How are your horses?” “The mane trick worked great at first, but then the hair grew back, and I can’t tell them apart!” She suggests, “Can you shave the hair off one of their tails?” “That might work…” the cowboy replies.

Another month has passed. The cowboy returns, distraught. “Their tails and manes are the same length again!” he complains. Exasperated, the bartender asks, “Can’t you just measure their height or something?”

A week later, the cowboy returns joyously and hugs the surprised bartender. “What’s going on?” the bartender asks.

“It worked! The white horse is three inches taller than the black horse!”

Bonus Dad Joke:

The other day, a German shepherd peed on my front lawn, right in front on me. And today, he brought his dog with him!

A Verse to Contemplate:

So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. - Isaiah 41:10

Have I Told You This One?

One of the greatest World Series to ever be played was played in 2016 between the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Cubs (trust me). Going into the Series, the Cubs had not won a World Series since 1908 and the Indians since 1948. One of these two cities that had waited a long time were finally going to say that indeed it was their year. Hope Springs Eternal for sure! The Indians won 94 games and took the American League pennant by beating Toronto 4 games to 1. The Cubs won 103 games and beat the Dodgers to take the National League. The Series opened in Cleveland.

As an Indians fan, I am glued to the games. Cleveland jumps out to three games to one lead with two shutouts. One more to go. Anyone that is a sports fan knows it’s not over till it’s over (thanks Yogi!) and unfortunately, that became true in this one.

Game 5 Cleveland lost 3-2 at Wrigley. No problem. The Series shifts back to Cleveland, and we only need to win one of two at the Jake. Game 6 the Cubs blow us out 9-3 so the Series is tied at 3 games apiece and it goes to Game 7. Hope Springs Eternal. There’s no way we are going to blow this, right? No sleep all night, worthless at work, can’t eat dinner, and finally game time.

Game 7 turns out to be a Classic! The Tribe has their ace Cory Kluber pitching, Hope Springs Eternal. First batter of the game, Dexter Fowler (who?) hits a home run for the Cubs. Are you kidding me? The Tribe ties in back up in the third inning playing some small ball, Hope Springs Eternal. The Cubs scored two in the fourth and then take a 4-1 lead in the fifth off a homer by Javier Baez. Oh no, Kluber is out. Andrew Miller relieves Kluber and gives up a run to push it to 5-1, CRAP! Cleveland scored two in the fifth but gave up another homer this time to David Ross (David bleeping Ross) in the sixth to make it 6-3. It looks bleak. I’m preparing myself for another Wait till Next Year silver lining. The Cubs bring in Aroldis Chapman to close out. It’s over. But is it? Hope Springs Eternal, right?

With two out in the eighth Brandon Guyer (who?) knocks a double that scores 2 to make it 6-4. The last hope is Rajai Davis hitting a whopping .132. A long one ties it but I’m already sitting there with my arms crossed saying naughty words. But Hope Springs Eternal and Davis hits it out and ties the game. I’m waking the neighbors up now!

The Cubs blow a great chance to score in the ninth and the Tribe does nothing in their half of the ninth and then… a RAIN DELAY! Are you kidding me? Every Cleveland fan in the world KNEW that was it. After the rain delay in the top of the 10th inning Ben Zobrist (0-4 in the game) drives in a run and Miguel Montero (who?) batting .091 knocks in another run to take it to 8-6.

In the bottom of the 10th Cleveland’s first two batters go down quietly and they are down to their last out (again!). Davis comes up again with a guy on second after a walk and a steal and knocks him in, Hope Springs Eternal! The Cubs bring in Mike Montgomery (who?) with zero career saves to win the World Series, Hope Springs Eternal. Michael Martinez (who?) grounds out and that’s all she wrote folks!

The great thing about baseball is that there is always Hope as long as you keep playing the game. As this game showed, a lot of “unknown” players made it happen in the most important game of their season and probably their lives, on both teams.

Last year, Cleveland was predicted to come in fourth in a weak Central Division of the American League but ended up winning 92 games and running away with the division. They made it all the way to the American League Championship Series before losing to the Yankees (ughh). This year they are predicted to finish third in a weak Central Division of the American League. So, Hope Springs Eternal, and there are 162 games to play to see if the “experts” are “right.”

I hope the “experts” in your life and mine underestimate us too so that we can show them how wrong they are. You and I receive unique opportunities to serve the Lord and others in our lives. There are times when Jesus will ask me/you/us to join him as He is at work in the life of our friends, family, or coworker. God is glorified when He uses the seemingly less qualified to carry out His plans and to change lives in the process. If I am preoccupied with my own needs, I will miss the blessing of sharing in this Divine activity. God is gracious; He forgives, and He will provide other opportunities. That particular opportunity is missed forever, however. He will even use our failings to bring about good, but it is critical that we respond when He asks in obedience. We don’t have to, we get to! My Hope Springs Eternal because I know where that Hope comes from and what it can do. I hope you do too.

Play Ball! Go Tribe! Let’s Shock the World!

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, still my heart in the silence and reveal Your love to me. Teach me to silence the voices of doubt and despair and to receive Your grace and compassion.

Book Recommendation:

How God Makes Men by Patrick Morley (2013)

Music Recommendation:

Free by Office of Strategic Influence (“OSI”) - (2006)

Quote of the Day:

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners” - Charleton Heston

Cool Place to Visit:

Coronado Island, California

Mark Rutledge 3/20/25 Mark Rutledge 3/20/25

The Tale of the Lost Acorn

Happy First Day of Spring!

Feelings can be incredibly difficult to deal with and they can be awesome and make you feel on top of the world. You can experience both of those feelings within minutes of each other. You can enjoy them so much that you never want to feel any different or you can hate the feeling so much that you want to rant to the world.

For today’s blog entry, let’s start off with a couple of questions. Sound, okay? Great. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to clear your mind. After each question, think about how you would FEEL as these things took place.

How would you feel if your phone rang at 2:30 am and your only remaining parent was in the hospital in another state?

How would you feel if a surgeon comes to you in the waiting room and says, “He did great! We got it done just in time and he will recover fully?

How would you feel if you were waiting for test results all weekend and the phone rings and it is the doctor himself on the other end saying you need to come to the office immediately?

How would you feel if a cancer report came back clean and you’re in total remission?

How would you feel if you heard the doorbell ring and a police officer, and your child were standing on the front porch and neither looked very happy?

How would you feel if your boss called you from his office and asked you to step in and when you got there, he asked you to take a seat between him and the guy from HR?

How would you feel if you were coming home from Margarita Monday, and you looked in the rear-view mirror and noticed a police car behind you?

How would you feel when you go to ICU and must decide to take the person you loved most in this world off of life support?

How would you feel if someone you really cared for called and said, “we need to talk about our relationship”, and she doesn’t sound like her normal pleasant self?

I know “a guy” that has had all the above happen to him at some point in his life. You might like this “friend”, he’s a pretty good looking, smart, funny sort of guy that has experienced a lot of highs and lows through life. These “body shots” and “victories” take their toll. But life is never good without the bad. How would you know one without the other? Do you FEEL like you’ve had more than your fair share lately? My friend says he has had plenty and would enjoy a break from the tougher days in exchange for some much sunnier days.

Who or what do you turn to? Do you just suck it up? What gives you the strength to endure it. Who do you give credit to? Who do you blame? Who do you let know how you REALLY feel? Do you go into protect mode and come out swinging? How long until you return to “normal” again? Do you still have enough drive and determination to keep on fighting or do you want to give up? Are you embarrassed that you even thought about quitting?

When the “bad” ones happen, these are the times when you feel the anxiety meter pegging, your heart rate rockets, you can feel your pulse through your chest, the acid reflex feeling in the back of your throat is almost too much. You are forced to hear news that you don’t want to hear EVER. You don’t eat. You can’t sleep. You are not a lot of fun to be around and overall, not very productive. At least that’s what my friend tells me.

He also tells me that when the “good” times happen, life seems to slow down considerably, and everything feels like you always wished it would feel. The sun is so bright, the sky is so blue. That woman’s eyes wreck you. The baby looks so precious you want to devote the rest of your life to making sure they have everything they need. The news seems better. The food tastes great and the Browns are in the Super Bowl (okay, that last one is a lie).

Hey Rutmachine, that sure is a lot of questions! You going anywhere with all this? Are you going to land the plane? What gives? What does all of this have to do with an Acorn buddy boy?

I’m glad you asked.

Today’s blog is about a couple of stories. One from the somewhat distant past and the other very recent that has something in common with the Lost Acorn that seems to show up just at the right time to remind me who I am and who I am not. How this Acorn is a reminder of God’s faithfulness and love even if I am too busy to listen to Him and accept those gifts from Him.

Intrigued? Please keep reading and indulge me for a few more minutes. I’m thankful that you are taking the time to give this a spin and listen to my goofy stories and tales of woe, and I hope it is at least a little helpful and makes you think, laugh, cry and pray as that is my goal in writing these blogs.

But First…A Joke:

A guy goes to a psychiatrist. “Doctor, I keep having these alternating dreams. First, I’m a teepee; then I’m a wigwam; then I’m a teepee; then I’m a wigwam. It’s driving me crazy. What’s wrong with me?

The doctor replies: “It’s very simple. You’re two tents.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: What do you call a kid fortune-teller who ran away from school?

A: A small medium at large.

A Verse to Contemplate:

Call on Me in a day of trouble; I will rescue you, and you will honor Me. Psalm 50:15

Have I Told You This One?

So, here we go with story numero uno.

Back in the late 1990’s I’m working for a particular valuation company, and I had only recently joined that firm after leaving a firm I had been with for almost 14 years. I was more than a little apprehensive when the economic and industry activity both slowed considerably and the need for our particular consulting services was starting to be impacted severely, and a price war was raging, and it was hard to keep everyone working and fully productive. There had been rumors of layoffs all through Atlanta and with other competitor firms so going to another firm was going to be difficult if something turned further south.

I had told Michelle that I was really starting to be concerned. At the time I was the only one working outside of the home and we had three little girls under 10 years of age. It was the first time in my career that I was worried about getting let go. I tried to do all I could do to make the decision tough for my employer if it came to that, but I knew my head was directly on the chopping block given my position and seniority with the firm.

As I feared, one day I got a call on the phone from my boss to step into his office as soon as possible. No sentence that ends with “as soon as possible” is ever a good thing. I came to his office and knocked on the door and was told to come in. Once I opened the door, I saw an empty chair between him and the guy from HR. Poop, my number had been punched. First and only time in my career that it happened but none the less, at the time it FELT terrible, and I FELT like a failure. I really didn’t hear anything after he said, “I’m sorry Mark but I have some bad news.” I FELT like I was outside of my body for a moment and my heart was beating through my chest. The technical term would be, IT SUCKED! After the news was delivered, I did the Bataan Death March back to my (now former) office and started packing my stuff in the proverbial banker box and headed to the car racking my brain to come up with how I’m going to break this to my wife and kids. FUN TIMES!

I was blessed with a great woman that I called my wife. She was loving and helpful and convinced me that I wasn’t a failure and that it wouldn’t feel terrible for long. She suggested I take a few days to pray and think it through. She knew me well enough to know that I am a chronic over-thinker, and this one was going to need a few days to process.

After a sleepless night, I quit trying to sleep and got up before dawn and sat in my chair and picked up a devotional that I was reading for my morning quiet time hoping for some silver lining inspiration or at a minimum something to make the thoughts in my head go away for a few moments. The following devotion was taken from Experiencing God Day by Day by Henry & Richard Blackaby (1998/2006), and it was what I read that morning.

Did you know that you bring glory to God by calling upon Him when you are in distress? God promised He would deliver you if you turned to him. You deny the Lord honor that is rightfully His every time you find yourself in difficulty and you fail to call upon Him for help! There may be times when God allows you to reach a point of need so that you can call upon him and thus let Him demonstrate to a watching world the difference He makes in the lives of His children. If God never allowed you to experience need, people around you might never have the opportunity to witness God’s provision in the life of a Christian. If you never faced a shortfall, you might be tempted to feel self-sufficient and without any need of God in your daily life.

Pride will tempt you to think that you do not need to seek God’s assistance. Self-regard will seek to convince you that you can handle your dilemma through your own wisdom, resources, and hard work. Pride will also rob glory from God and seek to give it to you. Don’t allow your pride to take what rightfully belongs to the Lord. Call upon your Lord and wait exclusively upon Him to rescue you. Then give Him the glory that He deserves.

Self-sufficiency can greatly hinder your ability to experience God and bring Him honor. The next time you are in distress, turn to Him!

WOW! Talk about perfect timing. It hit me right between the eyes and it FELT like God himself was looking over my shoulder when I was reading it.

I was given some advice from a friend who had gone through a job loss, and he suggested that I spend a day hiking and praying to seek God’s direction in the next phase of my life. That sounded weird but good to me, so I got in my car and drove to the lake near my home and spent the next 3 or 4 hours walking the trails, praying, thanking Him for everything, and asking for advice and direction. Along the way I reached down and picked up an acorn and held it in my hand the entire day. Once I got back to the car I reached in my pocket and found it and honestly couldn’t remember picking it up since my mind was all over the place that day. I FELT better after the walk and confident that He was going to work things out and that I needed to let Him provide and stop worrying.

As a reminder of that day, I placed that acorn in the sun visor of my car next to my garage door opener so that every time I opened the garage door, I would remind myself of that day and of His promises to provide. That Acorn stayed in my car even after He provided a new and better job for me. I was thankful and trusted in a God that kept His promises.

Years go by and somehow the acorn disappears from the sun visor and like Moses in the Bible after seeing the glory of God, the brightness in his face faded and wore off. I had no idea where it was and frankly things were going well, and I had become self-sufficient and apparently didn’t feel the need for the daily reminder anymore. The anxiety and acid reflux disappeared or was ignored after things “leveled out” and the drama subsided. Thanks Lord, I’ll take it from here.

Story el numero dos:

Jump ahead for about 30 years. I have been a widower for some time now and have zero prospects on being with another woman. When Michelle passed, I didn’t even think about dating or anything like that up until about the end of 2024 when I first considered it. I had been with one woman for nearly fifty years and had not dated since the 1970s. Once I started to consider even the possibility, I started to pray that God would bring me His choice for me. He sent me my first love and if He wanted me to experience that again I was trusting Him for that.

One day seemingly “out of the blue” I received a call from a friend informing me that his wife had a friend that was interested in speaking with me and possibly getting to know me. I reached out to her, and we met for dinner a couple of times and really hit it off. I was stunned by her and wondered if this was possibly God’s answer to my prayers. Just because things go well may make you FEEL that way, but it may not necessarily be so. The only way to find out is to keep meeting and see where it goes.

I was really convinced that she might be, but I still had some concerns. At any rate, in my mind things were going great and I enjoyed caring about someone again and thinking of someone in that way. It made me feel like a teenager at times which was hilarious. Since I had, let’s say “rusty” dating experience it was comical at times, but she was very nice and understanding. I was clearly smitten (do people still use that term?) and looked forward to the next call or date. It was fun to be “out there” again and to be with someone that I thought so much for.

A few months go by and then suddenly the calls start becoming less frequent, the dates even less frequent and I start to FEEL like something is not quite right with all of this. I want this to work too much, and I start to feel uneasy. I decided that I’m going to go up to the lake and take a hike to clear my mind and to pray about how I might know if I am FEELING this rightly or wrongly? Am I still seeking His choice for me? Is it her? Is it someone else? I’m unsure of it all at this point.

As I pull into the parking lot of the park by the lake, I reach into the center console, and I start digging to find my parking pass. My hand hits a few things and as I am pulling something out the shape and feel of it seems oddly familiar. To my shock it is the Lost Acorn. I look at it amazed since I thought it had been gone for years. I put it in my pocket, put the parking pass on the rear-view mirror and headed for the trails. I spend a few hours walking and praying and seeking God’s answers to my questions and concerns. I return to the car still unsure. I really like this lady and want this to work out, but I am not getting clear confirmation. I put the Lost Acorn back in the sun visor next to the garage door opener and head back to La Casa de Rutmachine.

I reach out to her on the phone the next day and after a few pleasantries, I hear “we need to talk about our relationship.” Much like the day I got let go from work, I didn’t hear much after that since I knew what was coming next. It was a short call that upset me deeply, but I did have an answer that I was wrestling with. As a “people pleaser” I have a hard time accepting it when people are indifferent toward me, but it was made very clear that this was not going to be happening. I’m still not sure what happened but it really doesn’t matter at this point.

The anxiety meter pegged, my heart rate rocketed, I could feel my pulse through my chest, the acid reflex feeling in the back of my throat was intense. For a few days I didn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I did not want to be around anyone and overall, I was not very productive. I struggle with self-loathing at times like this, but I know who I am and who I am not. I’ve been through a LOT worse than this and likely will go through more rough spots before being called to eternity. I have learned some things and wish her well and wish I had seen it coming but I will be fine.

