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The Hidden Side of Life: Trials We All Face

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I have come to the conclusion that everyone, no matter how blessed, faces trials.

Some are ordinary: how to pay a bill, find a job, or cope with everyday stress. Others are far heavier. I remember a week a few years back when I was praying for friends and loved ones dealing with heart bypass surgery, Parkinson’s disease, accident recovery, cancer, and stroke. Any of these can feel insurmountable, especially when a doctor uses the word “terminal.”

Thirty-nine years ago I sat with my dad after he received a terminal diagnosis. He chose a treatment that might give him five more years if it worked. Even while facing his own death, his thoughts centered on making sure his family knew how he felt and that they would be all right without him. I never fully accepted how immediate his condition was, and I missed chances to share my feelings with him. Maybe it was the awkwardness of youth or simply not knowing how to say what I felt.

His sudden death left me more open with others for a time, unwilling to leave things unsaid. Over the years, though, I’ve drifted back into the habit of keeping those thoughts inside.

Our home church began a ministry several years ago for people caught in addiction. Has there ever been something you wanted so badly that your body ached and your mind could focus on nothing else?

When most people hear “addiction,” they think of alcohol or drugs. The list is much longer, and the damage is often the same—to the person struggling and to everyone around them. I have yet to meet anyone who cannot be pulled into some activity or fascination that consumes time, money, and energy, sometimes at real cost to themselves or those closest to them.

You may think, “How can I be addicted? I’m a good person,” or “I’m a Christian.” Consider a few less obvious possibilities: exercise, computer use, food, gambling, sex, or limerence (an obsessive romantic attachment). Any of these can become addictive.

Addiction usually involves impaired control, preoccupation with a substance or behavior, continued use despite consequences, and denial. The drive for immediate relief often overrides concern for long-term effects. Stopping suddenly can bring anxiety, irritability, cravings, nausea, and other withdrawal symptoms.

In truth, most of us have addictive tendencies. Unchecked, those tendencies can become addictions. Is there something you feel you have to watch or attend, even when it crowds out other priorities? (I’ve wondered more than once whether following every football or baseball game counts.)

I have spent much of my life encouraging young people to stay away from drugs and alcohol, and I have lost friends and family to both. I chose not to use them myself, yet I know the potential exists in me, just as it does in other members of my extended family. One step in the wrong direction can open a door. I am also a creature of habit. At times I have wrestled with behaviors that felt close to obsessive-compulsive patterns. Having worked through those, I now try to stay alert so I don’t slip into unhealthy routines.

If your church or a local nonprofit offers a recovery program, support it with whatever gifts you have. If a friend needs someone to go with them to a meeting, don’t stay home out of fear that people will assume you have a problem. Just be there.

Addiction is potentially within each of us. Some forms are simply less visible or less stigmatized, but they still affect our lives and the people we love.

Read more of Randall’s writing through his books available in our Store.

Tarry a little longer

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I recently sat in the pew for a funeral listening to the preachers and speakers as they focused on the amazing life of a friend, colleague and co-author – the late Ringgold Mayor Joe Barger.

We spent nearly a year working weekly creating his autobiography – Testing the Metal of Life.

One line from the speakers really stuck with me shared by speaker Gary Knowles – he closed with the line tarry a little longer, when speaking about how he regretted not spending a little more time with the deceased when he passed by seeing him working out in his yard.

That stuck with me – everyday our lives take us by people’s houses. We see folks on the street, in the store or around town. Sometimes its people we see often, sometimes its an unusual crossing of paths.

What do you do? Do you wave and keep going? Do you stop and make small talk? Do you really greet an old friend and spend some time, maybe ask them to join you for lunch or coffee?

A few minutes can tell us a lot about other people’s circumstances. With the seasons of life, people move into and out of our lives and we lose touch.

They stay with us in mind as we last left them. As the years pass we picture them as we last saw them, so we can sometimes be surprised by what we find if they pop up unexpected.

Do or did they mean something in your life?

Are they older? Are they your age?

If you think about it, we all have people in our lives of all ages, from all phases, that we wish we could have spent a few more minutes with, when they were gone.

Just a few more words, another afternoon fishing, a ballgame, a dance, time around the kitchen table sharing stories, a walk in the woods, just sitting and not saying anything could have meant the world to any of us when we look down into their closed eyes in a casket.

