Tug's Life

Has it really been 5 months?

2012-01-17T22:19:00.001-05:00

Does anyone still check this blog? Wow, I can't believe it's been 5-months since I've posted on Tug's Life. I tell you, I am one busy dude. Working full-time, pastoring full-time, and being a husband/dad full-time doesn't leave much room for blogging.

I started my 7th Seminary course yesterday, only 3 more left until graduation!!! I was hoping to graduate this year in May but unless I really pour on the gas I will never make it. So, looks like I'll have to wait until 2013 to participate in the graduation ceremony. :(

Church has been going well. I've really been busy studying and preaching through the Life of the Apostle Paul and more recently the Book of Daniel. I find myself being challenged trying to learn and teach all of the prophecy that Daniel contains. Like I told the congregation the other night, teaching prophecy and the end-of-times stuff is not my preference but I must preach the full council of God and that is part of it. Interestingly enough, several people have told me how much they enjoy learning about all of that stuff.

As for my secular job, I am not even going to start putting down my frustrations concerning it because it wouldn't help and nobody cares and they never will and if I had a billion dollars I would buy the company and cast it into a lake of fire to burn forever and ever. Did I mention I was frustrated???

I've been reading some very good books lately. Yes, believe it or not I occasionally get to read something other than the Bible (though not very often). I found some really good buys on some used book at the local KARM thrift store. Someone donated several books published by Convention Press. Various commentaries on different Books of the Bible and a great book on the life of William Carey. While I was at the Crown Bookstore I found a fantastic book on the Prophet Daniel, written by M.R. DeHaan. It is packed full of great stuff dealing with prophecy.

Well, I have wasted enough time blogging so I better get back to the grindstone. Tomorrow is our final Bible study on the Life of the Apostle Paul and I have to prepare a Pop Quiz to hand out!

Time marches on...

2011-08-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted anything on Tug's Life in a long time. I usually try to reserve this blog for old memories or personal family stuff. I do most of my blogging on my Bro. Byron's Blog, which is mostly church related stuff.

Lots of stuff has been going on over the past few weeks. Our pastor resigned the Church on July 5th and the deacons asked me to fill the job until a decision is made on what to do. I'm getting to preach to my heart's content, three times a week! My heart has always been in pastoring so this is wonderful for me. I am just willing to be used by the Lord in any way that I can.

My Uncle Onloe passed away last week and I preached his funeral this past Friday night. I was very nervous because I wanted to do a good job for my Aunt June and wanted to honor Onloe's memory. She seemed pleased with the way things turned out so that's all that matters to me. I enjoyed seeing a lot of my family members that I don't normally get to see. I hate that it was under these circumstances though. My cousin Jon is also a pastor and he helped out in the funeral and he preached the graveside service. I thought he did a great job. My Uncle Ron sang at both services and did fantastic. My mother and sister also did great jobs singing at the funeral. I believe Onloe would have been pleased.

It's been a month since I finished my last Seminary course. I am still waiting on the funds to start the next one. I've nearly got enough, so hopefully I can do that in the next week or two. This next course is "Teaching & Preaching the Bible." Sounds exciting to me since that's what I do anyways. I am so glad that Crown Seminary offers the Master's in Ministry course through the extended studies program because as busy as my schedule is, I would never be able to attend traditional on-campus classes.

I can't believe I turn 45-years old this Wednesday. I never thought I'd live to be this old. I can remember as a young boy thinking 45 was waaaay over the hill. LOL.
My mom, sister, and aunt treated me to an early birthday lunch today at Calhoun's. Of course I chose the cheeseburger as usual.

I'm not going to make any promises of updating Tug's Life soon. I have good intentions I'm just really covered up right now.

"One of these days..."

2011-07-07T21:23:00.003-04:00

I preached a message last night at church from 3 John 1-4, concerning the prosperity of our souls. In the message I mentioned how me and my friend Billy always had old cars sitting around that we were "one of these days" going to fix-up. I pulled that audio clip out and uploaded it with some pics for your enjoyment.

My Hero of the American Revolution

2011-07-04T12:34:00.002-04:00

When I was growing up, my dad was a Knox County Public School teacher. He specialized in American History and taught History and Social Studies at Mascot, East Knox Elementary, Carter Middle, and after retirement he taught at New Hope Christian School for a while. Needless to say, History was always my favorite subject in school. My dad had a way of bringing history to life and that made learning fun.

One of the things my dad did to help teach me about the American Revolution was to buy a set of Heroes of the American Revolution dolls. I can't recall how many of them we had but I do remember my very favorite one was Patrick Henry. For some reason I adopted Patrick Henry as my favorite Hero of that time period. I suppose it was because of his famous line, "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!," from a portion of his speech before the Virginian Convention, in which he said: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" I thought he must have been one of the bravest men in history.

This morning I read over Patrick Henry's famous speech to the Virginian Convention and notice that he mentioned God five different times within the course of the 1,214 word speech. Not only that, his speech is laced with Biblical references and borrowed expressions, such as when he says: "Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss." This is a clear reference to when Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss in the garden of Gethsemane just before His arrest. Hmmm, just something to ponder on.

Let the sparks fly

2011-07-04T11:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at church, a lady gave my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, 3 boxes of sparklers. She had never had the pleasure of playing with sparklers and was very excited to try them out. About 9:30 PM last night we were able to go out in the front yard and let her have some fun. Boy, did she ever have FUN! Here are a few pics.

Here we go 'round the bird bath.

Oh what fun!

This is my favorite shot.

I'm queen of the world!

Give me liberty, or give me death!

In your face!

Going back around.

Boo, hoo, no more sparklers...

Massive Power Failure

2011-06-23T14:55:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday night we were sitting around the house waiting on the coffee to finish brewing, when all of a sudden my son, Matthew, yelled out, "uh, you all may want to look outside, it looks really bad." I didn't give it much thought, just got up and walked to the door and looked outside. It did indeed look really bad. I could see a wall of rain headed from House Mountain toward our house and suddenly it started pelting us with drops. The wind was a sickly feeling warm and it was very strong. Limbs began falling from our Persimmon trees in the front yard and leaves were being blown across the yard. We shut the door and sat back down. Then the lights blinked, and blinked, and blinked, and then just shut off. It was around 8:45 PM. "Oh great," I thought, just what we needed, a power outtage. I figured the lights would come back on in a few minutes. I figured wrong....

So, today is Thursday and we still don't have power. Turns out a huge tree from the Thompson's field, blew across the entrance of our road and took out all of the power lines! The last word we heard from KUB was that it may be "3 or 4 days" before power is restored. Oh great.

In the meantime, we've lost nearly all of the food we had in the fridge/freezers. I tried grilling everything I could get my hands on before it went bad. We have really ate good for the past 2 days but now we are out of good food with no sign in sight of having power again. I was able to come to work today but feel really rough. Sleep has been tough because it is so hot in the house plus the smell of candles and an oil lamp has messed up my sinuses.

One good thing has come out of all of this. We have spent a lot of time together as a family. We've read a lot of books and played games together. The kids have actually been very good and gotten along with each other. Last night we had church at our kitchen table since we weren't able to attend our regular church. It was a nice time of Scripture reading and talking about what was read. We also sang and prayed. I read from Mark chapter 13, about the end of times and the kids had lots of questions.

As much fun as we are having, I am ready for the power to come back on! I'd like to take a nice warm shower and not sit around fanning all the time. It will take us forever to get the house back in order and our food replenished but the Lord has watched out for us and I'm grateful.

Sunday morning reminiscing

2011-06-12T07:27:00.001-04:00

I was so thrilled last night when my mother sent me a text letting me know that she was uploading some pictures for me on Facebook. Unfortunately, I deactivated my Facebook account last week so I told her to send them to my daughter instead. I had no idea what they were and I was so excited to see them. Much to my surprise they were very old pictures of me and my sister Pam. She had ran across them while going through boxes of pictures at my Aunt June's house. Ever since seeing them I have been stuck in old memories. I pray that the Lord never takes away all of the precious memories of my childhood. I love to sit down with my eyes closed and concentrate on memories of the past and let those scenes play upon the movie screen of my mind. It's kind of like Christopher Reeve in the movie, Somewhere In Time. I feel like if I try hard enough that I will actually be transported back into those days.