As tough as it was, I was thankful to have had that in my life for a few months. I really enjoyed it and hoped she was God’s choice for me. You never know until you try. You never know how great the good times will be until you go through the bad times. I trust in God, and I am hopeful that someday I may meet His choice for me. If not, then I hope He helps me deal with What’s Next in the most glorifying way.

The Lost Acorn has been found and is now back in its proper position. God never left but I clearly had quit searching for Him regarding seeking help in times of trouble and despair. I hope I honored You in some way and did not steal Your glory.

Thanks for your time listening to my ramblings and I hope it helps you in some way. If not, I would appreciate your prayers as I continue to head into What’s Next. Never a dull moment for sure.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, uproot my desire for the things of this world and implant cravings for Your ways in my heart so I may rest in Your righteousness.

Book Recommendation:

Leading with a Limp by Dan B. Allender, PhD (2006)

Music Recommendation:

Starz by Starz (1976)

Quote of the Day:

“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.”

Jack Kornfield

Cool Place to Visit:

Fort Collins, Colorado

Mark Rutledge 2/27/25 Mark Rutledge 2/27/25

Hey Sis!

My mom was the oldest child in her family. Growing up, I remember everyone calling her “Sis.” Her brothers, all the cousins, parents, grandparents, neighbors, etc. I thought that was a pretty cool nickname and it seemed to fit her perfectly. As the oldest growing up in my family, I was never called “Bro”, it just didn’t fit like Sis seemed to with mom. I thought it would be cool to have a sister that I could call “Sis” but at the time it was me and my brother Allen. After a miscarriage, Mom and dad decided to try to add to the family after waiting almost ten years after Allen was born. Mom really wanted to have a little girl to round out the family. She was the only girl in her family growing up and after being married she was still surrounded by dudes everywhere she looked!

Mom had me when she was 21 and Allen when she was 23. Now she was 33 and at that time people thought that she was a little past prime baby time. It is funny now but at the time people seemed to get married much earlier and started families right away. She was “old” at 33!

I was sitting in class as a sixth grader, and I hear my name over the P.A. to come to the office. They called Allen in as well. The message was sent over the P.A. that my mom had given birth to a baby girl and that we needed to bring our books and head home to meet the newest member of the Rutledge Quintet. I’m in my 60’s now and I still remember that day. Allen and I felt like celebrities! We got to the office at about the same time, and everyone congratulated us and told us it was okay to leave school and head home to meet our new sister.

I can’t believe they trusted us to go straight home from school but the 70’s were a different time, I guess. Allen and I jicked around during our one mile walk home but eventually made it. The house was full of people, and we looked at each other and thought that this must be a big deal. We cautiously entered the palace on Stevenson Avenue, and we saw mom holding this really small person all bundled up in blankets. May in Ohio can experience all four seasons in two days. We inched over toward mom, and she asked us in a very light voice if we would like to meet our new sister. Mom pulled the blankets from around her face, and we saw this beautiful little girlie. Her eyes were closed and mom said she had not opened them yet today. We stared at her face and sure enough she opened her eyes as we were leaning in. Wow, she was something for sure. And just like that, we had a sister. Cool. Hey mom, what’s for lunch? The Rutledge attention span was never known to be too long. “What’s her name, mom?” “Michelle Lee” mom replied. That seemed very nice I thought, and it seemed to fit perfectly.

As a 12-year-old, I can remember that I was psyched to get out of school early but not much else about that day. The fun was just beginning. When we returned to school it seemed like we were celebrities. Everyone seemed to know that we had a new addition to the family and were happy for us.

As the oldest sibling I can remember dad and mom telling me and then reminding me often that I needed to look out for her and protect her. I remember thinking to myself, isn’t that YOUR job? I had ball games, neighborhood friends, bikes to ride, you know… REALLY important stuff to tend to.

Growing up with a twelve-year age gap seemed to be a massively big valley for me and “Shelly.” Looking back honestly it was that I was a lot more self-absorbed in “Mark” stuff to be a good brother to Shelly. I can list a lot of things I was doing back then but it would only look and sound like an excuse for not prioritizing my relationship with my kid sister, so I won’t. I was gone from home a lot back then.

That relationship gap was not a problem with Shelly and Allen. They had a much closer relationship early on, and Allen spent more time with her and took the time to develop a proper brother and sister relationship. It felt like at times that I was more of a third parent than I was the other brother. I have always loved her and tried to be a good big brother, but I don’t think she considered me the “cool” brother, which was deserved!

I used to work at Blizzard Trophies while in high school and college which was walking distance from the house. One day, one of my co-workers calls me over to the rear window and says, “You may want to see this.” I look outside the window and my now pre-teen sister is walking with a friend, and they have so much makeup on that they are glowing and can be seen from Canton! I rush out there and (as I remember it) strongly recommend that she go back home and try again with the makeup.

Living in a one-bathroom house growing up made it tough for a sister who needed hours to get all dolled up, especially back in the “big hair” days. We were dying to get into the bathroom and Shelly was working on her lion mane hairdo and putting a hole in the ozone layer with all her hairspray. Once she finally appeared, we all gave her a standing ovation!

By the time she hit high school, I was married and had moved to Atlanta and started my family and we would only see each other a few times a year at best. One Christmas visit when she was starting to date, I was home and so was Allen. We were in our late twenties and her “date” was a bit intimidated by seeing her older brothers. I loved it. I called Allen over and asked him if he wanted to have a little fun with our sister’s friend. He smiled and asked what I had in mind. I told him to just follow my lead. We went over to “introduce ourselves” to this young Romeo but made sure to stand as close as possible to him as he stood up to greet us. We looked physically down on him as we crushed his hand giving him a handshake and let him know that we really loved our little sister and could not imagine what we might do to someone that hurt her. Then we asked, “you don’t plan on doing anything like that, do you?” He took a deep breath and promised us that he had no plans like that. We sat around and eyeballed him for the rest of the evening. I rather enjoyed myself.

Today’s blog will be about how proud I am to be able to reach out and say, “Hey Sis” to the best sister a guy could ask for and some adventures we have had over the past decade that has cemented our relationship from a kid sister to a best friend and confidant.

But First…A Joke:

Today someone knocked on the door and asked for a small donation for the local swimming pool. I gave him a glass of water.

Bonus Dad Joke:

My mother told me I would never amount to anything because I procrastinate. I said, “Just wait.”

A Verse to Contemplate:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves - Philippians 2:3

Have I Told You This One?

The years start zooming by and before you know it, we have seen her graduate high school, start working, driving, and now it’s time for her wedding. My little sister is old enough to be getting married. That can’t be! Let me do the math. Never mind, it is possible. Yikes.

At her wedding I’m holding my daughter Candace’s hand as we watch Shelly and dad do the father/daughter dance and I realize that that will be us in a “few” years. I was very proud of my sis that she was all grown up and had become a beautiful young woman starting her life as an adult. Cue Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” song. Boy, time can fly.

At her reception she is sitting up at the main table and I catch her eye. I motion on my face that she has something (food possibly) on the side of her mouth. She starts rubbing it and gives me the look that asks, “did I get it off?” I shake my head no and point to the other side, then back to the other side, and several more times before she realizes that I’m messing with her. That was a good one. I’m there to see her daughter born and I’m there as we try and help our brother with his struggle with sobriety. I’m there when our parents start to age which brings on another layer of difficult decisions. Even though I’m there when I can be I always have to go back eventually, and our relationship endures way too many goodbyes which we both loathe.

Dad passes in 2012, and mom follows in 2015. A lot more trips up and back from Georgia to Ohio. Just as it seems we are connecting; it is time to leave again. It is hard. After mom’s funeral and burial, I am getting ready to leave once again and I can tell that Shelly is taking it very hard. I ask, “What’s wrong Sis?” She responds by saying that she is sad because I won’t be coming up anymore. I ask her why she thinks that, and she tells me that “since mom and dad are gone, you won’t be coming home anymore.” I assure her that I will be coming back to see her, and she is somewhat surprised. I notice this and make a vow to come back at least two times a year to see her and spend time with her and her family which I have done. It has resulted in developing one of the greatest relationships I have ever had over the past ten years.

We have been through a lot as a family over that time and I am so proud of her as she has had to carry the weight of all of that mostly by herself. I love spending time with her and her family and look forward to our times together. There is a lot of laughing and storytelling when we get together. We are planning a few trips for this year and also going on an adventure out west. I trust you with everything kiddo and thank you for being there for me and my family during some hard times over the past few years. Just please don’t tell the kayak story when I’m around!

Hey Sis… I love ya.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, give me eyes of faith to see Your greater work around me. Help me to glorify You in the way I deal with others.

Book Recommendation:

The Way I Heard It by Mike Rowe (2019)

Music Recommendation:

Infinity by Journey (1978)

Quote of the Day:

“People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.” - Isaac Asimov

Cool Place to Visit:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Mark Rutledge 2/19/25 Mark Rutledge 2/19/25

The Albino Deer Story

My home in Woodstock, Georgia (a northwestern suburb of Atlanta) is about a mile or so from Allatoona Lake and it also is surrounded by a lot of woods, creeks, rivers, trees, kudzu, and other green delights which makes it attractive to deer and a lot of other wildlife. It is not uncommon to see deer, fox, coyotes, hawks, eagles, owls, and other similar animals. We are even starting to hear of a number of bear sightings in and around the area as the urban sprawl continues to invade the foothills of the Smokey Mountains.

It is a daily occurrence to see a number of doe and fawns camping out at night in the wooded area just off of my backyard. I saw a ten point buck the other night and he was huge. There is a creek that runs through my property that empties into Allatoona Lake, and the deer typically follow that back and forth looking for food and shelter. As they traverse, they will trigger the motion sensitive lights on my house. It is still pretty cool to go out on the deck and view them even after living in this environment since the mid 1990s. My point being, it is not odd to see deer around the Rutledge Manor.

The developers did a good job preserving the trees and the “living in the woods” feel which was one of the main reasons we decided to buy our home here in the first place. It is a wonderful respite from the pace and troubles of the big city but close enough to access it for work and fun. Over the years, I have had to dodge a number of deer in our development which is built around several golf courses. As a matter of fact, I got nailed by a deer once driving by the golf course at night. So, you need to keep your head on a swivel, especially during the Fall of the year.

What is rare is to see is a piebald or albino deer (also known as a white deer). I do not hunt but after the story I am about to tell you I asked a number of friends that do, and they confirmed that they are very rare to see and not many have had the pleasure to see one. The rarest is a completely white deer with pink eyes (albino). The piebald deer is usually what you see which is a white tail deer, but it has a lot of white deformities that make it look almost complete white.

While this is not intended to be an episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (dating myself) from the wilds of Atlanta, it is some back story which will give today’s blog a little more “oomph” (technical term) as you read about the day yours truly had my one and only encounter with this rare beast in my Albino Deer Story.

But First…A Joke:

A father and his daughter are outside Ohio Stadium, and the girl asks for a T-shirt that says, “Wolverines Suck.” The dad hesitates, but says, “You can have the shirt if you promise never to say those words.” “That’s right,” says the vendor. “Suck isn’t a very nice word.” “No,” replies the father. “I meant the word Wolverine.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

I wasn’t planning to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.

A Verse to Contemplate:

I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me - Philippians 3:12

Have I Told You This One?

As many of you know, my late wife Michelle passed from Covid 19 back in August of 2021. It was a real hard time for all of her family and friends as we struggled to deal with the reality of her passing. She was loved by many, and her loss was greatly felt. As my girls and I tried to come to grips with it, the finality of it all shook us to the core and that caused a number of deep questions that direct answers were not readily available. As their Dad I wanted to keep open communication with them and tried to answer their questions to the best of my ability based on what I thought I knew, what I believe the Scriptures say, what I believe God was telling me personally, and what my heart and mind were revealing to me.

No one I know has ever gone to heaven and returned to share the experience of what it is really like. Many preachers teach on why we need to go there and not to Hell but there are not a lot of sermons that deal directly with what life in heaven is like. The Scriptures say a lot but what most people remember is that the streets are gold, and that God has gone to make a place just for us upon our acceptance of Him as our Savior. Those are not the questions that kept coming up.

When death of someone you really love becomes a reality in this earthly life it makes you wonder about very practical things. Some of the questions that came up include the following:

Hey Dad, do you think Mom is looking down on us right now?

Hey Dad, do you think Mom is thinking about us?

Hey Dad, do you think Mom is safe and happy?

You get the picture, right? Practical questions for sure but a solid answer with backup is not as easy to come up with. When those questions came up, I did my best to give my OPINION and what I was basing that on but in the end that is all it is, a tire builder’s kids opinion. I was honest but didn’t want to crush spirits because I could be wrong too.

For example. How would you answer, Hey Dad, do you think Mom is looking down on us right now?

Based on what I knew at the time and what I felt in my heart I answered… no.

The reason? From what I read in the Bible, it states that heaven is a place where there is no sadness, illness, crying, etc. If that is true, then how could anyone look down from heaven into this fallen world and not be sad or worried? That was what I thought, and they asked so I gave it to them. I don’t think that is what they wanted to hear but I reminded them that I really don’t know the full answer and that I don’t believe anyone on earth knows for sure and that I could be wrong. It was something that I have dedicated myself to finding out the best answer I can and that I fully expect that the day He calls me to my eternal home that all my questions will be answered and/or I will be so happy that I won’t care anymore.

As we sat around on another particular evening an observation came up. The girls were talking and came to a consensus that they had noticed seeing a lot of deer and hummingbirds since Michelle passed and they asked me, Hey Dad, do you think Mom is somehow sending her thoughts and love to us through these animals and birds? I had noticed the same things but was it something I wanted to believe to make myself feel better? Was it trying to spiritualize common events to help grieve in a better way? Was I going nuts?

I thought about it and being an analytic I tried to provide a bottom-line answer. I said that I did not think that was happening but agreed with them that these appearances seemed to be happening much more than normal. All of those there gave their feedback as well and the answers were all along the continuum. Again, I did not have a definitive answer. My mind told me one thing and my heart wanted to believe another. I left that night and while driving back to my house I felt a sadness that I was not able to provide the answers that I felt they wanted.

I was pretty deep in my thoughts about all of this, and the car seemed to be going on its own as I pulled into my subdivision. I saw something out of the corner of my eye as I turned in and hit the brakes. The car came to a sudden stop and right in front of me was an Albino Deer! I swear! It just stood in front of my car and didn’t even try to move. I sat for what felt like an hour just looking at it in disbelief. Finally, it slowly started to move out of the way keeping its eyes on me the entire time. To say I was stunned to the point of reevaluating my answer from just a few minutes ago would be a huge understatement. I got home and texted the girls what had just happened. They were equally amazed.

Wouldn’t it be just like God to send a reminder that He loves us and cares about us and sees our tears and feels our heart pains? Who knows. Like I said before it is not uncommon to see deer in my development. However, a white deer is pretty rare. I think I will choose to believe that the God that created the world and says He knows the number of hairs on each of our heads might send a white deer to cheer up a broken heart or three…. just because.

Here’s hoping you have an Albino Deer Story to tell in your life. Thanks for giving this a spin today. God Bless and keep you.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, remind me that my joy and peace are not dependent upon my circumstances. Empower me to abide in Your presence to experience Your unceasing joy and peace.

Book Recommendation:

The Book of Unusual Knowledge by Publications International, Ltd. (2012)

Music Recommendation:

A Wizard, A True Star by Todd Rundgren (1973)

Quote of the Day:

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” - Dale Carnegie

Cool Place to Visit:

Prescott, Arizona

Mark Rutledge 2/6/25 Mark Rutledge 2/6/25

How to Make Everyone Leave a Super Bowl Party

The 59th Super Bowl is coming up this Sunday and as usual, the teams I root for are not in it. The runner-up prize is that I have been invited to a big party with good friends to watch the game, see the commercials, eat a bunch of yummy food and tell a bunch of silly jokes that I hope get laughed at. I’m looking forward to going, even if the Browns are 0 for 59 in making it to the Big Game.

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever hosted a party or attended one that there are just some people that are not in a real big hurry to go home? Monday is a workday, you still have to clean up, do dishes, put leftovers away, etc. but there is somebody (or maybe multiple somebodies) that are having too much of a fun time to call it a night even though the game was decided a quarter ago and two-thirds of the people have already bid adieu and headed into the cold February night.

You’ve tried everything that you know of to get the message across that it is getting very close to closing time and last call was an hour ago! You’ve gotten desperate and dug out all of the Yoko Ono records only to hear them singing along with the wailing and bellowing. You’ve started excusing yourself from the room and the interesting conversations on how they would’ve handled the blitzing linebackers from the weak side of the formation and started to clean up. Maybe even starting to turn lights off. Or, as my dad used to do, not say anything and leave the room and go to bed. I’m sure we’ve all been there at some point. If you can’t remember a time like that, you were probably in the Yoko One fan club and are really bad at grasping a clue.

In my toolbox of things to clear a room I am the proud owner of the ultimate story that has never failed in getting the job done. Others “think” they know what it takes, but this Tire Builders kid from Akron, Ohio is the undefeated champion at making people look for their coat and gloves.

