The Rock Wall

This weekend both my teams came up one point short so I don’t want to discuss football. Bulldog head coach Kelley Beckner did his usual good job of expertly analyzing the game. I learn more from his report than I would sitting in the bleachers.

-Tuesday I was sleeping off our late Monday night session when Kimball came home, woke me up and said, “Get dressed. You’re going to the hospital.”

“Why? I’m not sick.”

She replied, “Dr. Wyant doesn’t like your white cell count.”

Tuesday the nice nurses ran two bags of antibiotics through the hole in my arm. I picked up that phrase from watching John Prine’s final performance on Austin City Limits before Covid got him.

I was about to get impatient when the nursing staff didn’t give me another IV on Wednesday. Then Dr. Wyant gave me a dose of patience when he told me my kidneys had to rest for 36 hours.  I don’t want to wind up back on dialysis. He had them give me another bag of antibiotics on Thursday and send me home.

Then he went to speak to a doctor’s convention in Baton Rouge and I sent him and Krystal to my favorite restaurants, Felix’s in the French Quarter for a dozen raw oysters and a dozen Oysters Bienville and Café du Monde for square donuts, called beignets (been yahs) and Café Aulait (coffee so strong they dilute it with half milk.) I found out Monday it was his and Krystal’s anniversary.

I think he got the best end of the deal – eating my favorite dish in my favorite restaurant. Last time we visited Adrian, Cain and newborn Van, we had to drive right by the Vieux Carre exit for the French Quarter because of the threat of Covid.

-I saw this again in an obituary. Could someone tell me where in the King James version of the Bible it says you can or should accept the Lord as your personal Savior?

I can show you where John the Baptist said, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Adrian was saved when David Arnold took that for a text the first time he preached. And when Christ started preaching, that’s one of the first things he said, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

If you accept something, it meets your standards. Before God accepts you, you have to meet his standards of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Hardest thing I ever did in my life. I had no idea how to do it but I knew I had to try.

When my dad was a young man, he asked Grandma Long in the kitchen, how he would know if he needed to seek the Lord. The answer was quick and unwavering, “You’ll know.”

And “How do you do it?” Same answer. KL