The above picture is of me and Pam standing in Aunt June's front yard. I can barely see the roof of my Aunt Mary and Uncle Stanley's single wide trailer in the background. I don't know the date this picture was taken but I would guess that I was around 1970-71 which would make me 5-years old and Pam 8 or 9. My, how happy we look. We had probably been playing all day in Granny's backyard and June's front yard, both properties adjoined. I would sometimes bring my little plastic toy motorcycle and ride it up and down the long driveway that ran the length of both properties. There was usually a large mud puddle in the middle of the driveway and of course I would have to go right through the middle of it. I'm holding a toy rifle; probably one that shot those little yellow rubber BB's. Looks like my white t-shirt is dirty, most likely from laying on the ground shooting at the "enemy." Pam looks pretty clean. No doubt she was playing a little more sophisticated.

Well, it's Sunday morning I need to be studying for today's Sunday School lesson that I'm teaching. The next time I post, it will be about the other picture mom sent. Meanwhile, enjoy life while you can, it sure does fly by fast

Seminary update

2011-06-01T00:56:00.000-04:00

Hey Tug's Life Readers (all 10 of you), I just wanted to update you on how things are going in Seminary. I can't believe that 2 years and 3 months have already passed by since I was first accepted at Crown. When I started, I had intentions of graduation by May 2011. Wow, was I wrong about that! Of course working full-time, raising a family, and doing church work full-time takes its toll. I usually end up having to do all of my school work in the wee hours of the night. I'm not complaining but I really thought I would be finished by now and working toward my Doctorate. With the way things are going, I am shooting for graduating in May of 2012 now. I am right at half way through the program right now.

My latest course is the online version of the Pastor's College. I am enjoying this one more than any I've taken thus far. It consists of me watching Pastor Sexton give lectures and sermons on various subjects, taking notes on those and writing applications. There are 21 modules in this course and I completed number 7 tonight. I thoroughly enjoy listening to Pastor Sexton speak. Tonight's lecture was 57 minutes long and I was hanging on every word. It is so nice to be going to school for something that I love and care about as opposed to my undergraduate school work that I hated and despised. I wish I had went to Bible college instead of Technical College when I obtained my Bachelor's Degree. Oh well, you live and learn I reckon.

The courses aren't cheap but I am still counting on the Lord to provide the funds so I don't have to go into debt for it. I am still paying student loans from my Bachelor's degree and will be for several more years and didn't want to add any more debt to that. So far the Lord has provided the funds by laying it on people's hearts to donate and by providing extra money here and there. I appreciate those that have contributed and you'll never know how much it has meant to me and my family.

So anyways, that's just an update on how things are going. I earnestly desire your prayers so keep it up!

Lighting the Night In Memory of Pam

2011-05-27T16:25:00.000-04:00

In Memory Of Pam

The above pictures are of my sister Pam. She was an accomplished piano player and singer. She owned her own medical transcribing company and could type over 150 words per minute. She loved reading books and spending time with family.

Pam was diagnosed with Leukemia in October of 2001. She went through many chemotherapy treatments and a bone marrow transplant. On December 16th, 2002, after battling this terrible disease for over a year, her body finally gave up and her life on this earth ended.

Pamela Marie Chesney Stanifer left behind a husband, 2 young children and hundreds of friends and family members. She was 39 years old..

Leukemia is so weird, there is no rhyme or reason as to why, when, or to whom it will strike next. We have always felt so helpless and angry that there was absolutely nothing that we could do to help Pam.

After sitting around brewing about it for the first few years, we finally decided that enough was enough. There is something that we can do after all. No, we can’t bring Pam back but perhaps we can make a difference in someone else’s life in the future. That is why we have decided to join the Tennessee chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as volunteers. The Society's mission is to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

The reason we are writing to you today is to give you the opportunity to help out as well. We are not asking you to go out of your way, we're simply asking you to consider sponsoring "Team Chesney" for the Light The Night Walk at Volunteer Landing in Knoxville , TN on October 27, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. We have set a team goal to raise $1000.00 in memory of Pam, to go toward Leukemia research. Please visit the Team Chesney Homepage to donate or to sign up to walk with us.

Did you know that:

Every five minutes, someone in this country is diagnosed with blood cancer: Every ten minutes, someone loses the fight. •Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children. •Lymphomas are the most common blood cancers. •The myeloma survival rate is only 32 percent. Thank you for considering donating your money or time in this fight against Leukemia.

Sincerely,

"Team Chesney" -Byron, Mary, Jessica, Matthew, Elizabeth

Porch of safety

2011-05-04T00:10:00.001-04:00

This is the third post of excerpts from a sermon I preached entitled, "Has Your Porch Light Went Out?"

This talks of how we used to gather together in the yard to play outside games such as "hide-n-go-seek," "ghost in the graveyard," and red-light-green-light." All of my cousins and friends and neighbors would play and we always made the porch our home base.

A light of assurance

2011-05-03T19:30:00.007-04:00

This is the second video excerpt from a sermon I preached titled, "Has Your Porch Light Went Out?" This tells of a time I spent the night at my Mamaw Bessie and Papaw Lorn Chesney's house when I was very young. They lived in a big old 2-story house that was built back in the 1800's. My sister, Pam, had told me that there were ghost living upstairs in the house, which made my little mind go crazy.

Real men DO cry

2011-05-02T23:58:00.001-04:00

In the sermon I preached this past Sunday evening, "Has Your Porch Light Went Out?", I enjoyed relaying some of my old childhood memories. I thought I would pull those parts out of the video and share them here on Tug's Life for my family and friends to enjoy and reminisce with.

This first one I'm posting is of the time I went on a squirrel hunting trip on Clinch Mountain with my dad and one of his friends. I think I was probably around 13-years old at the time that this happened, which is the same age as my son Matthew right now. I think he got a big kick out of hearing this. Anyways, give it a listen or watch if you've got about 3 and a half minutes.

Matt's Big Bass

2011-04-08T21:47:00.000-04:00

Well my son the fisherman has done it again. He caught another huge bass. This time is was a 5-lb Large Mouth. Talk about one excited boy! I tell you what, I'm 44 years old and have never caught a fish that big. Great job Matt!

Long time no Tug

2011-03-16T18:09:00.000-04:00

Hey folks, it's been over a month since I posted anything on Tug's Life. I've been posting a lot on Brother Byron's Blog. I just thought I'd post something and let everyone know that I'm still around.

The attached pic is one that was taken today at a pond near my house. Me and my son Matthew go fishing there and this was my catch of the day. Not very impressive huh? Oh well, Matthew skunked me again.

I'll try and post something really good soon. I've got a ton of things running around in my head that I want to write about but between work, school, church, and seminary it is difficult to make the time for blogging.

A Labor of Love

2011-02-12T14:59:00.001-05:00

Believe it or not, I am celebrating 9-years since I started the Tennessee Trivia website. It all started as just a fun game that me and my buddies John Roy and Mike Henderson used to play when we all worked at Panasonic. We would sit around and fire off trivia questions and see who could answer them. Then I got the bright idea of taking the game to the next level and starting a website. Months and months of research was put into the content that I would add to the site. Finally I bit the bullet and dove into the world of website design. I was a complete idiot when I started it out (still am according to some folks) but through trial and errror I was able to compile a pretty decent site and introduce it to the world-wide web.

Tennessee Trivia has came a long way from those early days. Through much patience I have managed to leverage the site at the very top. I'm ranked number 1 in the world for Tennessee Trivia information. Over the past 2 or 3 years I have not been very faithful in updating the site. I'm trying to do much better in the present and future. I receive numerous requests every week from readers with suggestions of things to add, sometimes it becomes overbearing but it is still fun. I just did a banner re-design on the site last night and I'm doing a few more visual improvements. If you haven't visited lately, go on over and check it out. Oh, and those ads that you see on the site? They pay for my webhosting and other associated fees. So, a few clicks on them wouldn't hurt my feelings!

Seminary update

2011-02-08T23:03:00.000-05:00

Sorry for those of you that read both Tug's Life and Brother Byron's Blog. I am posting this on both of them.

I was able to purchase my 4th Seminary course today, ED545 Baptist Distinctives & History of the Church. Here is a brief overview of the course:

"A detailed study, discussing issues such as possible separation, the definition of fundamentalism as biblical Christianity, and the authority of Scripture applying to polity. Emphasis is also given to the lives of those men who have made great contributions to the movement."

I stopped off at the Crown Bookshop today on my lunch break and picked up my course materials; Baptist Distinctives Notebook, Principles and Practices for Baptist Churches by Edwared T. Hiscox, Issues of Life Answered from the Bible by Clarence Sexton, The Doctrine and Administration of the Church by Paul Jackson, Spurgeon Vs Hyper Calvinism by Iain Murray, and a 5-DVD set of Sermons.