One of my favorite comedians, Brian Regan, has a bit in his “I Walked on the Moon” DVD about being at a party and joining in some conversations only to find out that he had encountered the “Me Monster.” The Me Monster is the guy or gal that can’t wait for you to stop telling your story so that they can immediately one up you with their more exciting tale thereby discounting your story. In this bit he asks “what would it be like to be an astronaut that has walked on the moon knowing no matter what story ANYONE tells, you have the clincher for the evening by waiting for the Me Monster to stop telling his or her story so you can drop this line…” I walked on the moon!!” The Me Monster is instantly defeated, and the floor is yours for the rest of the party.

In the same vein, my room clearing story has a similar impact. Once I share this baby, people no longer feel like hanging around and head for the exits. The host or hostess gives me the affirmative head nod and whispers a big “Thank You.” Now that I am retired, I have thought about renting my services out to friends and family. After you hear my “How to Make Everyone Leave a Super Bowl Party” story, please let me know if you are interested or know of someone that could use a little help. Prices vary.

But First…A Joke:

Mark was walking home from his neighbor’s Halloween party when he heard a strange noise behind him. Thump, thump, thump, thump. When he turned around, he saw an upright coffin thumping down the street. Nervously, Mark started walking faster, but he still heard thump, thump, thump, thump behind him. Soon he was running, and the coffin picked up the pace too, Thumpthumpthumpthump. Then Mark ran for his life, faster than he ever did before but the coffin was right on his heels! “Help!” Mark screamed, but no one responded. At last, he made it to his house. He dashed inside and tried to slam the door, but the coffin got in, too. Up the steps Mark ran, with the coffin following. Thumpthumpthumpthump! Mark ducked into the bathroom and started grabbing things to throw at the coffin as it neared the top of the staircase. A hair dryer (stop laughing), razor, toothpaste, toothbrush - he lobbed them all at the coffin to no avail. Now the coffin loomed in the doorway, blocking any escape. Desperate, Mark tossed some cough drops at the coffin…

and finally, the coffin’ stopped.

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: Why do scuba divers fall backward out of the boat?

A: Because if they fell forward, they’d still be in the boat.

A Verse to Contemplate:

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us - Hebrews 12:1

Have I Told You This One?

When I was coming up through the ranks at my first job at American Appraisal Associates, I was consistently looking for ways to show those I reported to that I was ready to take on more responsibility and move up to the next levels in the firm.

One particular year we were hired for several engagements to value chicken processing plants throughout the country (I don’t like where this is going Rutmachine!). This involved going inside the operations and valuing the machinery and equipment. There was a lot of consolidation going on in the industry, so I was asked to do enough of these that the guys in the office started referring to me as “Chicken Man.”

As part of proving myself I also had to show that I could train someone and onboard them into the firm. We ran an apprentice model, so you had to perform to a level that provided confidence to higher ups before you got moved up.

One day my immediate manager comes to me and asks me to step into his office to discuss a new assignment that he wants me to run which also included training a new employee that was recently hired. I was excited that they were showing confidence in me and as the time came to meet, I prepared myself to take advantage of my big chance to shine.

As I walk into my manager’s office, I notice a new face. The department had been all men previously because not too many women were all that thrilled about hanging out in chicken processing plants, tire plants. foundries, etc. So, I was wondering if this was the newbie I had told was recently hired. To be honest, she didn’t look the part and did not fit the normal template of people working in my department. She seemed very proper; she was small in stature and from the looks of it had never been in a manufacturing plant of any kind in her life.

(Note: That part of the story tends to draw people in, the room clearer is coming).

My manager introduces “Lori” to me and informs me that she will be assisting me on assignments going forward starting with the chicken processing plant. I was thankful and grateful to the guys that helped me get going so I was more than willing to help her out. It just didn’t seem like the best fit but if she was willing to put in the work, I was willing to teach her the ropes.

The company we were valuing is a vertical operation, meaning they do everything from chicken houses to hatching to processing to waste management. A side note, there is nothing wasted in the process. As the valuation starts, we go to the houses then to the hatchery and she is holding up well. Then we go to the processing plant. This is where the “fun” starts! As we are sitting in the parking lot, I turn the car off and look to her and remind her that the client is paying a lot of money for us to be there and expects that we know what we are doing so if there any questions or concerns she needs to let me know now. She asks me if it very bloody because she doesn’t handle the sight of blood well. I said, well, we are going from live chickens to packaged parts ready for dinner at the end so yes there is a lot of blood. She gulps and I can see that she is uncomfortable. I decide to mentally walk her through the process and point out where the bloody parts are so that she can prepare herself to look away or brace herself. I reinforced that she needs to give the appearance that this is not her first rodeo even though it clearly was.

Lori, this is the way it works:

A truck full of chickens which are in metal coops are off loaded into a dark bin and the chickens are going berserk. The workers flip them upside down and put them on an overhead conveyor by their hawks. The processing line is going at a rate of 140 per minute (that’s a lot of nuggets!). They go past the killer which is a fast-spinning blade that cuts their throats. Then they are transferred through the blood tunnel which drains out all of the blood (you definitely do not want to look at that). Then they go through the picking area which is where they have all the feathers plucked off through a series of three high speed machines. Then they have their hawks removed and are transferred to the secondary processing area where they are gutted by an eviscerator and then a cutting machine cuts all the pieces off which go in different directions and are packaged and moved to the refrigerated warehouse to wait to be picked up and sent to the grocery stores.

She takes a deep breath, and we head inside. We take the tour, and it is all laid out exactly as I told her. As we get ready to go past the blood tunnel, I take a quick glance back and give her the heads up that it is coming, and she navigates it like a champ. She told me later that after that point she felt like she could handle it and that she mentioned to the others on the tour that we like to take souvenirs back to the office after we finish our work. As we continue the tour, I am trying to listen to our guide because it is very loud in there. All of the sudden I hear this ear-splitting scream. It clearly was Lori and I turn around quickly to see what was going wrong and she is frozen in her tracks. One of the other guys decided to place a freshly severed hawk on her shoulder as a souvenir and as she turned to see who was tapping on her shoulder she came face to face with the hawk and she lost composure for a tick.

As we get to the picking area, they are right in the middle of a shift and this room is armpit deep in wet feathers and I decide we will come back later and take a look in there after the cleanup crew completes its work in the third shift. We finish the tour without any more shenanigans and Lori and I sit down to discuss what we just saw. Her eyes were WIDE OPEN and this point.

We decide to go get dinner and then come back and inspect the picking equipment. As we head to dinner, I ask her if she likes to eat chicken, and she says that she does. I told her if you ever want to eat it again, you need to eat it tonight. She orders chicken at dinner, to my surprise, but didn’t have much of an appetite. We head back to the plant after dinner and do a quick inspection of the plucking room which has now been (mostly) cleaned up. As I’m walking around the equipment something catches my eye. It is a chicken that apparently had been thrown out of the process meaning it is likely dead because of where it was in the process. However, I swear I see it moving and I’m starting to get a little freaked out. I keep one eye on my work and one eye on the wet glob of chicken next to me on the ground. As I’m stepping away it feels like I’m in a bad horror movie and while I’m still looking at this “dead” chicken I see it move and at the same time I step on a severed head on the ground with my work boots. This is a family page so I can’t say what I said out loud but I’m sure you can muster a pretty good guess! After the chicken processing plant valuation experience Lori decided to transfer into the real estate department (good move!) and start her career in real estate valuation. I went on to learn a lot more about chicken processing plants that I ever wanted to know.

Depending on how much you want to pay to have your long staying guests removed I can emphasize the gory parts in detail. I hope you have a fun time this Sunday watching the Super Bowl and let me know!!

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, lead me into repentance to remove any barrier that prevents intimacy with You. I ask for Your mercy and forgiveness. Cleanse me with Your grace and love.

Book Recommendation:

Searching For God Knows What by Donald Miller (2004)

Music Recommendation:

Wine on Venus by Grace Bowers and the Hodge Podge (2024)

Quote of the Day:

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” - Albert Einstein

Cool Place to Visit:

Kiawah Island, South Carolina

Mark Rutledge 1/28/25 Mark Rutledge 1/28/25

“Wait…. WHAT?!

It’s great to have siblings! No, I mean I have great siblings! Wait, how about, isn’t it great to have siblings? Okay, how about who are these people…my siblings? Wait… WHAT?! Well, it’s in there somewhere along the continuum. I’m kidding of course. I was blessed (forced) to have a brother and a sister to go through this nutty life that Mom and Dad decided to thrust us into together.

I was the first so they either said to themselves, “He’s perfect, we couldn’t possibly do any better", one is plenty” OR they decided to go to the local Margarita Monday to celebrate the immense happiness of having the “golden child” and slipped and were surprised a month later or so to find out that you can’t possibly top the original but were going to give it another try. And then 12 years later they went on a Canada fishing trip, it got a little cold one particular night, the Molson’s was flowing, one thing led to another and Botta Boom Botta Bing, the family is complete (one of these is true. I will let you use your imagination to figure out which one).

In complete seriousness, my brother and sister mean the world to me. Mom and Dad are sticking to their story that none of us were adopted but sometimes it is a head scratcher. We couldn’t be more different, but I guess this is where we find out that the Almighty has an amazing sense of humor. He put all of us together and let us figure it out. I have questions (and possibly some comments but I’ll have to wait until we have that face-to-face someday). I’m sure there is a logical and brilliant plan but I’m coming up with nothing at the present. It’s better that He is in charge.

The first of this odd trio, my brother Allen, was called home about a year ago (February 10th) and this will be the first anniversary of that sad day. I have been thinking a lot about him, and I’ve got stories! It takes a minute to move them from the back of the gray matter to the frontal lobe these days, but I want to share one with you today that always brings a smile to my face. It is from a good time the three of us had together after he was sparred the Grim Reaper after a near death event. But you need to hear some back story first.

If I ever write a book (which I would love to do), the working title will be something like, “How long do you have to hold a pillow over someone’s face before their feet stop kicking.” It’s not going to be a book for everyone but if you have a younger brother that is Olympic good at pushing ALL of your buttons, you likely will enjoy the hell out of it! Allen was great at pushing me to my edge and then smiling at me while I tried to get my balance and not fall of the cliff. We were not the brothers that called each other every day to check on each other but deep down there was a strong bond that we knew was there.

One day, I got a call that he has been rushed to the hospital in Akron, and it looks bad. While in Georgia I’m making calls to try and find out information and find out enough to know I needed to get up there. So, I jump in the car and head for Ohio. Longest drive of my life! I couldn’t get there fast enough, and it felt like I was standing still while trying to keep it under 100 mph! When I get there, we find out that we can’t see him because of Covid 19 protocols at the hospital. We sit around all day and wait for the one call per day from the doctor in charge of his case. He is in serious condition and the prospects do not look promising.

This goes on for a week or so and eventually I have to make a decision to stay and wait or head back home and get back to work. I decide to go back to Atlanta but tell my sister, niece and nephew that I will be back as soon as possible if things make a bad turn. It occurs to me that this may be the last time I will ever see him, so……. I sneak into the hospital and get past all the security and go see him in intensive care. He is heavily sedated and, on a ventilator, and looks like he may not be getting out of there. I lean down and kiss him on the forehead, tell him I love him, and leave before security finds out who I am. After another depressing long drive back to Atlanta, I stay in touch with the family. He’s in there for a month and honestly, I was waiting for THE CALL which I thought would be coming at any minute.

One day at work, my phone goes off and the call identifier shows up as City Hospital, Akron, Ohio. Oh no, this is going to be THE CALL. I am beyond surprised to hear my brother’s voice on the other end of the phone! He tells me he is leaving the hospital THAT DAY. Previous to this call, we had been informed three times that he was close to death. THREE! Then we were told that he would never leave the hospital and if by some miracle he was able to, he would be in a vegetative state. Then they told us that they couldn’t get him back from the heavy sedation drugs and there might be brain damage (he had been under for 6 weeks). NOW he is on the phone telling me that he is going home THAT DAY. I ask him to hold up a sec and that I will call him back right away. I immediately call my sis, and she confirms it. Wait… WHAT!? I head to Hartsfield and jump on the next plane to Cleveland.

By the time I get there he is back in his apartment and talking about going back to work. My head is spinning! What a miracle. Today’s blog will be about a great weekend the three of us had celebrating his victory over a mountain of obstacles that no one besides God himself thought he would overcome and a few “Wait… WHAT” moments.

Thanks for giving it your time, I hope you get a kick out of it.

But First…A Joke:

A guy from Xichigan speaks frantically into the phone. “My wife is pregnant, and her contractions are only two minutes apart!”

“Is this her first child?” the doctor asks.

“No, you idiot!” the Wolverine shouts. “This is her husband!”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Patient: Doctor, my hair keeps falling out. What can you give me to keep it in?

Doctor: How about a shoebox?

A Verse to Contemplate:

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” - John 13:7

Have I Told You This One?

By God’s grace, Allen was given more time. No one could believe it. My sister and I are talking daily and when you have been through something like this you realize a ton of questions that we didn’t have answers to. Like, does he have insurance, does he want to be buried, cremated, etc. He was single and let’s just say that organizing and having his affairs in order had never stayed on his radar very long. In other words, we were completely in the dark on how to handle his end-of-life details when they come which now seems way more than a 50/50 deal. We didn’t think he would be around for a long time so there was some urgency on our part to get this figured out.

I ask Shelly if she would be interested in getting together with Allen and me thinking that we may not have a lot of time before something worse may happen. She said yes and I told Michelle what I was thinking, and she said that it sounded like a good idea. I call Allen and ask him straight up, “Is there anything that you haven’t done that you would like to do?” “You mean, a bucket list thing?” “Yes, but let’s not call it that let’s just call it a sibling vacation or something nebulous like that.” I tell him to think big and not to worry about costs. He did not disappoint!

It became a running joke between Michelle, Shelly and me. We couldn’t wait to get his calls for his ideas. He starts calling about every day to run it by me. Please remember, this is a guy that we were informed was on death’s doorstep three times, had probably a million dollars of surgeries, and was recovering from being on a ventilator for 6 weeks in the ICU. Buckle up!!

Round one: Japan

Round two: Australia

Round three: Hawaii

Round four: California

Round five: Arizona. If nothing else, we are getting closer to Ohio and Georgia!

After each call I’m biting my own tongue to not explode. I remind him that he currently can’t walk more than 100 yards without needing to sit down and catch his breath. He also can’t go more than 30 minutes without a cigarette and the flights he just inquired about range anywhere from 5 hours to 24 hours (in coach). Michelle is tickled by all of this, and Shelly can’t wait to find out “where we are going next!” I worked in business for 40 years, so I have developed an ability to “massage” a “client” toward the correct answer, but he is testing that expertise. I suggest that he sleep on it for a week and that we can talk then and make a decision.

A week has gone by, and we set up a time to talk. I’m informed that he has given it a lot of thought and that he wants to go to Las Vegas. Ok, that is doable. “Hey Big Al, what would you like to do in Vegas my loving brother?” Wait for it….. I want to go see Celine Dion and take a tour of the Raiders new stadium! “Wait… WHAT?! Michelle is begging to hear what it is, so I put Allen on mute and tell her and she has coffee coming out of her nose instantly!!

Understand, that my tatted-up brother went to see Slayer in downtown Detroit on Halloween and by choice sat in the Dawg Pound at the old Cleveland Stadium because it was “fun!” Now we are off to see Celine!! Oh man! I say yes immediately because I HAVE to see this go down. I.HAVE.TO!!!! Michelle’s waving her arms telling me to say no, but I push ahead. This is gold!! I hung up and call my sis and she passes out from laughing so hard.

A few days later he calls back and says that he’s been thinking about it and that he doesn’t think his body will allow this and unfortunately, he will not be able to go. I felt bad and thought that was probably where we would end up. I asked him, “What do you really like to do that you haven’t done in a while?” He says camping and night fishing and I agree that that is very doable. Michelle finds this cool place about two hours south of Akron and we set a date for the three sibs to all meet in Akron and drive down together to camp and night fish.

As the date approaches, I am talking to my sister and tell her that it is vital that we get answers to those outstanding questions we had about what to do when he passes. She doesn’t want to be the one to bring it up to him. I said I will do it, no problem. She wonders aloud how I will go about it. I told her that when I thought the moment was right, I would bring it up but would give her heads up before I asked so she would know it was coming. What she didn’t know is that I was setting her up as well!!

We start our drive and when we get close, we go through this state park which has a great lake and that puts Allen into a good mood about fishing, so I decided that this is a good time to bring it up. I look in the rear-view mirror and make eye contact with Shelly. It’s go time.

I start off all serious like due to the subject matter and I ask Allen, “Hey buddy, can I ask you a very serious question?” I look in the rear-view and Shelly takes a deep breath. I ask Allen, “My brother, we are so glad you are still with us and that we have the opportunity to spend this time together. If anything, the last several months have shown us that you never know how much time we have left on this side of heaven. Therefore, we need to know some things so can I ask you something?” “Sure Mark, what is it?” I take a deep breath and ask him, “So, what would you say are your favorite Celine Dion songs?” My sister gasps and says, “Wait… WHAT?” And without even batting an eye, Allen replies, “You’re right that is a tough question because I like all of them!” Now, it was my turn, “Wait… WHAT?!”

