Just when I thought my story at the pool store was over, I made a stop there again last week, and God set things up so that I ended up talking to the owner about boats and deep-water fishing. Not only that, his son and wife were privy to the conversation as I made friends with their new employee – a young man in his teens.

Today was his first day at the store, and I opened the conversation by talking about dweebs. I jokingly asked if he was one. The affable young man did a perfect impersonation of a dweeb, hand gestures and all — “Hey duuude, whaz happening?” We both laughed and hit it off immediately. He said he was the new pool boy and an avid fisherman. When I asked if he’d caught any lobster this year, he said he’d caught plenty. The owner and his son took it all in, and we all began bonding. I almost hated to leave but had other things to do. Nevertheless, I will return and give the young man my evangelism card and maybe invite the owner and his son on a fishing trip. Heck, maybe we’ll all go together. I sure would like to share the Gospel with them all.

With everyone gone back up north for the summer and having exhausted my patience with the guys on the pier, I said goodbye for the time being by gifting them each with a Bible verse printed and set into a lovely blue recessed frame about 3″ by 4.” The verse was from Ezekiel 47:10; “And it shall be that fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Englaim; they will be places for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many.”

The day I delivered the five gifts, I had just mounted the pier when hardnosed guys, Jimmy and Nelson, were trudging toward me empty-handed. I said, “Just the two guys I was looking for. I have a gift for each of you.” And I opened my sack of goodies and handed each one the gift. Jimmy read his first and was amazed at the unexpected gift. Nelson then read his, and both thanked me as I walked away, saying, “You guys know how to get there…. Through Christ Jesus!”

I left the other gifts with the rest of the guys, including Bill. All of them were dumbfounded, but they were all very grateful.

My hope in doing this is that reading the selected passage would cause them to delve into the Bible and want to learn more. They may even want to be there where the rivers are teeming with fish since the fishing hasn’t been all that good for the past four years due to the red tide.

Today, I had to go to the Med Clinic because the infected lymph node was acting up again. I was hoping to get another prescription for penicillin, but when the doctor saw me, the first thing he said was, “NO, I won’t give you a prescription unless we can do a complete examination and some blood work on you.

My first thought was that this man was being arrogant because he was a medical doctor. Then he glanced at the book I was carrying with me to read while I cooled my heels in the doctor’s office – something I always try to do when visiting them. (That way, I can make good use of the time wasted rather than staring at the white walls.) The title of the book is Panic Attack by Nicole Saphier, MD.

In any case, from that point on, he began to calm down after seeing that I was an educated man too. I asked a few questions, and that further intrigued him since the medical questions I asked brought him down to my level. From there, we were able to converse man to man with no pretensions.

The first thing I noticed about the man was that he had a two-inch silver cross on a somewhat delicate silver chain draped around his neck. It draped over the top of his shirt as though he wanted you to know that he was religious. I knew this to be a Catholic way to assert one’s religiosity.

After some more small talk, I asked him about the silver cross with the tiny figurine of Christ hanging on it.

“I notice you’re a Christian.”

“Yes, I am.”

I knew better than to ask if he was a Catholic or a new Christian since both are known to flaunt their Christianity in such a way. Nevertheless, he took the ball and ran with it, saying, “Our country is in trouble, and people are seeking deliverance, but you know what? The devil is out in full force to bring our civilization down.”

The doctor had said a mouthful, and I added, “We are in trouble since we kicked God to the curb and relied on politicians to see us through.”

“Politicians are the scourge of society…” he replied.

He left the sentence hanging in the air while his young female nurse came in to do the bloodwork. She and I somehow began talking about Lebanon, where she was born, and was surprised to find out that I knew as much about her country as I did, and it helped to break the ice. We talked as the blood was taken, and I said, “A young lady like yourself doesn’t usually know much about their heritage. Were your parents involved in politics?”

“Yes, my dad was the mayor of our city!”

She was a Catholic who bemoaned the fact that in taking pity on the Palestinians and letting them settle there, they took over and have changed that culture into a Muslim one.

As I was leaving, I stopped by the doctor’s desk to get my “leave papers” and showed him the subtitle of the book, which reads, “Playing politics with science in the fight against Covid-19.” Then I gave him my card.

By the time I left, I had befriended the entire office with asides and quips. I had made their day, and they had made mine.

I am going to buy the good doctor a Bible, knowing that he probably doesn’t own one, even though he appears to be a sincere and decent man.

My blood work returned today, and I stopped in to see the doctor about the results and to deliver the NKJV Bible I had bought to gift him with.

When I handed him the Bible, he was stunned, to say the least. I suspect that no one in his thirty-year career had given him one. Maybe not even a lesser gift for his services. He thanked me profusely and two times more while I was there.

The Bible was a top-of-the-line one bound in leather with gold-edged pages. The doctor asked me if I led a Bible study? I had to answer no, but it got me thinking along those lines. Tonight, I wrote him a letter to explain the Bible’s contents in order of appearance, plus a few antidotes to inspire him. I’m having coffee with a radiologist sometime this week to talk about spiritual things.

Thank God for swollen lymph nodes.

YBIC

Jim Towers

Write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta.com and www.propheticsignsandwonders.com

The following is an excerpt from chapter 15 of my autobiographical story, “Miracles, Signs and Wonders,” a 248-page manuscript that I hope to be putting up for you to read on my website www.propheticsignsandwonders.com.