So far I have read about 25-pages of the main text book and am really enjoying it. I've always been proud of being a Baptist and I love to study history so this is going to be a great course for me. I'm excited about learning some new things and I only have 6-more courses left after this one. One of those is attending the week long Pastor's College in July (which I plan on doing) and another is Ministry Practicum which I already have several years of. So, that leaves 4-actual book courses to complete before I graduate. I've got to say that this has really been a rewarding journey toward my Master's degree. When I went through my Associates and my Bachelors I was pretty much just going to get the degree and really had no interest in learning. It's a lot different this time. I actually enjoy learning because it's something that I am interested in and it is really helping me in my ministry.

I have had some very generous people in my life that have donated toward my schooling and I thank God for those people. So far I have been able to pay for my Seminary courses as I go and not had to borrow any money. My wife and family have also been very supportive of me, even when I stay up late at night completely absorbed in my studies. The Lord has really been good to me and I appreciate it. If you run out of things to pray for, please remember me in your prayers.

Look at the pretty horses

2011-01-31T22:32:00.001-05:00

Optional title for this post: "spit it out! spit it out!

I can't remember what the exact year was when this incident occured, but I know it was in the '70's. I'm sure my mom will have a different opinion on what exactly happened but this is my blog and I get to tell it from the way I remember it!

It was a lazy summer day. Mom took me and Pam with her to the store that was owned by my parent's friends, Sherry and Lois Greer. (The store is now Roger's & Son's Sunoco.) We used to go to their store a lot when I was a kid. They had 3 children; Marty, Randy, and Dee Dee, and we all used to play together. We would ride bikes around the store and up and down their driveway while mom and dad talked to Sherry and Lois.

Sometimes mom would have enough money to let us pick out some candy. On this day we had done just that. I remember I had got my very favorite, Marathon Bar, and Pam got a $100,000 bar (now called the 100 Grand.) We bought our candy bars and piled in the car and headed back toward home. We lived on Maloneyville Rd. so we took Tazewell Pike towards Gibbs. We had just made it down the long hill in front of Atkins Baptist Church and were starting to go around the curves just past Atkins Rd. We were happily enjoying our candy bars, singing, and listening to the radio when Pam exclaimed, "look at the pretty horses!" Pam loved horses and was always on the lookout for them. Over to the right was a large field and sure enough there were several beautiful horses grazing in the lush green grass. My mother, turned to look out the passenger window and in that split second the right side wheels dropped off the side of the shoulder. Mom jerked the wheel, overcompensating to straigten the car back up. The car screeched across to the other side of the road and again mom jerked the wheel to the right. We were fish tailing almost out of control. After what seemed like hours, mom was somehow able to bring the car back under control.

The next thing I knew, mom was screaming and holding her hand behind her into the backseat and yelling, "spit it out! spit it out!" Pam and I leaned forward and spit what was left of our candy bars into the palm of my mother's hand. By then Pam was crying, mom was crying, and I almost started crying. I sat silently in the back seat wondering why in the world mom wanted me to spit my candy bar out. As we neared home I got brave enough to ask, "mom, why did you make us spit our candy bars out?" Still in tears mom said, "I was afraid you all would choke on them." I didn't quite grasp the concept back when I was a kid but now that I'm older, I completely understand it.

The memory of that day has always been there in my mind and I think about it nearly everytime I eat a candy bar. I told my kids about it a few months ago and just recently when we were on a family trip my youngest daughter Elizabeth yelled out from the backseat, "spit it out! spit it out!" We all broke down laughing. Ah those were some good times.

East TN Fishing Show 2011

2011-01-22T15:39:00.000-05:00

We had been planning on going to the East TN Fishing show for the past few weeks. Matthew was so excited to be going and he talked about it almost 24/7. We invited my bro-in-law, Wayne, to go with us. We arrived about 9:50 and stood in a very long line of camoflauged and UT decked out fishing fans. I was really a little surprised at how many people were attending. I've been to things like this in the past where the crowd was very small, but there were several hundred people present in the first hour of opening.

We walked around and looked at all of the different fishing booths. Lots of tackle, rods, reels, and boats were on hand. The prices varied from ridiculously high to very reasonable. I wasn't really looking to buy anything, I was more or less just there for Matthew. I love to fish but Matthew is a fishing nut! He was like a kid in a candy store as he walked up and down each isle looking at all of the colorful lures. I enjoyed looking at the boats on display. I own a Jon boat that is so small that I'm scared to take it out much. It tips over real easily. I saw some very nice Alumacraft Jon boats there that had my mouth watering. Of course they had a pretty hefty price tag on them so I was only looking.

We came across one booth that was selling plugs 3 for $8.00. What a bargain! We bought 3 nice ones and I can't wait to use them. We then made our way upstairs and as soon as we rounded the corner a man was standing behind the Crockett Creek Jerky booth giving out free samples beef jerky. Well, I've never been one to turn down beef jerky so I sampled several bites. It was pretty good. I bought 2 bags which were marked 2 for $10.00, not a bad price for jerky. Like I said, it was pretty good but not near as good as the jerky that my Uncle Ronnie makes. He makes homemade deer jerky and it's the best you've ever eaten. If you ever get a sample of his you will compare everything from there on out with it.

As we were upstairs we looked down to the ground level and spotted the Tennessee fishing legend, Bill Dance, sitting at a table signing autographs! Matthew really wanted to meet Bill so we made our way downstairs and stood in the long line for nearly 50 minutes to wait our turn. As we approached Bill he smiled really big and asked my son what his name was. "Matthew," he replied. "Do they call you Matt or Matthew," Bill asked? "Matthew," my son said. "Matthew, that sounds dignified," Bill retorted. They made some more small talk as Bill signed a 5x7 picture of himself. He then invited him to sit beside him and have his picture made. I thought it turned out pretty good for a Blackberry picture. Matthew sure is proud of it.

It was a great day and worth the very low admission price of $5.00. You can't find values like that in many places these days. We will definitely go back again next year when they have it. Maybe we will save up a little cash between now and then so we can do more than just window shop!

Snow Barn...sick again

2011-01-08T17:57:00.001-05:00

Well, it's that time of year again, just like last year at this exact same time. Mary and Liz both have been sick this week and I knew it was only a matter of time before I came down with it. Sure enough yesterday morning I began feeling dizzy, headache, sore throat, etc... last night I was running a low grade temperature. Today I feel pretty lousy with a bad headache, sinus pressure, dizzy, coughing, and chilling. It's not looking good for leading Worship in the morning or even getting out of bed...

I did manage to go outside for about 3-minutes and take a picture of the barn across the road from my house. Yeah, I know, I take a lot of pictures of it. But, I just love looking at it. Below is the one from this morning:

Contributing to the delinquency

2011-01-07T08:25:00.000-05:00

If coffee is considered a drug, then I'm guilty.

Father & Son Coffee toast

Come on Matt, just a sip

Oh well, I guess it's an aquired taste!

Snow Day!

2011-01-05T18:31:00.003-05:00

We got some unsuspected snow this afternoon. I left early from work thinking I was beating the rush, unfortunately, everyone else must have had the same idea. It was a very slow and traffic filled drive home. I finally made it just before dark and had a chance to snap a few pictures. Thought I'd share.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-28T08:51:00.006-05:00

I think this picture says it all!

It has been a really good Christmas this year. Starting off with a great visit with my cousin (and Tormentor) Danny and his wife Drama on the Friday, Dec. 17th. They treated us to a nice big meal and wonderful conversation. I'm so glad that we reunited a couple of years ago. I really treasure the friendship that my family and I enjoy with them.

On Saturday, Dec. 18th, we visited Sandra and Wayne and had a delicious meal. Afterwards we sat in the living room while the kids played and the grown-ups talked. I wasn't much of a conversationalist because I fell asleep sitting on the couch. I wasn't trying to be rude but I was worn out!

Angels we have heard on high?

Then on Sunday morning, Dec. 19th, we had our Choir Christmas presentation at church. Due to many different circumstances we only had one day to practice this year but you would have never known it. The children sang wonderfully and so did our ladies trio, Sis. Carol, and the HBC choir. I was excited about singing Mary Did You Know for the very first time. I thought it went very well.

Great time with Granny & Papaw

On Thursday, Dec. 23rd, we visited with Mary's parents. We took them lunch and then afterwards I pulled out the guitar and song books and my family sang Christmas carols and hymns for about an hour. We had a wonderful time and I think granny and papaw did too. Later that night, we decided to open a few presents early. I was overwhelmed with a set of Vincent's Word Studies books that Mary had gotten me.