We laughed about that for the next three years. We were fortunate to have that much more time together. At the time we thought he had a matter of weeks to months. I miss him and as the anniversary rolls around, I hope he is enjoying the best music there is for eternity. Love ya Big Al from Ellet.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, You perfectly modeled forgiveness and reconciliation to me. Humble my heart to lay aside pride and ego and seek to be reconciled to those I’ve offended.

Book Recommendation:

Ruffians - by Tim Green (1993)

Music Recommendation:

What’s Going On - Marvin Gaye (1971)

Quote of the Day:

“Here’s something to think about: How come you never see a headline like ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?” — Jay Leno

A Cool Place to Visit:

Canandaigua, New York

Mark Rutledge 1/17/25 Mark Rutledge 1/17/25

Selah

Welcome to 2025!

Today is my first attempt at a blog for the newest year. I have been busy with the holidays and some other things, and I have been really challenged to come up with something to write about. I’ve had a bunch of ideas go through my head at different times but none of them felt “right” or interesting enough to spend the time.

As 2024 was coming to an end I was sitting alone in the house prying my eyes open to see the Peach Drop from downtown Atlanta and of course the Ball Drop from New York City I starting to reflect on the kinds of things that went on in 2024 and then was attempting to put a mental list of the things I wanted to accomplish in 2025. I quit doing resolutions several years back, but I at least give it a go in my brain.

For me, the end of the year seems to be a reflective time. Others simply throw away the old calendar and replace it with the new one and move on their way. To be fair, most people that make resolutions do not accomplish them, but I think it’s always a good thing to try and get better, even if it is in small increments.

As I sat reflecting, I was somewhat curious to why I was having such a hard time coming up with something to write about. I tried reading, listening to music, talking with friends and family, watching shows and movies, looking at old photos but still the mental cupboard was bare. I shrugged my shoulders and told myself that something would pop in my thoughts soon enough. But that did not happen right away. I was uneasy that I was missing something.

Recently I was reading in Psalms, and I ran across a word that I had seen before but honestly had never given much thought to. I kept seeing it pop up rather frequently and the curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to dig a little deeper and find out what it meant.

Hey Machine…what’s the word? I’m glad you asked; the word is Selah. As an example, Psalm 66:4 says the following: “All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you; they sing the praises of your name. Selah!”

It only appears in Psalms and Habakkuk in the Old Testament. There is a great deal of uncertainty about the meaning of selah. Most versions of the Bible do not attempt to translate selah but simply transliterate the word straight from the Hebrew. Selah is also thought to be rendered from two Hebrew words: s_lah, “to praise”; and s_lal, “to lift up.” Another commentator believes it comes from salah, “to pause.” From salah comes the belief that selah is a musical notation signifying a rest to the singers and/or instrumentalists who performed the psalms. If this is true, then each time selah appears in a psalm, the musicians paused, perhaps to take a breath, to sing a cappella, or to let the instruments play alone. Perhaps they were pausing to praise the One about whom the song was speaking, perhaps even lifting their hands in worship. This theory would encompass all these meanings — “praise,” “lift up,” and “pause.” In the three verses in Habakkuk, selah could mean “to pause and praise.” Habakkuk’s prayer in chapter 3 inspires the reader to pause and praise God for His mercy, power, sustaining grace, and sufficiency.

Perhaps the best way to think of selah is a combination of all these meanings. The Amplified Bible adds “pause and calmly think about that” to each verse where selah appears. When we see the word selah in a psalm, we should pause to carefully weigh the meaning of what we have just read or heard, lifting up our hearts in praise to God for His great truths.

I enjoy learning new things, so that was fine to learn a new word but what really stuck with me was why was this word pinging on my brain so much? What am I to do with this new knowledge and insight to an obscure word in the Bible, if anything?

So, you know what I did? I took a few days to pause, praise, lift up, and slowdown from the frenetic pace of the holidays and just take some time to slow down enough for a while and listen to see if He was trying to tell me something. That’s what today’s blog will be about. I appreciate your time to pause and reflect on it (see what I did there?!).

But First…A Joke:

A town (in Michigan) had a church bell that was rung every hour. One day, the rope broke, and the minister couldn’t find anyone to fix it. Finally, a man came by to offer his services. He had a freakishly large head and a skull as hard as steel. “I heard the bell rope is broken,” he said, his giant head bobbing. “I can be your new bell ringer."

The minister was doubtful. “This is very important,” he explained. “The bell must be rung every hour between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. How can you do that with a broken rope?” “I have it all figured out,” said the visitor as he nodded his huge head enthusiastically. “It’s almost noon,” the minister pointed out. “Please show me your plan.”

Instead of walking up the stairs of the bell tower, the man sprinted up the spiral staircase, faster and faster until he achieved enough momentum to ram his giant head into the bell. The ringing echoed through the town. “You’re hired!” said the minister.

Every day, from morning till night, the man rang the bell. The locals came to respect and adore him. One day, during a rainstorm, the man was dashing up the steps to ring the bell. He slipped on the wet stairs, tumbled over the side of the staircase, and unfortunately fell to his demise. Two townspeople rushed over. One asked, “Who is that?’ The second responded, “I never learned his name, but his face rings a bell.”

The bell ringer’s funeral was attended by everyone in Ann Arbor. Afterward, a familiar-looking man approached the minister. “The bell ringer was my brother,” the newcomer said. The resemblance was obvious: This man also had a giant head with a skull as hard as steel. “After seeing how beloved he was and how kind everyone is here, I’d like to be your new bell ringer,” the brother said. Delighted, the minister agreed.

The new bell ringer was just as dependable as his late brother. But soon another downpour hit the town. As the bell ringer raced up the stairs, he slipped, tumbled over the railing, and fell to his death. The same two townspeople rushed over. The first asked, “Do you know him?” The second replied, “Not really, but he’s a dead ringer for his brother.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: Which side of the horse has the most hair?

A: The outside!

A Verse to Contemplate:

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need - Hebrews 4:16

Have I Told You This One?

For those who know me and my family, you know the last three years have been a struggle and a challenge since Michelle passed away. As I shared in the last few blogs, I have started to feel an urge and strong desire to start moving forward with my life.

I believe that God has been teaching me what the word Selah means over this time period. I have had a lot of time to pause and think and pray and praise and ponder what the whole point of all of this has been. I have come to a few conclusions, but I still am not sure of the big question WHY? However, I do believe that God has been graceful with me and my family and has been saying many things and the end of it He is saying “Selah, my son.” I have not heard any audible voices or anything like that, but I believe without a doubt that these last three years has been a time for me to pause, reflect and as hard as it is to accept, praise Him.

I can remember walking to my car in the parking deck after watching Michelle breathe her last breath here with us. I was walking in a stunned silence, and I remember stopping just outside my car and pleading “No Lord, Please not this!” I got into my car, and I cried out in prayer of how awful and what bad timing this was, and WHY? WHY? WHY? I had so many questions and He seemed so far away and silent. The crashing waves of sorrow in that moment were overwhelming. Over the next days, weeks, months and years I have wrestled with God, I have fought the temptation to be angry with Him. I’ve experienced sadness that drilled a hole in my chest. I’ve read book after book to try and understand all of this and how to deal with grief and loneliness. My quest for spiritual survival opened my heart to an historic and biblical form of prayer called lament.

A quick solution to my problems was not going to happen and it probably won’t happen with you either when it’s your turn to grieve. I believe I was given permission to wrestle with sorrow instead of rushing to end it. Without understanding it fully I have come to understand lament is a helpful gift from the Lord. Lament gives me/us the permission to vocalize the pain as it moves me/us toward God and not away from Him. In short, it helps me to process my pain. Silence, bitterness, and even anger can dominate my spiritual life instead which is clearly not healthy or desired.

Lament is how Christians grieve. It is how I learned important truths about God and the world. A belief in God’s mercy, redemption, and sovereignty create lament. Without trust in God and a faith that can’t be broken even in the worst of times there is no point to complain. To cry is for sure human but to lament is very Christian. Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.

Have you ever heard someone shout out “Amen” after a preacher or someone else says something that they deeply agree with? Amen means “so be it.” In Psalms when you see Selah added to the end of a verse or statement it means to pause and reflect on how awesome the truth was that was just spoken. It might mean “Whoa, don’t miss this.” I hope I was able to give praise where it is due. This is not meant to illustrate some big breakthrough for me but rather how great and patient He is, especially in the darkest hours and days.

Thanks for letting me vent some today and I hope someone finds this helpful.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, You are holy! I bow before You in worship with a humble heart. May Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Book Recommendation:

Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them by John Ortberg (2003)

Music Recommendation:

Lucille by B.B. King (1968)

Quote of the Day:

“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?” - Abraham Lincoln

Cool City to Visit:

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Mark Rutledge 12/31/24 Mark Rutledge 12/31/24

New Years Eve with Gram

Well kids, here we are on the doorstep of 2025. Has it really been 25 years since we celebrated Y2K? The math says yes but the mind says, “no way!”

I was going through Facebook yesterday and one of my friends posted a meme that said “Happy New Year! I’m telling you now because if I’m up at midnight it is to pee.” I got a little giggle out of that one and I thought that for many of my friends that is not a joke but a true statement. I have always been a “night owl” so I will be up, but there will not be any shenanigans going on for sure. My days of sending out the old year with a BANG went to bed well before midnight years ago.

It got me thinking about past New Years celebrations and my thoughts went back (WAY BACK) to when I was a pup. My brother and I are the oldest of the kids and grandkids of the family. My parents used to throw a house party for New Years. Allen and I were sent to my maternal grandmother’s house to celebrate with “Grandma Fordie.” This first started in the mid to late 1960s before my sister was born and lasted until I thought I was too grown for such things in the mid 1970s. Looking back, these are some of the best memories of being young and ringing in the new year in style I have. She was one of the best people I ever had the honor and privilege to meet and love. May I tell you a few things about her and the parties she used to throw for her grandchildren?

Gwendolyn Yvonne “Bonnie” Fordham was the strongest person I ever met. As the oldest grandson, I thought that we had a special bond. I loved spending time with her, and I did it a LOT. I would tell people that if you want to know what a Christian is, take a look at my grandma. She called us her “little hunners” and was a very deep caring person. How she ever got connected with my grandfather, which to me was the exact opposite kind of person, I will never know. Some in the family told me that grandpa changed a lot after going to WW2. I’m sure that didn’t help.

When she finally saw that things were not going to change with grandpa, they divorced and she moved from a home in Tallmadge, Ohio to a mobile home park in Mogadore, Ohio. My mom and my uncles would look after her since she didn’t work outside her home, and she had a very severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. Over time her hands and feet showed the signs of the disease eventually placing her in a wheelchair. However, she was one of those people that I never heard complain about her plight in life. She constantly pointed me and others toward God with stories of how great He is. When I stayed at her place, I would wake up to her beautiful voice singing hymns while making me breakfast. Her favorite was The Old Rugged Cross and to this day I can’t get through that one without getting emotional and thinking about her. When I would get sick and have to miss school, my parents would take me over to stay with her. I can’t confirm nor deny that sometimes I may have faked it to spend some time with her. She had the awesome gift of making tomato soup and a grilled cheese serve the same purpose as penicillin and antibiotics. All with crumbled up fingers.

Even though her health challenges kept her from attending church she still faithfully tithed to Lovers Lane Church where she was a member till her passing in 1980 out of the small amount, she received from Uncle Sam every month.

I remember watching TV with her during the Vietnam War. The local channels would post a running script of those killed or missing in action every night after the broadcast. I would see her intensely watch looking for my Uncle Mel’s name and being thankful not to find it but then being overcome with emotion for the other families that were not so fortunate. Even though the Vietnam War was the first to be “televised” we went for long periods of time not hearing from those we loved that were serving. Grandma had my uncle’s letters stored in a safe place. One in particular she had framed in a small picture frame that he sent home on a dried banana skin.

She liked The Mills Brothers, The Ink Spots, old-time hymns, Lawrence Welk, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, and other big band types of music. Thankfully (for me) she didn’t like country music. If you check out my record collection you might be surprised to see a bunch of those oldies. I loved to hear her sing.

Today’s blog will be about some of the New Years Eve parties I got to spend with her. I know the title of the blog sounds like it could be a Mitch Albom book, but I hope my New Years Eve with Gram stories will bring back some good memories for you as well as we rocket into 2025.

But First…A Joke:

Q: What do you get when you cross a dyslexic, an insomniac, and an agnostic?

A: Someone who lies awake at night wondering if there is a dog.

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: Why do you go to bed at night?

A: Because the bed can’t come to you!

A Verse to Contemplate:

May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed - Psalm 20:4

Have I Told You This One?

Gram was a very welcoming woman and when we would show up for our big party, she would meet us at the door and say, “there they are my little hunners!” We would get hugs and kisses, and we could smell the delicious food cooking. She started me on the New Years tradition of eating certain food for good luck in the next year. We would eat kielbasa, sausage, corn, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Then we would gather around the black and white television and watch Dick Clark from Times Square and prepare for the countdown and ball drop. However, we could never miss Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadiens (I think another channel) do their year-end show which would end with Auld Lang Syne. She loved those guys! We had three channels back in those days all out of Cleveland. Channels 3, 5 and 8 were the network channels. If the rabbit ears were pointed in the right direction and had enough aluminum foil and the weather was perfect, we could pick up channel 43, a local channel.

She would get us gathered up around the tube when it got close to midnight, so we didn’t miss the countdown. We would watch the ball slowly drop and then 3…2…1…. Happy New Year! She would give us a big hug and then she would have a prayer with us to make sure we started off the year right. Not too long after that it would be time for bed, and she could finally take a breath after getting us tucked in. I always remember feeling so safe at her place.

One year though that was not the case. I remember one particular year where we had a really bad storm, possibly a tornado, hit on New Years Eve while at her house. I remember the terrified look in her eyes, as she made us get down on the floor as the storm tore through the mobile home park. I looked up once to see what was going on just in time to see the roof of the home next to ours get ripped off and launched into the sky. Thankfully, we did not get any damage, but it was too close for comfort.

I remember one year when it was shifting from 1969 to 1970 and for some reason thinking this was a momentous occasion. When it clicked at the bottom of the ball drop to 1970, and the lights all went berserk I got all fired up. I have no idea to this day why, but it still sticks with me. I wonder what will happen tonight when it flashes to 2025!? I’m probably going to handle it a bit better.

Once I hit about 15 or so I started going to parties and such with friends and became too cool for the party at Grams. My sister and cousins took my place, and she carried on the traditions fine without me. I would still stop by and give her a hug and smooch but didn’t hang around too long. It was one of those moments when you realize that you are aging, and things change.

My Gram was a very modest person and had the kindest heart. I always struggled with why she had so many hard things going on in her life. I figured I would never understand on this side of heaven why these things happened to her (sound familiar?). Once her health started to fail more, she could not live alone she took turns living with different members of the family. She did not want to live in a nursing home and even though our homes were not made for a wheelchair she put up with it to be with family.

When I was in the “too cool” period and knew everything, I got myself in trouble doing some real dumb stuff. Dumb enough that I had to go to a court hearing at the Juvenile Detention Center in Akron. I could tell that I really had disappointed my parents, and they were hurt. I realized that what I did was very stupid and that I was done with that. The judge agreed and sent me home and promised to expunge my “record” if I kept my nose clean (I’m happy to announce I did my part). I dreaded coming home that night because Gram was living with us at the time, and I didn’t want to see her disappointment as well. When I got into the house she came up to meet me and I thought “here it comes.” I braced myself for the worst but she asked me to kneel down. I did and she hugged me as hard as she could with her arthritic hands and told me that she loved me, and she always will. That ended my life of crime.

One day when I was in college, she was living with us. I was getting ready to go class and was running a little late. I checked in on her and asked her if she was okay. As I said before, she NEVER complained but, on this day, she said that she wasn’t feeling good, and she did not sound right. I asked her if she wanted to stay with her until she felt better. She said no and to head on to class, but I didn’t feel good about it. I went outside to leave, and my car would not start, it ALWAYS started. I flooded it trying to get it started so I went back inside to let it sit and to check on Gram. When I got into the house, I called out to her, and she did not respond. I ran to her room, and she was in the middle of a stroke seizure. I didn’t know what to do so I tried talking to her, but she was unresponsive and shaking all over. I ran out and called 911 and they arrived quickly. She was still seizing when they came in and they asked me to hold her legs still as they cared for her. It took all I had to hold them. She couldn’t even walk, but this seizure made her very strong.

She passed in 1980 when I was twenty. Her death made me take inventory in myself. At the time I had one foot in the church and one foot in the world. I decided that I needed to make a choice because I couldn’t keep doing both. At her funeral I decided that I wanted her to always be proud of me, so I started to change my ways and live my life like I thought she lived hers. I want to be a positive example to others like she was for me.