Chapter 15

My son Mike was ten years old at the time of this occurrence. At the time, I was getting around on a Suzuki S10 motorcycle. The motorcycle was economical, ran well, and I had already traveled halfway across the country on it.

Michael had hooked up with me at my mother’s house in Michigan when I was called to be there for a couple of films. I had just made my own first film in the small town of Eaton Rapids, where she lived and where we were staying together during summer school vacation. Summer finally ended, and I had to take him back to North Dakota to his mother and younger brother Matt for the school year.

Since the motorcycle was running well, and with nothing better to do while waiting for my call time, I phoned his mother to say I would be bringing Mike back through the Upper Peninsula and over Upper Chicago to the North country. Mike and I always chummed around together and went on camping, fishing, and exploring expeditions. This would be just another adventure for us. We would begin traveling on a Sunday when traffic would be sparse.

I had already become a somewhat seasoned “believer” and had no qualms about the undertaking. We had our two-man tent rolled up on the back of the bike, my big trusty hunting knife in a backpack, and a change of clothes – just in case.

The first part of our journey went without a hitch and was enjoyable with the breeze whipping by as we tooled along at about 60 miles an hour – both of us wearing helmets. We were making good time.

We stopped about halfway to the Upper Peninsula to rest and eat, then continued. The traffic was light, but it was getting late, and I was tired. So we stopped at a 7/11 store; it was about eleven at night. The clerk was a young hippie-type girl about 20 or so years old. We ate a hot dog, and I asked if we could pitch our tent behind the store. The girl made a phone call and said, “Come and spend the night at our place. I live in a commune close by.”

Why not, I thought. I thanked her and followed her home.

The others were expecting us and were friendly, but they were the typical hippy-types, and although they offered us some spaghetti, we declined. Our lady friend showed us the empty room where a mattress was laid out on the floor for us. Mike and I were both tired and lay down immediately after I fished the hunting knife from our backpack and tucked it under my pillow.

We could hear the ugly hard-rock music emanating from the living room wafting on heavy pot smoke. We both finally went to sleep and were up early in the morning. The motorcycle had strangely begun acting up by the time we began making out the Mackinac bridge in the distance. We could see it from miles away. Little did I know the size and height of the bridge. As we drew closer, it became intimidating, and I began having serious thoughts about turning back.

I thought about all the things that could go wrong once we got on the bridge and felt a cold chill crawl across my body.

Suspension bridges are designed to move to accommodate wind, change in temperature, and weight. The deck at the center span could move as much as 35 feet (east or west) due to high winds. The bridge is one of the highest in the world. The height of the roadway at mid-span is approximately 200 feet above water level.

Suddenly, I remembered the story about a car blowing off the bridge a few years before. (In a highly publicized incident, a woman came to a stop in her ’87 blue Yugo on the enormous bridge, attempting to wait out high winds, when a 55-mph gust blew her car over the edge. Plunging to the water below, she did not survive the accident.) Having hung from off of towering structures during my welding days, I wasn’t too fearful of heights, but I had my young son with me and was responsible for his health and wellbeing. What an arrogant fool I had been to get us into this predicament, I rightly thought. I shuddered and said a silent prayer.

Just then, the motorcycle began to spit and sputter and eventually ground to a halt. Michael and I had just dismounted when an eighteen-wheeler pulled up behind us and offered us a ride. The middle-aged man and I loaded up the bike on the empty flatbed and tied her down.

Mike sat behind me and looked over my right shoulder as we crossed the bridge at the water 200 feet below. He, like me, isn’t squeamish about anything.

We made it to the other side, and wouldn’t you know it, off to the left was a campsite, so we set up camp after eating. I thanked God for our good fortune, but He wasn’t finished yet.

Mike’s mother arrived that very night, awakened us, and took Mike away. I cried – my little pal was gone, and I was all alone in the world again.

Long story short, I made my way back to the gas station where we were let off the day before. After coffee, I went back outside, looked the motorcycle over, and surmised that there was no hope of fixing it out here in the open. Then, just as I was despairing, I happened to glance directly across the highway. Lo and behold, there was a motorcycle leaning up against a house that looked like mine. In fact, it was identical!

I hurried over to see if it was for sale since I could make out that it hadn’t been moved in a while. Sure enough, the owner confirmed that it had been sitting a while but that it wasn’t for sale. “Best bike I ever owned,” he said, “I’m gonna fix her up as soon as I find parts, which is hard to find, don’t ya know?”

A light bulb went off in my head. “Look across the street,” I said, pointing. “See the motorcycle sitting over next to the gas station? It’s exactly like this one, and you can have it for parts for three hundred dollars.” The man looked over at my bike and, with hopeful eyes, said, “Nope! Best I can do is two fifty!”

“It’s yours,” I replied. I bought a ticket on the bus and made it back in time to work on the movies, “Collision Course” and “American Cops,” an Italian film in Detroit.

The moral of this excerpt is that God will sometimes intervene with incredible fixes to our mistakes – if we are His.

YBIC

Jim Towers

Write me at jt.filmmaker@yahoo.com or visit me at www.dropzonedelta.com or visit my website where the manuscript will be appearing soon.