On Friday, Dec. 24th (Christmas Eve), the kids were very excited. Mary, Liz, and Matthew went to Sandra's house for her family's Christmas get-together. Jessica and I stayed at our house. When everyone got home we decided to open one present each. We had a great time and we were even more excited about Christmas morning.

Yay! Books!

Finally, on Christmas, I awoke at 4:30 A.M. and couldn't go back to sleep. I got up and looked outside and everything was white! It was one of the first white Christmas's I can remember in a long time. I went in the living room and turned on the television and of all things the movie White Christmas was on. Around 5:00 my youngest daughter came tip toeing in the room. She sat down on my lap and watched the movie with me and waited for 6:00 to roll around so she could wake everybody up. Finally the time came and Liz went around waking the household up. One by one they made their way into the living room. Before we opened presents, Liz said she wanted to give Jesus a gift. She had written a song and she sang it. I'm probably prejudiced but I thought it was beautiful and I'm sure the Lord did too. Then we each opened our presents. I think everyone was pleased with what they received. I know I sure was. I got several books I had been wanting, which will keep me in reading and studying material for a very long time.

Holly bush outside my front door

Around 12:00, my parents came over to see what the kids had got for Christmas and they visited for a little while and invited us over to their house for lunch. We went over there and enjoyed turkey and dressing and the works. It was a fantastic Christmas. I wish that everyone could enjoy the season as much as we have.

New York State Of Whine

2010-12-14T21:41:00.000-05:00

Another business trip, another cruddy city. Never had the desire to visit Buffalo, NY, ever. Wouldn't be here now if it weren't for my job. All of my life I've heard that Buffalo was one of the worst cities in the world, especially in the winter time. I can vouch for it now.

So, I arrive on Monday evening and it was 10 degrees with a "feels like" of 0. I stood outside of the airport waiting on the hotel shuttle service for an hour. I was so cold I thought my ears had fallen off. All I could think of was my wife telling me I should pack a toboggan and me laughing and saying, "nah." This morning it was 3 degrees with a feels like of minus 7... nice.

I've also always heard "the people up in Buffalo don't have problems with the snow, it's just like anther day to them and it doesn't stop them from doing anything." WRONG! That is a huge lie. Ever since I got here all everyone is talking about is how bad the weather is and how bad the snow is and how they hate driving in this stuff. Traffic crawls at a snails pace. Schools are closed, businesses are closed, and everyone has told me, "you picked a bad time to come up here." You think? So dispel those rumours that Buffalo folks have no problems with the snow. They ain't no different than we are. The only real difference I have seen is there aren't any backer spittin' rednecks in big 4-wheel drive trucks flying down the middle of the road and tailgating folks like there is in Tennessee when it snows.

On the plus side, my hotel room is fantastic! There are 2 Queen sized beds (only need one but I think I'll sleep in both of them while I'm here), fireplace, big screen TV, full-sized fridge, dishwasher, stove, desk, couch, chair, huge bathroom, etc... it is almost as big as my house! There is about 2-feet of snow outside of my room so I ain't doing much outside. I would go out and build a snowman but I don't want to die. I'm also one night stay away from achieving Gold Status.

I've had to extend my stay an additonal night because of issues at the customer's site. Speaking of that... the customer site is pretty far from my hotel and I have to call a taxi to get back and forth. It costs $41.00 one way. I've already spent over $100 dollars just in ground transportation and will most likely spend $100 more before it's over with. I found out today why there was no Marriott's near the customer site, it's right smack dab in the middle of crack town. I had no idea until the taxi driver asked me if I knew what part of town I was in? He informed me that most of the drug dealing and drug houses were there where he was dropping me off at. That made me feel real good...

So, there you have it, my New York state of whine...

One blessed Tug

2010-12-05T21:33:00.001-05:00

If you know me at all then you know that I'm not typically a happy traveler. I hate being away from home and my family but I realize that part of my job requires that I travel. Usually when I go on a business trip, I find that my family has secretly slipped cards into my suitcase for me to read. I always love to read the words that they write. I can be hundreds of miles away but just seeing the time and effort that my family spent trying to cheer me up lifts me up more than you can imagine.

Tonight after traveling for nearly 12 hours, I made it to my room and and then went downstairs for dinner. As soon as I got back in my room I opened my duffle bag and started taking items out. Underneath a pair of bluejeans was four cards. A big smile quickly spread across my face and I sat down to read them. They were all so wonderful with hand drawn pictures, flattering words, and love and wishes for my quick return.

My kids always try to relate something personal; Jessica drew pictures of coffee cups and wrote; "you are the cream to my coffee." Matthew drew pictures of guitars and fishing lures. Elizabeth drew a Bible and wrote a poem she had made up: "If you was Paul, I bet you'd write a law, that you need to know God, and if you didn't, you would be a fraud." I thought that was so good! Mary's card wasn't homemade but it was perfect.

Yep, I'm one blessed Tug.

Martha Stewart ain't gonna ruin our Christmas!

2010-11-26T02:09:00.001-05:00

Three years ago, driven by laziness, we decided to go all out and purchase a pre-lit Christmas tree. We looked around for one that we liked the looks of and that fit our budget. After much searching we finally decided on a Martha Stewart pre-lit tree that we found on sale at K-Mart for $79.99. It was a little expensive for our tastes but we figured on getting at least 20-years worth of Christmas joy out of it. That's a picture of it on the left.

The first year we put it up we thought we were really something. Within minutes of getting it out of the box it was up, plugged in, and looking mighty fine. We quickly added our other decorations to it, bulbs, ribbons, assorted ornaments, candy canes, and bows; we felt like the Who's in Who-Ville as we proudly stood in the living room with the kids, turned out all of the living room lights and basked in the glory of our brilliant, sparkling, six and a half feet of plastic evergreen delight. "Daddy, it's beautiful!", my youngest daughter exclaimed. "Yes, honey, I know, isn't it wonderful?"

We were very proud of our Martha Stewart pre-lit Christmas tree that year and boasted to our friends and loved ones of how we loved it and they should follow suit and buy themselves one too!

The next year we pulled the tree out of the basement, put the three sections together, plugged in the cord and... "hmm, something's wrong, the bottom section isn't lighting up," my wife said. "Ah, it's probably just a loose connection," I answered. I wiggled and jiggled with the wires and sure enough after a couple of minutes the lights came on. "See, nothing to worry about," I declared. All seemed well until the next day when the bottom row wouldn't light up again. We ended up wrapping a strand of lights around the bottom with plans to "fix it" next year.

The next year we again pulled the Martha Stewart tree out of the basement, put it together, plugged it in and voila, the bottom and top were not lighting up. I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise. I wiggled, jiggled, flipped, turned, and punched at the tree trying to get it to light up. "Dadgum this tree!" I yelled. "It will be okay," my wife said, "we'll just buy some strands of lights and wrap them around it." "Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a pre-lit tree," I asked? "Well, if it's not going to work then we have to do something," my wife answered. Reluctantly, I agreed and we bought lights and added to it. At least the middle was still working and every now and then the top section would come on.

Now, we come to this year. Again, we pulled the tree out of the basement, put it together, plugged it in, and... not a single light came on. I checked the power outlet, the power strip, tested the fuses, replaced bulbs, wiggled every wire and light on the tree but never could get a single light to come on. We let the tree stand in the corner for 2-weeks. Finally tonight we made a family decision; we will just remove all of the lights and wiring from the tree and buy new strands and wrap the tree the way we used to. So, for the past 3-hours my wife and I have been patiently removing all of the little plastic clips and unwrapping the strands of wire. It is a very tedious job but by the Grace of God we're not going to let Martha Stewart ruin our Christmas!

Just a word of advice... if you think you just HAVE to have a pre-lit Christmas tree... think again. It's not worth it. Save yourself a lot of time, money, work, and heartache and either buy a real tree or just a plain old-fashioned artificial one.

UPDATE: Looks like we aren't the only ones with pre-lit tree woes. I stumbled upon a great post on Mamaw Bee's Place.

Time Of My Life

2010-11-16T20:11:00.009-05:00

Below is the song, Time Of My Life, that Barbara asked my sister Jennifer to sing at her funeral. I think it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and Jennifer did a wonderful job on it. I know it was hard for her to sing it because as soon as the first note started I began bawling my eyes out. She not only sings it but she is the one playing the piano. Jennifer first began learning how to play the piano by taking lessons from Barbara. I think Barbara would have been pleased.