I’m a blessed person to have known her and as the ball drops tonight I will raise my glass of milk up to her and wish her a Happy New Year (from the oldest hunner)! How great would it be to spend another New Years Eve with Gram!

Thanks for your time to give this a read. Happy New Year to all of you as well! Bring on 2025 and I appreciate your support in reading my blogs over the past couple of years. May He give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed (except Michigan, everyone but them).

A Prayer:

Father, You are my hope! Fill me to overflowing with joy and peace as I learn to completely trust You by the power of the Holy Spirit in the new year ahead.

Book Recommendation:

Big Chuck! (My Favorite Stories from 47 Years on Cleveland TV) by Chuck Schodowski with Tom Feran (2008)

Music Recommendation:

The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadiens (1975)

Quote of the Day:

Knowledge is like underwear. It is useful to have it, but not necessary to show it off. - Bill Murray.

Mark Rutledge 12/24/24 Mark Rutledge 12/24/24

When Helping Hurts

Happy Almost Christmas 2024!

Christmas is a great time of year for a lot of people. Not everyone but a lot. It is a time when there is more than just a passing glance of thinking of others, and it is a time to spend with family and friends and to take inventory of the year. This is coming from someone that doesn’t typically have the large responsibility to make Christmas memorable for the family. A BIG THANK YOU to all the moms, wives and grandparents that bring it every year.

I was wrapping my presents for a party that I will be going to later this evening at my daughter’s home and I am looking forward to seeing my girlies, my sons-in-law and the grands. This year I seem to be in a much better “Christmas-ey” mood. I am actually really enjoying it this year for a change. It can be a struggle sometimes. I’m not sure why but it can be challenging, especially the older I get.

I started to think back the other day and I was trying to recall some of the times that I tried to help others and/or be kind when it wasn’t the holiday season. It is much easier to be nice and there are more opportunities to do so in this time of year. But what about the third Tuesday in March or the second Monday in May?

I know people who go to prisons to try and bring some light to the folks locked up. I know others who regularly visit hospitals, or work in a mission, or donate money, or help the elderly, or mow the neighbor’s grass. You get the point.

I used to direct a ministry called Stephen Ministry at a former church. The ministry’s purpose was to come alongside others who are going through some difficult times and/or dealing with the consequences of life that sometimes hits hard. We walk with these folks and try to be good listeners and better question askers to assist them through the “times of poo” they are experiencing. Every once in a while, we would get asked by the pastors and staff to do some visitation to members that are in the hospital recovering or possibly living out the final days of their lives. It can be heavy stuff but very rewarding to us and hopefully to them, if only for a few minutes, to let them know they are being thought of and cared about.

I came across a few I would like to share with you that have a comedic twist from the vaults of the foggy mind of this kid of a tire builder. Sometimes Helping Hurts in more ways the one.

But First…A Joke:

Me and a buddy were having lunch with our wives. After lunch the ladies decided to go shopping, and the guys opted to try our hand at sailing. Bad decision - a storm blew through while we were out on the water.

Making matters worse, the tide had gone out, grounding the boat. We had to climb overboard and shove it back into deeper water.

As my friend stood there - ankles deep in muck, muscles straining against the weight of the boat, and rain pelting his face - he grinned broadly and with unmistakable sincerity said, “Sure beats shopping!”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: What is the quickest way to kill a circus?

A: Go for the juggler.

A Verse to Contemplate:

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means “God with us”). - Matthew 1:23

Have I Told You This One?

One day my friend and one of the pastors of the church reaches out and asks me if I have the time to visit one of the church members who is recovering from knee surgery in a rehab facility. He was overcommitted and needed some help, and I was glad to do it. I had never met this particular woman before, but I thought it be fine since we both went to the same church and at least had that in common.

The appointment is set for lunch time, so I take a break from work and drive over to this facility. Living in Atlanta, traffic can go from awful to the dark side of hell in a matter of minutes which unfortunately it did on my way to see this lady. I doubled down by missing the exit which made me very late for this meeting. When I finally get there, I find out that she skipped lunch because she thought I was bringing something for the both of us (oh boy). She didn’t take it well when I told her that was the first I heard of it. We sit and talk for a few minutes, and she keeps quizzing me on who I am. She seemed frustrated that I wasn’t a pastor or at least employed by the church. I smiled and told her that I am part of a care ministry in the church on a volunteer basis and was stopping by to check on her and see how she was recovering and if there was anything I or the church could do for her. She reminded me that I was late, and I did not bring anything to eat. I nodded my head and apologized once again. I then asked her if there was anything I could do for her while I was here. She said that she would love to get out of her room for a while and asked if I would help her get out of the bed and into the wheelchair and take her for a short ride around the building. “Absolutely” I quickly said as I pulled the wheelchair next to the bed. Well, my victim was not a petite lady, and I was by myself, and it was a bit of a struggle to fulfil her request, but I did it. Not without a few close calls but I got her into the chair. I made sure she was secure and as I turned her around to go out through the door I banged her knee (yes, that knee) against the opened door. As you might expect, she was really not happy with me and asked me if I was sent there to kill her or help her. At his point, I was not sure myself. I took her for a quick spin and then repeated the process of getting her back into her room. Not surprisingly, she suggested that that was enough for her for the day, and I prayed with her (and her knee) and slithered out.

Sometimes…Helping Hurts!

I called my friend and pastor to let him know that he might be getting a call from a very agitated church member about the care ministry. He just sighed and asked, “What did you do?” I told him and then all I heard was a big heavy sigh. So, I’m 0 for 1.

Undaunted, I get asked about a month later by a church member to visit her dad in the hospital who is recovering from a surgery that had left him in a lot of pain. The church member is concerned that he might not make it and was requesting someone go and speak with him about his eternal home and similar things. Oh, and by the way, he hates religion and especially pastors and will probably be very mean. Wonder why they called me? Hummm?

I get up to his room and knock on the door and I swear this guy looks like Sergeant Carter from the old Gomer Pyle show. Crew cut, mean scowl, menacing eyes, the whole tortilla. I try and start with some small talk and he’s not having any of it. He just wants to know who the @#* I am and what the @#* I want. What a great way to start off a conversation about religious stuff! I spent the longest 30 minutes of my life talking to myself in his room (you know how hard it is to keep a one-way conversation going with a stranger)? Well, he cuts me off in the middle of a sentence and tells me he is tired and would like some privacy. I oblige and leave.

I’m 0 for 2.

His daughter wanted me to call after I left so I gave her a call and unfortunately listened to her cry for another 15 minutes. I felt so bad for her. I know she was hoping for different results.

Sometimes…Helping Hurts!

Then there are times when it goes well but still hurts.

Michelle was asked to come to the home of a friend of a friend at church who was dying of AIDS. It was right at the beginning when there were a lot of unknowns, but she went anyway and held the man’s hand and prayed with him which seemed to comfort him greatly. I was so impressed, and my heart was full watching her care for this complete stranger just because he needed to be loved and cared for. I will never forget it. She hurt for that man from helping.

Sometimes…Helping Hurts!

As we enjoy Christmas this year, I hope that we risk the hurt and reach out to those that we know that might need a little extra love or those that are lonely and feel forgotten. This is a good thing to do on Christmas or the third Tuesday in March or the second Monday in May?

Merry Christmas My Friends. Give Till It Hurts?

A Prayer:

Lord, give me the wisdom and clarity to sense that You are doing seemingly impossible ideas in my heart and help me to trust in the Spirit’s leading into areas that do not make sense.

Book Recommendation:

When Helping Hurts (How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor… And Yourself) by Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert (2009/2012)

Music Recommendation:

Arc by Jimmy Haslip (1993)

Quote of the Day:

“I intend to live forever, So far, so good.” - Steven Wright

Mark Rutledge 12/9/24 Mark Rutledge 12/9/24

It’s Just a Car

I have not posted in a while due to a bit of writer’s block or just laziness, I’m not exactly sure which it has been, maybe both? With the holidays upon us for 2024 and another year coming to a quick end, time just got past me, I guess. The number of people reading the blog has steadily gone down over the year, so I also have been curious if this has run its course. I typically get a bit melancholy around this time of year, and I also start looking ahead to the next year while trying to determine how I did in the present day. I hope you find this somewhat interesting and worth the time you spend on it. It’s a challenge to me to know what and how much “personal stuff” to share but I also hope someone finds it helpful.

I recently had the great honor and privilege to lead a Tres Dias weekend around the end of October. Planning and training for it was my main focus for most of this past year. It kept my mind occupied and gave me a direction and a goal for my time and efforts. Similar to getting ready for Christmas, once it finally got here it was over in a flash. I was exhausted when it was over and spent the following few days resting up and reflecting back over the weekend. I got to give the last of 15 talks on the weekend and mine had a large focus on my journey over the past three years subsequent to Michelle’s passing in 2021. My theme for the weekend was “Walk Humbly with Your God” based on Micah 6:8. It is not very enjoyable to be humbled in life but if it is put in an eternal perspective some meaning comes from it and I thought it had value to share that with my friends and fellow travelers on the weekend. It was very emotional to stir all of that back up but necessary if the story was to be told. As I sat reflecting in my house, the question came to my mind…. What’s next?

I found that to be a healthy question. I seemed to have moved on from all of the “WHY?” questions and felt like I was finally ready to start moving forward with my life. The last three years of grieving and mourning has been hard and brought many new experiences to me. It has challenged my mental health, my faith, my physical health, my appearance, my friendships, my diet, my work, my family, my desires, and my outlook on life and how I fit into it now after all of these changes. This was odd because three years ago I felt like I had a pretty good handle on all of this and then within a few weeks it was blown to hell.

I made a commitment to myself to work through this in the “best” way right after it happened. I was BIG MAD at God, but I started at the beginning and started reading my Bible and praying in ways I had never prayed before. I was searching for answers, and none came for quite a while. Little by little I was chipping away at the large boulder I felt like I was carrying around. I would go to church but refused to sing and the whole thing was like going to the home of someone you loved but not wanting to engage while you were there and then just getting up and leaving.

I retired from work a few years earlier than I had planned because I just couldn’t focus anymore. I tried retail therapy and that didn’t work. I threw myself into home projects and that didn’t work. I started hiking and I think I covered most of North Georgia until I got bored with it. I have been dealing with insomnia on an Olympic level because I can’t shut off my brain to go to sleep, even for a few hours. I’ve traveled a good bit, but while fun it felt like I was running away if even for a small period of time. So, getting to a point where the questions have moved from Why to What’s Next is actually pretty healthy for me (I guess those Psych classes in college are paying off!).

Leaning on my gifts as an encourager I started working on myself by giving personal pep talks and having some “difficult conversations” with myself. I've got to move on but how does that work. I’ve got to reinvent myself but how does that work now. This has been more than the pep talk I give myself every year to change my ways at the end of the year and make a vow to be kinder, eat better, exercise more, read my Bible more, etc. This was more like telling myself that if I don’t do something soon, this is the way my life will stay. That was not an option for me but how do I climb out of this deep hole and get back into the game? I felt like I probably have worn out my friends and family and I don’t want to be a bother to anyone, so it was time to look in the mirror and kick my own rear end.

Today’s blog will be about the “Next Steps” I am trying and how selling a car has been a catalyst to picking myself off the mat and finding the way back. Yes, It’s Just a Car, or is it?

But First…A Joke:

Q: What’s the difference between ignorance, apathy, and ambivalence?

A: I don’t know, and I don’t care one way or the other.

Bonus Dad Joke:

Kid: Dad, make me a sandwich.

Dad: Poof, you’re a sandwich!

A Verse to Contemplate:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Ecclesiastes 3: 1 - 8 (NIV)

Have I Told You This One?

So, the Ohio State vs. Michigan game was played recently. This is the highlight of the football season for me. The 11 games played prior to that game are practice games in my mind and while the season is great it is just the opening act for THE GAME. People have asked over the years if all the hype about that game is true or just hyperbole. Michelle used to give me the look when I started yelling at the TV during the game and “try” to remind that “It’s Only a Game.” I quickly reminded her that ALL of the other games are “Just A Game”, but THE GAME is clearly not. She would roll her eyes and mumble to herself as she was leaving the room.

That’s great Markus, why are you telling us this you weirdo? I’m glad you asked.

I submit that there are things in everyone’s life that mean much more than others because of some (possibly) misplaced inflated value they may place on them. It may not make a lot of sense to others but nonetheless perception is definitely reality.

For me, I couldn’t bring myself to sell Michelle’s two seat convertible after she passed. I didn’t need the car, I didn’t really enjoy driving it, and it was costing me money to insure and maintain it. My financial advisor would encourage me to sell it, but he knew that it was going to take me some time to get to that point. I mentally compromised and looked at it as my “fun car” or my “backup car” and kept it around. In honesty, I just kept it around because it felt like it was my last link to her, and I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye. My mind drifted back thinking of her and I could hear her looking at me with the “are you kidding me look” on her face and saying, “It’s Just a Car!”

Once I got home from the weekend, I got this overwhelming sense that I should sell the car. Not because “It’s Just a Car!” but because it was time. It was very symbolic to me that doing this would be a great final step of hanging on to my anger and disappointment and moving toward a much healthier place in my life and a catalyst to reinvent myself from a retired widower to What’s Next. So, I did it. I sold the car and had one more drive around with the top down to feel the wind in my hair (Stop Laughing!) or what is left of it.

When I was a kid growing up, I looked up to different people and thought about how cool it would be to be them. I thought Joe Namath was great. He was brash and cocky, and I loved that. I thought I would strive to be him for a while. Then I went through my “tough guy” phase and thought Dick Butkus was who I would be. I loved his quote “I wanted them to know who tackled them without having to look.” Then I started getting into music and I decided that I wanted to be Robin Zander, lead singer of Cheap Trick. He was my teenage bromance. How great would it be to be the lead singer of a cool rock band? Then I thought about being a titan of industry and finance and thought about being Lee Iacocca. Then I thought about being a pastor and speaker and focused on Billy Graham and others. You get the point.

So now I am at another phase in my life where I have to decide What’s Next? I haven’t dated since the 1970s but I’m ready to give that another go. That is really scary! I want to do something significant with the time I am blessed with. I want to volunteer and make an impact on my community. I’ve got some ideas and I’m moving in that direction, finally. I know that I won’t be golfing or fishing. That is just not me. I also plan to travel A LOT and hope to find a partner to do that with.

Back in 2021 people told me not to be in a hurry and that it might be several years before I would feel like moving forward. I guess they were right. Stay tuned. I appreciate your time and thanks for listening to my stream of consciousness.

A Prayer:

Lord, I humbly seek Your wisdom and direction as I move into this next phase of my life so that I can serve You in alignment with Your plan. Teach me Your ways as I step out in faith into a new day so that I may walk in them all the days of the rest of my life.

Book Recommendation:

From Success to Significance (When the Pursuit of Success Isn’t Enough) by Lloyd Reeb (2004)

Music Recommendation:

Day for Night by Spock’s Beard (1999)

Quote of the Day:

“We’re all a little weird, and life’s a little weird. And when we find someone, whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” - Dr. Seuss

Mark Rutledge 11/13/24 Mark Rutledge 11/13/24

The Bomb Squad Is Here!

I was sitting in my favorite chair this morning trying to be still and quiet. I could see out into my yard and noticed that the wind was blowing pretty good, and it looked like it was getting colder outside. I checked the forecast on my phone’s weather app. I was right, it was starting to get cooler. It’s that time of year where Fall is hanging on and old man Winter is starting to let us know that it won’t be long. I love the Fall, especially in Georgia, but I think I’m still a summer guy at heart and therefore when the seasons are about to change again, I start getting the pangs for summer and miss all the fun, the longer days, the good weather, and the tons to do and see.

I’m also a sucker for nostalgia and have too much time on my hands lately so I got to thinking about summer days growing up in Tire Town and all the fun I had in my little slice of Americana in the 60s and 70s. It’s not so much escapism as it is a look back to an easier time that I didn’t realize would end when I “grew up”. Frankly, that’s all that I wanted to be when I was younger, was older. I should have listened closer to the older folks that were trying to get me to slow down and enjoy it. Who knew, right?

Then I got a notification on my phone (more on that later).

One day a while back, I saw the movie, The Sandlot. It took me back to the mid 1970s immediately. There was a lot to relate to for me and the guys I hung around with in that movie, especially the scenes at the public pool. We even tried our luck with the hot female lifeguards but didn’t have as much luck as Squints did but that didn’t stop us from trying! We were either playing baseball or heading to the pool.

One of the “standards” that went on for me and my friends in the summer was finding a place to go swimming during the day. I was fortunate and had several really fun spots to choose from. The closest one was right at dead man’s curve on Canton Road called Brownies. At least that’s what we called it. It was behind a restaurant called Brownies and a lot of kids from the surrounding neighborhoods would swim there. I don’t believe the Brown family owned the public pool but the rest of us decided to name it after them. By the way, their chicken dinners were the real deal!