In short, the message to all of us is clear, if someone’s means something to you, don’t hurry, don’t rush, just tarry a little longer. You never know when it might be the last time you see them.

The page turns and the story continues

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All of us are blessed with lives that within our days are the moments which make up our story.
From our personal perspective, we might see our lives as something which would not warrant the pages of a best-selling biography or novel but the minutes of each passing day make up our story.
In the last few days, several dear friends of mine have turned the final page in their story – Country and Bluegrass Hall of Famer Mac Wiseman, Gospel Hall of Famer Lou Wills Hildreth and Mississippi bluegrass promoter Bertie Sullivan.
Many great words have been shared about their lives since the news spread of their crossings. They were part of my story and as a result we will ever be intertwined until I turn my final page.
Another generational icon also turned his final page, TV star Luke Perry. Luke was an amazing talent who inspired many, me included!
I never had the opportunity to meet or work with Luke though we starred in network TV shows that aired in the same time slot, and we tried to appeal to the same adoring group of youth fans. There were many talented performers in the boat with us but I personally always placed great store in the story I perceived that Luke was writing back then. While my friends mentioned earlier were able to write on their stories for years, Luke’s unexpected passing, unfortunately, has left way too many blank pages in his.
Each day we rise from bed, we have the opportunity to write another page in our story. Our stories don’t have to be amazing. They don’t have to warrant a movie of the week be filmed. Our stories can simply be…. Life is a gift. That is never more apparent than when someone who makes our world better reaches the page that says “The End.”
At that point, we pick up their book and carry it with us, sharing our favorite bits with others and remembering what made them special.
Today is your chance to be special to someone else. Write a page that changes a life, or even the world.
Don’t leave pages blank while you are still here to fill them! Turn the page and make the story continue.

Reach out to those who touched your life

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I stood on my tiptoes trying to see the inside of the skillet.
Inside it, bubbling in the grease side by side were breaded slices of zucchini squash. I had never tasted zucchini but this summer on our family trip north we stopped in Ohio and were visiting with my aunt Verna Hale.
“My I turn them,” I asked.
“Yes, let me show you how,” she said using the spatula and soon pointing out when it was time.
She had moved north from the valley below the Gravelly Spur Mountain in Tennessee to Ohio to seek work during WWII just like her sisters. Eventually in the 1950s several of the younger brothers moved north as well.
By the time I was standing by her stove, her children were essentially raised and started or close to starting on their own lives, so in many respects as a kid, I had the run of their ranch style house which set up high on a hill.
Their garden produced the squash she was cooking for dinner and I had gotten to help pick it with my uncle and watch closely as Aunt Verna cut and breaded it for frying. We brought them in from the garden and washed them in a sink that was in the garage, something I had never seen up until that point in my life.
My mom was also in the kitchen helping prepare some corn on the cob, and between the two, they were patting out hamburgers.
In my youth, her spotless home wherever it was, became a second one to me, and she became my closest aunt as we visited back and forth and when eventually she moved to  Tennessee and Florida in retirement.
Through the years she made it to a few of my concerts and was the only relative other than my mother and cousin Sue to visit me in Covington, Ga. meeting some of my co-stars from “In the Heat of the Night.”
Sadly, as my mother’s health declined, my mom chose to cut herself off from her family members and focus on her own well-being. As her caregiver, that choice changed my life, cutting me off from my extended family including Aunt Verna. We were able to reconnect after mother passed, seeing each other a few times and corresponding by mail, which was the conventional way we had through the years.
She raised two boys – Ron and Benny. Benny and his wife Carolyn lived with us for a while in Atlanta when they were starting their life together in a new place. They eventually moved south of Atlanta, Ga. and raised a family giving aunt Verna 23 grandchildren of different generations to be proud of.
I learned of her passing recently at the age of 94 and it flooded my mind with the smiles; the pats on the back; the comforter when a shoulder to cry on was needed; the countless meals she prepared and shared; the little gifts she gave; and always the encouragement that was present.
Though we have not been as close in recent years, my childhood, my teens and young adulthood was enhanced by her, I pray she knew that was appreciated. If you have someone in your family that touched your life, and is still within your reach, take a minute, call, write, e-mail or text and let them know it!