Funeral message for Barbara

2010-11-15T23:50:00.000-05:00

It was difficult but by the Grace of God I was able to preach aunt Barbara's funeral. I took the Scripture from Romans 8:35-39. Barbara instructed me to just be free with the message. I tried my best. I hope she would have approved. The last 4-minutes is the song Gloryland sang by me, my wife, my mother and my cousin Brad.

Honey, you can do it

2010-11-15T08:33:00.003-05:00

We knew this day was coming but even so, it came too soon. I knew from the sound of the phone ringing early on Saturday morning that something was wrong. I answered and my mother told me I needed to come to my aunt Barbara's house as soon as I could. I quickly got ready and made my way over there.

I had just been to see my aunt Barbara on Wednesday and I'm glad that I did. On that visit she was not doing very well but still coherent. I sat and held her hand, prayed, and talked with her while she tried to keep her eyes open. I knew then that it would probably be the last time I would be able to talk to her. I would have stayed all day but I had to go to work.

I entered the room on Saturday morning around 7:45. Her daughter, Natalie, was on one side of her and her sister, Brenda, and my mom and dad on the other side. Other family members were gathered around the room and in the house. My aunt Brenda announced to Barbara that I had came to see her. I don't know if she understood what she said or not. I felt like such a blundering idiot when I came up beside her, touched her hand and said, "how are you doing Barbara?" I didn't know what else to say. I thought to myself, if she is aware of what is going on around her then she is probably thinking to herself, "how does it look like I'm doing?" My hands were cold from just arriving from outside so I didn't want to make her uncomfortable by holding on to her. All I could do was stand near by and pray.

As the day wore on we all knew what was happening. As her breathing labored and her blood pressure dropped we knew that God was going to call her home and that there wasn't anything we could do about it. The house filled with family and friends and we sat and chatted, drank coffee and just waited. I thought to myself, "Barbara would hate this if she knew what was going on." She was always so particular with how she looked. She was always a picture of perfection. Hair perfect, nails polished, dressed in the nicest clothes, I know she wouldn't have wanted people to see her in the condition she was in. But, what else could we do? I suppose my pastor said it best, "death is a cruel thing."

Around 2:30 PM as I was sitting on the screened-in-porch, my mother came to the door and said, "Byron, she's gone." We all made our way into the room where my precious aunt Barbara lay motionless. It was a sight that I wish I could forget but I know will always be branded on my consciousness. As my uncle Chester lovingly brushed her hair back with his hand I could hear the sobs of my family members all standing around. I held tight to my wife Mary and tried to make some kind of sense of it all. I needed to grieve in complete silence so I went outside and stood beside the fence row surrounding Barbara's house and just prayed. As I stood there the wind was blowing very fierce causing acorns to drop from the large tree in the front yard. I took that as God's assurance to me that he was still there and had everything under control. I knelt down and scooped up a newly fallen acorn and stuck it in my pocket. It will be my eternal reminder of that day.

Barbara was more than just my aunt. She was my pianist, my mentor, and a source of strength in my music ministry. She was the one that made me confident enough to stand before a congegation of people and lead the singing. She painstakingly lowered every song in the church hymnal for me so that I would be able to lead without straining my voice. When I would say, "Barbara, I can't do it," she would say, "honey, you can do it, I'll help you." We were a team working in the church for our Lord. Together we were able to teach complicated music to choirs that had no formal training in music. I can remember picking out Christmas cantata's and saying to her, "I just don't think the choir can do this," and she would say, "aw, they can do it because we'll help em." That's just the way she was and I depended on her to be that way.

I could probably sit here and write all day long about my memories and thoughts about Barbara but I have so much to do in preparation for preaching her funeral tonight. She always knew what she wanted in life and once she made her mind up about something there was nothing and nobody that could change it. When she asked me to preach the message for her I immediately wanted to resist and say there's no way I can do that. I asked her if she was sure she wanted me to and she said, "honey, of course I'm sure, I want you to do it and I know you'll do a good job." I feel honored that she thought enough of me to ask me. I never was able to do much for her, but tonight, with the Lord's help, I am going to stand boldly and confident and pour everything I have in the message. If I start to lose confidence I can just remember what she always said to me, "honey, you can do it."

Barbara Chesney DeMarcus

DEMARCUS, BARBARA CHESNEY - age 67 of Corryton went to her Heavenly home on November 13th 2010 following a two year battle with cancer. She was surrounded by her family and friends. Preceded in death by her beloved parents; Lorn and Bessie Chesney and niece Pamela Chesney Stanifer. She is survived by her loving husband of 49 years W. Chester DeMarcus; her angel daughter Natalie and son-in-law Sam Wade; brother and sister-in-law James Carroll and Sue Chesney; sister and brother-in-law Brenda and Derrell Frye; nephews Brad Carlisle and wife Melanie; Byron Chesney and wife Mary; Josh Chesney and wife Amanda; niece Jennifer Chesney White and husband Jon; 14 great nieces and nephews; lifelong friend Patsy Turner; special friends Hazel Bridges, Helen Henderson, Linda Hickman and many more extended family and friends. She was a devout Christian and a faithful member and pianist of Highland Baptist Church. Barbara loved the piano from an early age. She began playing in church at fourteen. Soon she was assisting many church singing groups and soloists. Barbara began to see her gift and love of music and the piano as her special ministry for Christ. Over her lifetime, she served in many churches never taking monetary compensation for her many hours of faithful service. She especially loved helping churches that were often unable to acquire a competent pianist that could work with a choir as well as groups, individuals and children. She will be lovingly remembered as a true servant of God devoted to her husband, her family, her friends and her church. The family will receive friends at Highland Baptist Church on Babelay Road from 5-7 P.M. on Monday with the funeral service to follow with Pastor Dave Hutchinson and Rev. Byron Chesney officiating. Family and friends will meet at 10:15A.M. Tuesday at Bridges Funeral Home and proceed to Union Cemetery on Washington Pike for an 11 A.M. interment with Rev. William Winters officiating. Pallbearers will be Larry Turner, Sam Wade, Steve Lawson, Brad Carlisle, Josh Chesney and Matthew Chesney. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Music Ministry of Highland Baptist Church 6014 Babelay Rd. Knoxville, TN. 37924. Arrangements by Bridges Funeral Home 5430 Rutledge Pike 865-523-4999. www.bridgesfuneralhome.com

Published in Knoxville News Sentinel on November 15, 2010

Course Number 3

2010-10-27T00:04:00.000-04:00

Got my books today for B1564 Principles of Biblical Interpretation.

My course outline this time is the following:

1. Read Arthur T. Pierson's book, Knowing the Scriptures2. Prepare a conprehensive Principles of Biblical Interpretation notebook.
3. Read Robertson McQuilkin's book, Understanding and Applying the Bible.
4. Read Bernard Ramm's book, Protestant Biblical Interpretation.
5. Read Clarence Sexton's, The Holy Scriptures.
6. Read Malcom H. Watt's book, The Lord Gave the Word.
7. Listen to and take notes on audio CD's, History of Hermeneutical Schools Part I and II, by John Kokenzie.
8. Listen to and take notes on sermon audio CD, The Holy Scriptures, by Clarence Sexton.
9. Complete the 32 course assignments in the Principles of Biblical Interpretation Notebook.

My goal is to complete this course by February 1st, 2011. Keep me in your prayers that I'll be able to do everything I need to do.

Update

2010-10-25T23:05:00.005-04:00

I'm amazed that almost 7-months has passed since I completed my last Seminary course, Advanced New Testament. I finally was able to order my 3rd course today, B1564 Principles of Biblical Interpretation. I'm going to pick up my books tomorrow morning. Here is the description:

"A study of the principles of sound biblical interpretation with practical application in preaching and teaching. Emphasis is given to theological, historical, cultural, grammatical, and literary aspects of interpretation. Included are specific topics such as typology, prophecy, figures of speech, miracles and parables."

Sounds pretty intense huh? This is exactly the kind of thing that I was hoping for though. I'm sure it's going to be a tough one but I believe any preacher worth his salt should do all that he can to further his education. I know there are many hard-headed preachers out there that: "don't believe in schooling," which is very obvious from their haphazard pronunciations and interpretations. Don't get me wrong, I fully believe that the Holy Spirit counts toward the majority of a man's preaching abilities but the Bible clearly teaches that it is our duty to study the Word.