As my fading memory recalls, it cost $2 or $3 to get into the pool. I typically had no money back then, so the next step was to call up some buddies and see who wanted to go to Brownies and then we would pool our enormous trust funds, and we would then figure out how much we were short to get in. We then started gathering pop bottles and taking them to the Lawson’s store down the street for the refund. Most days we had to get creative in our search for funds but most days we got enough. We would jump on our banana seat bikes and head for the pool.

We were told specifically by our baseball coach NOT TO SWIM on game days. We would nod our heads at him and then would look at the other guys on the team and wink. We were going swimming! However, coach would drive up to the pool and peek over the fence to see if we were there, so we got pretty good at dipping under water when we saw him roll up. You didn’t want to be on the high dive at that point. You were dead meat if that happened.

Speaking of the high dives. They were the greatest! The diving end of the pool was about 10 or 12 feet deep so you could really enjoy the dives. The main rule was there could only be one person on the board at the same time. You couldn’t even be on the ladder when someone was up there doing a dive. You also had to wait for the person to clear underneath before you could even start going up the ladder for your turn. We would love to do splash dives like a “preachers’ seat, cannonball, or try and jump as close to the lifeguards stand as possible to drown them. That usually got a whistle and a threat to sit out for 30 minutes if we didn’t knock it off. You can guess how much we liked being held to such tight rules so you can probably guess what is coming next.

After they threatened us with expulsion from the pool all day for not following the dive zone rules, we would look down at our feet and pledge to not do it again (and then go do it again). As the day got near the end, and it was almost time to go home, we would gather the heathens we called “The Bomb Squad” and plan a “Splash Party.” This would get us kicked out since it was prohibited and broke every single one of the rules. We would all line up on the ladder and would run up on the board all at once while the lifeguard went berserk with the whistle. The lifeguard would come down out of the chair and as we surfaced, she would kick us out for the rest of the day. We would leave, get on our bikes and roll up to the fence just behind her stand and blow her kisses as we left. I think she really dug me. I’m sure of it. I could tell by the way she totally ignored me.

After we got kicked out, we would generally have to lay low for a few days and then come back and do all the same silly stuff all over again (I mean we were 13 and 14). The Bomb Squad and I would have to take our “talents” to some of the other public pools in the area and as much as possible we would go to our friend’s house who had a pool in her back yard (can you hear the flapping of angels wings right now?).

Today’s blog will be some tales about the world infamous Bomb Squad of Ellet being let loose at a friend’s house we will call Linda (because that’s her name) and about her wonderful mother that requested our services to keep the water level at the pool at manageable levels.

But First…A Joke:

Four expectant fathers are waiting in a Minneapolis hospital maternity ward while their wives are in labor. The nurse comes in and tells the first man, “Congratulations! You are the father of twins!” “What a coincidence!” he says. “I work for the Minnesota Twins baseball team!”

The nurse returns and tells the second man, “Your wife had triplets!” “Wow, what a coincidence! I work for 3M Company!”

Then the nurse tells the third man that he and his wife now have quadruplets. “Another coincidence! I work at the Four Seasons Hotel!”

At this point, the fourth man faints. When he comes to, the others ask what’s wrong. “What’s wrong?! I work for 7 Up!”

Bonus Dad Joke:

I’ll never forget the last thing Grandpa said before he kicked the bucket: “Hey, how far do you think I can kick this bucket?”

A Verse to Contemplate:

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom - Proverbs 11:2

Have I Told You This One?

Linda’s family had a house that was a few blocks from the Rutledge Estate on Stevenson Avenue. We grew up together. She had three beautiful sisters. We went to the same schools, we bowled together, and we considered ourselves to be brother and sister. I still call her sis when I speak to her. We teased that we were going to get married someday. They also had a cool rec room in the basement that we hung out in a lot, and they had a pool; I may have mentioned that. Right in the back yard and it was fabulous. You could go right out of the kitchen sliding doors and you were on the concrete deck. The garage was to the left of the pool and there was a diving board.

As you might imagine, she was very popular being the only kid in the neighborhood that had their own pool! The one “problem” was that she couldn’t go to the public pool with all of us because she had a pool in her yard. Have I mentioned that? So, since we were such good friends, we sacrificed going to the public pool to go and swim at Linda’s house. It had nothing to do with being banned from Brownies and running out of pop bottles to return.

Her mom was great. She always saw through all of our BS and would allow us to swim there fairly regularly. Not every day but pretty often. She actually was the one to label us The Bomb Squad! Here’s why. She had one rule (there’s that word again!). We could not jump off of the garage into the pool. Diving board only! We would nod and swear to be good boys and start scaling the fence to get on top of the garage. She always sat right next to the sliding glass doors, so it was tricky to pull it off, but we HAD to, right?!

What always gave us away was the four big kerplunk sounds that were made from jumping off the roof versus the small diving board in short succession. She would come out and ask if we jumped off the garage and we would lie very badly. She would look up on the roof and ask us to explain why there were wet footprints up there. We had not thought that far ahead and therefore were busted.

One summer it had rained a ton (I know, hard to believe that it rains in Ohio when you don’t want it to), and the pool was almost overflowing. She told Linda to call the Bomb Squad over to take a foot of water out of the pool (without jumping off the garage). We were happy to oblige and had a ball swimming in the rain and doing our civic duty by dropping the water level considerably in a short period of time.

I haven’t seen her or spoken to her in forever. Life does that to brothers and sisters sometimes. We also share something else in common that we both wish we didn’t. We lost our spouses over the past handful of years. The boys of the Bomb Squad also have not been together in almost 50 years now.

As I was sitting in my house looking at the wind blowing my pine trees around and thinking about better days I received a text from her. The text reads that it has been raining too much in Ohio again and she needs the Bomb Squad to come over. Her parents, like mine, have passed recently but they have left us with a lot of great memories.

I miss you “sis” and thanks for making my day by bringing up a ton of great memories. The Bomb Squad may take a little longer to get up on the garage, but I bet we can move the water out!

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, help me to use my time wisely in order to leave a mark on this world for You. Help me to make the most of the time and opportunities You give me.

Book Recommendation:

Unoffendable by Brant Hansen (2015)

Music Recommendation:

James Gang Rides Again by James Gang (1969)

Quote of the Day:

“I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.” - Walt Whitman

Mark Rutledge 11/7/24 Mark Rutledge 11/7/24

The Humble Path to You

In about a week or so, my little family and I are going to head down to Pensacola Beach, Florida and celebrate “Michelle Palooza 3.” Every year since she has past, we have honored her wishes and got together to have a fun weekend and remember her. Not in a sad way but hopefully in a fun and honoring way. It is hard to believe that it has been three years already and as I have been preparing for the trip my thoughts have drifted back and forth to all that has gone on since August 22, 2021.

I have a saying as my signature in my email “A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.” It reminds me that the tough times are an opportunity for great spiritual growth and that by trusting in God and relying on Jesus I will be much better when we come out on the other side because we trusted Him in the storms.

I am sure you have all heard the saying that goes something like this: “When one door closes another door is opened.” I am not sure that this is even true but there is also another saying that I feel describes what I have been going through over the past three years. It goes like this, “When one door closes another door is opened but it is Hell in the Hallway!”. There is actually a book by this name that is pretty good.

A verse that has meant a great deal to me my most of my life is Micah 6:8, which is: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” As a younger person I thought that this verse really “bottom lined” it for me. If I could do this and the people around me could do this, the world would be a fantastic place.

Being humbled is not pleasant. I have never met anyone that has been truly humbled that has enjoyed it. I am like many of you, and I have worked hard and did what I have had to do to lead my family. One of the snares we can experience is the confidence in our own abilities and forgetting that we really have no control over what happens in our life. We can feel like we do, and things can go the way we hoped they would, but it does not mean we are that good and that strong. One of the most dangerous prayers you could ever pray is a prayer to God to humble and break you.

Michelle’s passing sent our worlds crashing down around us and shook me to the point of challenging everything I believed in God. It humbled me to a point of brokenness. It revealed to me who He was and who I was and that we are not the same. Not even close.

Many of you know our story. My wife and I have been together since we first met when I was a sophomore in high school, and she was a freshman. I asked her to the Valentine’s Day dance at our school in 1976 and we were together until 2021. We grew up together. We were married in 1982 and were married for 39 years. We were blessed with three daughters who are now married to three of the best sons in laws you could ask for. They blessed us with three grandchildren and number four is on the way early next year. I love her more than I can ever tell her in five lifetimes. I was blessed with a person that makes me a better man just by knowing her.

The last three years have been mostly lonely and difficult. I know that time heals all and I am experiencing that statement. I am further down the road in my grieving every year, but I am still amazed of how much more there is to do. Somedays it feels like a blink of an eye and somedays it feels like a horrible dream that I can’t wake up from.

On August 10, 2021, on her 60th birthday, my bride was admitted to the hospital diagnosed with COVID-19. She was at considerable risk because she had been the recipient of a successful kidney transplant 20 years previously and was on medication that suppressed her immune system. Twelve days later she was gone. I never got to speak to her.

In today’s blog I am attempting to put into writing what I have learned over the past three years and where I feel I am at in this process. If you don’t want to continue reading, I understand. For those that continue on, I hope it may help you now or when it’s your turn.

Thanks for walking one more time with this Tire Builder’s Kid on the Humble Path.

But First…A Joke:

After raising four kids, a woman from Ohio State reentered the workforce. although she was not trained in medicine, she decided her experience as a mother qualified her to open a medical clinic. She guaranteed that she could treat any health problem for $250. A sign on the door read “If you’re not cured, I’ll give you $500.”

One man from Michigan thought this was a good opportunity to make an easy $500. Entering the clinic, he said, “Doctor, I’ve lost my sense of taste. Food seems to have no flavor.”

The woman calls to her assistant, “Nurse, please bring medicine B24, and give the patient a half-ounce dose.” After the nurse fed him the medicine, the man exclaimed, “This is rubbing alcohol!” The mom said, “Congratulations! Your sense of taste has been restored. That will be $250.”

The patient got upset and concocted a plan to get his money back. A few days later, he walked in and said, “Doctor, I’ve lost my memory. I can’t remember anything.” The mom called out, “Nurse, please bring medicine B24, and give the patient a half-ounce dose.” The Wolverine exclaimed loudly, “But that’s rubbing alcohol!” The Buckeye said, “Congratulations, you’ve got your memory back. That will be $250.”

Angrily, the man stormed out. Later, he returned, saying, “Doctor, something is wrong with my eyes. I can barely see.” The woman thought for a moment and responded, “Well, I don’t have a medicine for that. Take this $500.” Looking at the bills, the man protested, “But this is $250.”

Snatching the money out of his hands, the woman said, “Congratulations! You got your vision back! That will be $250.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

Child: Dad, why are you sleeping on the chandelier?

Dad: I’m a light sleeper.

A Verse to Contemplate:

For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes. Proverbs 24:16

Have I Told You This One?

I have been a believer in Jesus since I was 11 years old. I have not always lived the life that I should, and I am clearly Under Construction like so many in the faith. I have always gone to church, I have served on many missions’ trips, I give to charities, I pray, I study the Bible, blah, blah, blah.

How could this happen to me/us? Had we not built up enough “spiritual capital;” so that this cup should pass from us? On some level, I thought I had this figured out. I was wrong. I was afraid, and I was mad at God. I did not understand why this was happening. I would never break down in front of the girls, but I would let loose in the shower. I have a tree in my back yard with some serious dents in it from a baseball bat I would take to it during the darker times.

Looking back at this now, I was standing on the foundation of Marriage and Family which was about to get tested big time!

I felt very much like David did when he wrote Psalm 13. Do you know this one?

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will be enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for He has been good to me.

I was at the biggest crossroads of my life, and I had a choice to make. I could trust that God was working this out for my good or I could take things into my own hands and trust that Mark knew what was best for Mark and his family. Like many men I am an analytical person, and I think I should have all the answers. I did not. I did not want to Walk Humbly with My God. I didn’t feel like what had happened was “just” and I certainly was not loving mercy. Michelle is more than fine and living the best life possible in eternity. I don’t worry about her like I first did. I have accepted that she is happy and safe and forever healed of any sickness and will never shed another tear.

But Micah 6:8 kept speaking to ME.

My good friend Boyd Bailey writes the following which hit me directly between the eyes:

You can go through the motions of religious activity without brokenness and obedience; that is the epitome of pride. The audacity to use God is the ultimate deception. God will not be used. He will not be mocked, nor will He allow pride to roam free. Pride tries to convince you that you are God’s gift to the world, but that was Jesus, who God sent to us for the forgiveness of our sins. The reminder of that gift is meant to flush out pride and replace it with humility. Pride and humility cannot coexist. Humility understands and does not forget that God is the author of all good things. His Holy Spirit cuts through pride’s deception and replaces it with humility’s reality. The reality is, without the blessings of God, people are paupers lost in pride.

Humility and brokenness break the bonds of pride. You know pride is losing its grip when you release control of your life. Humility lets go. You let go of recognition; You let go of hurt feelings; You let go of the past; You let go of judging; You let go of bad habits; You let go of your family, your work, your relationships, your need to be right and to always have your way. You let it go and you leave it with God. This is what it means to trust God. Humility and trust go hand in hand, as much as pride and control. It is uncanny how humility and trust lead to more responsibility and power, while pride and control lose it. This is the great deception of pride: Pride thinks it is in control, but it is not.

The humble man recognizes God’s control and is trusted with more. When you humble yourself in your relationships, you will be given more peace and fulfillment. Stiffen up in pride, and you will lose that joy. Therefore, give up your way of doing things and submit to God’s way. Do not force your agenda; rather, accept the Almighty’s. If you continue to demand control, you are deceived. Pride will cause you to lose what you desire most and receive what you most regret. Humility exposes you to God’s eternal benefits. He will bless you far beyond what you expect or deserve. The benefit of humility far outweighs pride’s illusions.

Humble yourself before God does it for you. The Bible says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (I Peter 5:6).

Intimacy with God goes hand in hand with your brokenness. Your desire for intimacy with your Heavenly Father will be accompanied by brokenness, as it escorted you into intimacy with eternal God. It is your date with destiny. A broken and contrite heart delivers intimacy with the Almighty. Do not despise your broken condition. Rather, delight in its opportunity for intimacy. You long to know Jesus in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering (Philippians 3:10). These prayers were not in vain. Your brokenness is answered prayer. The answer may not be exactly what you expected. You may have anticipated a smoother route, a paved road free of bumps or potholes. But the path of personal and intimate relationship with Christ is not always easy.

Most of the time, intimacy requires difficulty. It is at this point of pressure and discomfort that some people disembark the train of intimacy. It is much easier to talk about an intimate relationship with Christ that it is to arrive at this point through brokenness. However, this is an exercise in convenience. It is like placing a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of our life, in place of the “Clean Up My Room” invitation. Brokenness is inviting God to come in and cleanse your life. He stands at the door of our heart and knocks (Revelation 3:20). When you invite Christ into your broken lives, He comes in. Intimacy is then unleashed on His terms, not yours. It is only when you surrender in total desperation and total dependency on God that you experience true intimacy.

Intimacy with God through brokenness is not unlike what you experience in a relationship with people. Hardships and brokenness are meant to bring you closer to other people. A crisis will either drive you further away from someone or closer together. God’s best for you is to make you relationally stronger with one another during a season of brokenness. But brokenness is not a one-time phenomenon. It is an ongoing part of the committed Christian’s life. It is not as if you swallow this hard pill one time and then set for a lifetime of intimacy with God. Once God had marked you with brokenness, then you are positioned for Him to build on this firm foundation. He will still use mini brokenness throughout your life. These regular occurrences are bricks of brokenness connected by the cement of His grace. Over time, a life of brokenness becomes a stalwart structure of sanctification designed by God. Your brokenness is meant for your betterment. Indeed, you are much the better when you experience a defining moment of brokenness. It deserves your embrace, rather than your rejection. If you fight brokenness, you delay God’s best. You circumvent intimacy with Christ if you bypass brokenness. Focus your energies on changing yourself, not your circumstances. Christ will manage the circumstances while you adjust the attitude. A life of brokenness is an invitation to intimacy. His closeness and salvation are worth the time of brokenness.

Do not buck brokenness. Instead, rely on him and get to know Him at his deeper level of intimacy. You are much better broken because brokenness leads to intimacy with God.

Boyd, you nailed it my friend.

Over the past three years, I did everything in MY power to try and figure out why. This made no sense to me and frankly it still does not. This time in our lives is what we have been working so hard for all these years and now I am alone without her.

After a few months of trying to fix it, I realized that my attitude and thinking was off. I was asking the wrong questions. My family needed me to be a strong leader, my friends did as well and even though I do not understand this it is a way to influence others to Christ. I decided to stand on the foundation of Christ and His promises. I am slowly realizing it is not about me but about Him. He is God and I am Not.