I've been reading an excellent book from the John MacArthur Pastor's Library titled, "Preaching, How to Preach Biblically." While I'm not much of an expositor, my preaching style is typically topical and narrative, I have found this book very enlightening. It is centered on expository preaching. For a brief lesson in expository preaching, click on this interview with MacArthur. Basically it is preaching verse by verse and word by word, giving the original meaning and in the context that it was written in for the people and culture that it was written for. The only way to preach this way is by doing intense studying. I think a lot of preachers are lazy when it comes to this type of preaching and therefore avoid it and say things like, "well, I just let the Spirit lead me on what to say when I get up there." While I agree that you should be lead by the Spirit in what to preach, it doesn't mean that the Spirit can't lead you through your studies and preparation for a sermon. I once heard a preacher get up to preach on a Sunday morning and he paced back and forth with one hand cupped over his ear and the other hand with a handkerchief wiping sweat and the only thing he said the entire time was, "if the Lord don't give me something I'm going to sit down, Amen." He repeated that over and over with great intensity for about 15 minutes. The whole time I was thinking to myself, "buddy, why don't you sit down and shut up and let someone that has studied and prepared get up and preach?" The sad part is there were people in the congregation hollering out "Amen," and "help him Lord."

One point that the book brings out is a warning for preachers not to be quick in repeating sayings and ideas that they have heard from other preachers unless you have thoroughly researched it and know it to be a Biblical fact. I've seen many well-meaning preachers do just that and they are spreading misinformation. One example; I was in a church service listening to a preacher that I had known for many years and always looked up to. He made a matter of fact statement during his sermon that I knew to be nothing more than an old wives tale that had been passed down. It was not Biblical and was totally untrue. It wasn't a week later I heard another preacher that had been present during the same service, repeat the same untrue statement during his sermon. I knew that he had not researched it because just a little bit of studying would have revealed it to be untrue. While it was not something that would make a difference in a person going to Heaven or Hell, it was still an untrue statement and misleading. That is irresponsible preaching.

Well, I didn't intend on writing this much about preaching, I was really just wanting to update my family and friends on my progress toward obtaining my Master's in Ministry. I doubt many people bothered reading this far anyways! ;)

Frankentater

2010-10-09T20:29:00.001-04:00

Ain't got much to say on this post. Just wanted to show off these pictures of my dad and his prize winning sweet taters! Twernt no animals harmed in the making of these taters. No illegal steroid injections either. Man, that's gonna be one big sweet tater casserole! Bet dad wishes I was still around to do THIS.

Mr. Responsible

2010-10-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

This time of year is my very favorite for fishing. My dad used to take me all the time when I was young. He showed me how to find the schools of minnows and throw my lure into the middle of them with just the right bait to hopefully reel in a nice fish.

I used those same techniques today while fishing on my lunch break. The Shad minnows were swarming in a cove at Concord Park on Fort Loudon Lake. I could see Smallmouth jumping all over the water. I quickly tied on a silver spoon and cast into the middle of the minnows. The school of Shad was so thick that I hooked 2 of them while reeling in. I quickly threw back out and immediately snagged the nice Smallmouth you see in the picture. I was so excited that my hands were shaking. The fish had hooked itself pretty deep so I had to go back to my car and get my needle-nose pliers to remove the sharp hooks without killing it. I ran lickety split back to the same spot and kept throwing but no luck. Eventually my time ran out and I had to get back to work.

One of my small pleasures in life is fishing on my lunch break. I have an hour for lunch. It takes me 10 minutes to drive to the lake from the office and 10 minutes to drive back. So that leaves 40 minutes of fishing time. I sure could have used more of it today but I was thrilled to catch at least one. If I wasn't so responsible, I would have just called into work and told them I wouldn't be able to make it back, but, that's me, Mr. Responsible. Oh well, there's always tomorrow!

Still around

2010-10-03T23:05:00.000-04:00

I'm just hanging out more on Bro. Byron's Blog lately. I'll post some more fun Tug's Life stories eventually.

More lessons from my mom

2010-09-06T00:28:00.000-04:00

I guess it really is pick on mom week! She got another mention in my latest sermon on giving:

Listen to the entire message below:

Sue's Slippery Slide

2010-09-04T22:56:00.000-04:00

It must be pick on mom week! ;) I dug up this little video clip that I made in 2006. It is my mother sliding down a homemade water slide that we had in her backyard. This was during the Spencer Family Reunion. Enjoy!

Mother knows best!

2010-09-03T01:06:00.000-04:00

Below is a short 1:43 audio excerpt from a message I preached at church. I mentioned something that my mother did back when I first started preaching. I just thought I would share.

You can listen to the entire message below:

Gee thanks a lot TDOT

2010-07-29T20:05:00.000-04:00

This is really inconvenient for me. It adds an extra 5-miles on my daily commute no matter which detour I choose. Three months to complete? Really???

You should've seen the one that got away...

2010-07-28T22:34:00.001-04:00

Seriously, this morning while at Fort Loudon fishing, I hooked a HUGE Large Mouth Bass. I was using a brand new yellow-striped Rooster Tail. That bass came shooting up out the water about 2-foot and shook for all it was worth. It looked to be about 3-lbs. I got it in to about 3 feet from the bank and my line snapped. I was so dissapointed... Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I also lost the biggest fish contest between me and my son Matthew...

Me and my big mouth

2010-07-26T20:51:00.002-04:00

Ah, life is good. Had a great day at Fall Creek Falls today. Only caught this one Large Mouth Bass but it was wonderful just being off from work and relaxing with the family.

Below is a pic of Matt tying one on.

Me and my sweetie

2010-07-22T16:25:00.000-04:00

Living it up on Sullivan's Island.

West and wewaxation at wast

2010-07-20T23:17:00.000-04:00

Sullivan's Island, SC. Good thing it wasn't between the hours of 11pm and 7am or I would have been breaking the law several times today, as I would have been caught singing, Put Your Hand In the Hand, and also whistling, What A Friend We Have In Jesus, numerous times throughout the course of the day.

I would upload more pictures but the connection here at the hotel is very slow and it takes about 10 minutes to upload.

Tug, lovest thou me more than these?

2010-07-12T13:27:00.002-04:00

Yes Lord, but I do love catching these too! Thank you for the wonderful stress relief on my lunch break today.

Bee careful out there

2010-07-03T10:57:00.000-04:00

I was so looking forward to a great 4th of July weekend. My son and I planned an early morning fishing trip to Cherokee Lake this morning. We got up at 6:30 and headed down the road. It was a wonderful morning, kind of cool and beautiful outside. We pulled into the entrance of one of my very favorite places, Grainger County Park, and noticed several boaters already there. We found a place to park and walked toward the lake.

TVA has the lake levels at Cherokee all the way to full. While this is great for boaters, it's not so great for bank fishers. We had to walk quite a distance to find a spot where we could get close enough to the water to fish. We only had about 5-foot of bank to stand on. We tied our lures on to our lines and began casting. I suppose we had been there about 15 minutes and I was making my way around the water's edge looking for the perfect spot to cast. As I was standing there, something landed on my nose. I swatted at it, thinking it was a horsefly. That was my first mistake. The next thing I knew, something came around and stung me on the back of the head. I swatted around at it. Suddenly a half a dozen bees were upon me. I dropped my fishing rod and began running. I saw my son walking toward me and I began yelling, "Matthew, stay away!" The bees kept stinging me. I slapped at my head and knocked my glasses onto the ground. I was running blindly trying to get away. I was in such a panic that I couldn't remember what I was supposed to do when getting attacked by bees. All I could think of was stop, drop, and roll. I dropped on the ground and began rolling around. They just kept coming. I ran up the bank and hit the grass with my face down. The pain was unreal as the bees unrelentlessly stung me in the ears and the back of the head.

I don't know how long it lasted, I'm sure just a couple of minutes but it felt like an eternity. I just remember worrying about my son and hoping the bees didn't turn on him. Finally the stinging ceased and I sat up. There were some folks walking around the walking trail that had seen the attack and they stopped to check on me. A very nice lady asked me if I needed water or a phone to call someone. One man was saying something about where he came from in Mexico, they had killer bees. I don't know if he was trying to comfort me or what...

I remained sititng in the grass for a long time waiting to retrieve my fishing stuff, glasses, and cell phone that was still on the ground near the spot where I was first attacked. I prayed to the Lord and asked Him to watch over me while I went back down there. Thankfully, He did. I hated to leave the lake and ruin our fishing trip but my head and ears were stinging really bad and I had chills, not to mention where I rolled all over the ground, my back and arms were hurting. I worried a little bit about driving the 30-miles back home but I made it okay. When I arrived at the house, my wife gave me some Benadryl and checked me over for stingers. I think the bees were bumblebees, which do not leave stingers, but it's been 2-hours since I was stung and the stinging keeps shooting through my head. At least it wasn't a fishing hook this time...

If you are ever attacked by bees, please try to remember the following:

Run away as fast as possible and head for indoor shelter; a house, car, building.
Pull your shirt up and cover your head if you can.
Do not flail your arms and swat at the bees.
Do not jump in the water, the bees will hover over you until you come up for air and then sting you more.

Visit HERE for more information.

A Place of Solitude

2010-06-24T21:19:00.000-04:00

Everybody needs a place to get away to sometimes. Whether it's your own backyard or just a special place you like to go to when you need to be alone. I've got such a place. I discovered it a few years ago while driving around looking for a place to fish on my lunch break. This place is only about 10-minutes from the office where I work out in West Knoxville. I get an hour for lunch and I can zip down Pellissippi Pkwy, park my vehicle and walk just a few minutes to my special place. There's hardly ever anyone else there. In fact, I've never came across anyone else fishing in my spot. There's usually one or two folks that come out to walk around the nice walking track that is connected to my special place but they never bother me.

I've visited my special place 3-times this week. It's just been one of those stressful times and I've needed to get away. I carry fishing rods and tackle boxes in the trunk of my car and can wet a line at the drop of a dime. Every now and then I catch a nice one, LIKE THIS, but no such luck this week. Today, after fishing for about 30-minutes, I was packing up to go back to work and decided to cast my line out one last time. I had a yellow rooster tail tied to a 3-lb test line, using a small light weight rod. I wasn't really expecting to catch anything other than perhaps a small bluegill. Much to my surprise, after casting out about 20-feet from the bank, something grabbed my line and pulled hard. I almost thought that I had gotten caught on a tree stump but after carefully releasing the drag, I soon discovered that there was a large fish on my line! I very gently began reeling it in towards me. Whatever it was, was not going to come in without a fight. I was trying to be very careful because I knew the line I was using was very weak. Slowly but surely I reeled my prize catch inward. Finally, about 3-feet from the bank the large fish broke the water. It was a Catfish that looked to be about 2-foot long. I held my breath and knelt down toward the waters edge, almost within reach of the fish. Suddenly, that blasted fish jerked sideways and snapped my line in two! I watched as my prize catfish quickly swam away with my yellow rooster tail stuck in his snout.

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. I didn't really care that I lost the fish. I was more upset that I had lost my favorite rooster tail. I made my way back to the car, threw my gear in the trunk and blasted off back down Pellissippi toward the office. My spirits were lifted and I felt I could make it through the rest of the day with no worries. It's amazing how just a little rest and relaxation in a place of solitude can help ease a weary soul.

I'd like to thank my sponsor

2010-06-17T23:27:00.000-04:00

Diet Coke

It was worth it all

2010-06-12T00:25:00.001-04:00

Tonight was the last night of Vacation Bible School. What a fantastic week it has been. All of the hard work, the crazy costumes, the rushed schedules, was worth every thing. We had 3 young ladies accept Christ as their Savior tonight after the service. That was worth it all.

Tug Bust

2010-06-09T23:14:00.001-04:00

My new prison ministry? See more HERE.

Bench Blogging Resumes

2010-06-05T07:00:00.003-04:00

It’s been almost a year since I last blogged from the bench. It is currently 6:23 AM on Saturday morning. I woke up early this morning because I was dreaming a crazy dream. I dreamt that I could fly. All I had to do was jump straight up and start kicking my feet and flailing my arms and I could just take off and fly anywhere I wanted as long as I could keep kicking. My wife woke me up to make me quit kicking in the bed. So, I decided I would just get up and fix a pot of coffee and slip outside and enjoy the morning.

It is pretty nice out here so far. It’s not real cool, kind of sticky warm feeling. The birds are going nuts for some reason. There is a mocking bird nest in our holly bush and that crazy thing keeps flying in and out of there like there is some kind of national emergency… maybe he knows something I don’t?

Our Hydrangea bushes are absolutely beautiful this morning. We have 2 of them that we planted about 3-years ago. They never have done very well until this year. They have these huge purple flowers on them that are so heavy that the limbs can hardly hold them. One bush is already flat to the ground because of the weight of them. The sun is starting to peek through the overcast sky. There is a pinkish hue just east of House Mountain. I can see one Jet streaking through the clouds, leaving a white trail behind it.

Our church picnic is today at Cove Lake. I’m going to take my fishing stuff and hopefully do a little fishing with my son while we are there. Of course I also plan to eat a few buckets of fried chicken as well. I was on a low carb diet the last 4 weeks and I lost 24 pounds pretty quickly. I finally got so sick of not having fried chicken and biscuits and taters and… well, I just really got tired of it. I’ve been eating carbs this week and probably already gained 10 lbs back. Oh well…

I really need to buy another battery for my laptop because this one won’t hold but for about 20 minutes without being connected to the AC. It’s already showing that its about to run out. I guess I’ll move indoors and plug up. I’m getting eat up by mosquitoes out here anyways…

The kids are all still sound asleep in their beds. When I was their age, I would have been up watching cartoons already. Like I mentioned in THIS post, that’s not a big deal to kids anymore.

I can’t believe it’s already time for VBS to start this coming Monday. It seems like only yesterday I was welcoming the children into the church for last year's VBS. I am the director again this year and I’m kind of dreading it actually. I’ve always been excited about Bible School but for some reason this year it is more of a nuisance to me. I don’t quite understand why I’m feeling this way. VBS is one of the most important ministries that a church can do and I believe in it 100%. I am a product of VBS, because that is where I accepted Christ as my Savior. I guess I just get overwhelmed with all of the directing stuff and can’t focus on just delivering the Gospel and it’s become a chore for me now more than anything else. I hope I can put all of this aside and focus on the purpose.

I’ve not been able to start my next Seminary course yet. I’ve not been able to afford it yet. It’s already been 2-months since I completed my last course and I was hoping to already be ¼ of the way through the next one by now. At this rate it’s going to take me another 2-years to finish. I was planning to graduate in 2011 but I seriously doubt that’s going to happen.

It feels good to finally have my ordination completed. It feels like a big burden has been lifted off of my shoulders. It was one of the most important days of my life, ranking just behind the day I was saved, my wedding day, and the birth of my children. I didn’t realize how much that was weighing me down until after it was over with. I was very pleased with how it all turned out. I was overwhelmed by the number of folks that thought enough of me to attend. There were a few people I wish could have been there but they just weren’t able to.

I enjoyed the sermon I preached at church last Wednesday night. It was titled, “When the Door Shuts.” It was about the days of Noah and how the Lord destroyed the earth and everyone in it except for Noah and his family. I compared that day with the present day we are living in and how Jesus said that just like in the day’s of Noah, so shall it be in the last days before he returns. I guess I was more excited about preaching that message than almost any I’ve ever preached before. It wasn’t very hell-fire and brimstone but more of a strong warning.

Well, I guess I’ve blabbered enough for one morning. If you have bothered to read this far then you are either very bored or a family member. Either way, I appreciate you listening. If you’ve got any comments to make then by all means click on the little comment link at the bottom of this post and let me hear about it. Have a good’un.

He's a brainiac, brainiac, I know

2010-05-17T19:03:00.004-04:00

Today I had the pleasure of attending the 6th grade Awards Day at Holston Middle School. My son, Matthew, was being honored with an award. I got there early enough to score a seat on the very front row in the center, where I had the perfect view. First we were entertained by a choral presentation of, "I Want You Back/ABC," by the outstanding Holston choir. Then, it was on to giving out the awards. Lots of nice awards and certificates were handed out during the program. Of course the one that I really cared about was the one my son was going to receive.

Matt was awarded "Outstanding Achievement" in Honors Math. He sure didn't get the math skills from me, but his mother is really good in math. I'm glad it comes so easy for him because I have always struggled with it. I failed algebra in 8th grade and was sent to remedial math with the other bozos. Then in college I went to electronic school and had to learn Algebra, Calculus, and Trig from scratch. Not only that, I went back to college to get my B.S. in Technical Management and had to take even more math, including Accounting! YIKES. I just learn it enough to pass a test and then I forget it again. As soon as I run out of fingers and toes I'm completely baffled.

I had to attend the program while on my lunch break from work. I didn't have my trusty Canon SLR with me to take some awesome pictures but I did have my Blackberry and Mp3 player. So, I was able to get a few rough shots of ol' Matthew receiving his award and with my Mp3 player I was able to tape the sound of it being announced. I threw together a little video with the sound and pics:

My heartfelt apology for the misunderstanding

2010-05-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

I didn't want to have to write this post but I'm going to bust if I don't.