I have been humbled and I am grateful most days instead of being mad and depressed. I put away my “spiritual medals” and resume. I learned enough to trust in God instead of telling Him what I thought was best for me and my family. I have reopened myself to be taught His ways and to see the folly in mine.

God loved me right where I was, people loved me right as I was, and God can and will use me as broken as I am. He is God and I am not. His ways are not my ways. If I am humble and if I seek justice, He can and will use me. What a renewing of the mind!

Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I do not deserve anything. He has given me everything including the love of my life. I hear His instructions to Be Humble, Be Faithful.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit – Psalm 34:18.

Of course, it is inevitable that we will encounter trials in our lives, along with times of joy. It is important that we do not forget that Christ promised this. These are important times, that with Christ leading the way, will help grow our faith and perseverance.

Christ’s own brother James writes in Chapter 1:24

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

I praise God for the trials I have faced, to prepare me for life ahead.

As I wrap up, I want to offer you a challenge. “I am going to give you a four-word challenge. Those four words are, “DO THE HARD STUFF!” Anyone can be average; we need people who are not afraid of the difficult things in life but step up and lead. Do not be meek, do not be afraid, do not be undecided. Be steadfast! Be the picture of the destination you want others to arrive at. If God has called you, He will prepare you and strengthen you for the task.

Thanks for listening.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, thank You for each and every opportunity You give me to share what You’ve done for me. Give me the courage to share how You have redeemed me and given me a new life.

Book Recommendation:

The Haters by Jesse Andrews (2016)

Music Recommendation:

Gretchen Goes to Nebraska by Kings X (1989)

Quote of the Day:

“Beware of no man more than yourself; we carry our worst enemies with us.” - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Mark Rutledge 10/28/24 Mark Rutledge 10/28/24

Lattice Top Cherry Pie

May I ask you a question? Do you have a special “something” that if you are asked it is your go-to? I’m sure you do, everyone probably does. It usually is not too hard to come up with something you like above a lot of other good things. When you are younger, it can be tough because there is so much to like, and the world is so much bigger but as an adult you are likely more focused and have trimmed down the list of things to a few.

Over the years as my birthday or Father’s Day or something similar was approaching, Michelle and/or my girlies would come around and ask, “What would you like for your (birthday, etc.)? I like getting gifts but it’s not quite the big deal it used to be for sure. Not to brag, but I have enough shoes, gloves and house slippers. I’m also set with ties and cologne. At first, it was actually difficult to come up with something. I’m at a point in my life where I am getting rid of stuff versus accumulating stuff. Then one day I came up with the perfect gift for me and had it set up in the back of my mind when they came around to ask. I really wanted a Lattice Top Cherry Pie. If I can read your mind right about now, you just said to yourself….a what? Let me know if I should take my mind reading superpower and head to Las Vegas to do a residency at MGM.

I really do not like cake. I know, I know. I’m a bit off (stop laughing!). It’s okay but it truly is something that I usually turn down when it is offered. I don’t go much for brownies and that kind of stuff either. HOWEVER. If I am offered pie of any kind, I will pull up a chair to the kitchen counter with a Jethro Bodine size fork and plate and have at it. There is not much pie I don’t like but if cherry pie is available, Lord help us all.

My mom was not much of a baker, but her mom was for sure! My grandma Fordham could make pies, cookies and such that were so good you would slap your little brother! (or was that just me?). My mom told me about life at her house in Tallmadge when they were growing up. Saturday was baking day. Her and Grandma would bake all day, so they had stuff for the rest of the week. I could smell the story when she told it to me! But you know how it is, when you are young, and you hear “old people stories” you are not 100% sure that this is a straight up story that might be a smidge embellished. HOWEVER. I have a memory of when I was around 12 or so we had a family picnic out at my grandparents’ home during the summer. This is really my only memory of a good family time with my mom’s parents since they divorced soon after this, but it was the clarification I needed to know what mom was telling me was truth.

Anyway, this picnic could have been a Norman Rockwell painting. The house was out in the countryside of Ohio. The house was surrounded by fields, gardens, woods and very few other homes. There were no businesses or busy roads. All the houses I could see were my relatives. Everyone that had moved away came back. We sat under these two massive trees that were in the front year. Grandpa set up “tables” by putting together a bunch of sawhorses and covering them with white sheets. You could smell fresh cut grass and hear the adults talking and laughing. Grandma was busy getting all the food ready. My brother and I tried to stay out of the way but had to be told a bunch to go outside and play. My uncles and aunts were portaging the food from the house to the front yard. Benches and chairs were scouted from all over and set up next to the tables.

My brother and I were messing around on the porch and then we saw it…….Lattice Top Cherry Pies. There was also apple, blueberry, blackberry, rhubarb, strawberry. Oh my God, it was the Pie Hall of Fame cooling on the bannisters around the front porch. It stopped me in my tracks, and I got that Ralphie from Christmas Story goofy look on my face as I stared into the indescribable beauty that was in front of me. In fact, I think I did slap my brother.

We get called to the table and the feast got underway. The food was delicious and right out of their gardens. Even at my young age, I knew to save some room for that pie on the porch. Grandpa was making homemade ice cream in a churn too. I told you it was Norman Rockwellish! Dinner winds down and the adults are all yapping and letting their food settle and my grandma has kept her eyes on me the whole time and asks, “Marky (she’s the only one that was allowed to call me that), did you save any room for pie? I was enshrined in the pie eating hall of fame later that day!

From that day forward I was hooked on Lattice Top Cherry Pie. Fast forward a couple decades and Michelle asks me what I want for my birthday one year soon after we got married and I surprise her with a real answer other than “nothing, I’m fine.” I tell her, I would love a Lattice Top Cherry Pie like my grandma used to make. She encourages me to think a little bigger and I stand my ground. It takes some work, but she agrees, and it was glorious. Every year after that, she got the same response. It became a running joke around the house, and they would ask me every year even though they knew what the answer would be. I would tell them that I’m really not that hard to figure out. A simple man with simple needs (no jokes and laughing!).

When Michelle passed away in 2021, my longtime friends here in Georgia got together and bought me a Lattice Top Cherry Pie and had it sent to the house from a really good bakery in Atlanta. They may have had to take out a second mortgage to do it but it was a great gift. One of those gifts that touches your heart from people that REALLY know you, quirks and all.

Today’s blog is about my most recent Lattice Top Cherry Pie gift from people who really surprised me with my favorite gift.

But First…A Joke:

A doctor and a lawyer meet at a party. As they try to chat, they’re constantly interrupted. The other partygoers keep describing their medical problems to the doctor, wanting free advice. Finally, the frustrated doctor asks the lawyer, “How do you stop people from asking you for legal advice when you’re not at work?”

“I give it to them,” the lawyer says, “and then I mail them a bill.”

The doctor decides to give it a try. A couple days later, he goes out to mail a stack of invoices to people who bothered him at the party. In his mailbox, he finds a bill from the lawyer.

Bonus Dad Joke:

Q: What’s the worst thing somebody can do to your kid?

A: Give him a whistle.

A Verse to Contemplate:

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come for you. John 14:18

Have I Told You This One?

This past weekend, I got to take something off of my Bucket List and it was better than I could have ever imagined, and I had set a pretty high bar for this one! I was asked to be a Rector for a Tres Dias weekend back at the first of the year and God put together an incredible team over the past seven months or so and we had the weekend in the North Georgia mountains this past Thursday through Sunday.

This is a spiritual retreat, and the camp is home to about 120 guys for the weekend. The Rector is the guy who is responsible for managing the program and it is an absolute honor to be trusted with that task. Over the twenty years I have been involved with it I have had the privilege of getting to know some of the best people on the planet and have become friends with a lot of them. We have 4 events every year and this weekend was #152. There is a ton of details, planning, timing, budgeting, organizing and the like and with my personality it is easy to get consumed by the details.

The weekend kicks off on Thursday night and gets off to a good start. Friday goes pretty good too. As some of the nerves go away and I actually start to enjoy myself, I am in my sweet spot. It’s a bunch of people and I’m meeting and making a lot of new friends and hugging the necks of a lot of old friends. Guys who really care about each other and their families. Guys who want your best and push you to be your best. Guys who love the Lord and want others to do so. As I’m sitting and thinking late on Friday evening my mind wonders back to Michelle for a minute or a thousand. I wish she could be a part of this with me. I wanted her to be proud of me and see how happy I was to be in a place that I hoped I would be someday. I was blown away by the guys on the weekend. They supported me and each other tremendously. I felt like it was God honoring and that men’s lives were impacted and hopefully changed.

Saturday night usually is a real nice dinner and is a surprise to the Rector put on by the Kitchen team. As we made our way through the conference on Saturday I started looking forward to that dinner. I knew it was going to be delicious, and it is such a nice meal because by then most of the guys have started to build new friendships and the conversation level in the room is way louder that it was on Thursday and Friday evening. That makes my heart smile.

As I’m sitting there enjoying a full course meal the Kitchen guys start picking up the plates and ask me if
I am ready for dessert. I’ve been trying to watch the sugar and calorie intake, but my defenses usually take a vacation when we are up at the Camp. I say, “you bet, bring it out. What are we having?” “The fellas look at me and say, “just wait and see.” They go into the kitchen and come back with Lattice Top Cherry Pie.

What a wonderful touch by the Kitchen team. I am forever thankful and grateful. I so needed that at that time. I enjoyed the delicious dessert made especially for me by my good buddies. It was one of many things that made it a weekend that I never will forget. Maybe, just maybe, Michelle was with me on the mountain top on Saturday night.

Thank you, brothers, nice touch!

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, cover me in Your goodness all the days of my life. Renew my mind when I question Your goodness because of my circumstances. You are my refuge and strength.

Book Recommendation:

A Gentle Thunder - Hearing God Through the Storm by Max Lucado (1995)

Music Recommendation:

Five Steps on the Sun by DarWin (2024)

Quote of the Day:

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.” - Steve Martin

Mark Rutledge 10/16/24 Mark Rutledge 10/16/24

Epitaph

I know the title to this week’s blog is not a bucket of giggles but stay with me for a smidge because this small, yet powerful word made a big difference in my life several decades ago and the story is uplifting (at least to me) and not depressing. We have enough of that going around right now and I refuse to add to the mess.

The Webster’s dictionary defines Epitaph as: “an inscription on or at a tomb or a grave in memory of the one buried there” and “a brief statement commemorating or epitomizing a deceased person or something past.”

An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, (often inscribed or engraved on their headstone, monument, memorial plaque, gravestone, tombstone or cemetery marker). It usually includes the person’s name, dates of birth and death, along with a meaningful quote or Bible verse.

Some funny examples of epitaphs include:

The comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s that says, “There Goes the Neighborhood.”

TV host Merv Griffin’s: “I will NOT be right back after this message.”

Voice over legend Mel Blanc’s: “That’s All Folks!”

Some meaningful and powerful ones include:

Martin Luther King’s: “Free at Last, Free at Last, Thank God Almighty, I’m Free at Last.”

Joe DiMaggio’s: “Grace, Dignity, and Elegance Personified.”

Winston Churchill’s: “I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

Typically, an epitaph is a short (very short) summation of the person for which it is written. It is incredibly hard to come up with something that is respectful, relevant, honoring and touching in about 10 words or less. For me it is, anyway. I probably think it through too much but in my way of thinking once you engrave it in stone, it is there forever. You really aren’t writing it for them as much as you are for the people that may come and visit the grave site.

I think there are two kinds of people when you come to settling their end-of-life activities. The first is people who really want their funeral to be a big deal, and they want to make it a big event while the second group typically chooses to be low profile and doesn’t want you to go through a lot of expense and time. Both are equally not living anymore but their last wishes could be worlds apart. As a good family member, you want to honor their wishes regardless of how you might look at these things. I know of people that go to the cemetery frequently to visit a grave site, and I know of others who have never gone since the funeral.

Today’s blog will be about a time where I was asked to write an Epitaph for my dad and the life-changing moment it created in my life (and his) and how this has had an impact on me to this day as I have had the opportunity to do the same for other loved ones and friends.

But First…A Joke:

Back in the Wild West, three cowboys (two from Ohio State and one from Michigan) were about to be hanged for stealing cattle. The lynch mob brought them to the bank of a nearby river and planned to string them up from a branch over the water. That way, when the men died, they would just drop into the river and float away.

The mob put the noose around the first cowboy’s neck (Ohio State #1), but he was too sweaty that he slipped right out, fell into the water, and swam away. When the mob strung up the second cowboy (Ohio State #2), he also slipped out of the noose and got away. As they pulled the third cowboy (the Michigan guy) toward the noose, he hesitated and asked, “Hey, would you tighten that noose? I can’t swim!”

Bonus Dad Joke:

My wife said I was immature. So, I told her to get out of my fort.

A Verse to Contemplate:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2: 8-9

Have I Told You This One?

Not too long after I moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1984 I was attending a men’s conference at my church, First Baptist Atlanta. The church had engaged a gentleman by the name of Dave Simmons who had just started a family ministry titled “Dad the Family Shepherd.” The purpose of the ministry was to assist men who were dads or were going to be dads from a biblical perspective. It dealt with how to break generational sin and focused on the importance of being the leader your family needed you to be and what God expects a good leader to be.

At the time, I was not a father yet, so I was doing a bit of preparation work for when my turn came. I wanted to be a good dad. I knew how to be a father, but I wanted to get some confidence and direction on how to be a DAD.

My main goal in attending conferences is trying to come away with a few things that I didn’t know before and some ways I could apply them to my life. No one has all the answers but getting good coaching is never a bad idea. But at the time, I didn’t know what I didn’t know if you catch my drift. I was at the beginning of this part of my life and was hungry and curious for knowledge.

The conference started out with a lecture and then we were broken up into smaller groups. Even though I am an extravert, I loathe having to go through the awkward parts of meeting complete strangers and trying to get deeper conversations going. But I also hate pregnant pauses, so I am usually the one who tries to break the ice.

The major assumption that I started with (and discovered that I was very wrong) was that all the guys at the table had a pretty good dad when they were growing up. A dad that loved them, pushed them, protected them, taught them, provided for them, and led their families well. As I heard testimony after testimony, I quickly realized that the dad I had, that hardnosed tough tire-making dude I called dad, was WAY better than I had given him credit for. Yikes! Some of these stories were awful and brutal. As I continued to listen, I was struck with how difficult it must be to be a dad, especially a GOOD ONE. I was actually struggling with that definition of “good dad.” One of the group exercises was to write an Epitaph of your father and you could only use about 20 words. Wow, that was challenging and hard, but it made me do a deep dive into the kind of dad he was to me which was a life changing event.

As the conference went on throughout the weekend, I gained more respect for Wayne P. Rutledge and became more and more thankful. I realized that he really was a GOOD ONE and that I probably wasn’t even close to thanking him for all his hard work and sacrifice.

When I got home after the close of the conference, I called dad back home in Ohio. Typically, when I called, he would say “Just a minute, I will get your mom” and put the phone down. This time I said “Dad, I want to talk to you this time, not mom.” Like a true parent, he says, “oh, what’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing is wrong, but I want to thank you for all that you had done for me and the family and apologize for not letting you know this sooner.” He was stunned and did not know what to say but did get out a “thank you.” I told him I loved him, and we hung up (side note: dad was not much for long talks on the phone).

A few days later mom calls me up and asks, “What did you say to your father a few days ago?” I thought he must have taken it poorly, but mom went on to say that he was walking two feet off the ground with a smile on his face telling her what a great son they have! Aw shucks! I didn’t say it for that response, but it definitely was a bonus. Dad never showed that kind of emotion in front of us. I was glad it touched his heart.

Forty years later I have raised three of my own kids and have experienced how difficult it can be at times to be a GOOD ONE. I hope that I have been a GOOD ONE for my family. I know that every parent messes up and none of us will ever get it done perfectly and I thank my girls for their patience and forgiveness when I fall short. This is not complaining, BUT, if you look at how dads are treated and portrayed by the society it is a wonder any of us ever get it right. In the movies and TV shows dads are always the bumbling idiots or jerks. In church on Mother’s Day the women get flowers and showered with praise (as they should!). You know what dads usually get on Father’s Day? A book on how to be a better dad.

Granted, there are a lot of men that have failed miserably as husbands and fathers, but I know of a lot of men who are trying very hard to be the best for their families. It is not an easy job for sure, but you have to get up and get after it every day. There is no time for whining and moaning about how hard it is.

My dad passed first (in 2012) and as a veteran he was buried in a national cemetery just outside Akron, Ohio. When he passed, I was given a one-page template to help write his Epitaph. In one sense it was easy because the choices were so limited, but it was pretty basic. Date born, date died, branch of service and that he was a beloved husband, father and grandfather. Done. Then mom past three years later and she was buried in the same place, and I got the same template to write hers. Both of them “deserve” so much more. If I wrote what I wanted to write, the headstone would have been 30 feet high and cost a million bucks!

What do you want yours to say?

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, You know pain better than anyone. Thank You for sustaining me in my suffering. Nothing I experience here on earth compares to eternal life with You.

Book Recommendation:

Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink (2017).

Music Recommendation:

The Key by Michael Gettel (2005)

Quote of the Day:

“I used to be quite the athlete - big chest, hard stomach. But that’s all behind me now.” - Bob Hope

Mark Rutledge 10/3/24 Mark Rutledge 10/3/24

Oklahoma Drills and #43

I promise this is not going to be a story of me reliving my “glory days” so stick with me because I am going somewhere with this. I am of a certain age (code for OLD) when football was taught and played very differently than it is today. Like many things in the world, the sport as evolved as the players have become, bigger, faster, stronger, smarter. The equipment is better, the fields are usually much better and watching “film” has changed to watching video or streaming it in real time.

I was recently at a high school football practice here in the Atlanta suburbs and I was shocked to see the team doing what we referred to as “Oklahoma Drills.” Back in my leather helmet wearing days (I’m really not that old), we did those almost every practice. The drill was originally developed long ago by Bud Wilkinson, head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners, when they were national champion contenders for years. In my mind, it also could be called the “Let’s see what you got” drill. The way it works is that the coach will lay three blocking dummies on the ground about a yard or so apart to represent the respective guard/center and guard/tackle “holes” on the line of scrimmage. One guy will get the ball on one side of the dummies and the other is to tackle him once he turns up into one of the holes. It’s a lot of fun and a sure way to get a headache and likely a concussion. But when it is your turn, you have to show the team what you are bringing to the table, or you may find yourself on the bench or selling popcorn. Due to a lot of studies regarding concussions and CTE, that kind of hitting (which we did routinely in the 60s and 70s) has been scaled back a lot. Teams don’t hit much during the week in general. From the comfort of my couch, it is easy to see that tackling is a lost art and if somebody does lay a lick on an opponent, they are getting flagged and sometimes ejected from that game for unnecessary roughness and/or targeting.

When we lost a game, or the coaches didn’t think we were doing what we should be doing we were often “punished” with a lot of running and/or Oklahoma drills. On the flip side it was a great way to get in the proper mind set to play ball. It is a contact sport, and it is true that if you are not going full speed during a game, you have a real good chance of getting hurt. So, like everything in sports, you practice like you play. I have never been in the service or in a war so I will never compare it to that, but it did test how big your heart was and if you had the “guts” to bang heads. I played linebacker a lot when I played for the few years they wanted me to. We practiced that way a lot because that was what we needed to do in a game. We stood up behind the defensive linemen and when you saw a hole open up it was your job to plug it up and do it in a way that they might not want to do that many more times.

When I went out for the junior high school team when I was about 13 or 14ish none of the coaches really knew who I was since it was first year being moved up from pee-wee ball. It was like starting all over again in the sense that I had to show the coaches that I could play and that I wanted to play. During the first few days of contact drills, we were doing a lot hitting and I found myself rather enjoying it. Since I was doing pretty good, they first decided to try me at middle guard which is a player that lines up on the nose of the center. You typically have to be very quick and able to maintain your ground and for the most part protect the linebackers who are then free to make the tackle. Long story short, I was getting my a** kicked in a down position. I couldn’t fight the double teams and was getting blocked. I saw the linebacker coaches talking to each other and then they asked me if I wanted to try linebacker. I said YES! I did much better standing up but I had never played there before so the coach gave me a quick lesson. He lined me up and then told me if I see any daylight in the line, it was my job to run in there at full speed and take out the blockers and running back. Simple enough. I did well enough to where they all came to an agreement that I was much better standing up than in a stance and they liked the way I hit. From that day forward until graduation from high school, I was a linebacker.

During this year of junior high ball, we played in a league with a weight limit. You could not weigh more than 140 pounds. I was 110 soaking wet with pads on. Back then the pads made you look a LOT bigger than you were but nonetheless I was not a big boy. The big boys had the option to try out for the high school team.

One day at practice, my linebacker coach came up to me and said, “Can I ask you a question?'“, “Yes sir!” So I am expecting him to ask me what defense we should be in against a certain alignment or what my responsibilities were, etc. Instead, he puts him arm around me and spins me around and points me toward the cheerleaders that we are practicing on the side of the field and asks, “What color bra does the third cheerleader from the right have on?” I looked at him stunned and made sure I heard him right and he nods his head. I say, “White with little hearts?” He cracks up and says “Congratulations, you are the captain of the defense!” This meant I would be calling the defensive signals in the huddle during games.

My blog today will be on how my practicing of the Oklahoma drills came into play during a game when I met a new friend that I will call #43 that played on another team. He also had a keen sense of contact drills and was very good at it!

But First…A Joke:

Johnny was in the garden filling in a hole with dirt when his neighbor peered over the fence. “What are you up to Johnny?’ the neighbor asked. “My goldfish died,” replied Johnny. “I just buried him.” The neighbor looked at the large mound of dirt and remarked, “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish’” Johnny looked up after patting down the last heap of dirt and said, “That’s because he’s inside your cat.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

“'Dad, did you get a haircut?'. 'No, I got them all cut!'"

A Verse to Contemplate:

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” (David) - Psalm 51:12.

Have I Told You This One?

The league was called Bantams (as in small chickens). Like I said before, it was 13- to 15-year-old players that weighed no more than 140 pounds. I was number 62 and played middle linebacker for the Ellet Bantams (I honestly can’t remember if we had a mascot name). We played at Hyre Junior High before they tore down the old building. We played where the baseball fields were before they built a permanent little stadium for the Ellet Raiders pee-wees.

The story today is about a game against the West Bantams which was the junior high team from Buchtel High School district. These dudes always wore black uniforms which I wish we wore because they made a team look pretty badass. We wore orange and you guessed it, it didn’t strike fear into many opponents.

The game starts and you could smell the freshly cut grass and it was a perfect Fall Day to play some ball. We were pretty good that year and had a good team as did West, so this was a “big” game. It was a tight game, and we are tied going deep into the second half, but West is on a drive. So, I am giving the signals in the defensive huddle and encouraging the guys to end this drive and get the ball back. We break the huddle and line up for a third and short. Everyone on the planet knows it’s going to be a handoff up the middle to the halfback with a fullback leading through the hole….MY HOLE.

I psych myself up as the QB calls the signals and sure enough the hole opens up and my friend #43 is leading the back through the hole. I charge in there like I’m supposed to, and Mister #43 knocks me into next Tuesday!! WTH was that?! The back breaks a long one but we get him down before he scores. To our pleasure there was flag on the play which brought it back. I wobble back to the front of our huddle and the guys are looking at me and laughing like crazy. I look at a buddy and ask, “What is so funny?” He proceeds to tell me that my facemask (a cage) is covered in snot and freshly cut grass clippings. I look down and wipe it off which now sends the guys into a gross out mode. The coach is yelling for me to make a call, and I can’t see him thanks to #43. I make something up and stumble back into position. My ears are ringing, and the clouds are nice and puffy. What a lovely day to be outside.

I know since it worked so well the last time that they are going to run the same exact play again. A real-life Oklahoma drill! I was right. The hole opens up and #43 is looking for his buddy #62. I go charging in there but this time I don’t stay up and let him club be again, I go low and block up the hole, no gain. I wobble back to the huddle with the snot still dripping off my facemask and a timeout is called. Someone on their team was hurt bad enough to need an ambulance so play is stopped. The whole time I’m trying to get my wits back (stop laughing!) and it works, the fuzz clears, and the manager came out and gave me something to clean the snot off my facemask. Honest to goodness I can’t remember what happened next. I can’t remember if we won or lost. I think we won because we ended up playing them again in the playoffs and they laid one on us (that one I remember).

Things have happened in my life and I’m sure yours where we have been facing down an Oklahoma Drill or two (or 10) in our lives. What are you going to do once you’ve had the snot knocked out of you by your own #43? Are you going to line up and pull your chinstrap tight and find something to hit or are you going to call time out and get off the field and sit it out?

In Scripture, Psalm 13 says the following:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to me.

As we wait on the Lord for our answers expect that He will answer our prayers. Be steadfast and courageous. Be humble, be faithful. Please don’t let life’s trials, challenges and disappointments put you out of the game. Unlike my memory of my game in this story, I do know who wins…WE DO!

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I long for Your truth, yet I often feed myself on the world’s empty offerings. I realize that You alone can satisfy me. Guide me into Truth and lead me to your Word that gives me a full and purposeful life.

Book Recommendation:

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy by Mark Vroegop (2019)

Music Recommendation:

Two by Chick Corea and Bela Fleck (2015)

Quote For the Day:

“The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.” — V.S. Naipaul

Mark Rutledge 9/20/24 Mark Rutledge 9/20/24

Bless Your Heart

This past February marked 40 years that I have lived and worked in Atlanta, Georgia. Michelle and I moved here from Akron, Ohio in 1984 to seek our fame and fortune, or escape another Ohio winter, or both, it was a long time ago and my brain doesn’t always fire on full blast, and it makes it hard to remember sometimes. But we obviously liked it and decided to make it our new home.

It was a significant culture change for us in so many ways. We moved from the north to the south, we left a city of 300,000 and started over in a city that at the time was about 1.5 million people. The population is now closer to 7.5 million. Akron was on a downward trend and Atlanta was booming. Most everyone we knew in Ohio had been there their entire lives as well as their families. Most had lived on the same street and in the same house for as long as anyone could remember. Most of the people we met and started doing life with, in Atlanta, were from somewhere else in the country. It was very interesting to see the differences in folks and to hear stories that were a lot different than mine.

Prior to moving away from the Rubber City, my exposure to the southern United States was what we saw on television. Most of the shows would put southerners in an “iffy” way. Slow, barefoot, talked funny, etc. The typical stereotypes. I was looking for Boss Hog and the General Lee to come zooming around the corner. I was also shocked to find out that my new friends below the Mason-Dixon had some interesting thoughts and stereotypes of northerners as well. We each had a felt false superiority over the other which was actually hilarious to experience.

After being here for just a short period of time I soon realized that maybe it was ME that was the hayseed and not the other way around. When I first hit Peachtree Street in my Chevy Chevette and started getting past by more Mercedes Benz and BMW’s than I had ever seen. Back then foreign cars in Ohio were not looked on favorably when a lot of the people we knew counted on domestic cars for their livelihoods. Not many I knew could afford cars of that nature either. I quickly realized that I was not in Kansas anymore Toto and that my new home was a very big and busy city with tons to explore. Don’t misunderstand, there is a reason there are stereotypes and Atlanta has its share of some “true southerners.”

One way NOT to make new friends was to offer this tidbit, “Back in (insert northern city here) we did it differently than “you guys” do down here.” “Let’s do it my way, what do you think? The response generally said back to us was, “Delta is ready when you are Yankee!” It was the first time I had ever been called a Yankee. Being from Ohio, I always thought people up in the northeast (New York, Boston) were “Yankees.” I also learned that I had an accent. I would try and correct them and let them know that THEY had an accent, not me. However, I found out quickly that they could judge pretty quickly what part of the Midwest I was from by my “funny way of talking.”

One of the more challenging and interesting adjustments to my new world was picking up southern slang and jargon. For example, I was getting gas for the car one night and the attendant saw me trying to figure out how to get the pump going and called out to me through the speaker, “Mash the Cash Button!” Well, the only thing I had ever mashed in my life up until then was potatoes. It took me a few more times of her yelling at me to figure out that I needed to PUSH the cash button on the pump. Then of course there is the many different derivatives of You (Y’all, All Y’all, Your Mom and Them, etc.). There was also getting used to calling things something completely different to what we called it “back home,” including calling any soft drink (pop) a “Coke”, a grocery cart was now a “buggy.” If you were thinking about doing something tomorrow, you were now “fixing” to do something tomorrow. The one I have had the most trouble dealing with has been “might could.” “I might could swing by tomorrow and mow your grass for your mom and them if you’re fixing to be home.” It was like a knife to the small of my back and cringeworthy. But after forty years they have converted me to a “Damn Yankee” which is someone who moved here from the north and never left. Don’t get it twisted though, Atlanta is an amazing place to live and there is a bunch to do which is why the population continues to soar.

Another tough one for me was also being expected to call another grown man, Bubba. I can’t and don’t to this day. I met this one fella that was the father of some of the kids my girls swam with on a local team. His name was Tom but, he asked for me to call him Bubba. I said, “Tom, I know that you like to be called Bubba, but I just can’t do it sir. So, I became the Damn Yankee that calls me Tom.

Another thing you have to get hip to is, the kind way people may be treating you when they are actually insulting you with their southern charm. The title of the blog today is one of those ways. If some nice southern belle looks at you and says, “well bless your heart”, you have just been insulted and called an idiot. You may think “how nice, she really cares about me.” You would be wrong. It is akin to being told in the north that “you are a special kind of stupid” but with a charming tone of voice and a smile, but they still think you’re an idiot.

Today’s blog will be one of those times for me when the sweetest little old ladies smiled and said to me, “Bless Your Heart” and then turned around and laughed at me with her friends and all the time I was thinking they were so nice and really liked the Rutmachine.

But First…A Joke:

A man woke up after a risky procedure. He shook the doctor’s hand in gratitude and said, “I wouldn’t want to insult you by offering you money. But I would like you to know that I’ve added you to my will.” That’s very kind of you,” said the doctor. “Can I see that prescription I just gave you? I need to make a little change.”

Bonus Dad Joke:

A book fell on my head. I only have my shelf to blame.

A Verse to Contemplate:

If anyone says, “I love God”, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. I John 4:20-21

Have I Told You This One?

For starters, I wish I could say that this was the one and only time that anyone has said “Bless Your Heart” to me, but I would be lying. However, this one is a pretty good one if I do say so myself. This little firecracker of a lady will be in my memory banks for the rest of my life (hopefully)!

When I was an elder of a church in Roswell, Georgia one of the former elders approached me and asked if I would be interested in “preaching” on a rotation basis with some other guys from church for a nursing home that was close to the church. These elderly men and woman couldn’t get out to attend church, so the idea was to bring church to them. I felt honored to be asked and I was inserted in the rotation with a few guys to where I was speaking to the group once or twice a month. For those who knew me when I was a kid, you did hear that correctly, Mark Rutledge was asked to preach to a group of people. Miracles happen every day my friends.

My first time to lead the service approaches fast and the actual thought of doing it started to make me a little nervous. I’ve never been afraid of getting up and speaking to groups of people but for some reason this one was making the butterflies in my gut a little stronger. Sunday arrives and after church I drive to the nursing home and meet with the management, and they lead Michelle and I to this small room where the “sermon” will take place. I look over my notes one last time and then the folks start to wheel themselves into the room. They park their walkers in a corner of the room and sit down in the back row. Even in this no one wants to sit up front!

Michelle and I are the youth movement of the day, and these precious souls come in and take a seat. There was probably a dozen for my first time. I can’t tell you why, but I am now starting to sweat like crazy and I’m more nervous than I have ever been in front of a group. As they file in, I’m trying to introduce myself and find out their names and just make small talk.

I calm myself as I start with an opening prayer and play a few hymns on a portable boombox I brought in. I start to feel better about things, and I give a quick glance at Michelle, and she gives me a nod that says, “You’ve got this, it will be just fine, go get em’! After the songs finish, I make a fatal mistake. Instead of just going into my presentation, I think it is a good idea to ask a few questions. After each question they look at me like they didn’t hear me, or they just want me to get on with it. I feel like I have to fill the room with noise instead of just letting it be silent and I ask (wait for it), “This is a real nice place (it was), Do you guys like living here?” As soon as it left my mouth I wish I had a human redo button to bring the words back. Let’s see Rev, do we like not being able to live in our own homes but instead live in a nursing home? Is that the question you are asking…seriously?! I swear it was like I walked into a room full of cats. You could hear a pin drop. I take another quick glance at Michelle and this time she has a look on her face like, WHAT?

I am just about to chalk it up to opening day nerves and this one lady in the back who I thought was asleep or bored to death, spoke out and said in a booming voice, “What did he say?” The lady next her said, “He wants to know if we like living here.” The first lady looks at her friend and then to me and says, “Bless Your Heart!”

I think to myself, well that was nice of her and everyone else was laughing rather loudly. I shrug my shoulders and go on with my presentation. Once it ends, I thank everyone for coming and Michelle and I head out to the car. Once in the car, I asked her how she thought it went and she starts laughing (by the way, NOT the response I was hoping for). “Why are you laughing?” She then begins to explain to me what “Bless Your Heart” really means and I eventually laughed it off (eventually!). That little four foot nothing firecracker got me good. I will let you know that I learned from my mistakes and never asked that question ever again.

So, if you ever are in the south having a lovely conversation with some southern folks and they drop a Bless Your Heart, just know that you have been warned.

A Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I don’t want to be a fool, deceiving myself to believe I know what’s best for me. Reveal Your ways to me and give me the courage to follow wherever You lead.

Book Recommendation:

Finishing Strong (Going the Distance for Your Family) by Steve Farrar (1995)

Music Recommendation:

Second Nature by Flying Colors (2014)

Quote of the Day:

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” - Nicole Krauss