I started Tug's Life over 3-years ago. It was a place for me to write about my past childhood experiences and to keep my family up to date on what was going on in my life currently. I never intended for it to be read by anyone outside of my immediate family. I mean, heck, who really cares about some ol' East, TN boy and what he has to say? I guess over the past few years my personal blog gained a few regular readers. I thought that was pretty cool until something I posted one day was misunderstood by more than just one person. Read on....

It all started back in March of this year. I had not posted in over a month and finally had enough time to sit down and type something out real quick. I just put down my thoughts and what was going on in my life at the time. Some of those thoughts were about some things that had transpired at my church over the past year, some good, some bad. I did not name any names or make references to anybody but apparently some folks that read my post took it for granted that I was talking about them. Somehow my little innocent blog post that I wrote on my own little personal blog that was created for my own little personal family, angered a BUNCH of people. I've heard of things like this happening before but I never dreamed it would happen to me. I've had to endure a lot of negativity over the past couple of months. I've been sent angry emails, had mean hurtful things said and written about me, unfriended on Facebook (which I've since deactivated my account), and the list goes on and on...

All of this is so heart breaking to me to think that something I wrote would be misunderstood and offend people that it had nothing whatsoever to do with. I deleted the post that I made because I didn't want anyone else to read it and think I was referring to them. I still don't understand why the people that think I was talking about them, thought that. These are some folks that I've been friends with and enjoyed being around and have never had anything against, so I'm not sure why they thought I was referring to them in the first place.

All of this has taught me a HUGE lesson. I've learned that I can't just write down my thoughts and post them in a public place even if it is just meant for my family to read. I supposed I should start another blog and just make it private. I thought about making Tug's Life private since all of this has happened but I just hate to do that. I will try to be more careful from here on out.

So, for anyone that read that old post that I made and misunderstood and thought I was talking about them, I wasn't, and I want to apologize for the misunderstanding. I am not a mean person and would never purposely write something with intentions of hurting someone. All of this has caused me a lot of stress and more than a few sleepless nights. I'll try to just stick to the old stories from here on out.

Got A Lot Of Praying To Do

2010-05-11T23:35:00.002-04:00

As you know, my grandfather, Preacher Edd Spencer, (I called him Paw) was a very popular Baptist preacher in Knoxville back in the 1940s through the early 70's, before he passed away from cancer in 1972. He only pastored at 3 churches, Highland Baptist (which he founded), House Mountain Baptist, and North Acres Baptist (which he also founded). He also preached many revivals at churches and tent meetings all across the Knoxville area.

A situation lately got me to thinking about a story that my mother told me one time concerning my late grandfather. I hope I tell this right...

One Sunday morning, the church had a special day where members would pin a flower on someone to show how much they loved and appreciated them. Well, it seems that Preacher Spencer had flowers pinned on him from head to toe by everyone in the whole church. Folks were coming up and telling him how much they loved him and how thankful they were that he was their pastor, etc. and he left that day feeling like the luckiest and happiest pastor in the world. But, he said it wasn't a week later those same folks that loved him so much, were wanting to rip those flowers off and just stick the pins into him! Yikes!

I've had similar experiences. In my years of being a music minister/worship leader, I have had folks tell me that they just love me to death, they are so happy that I'm their choir leader, they just appreciate me so much. But, let the least little old thing happen and those same people ready to crucify me. My mother is always quick to remind me that Jesus says that we are supposed to pray for our enemies: Matthew 5:44-45 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

I've got a lot of praying to do!

Planting Time In Tennessee!

2010-04-29T22:06:00.002-04:00

I've often posted about how my dad always planted large gardens when I was growing up. We relied on those vegetables to fill our hungry stomachs. I can remember when I was being forced to help plant, dig, weed, and hill, thinking "I'll never put out a garden when I grow up and get out on my own!" I couldn't wait for the day I could finally get out from under my parents rule and do things my own way. I'm telling you the honest truth, I wasn't away from home a year before I was longing for that old garden. There was something inside of me that wanted to be walking barefooted on that old red clay dirt, pitching seeds into an ankle deep row and anxiously awaiting to see the first sprout come out of the ground. You can take boy out of the country but you'll never take the country out of the boy.

Below are some pictures of my dad planting his garden this spring. I'll bet he wishes I was still around to help... I know I sure do.

You Can't Handle The Truth

2010-04-28T21:41:00.000-04:00

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. - Matthew 5:10-12 KJV

"This is a Shockingly Powerful & Biblical message preached to about 5,000 youth in a day when youth are appealed to through shallow and worldly means. At one point in this sermon the 5,000 Youth are clapping and yelling BUT THEN the preacher makes a comment that CHANGES THE WHOLE ATMOSPHERE TO WHERE YOU COULD HAVE HEARD A PIN DROP... As you can imagine, the preacher was never invited back."

Why I'm No Longer On Facebook

2010-04-26T21:24:00.002-04:00

The Proof Is In the Fruit

2010-04-26T12:56:00.006-04:00

These are the words of Jesus from John 15:1-8 KJV
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

A Fishy Faux Pas

2010-04-21T21:31:00.000-04:00

Read this fish story too!

A touch of Easter flare

2010-04-04T22:26:00.001-04:00

We had some great Easter services today. Making it even more special was a very generous donation of Easter Lilly's which looked great in the church sanctuary. I took a few pics of them and this one is my favorite. I shot this with my Canon Rebel EOS at 30mm and 400 ISO. I did a little bit of PhotoShop filtering with it, using the Render Photo Flare.

My 10 dying demands

2010-02-17T17:01:00.003-05:00

With the recent deaths of a couple of church members, I've been thinking a lot lately about the end of life. Hopefully the Lord will return and call His church away before I die, but if He doesn't then I want to make sure that I'm prepared. So, I've been mulling through my mind of just exactly how I would like my funeral to go. Not trying to be morbid here but hey, you only die once so why not plan it out the way you want it? Without further adieu...

1. My funeral and receiving friends must be in my church, presently that is Highland Baptist but if the Lord sees fit to guide me elsewhere, then I want it in whichever church I belong to at the time. If that is not possible, then find another Baptist church that will allow it. Just don't have my funeral service or receiving friends in a funeral home. Don't make the funeral on a Wednesday or Sunday that way nobody will have any excuses for laying out of church. Also, don't cancel any church services on my behalf.

2. I want a regular church service as my funeral. Just pretend it is a Sunday morning and folks are coming to worship. I want congregational singing, a choir, special music, fellowship, and especially preaching and an altar call. I will just happen to be lying dead in a casket at the altar but never mind me, just go about the Lord's business. Make sure my family is seated on the front row. I'd really like for there to be an "AMEN" section of men on one of the front rows too.

3. The preaching: The preacher must be a hell-fire and brimstone preacher with his intentions set to share the Gospel and see souls saved. Get someone that can preach a hot sermon out of the King James Bible. My brother-in-law, Jon White, would be a good one if he's able and willing to. Just don't get no limp-wristed, panty-waist, phoney-Bible reading preachers allowed. I don't want there to be any question by anyone attending about what the preacher is talking about. I want hell to be described so strongly that even the deacons will be sweating by the time it's over. I mean lay it on them hot and heavy. If anyone seems offended by this, feel free to tell them that I requested it to be that way and then ask them if they know Jesus as their Savior. Make sure and read Romans 3:23, 5:8, 6:23, 10:9-13, and Revelation 3:20 before the sermon is over with. Don't waste any time talking about me. If the people attending don't know about me by that time, there's no reason for them to try and get to know me at my funeral.

4. The singing: I want old-fashioned singing. A few of the congregational/choir songs I would like to be sung are: Just A Little Talk With Jesus, I've Never Been Sorry, Love Lifted Me, Thank God I Am Free, and Saved to the Uttermost. For special singing: Just get any quartet, or trio to sing 2 or 3 songs of their choice. Tell them not to worry about messing up because that don't matter to me seeing as how I won't be there to hear it anyways and nobody else counts since it's my funeral. For the Altar call song I want "Lord I'm Coming Home." Speaking of the Altar call, make it a long drawn out one. If no one comes forward on the first verse, make everyone close their eyes and raise their hands if they aren't saved. If anyone raises their hand, ask them to come to the altar afterward. If someone happens to get saved, make everyone come around and shake their hand and make sure you get them a King James Bible before the week is out.

5. My funeral card: Just print up a bunch of church bulletins with the information in it. Don't waste money on the funeral home cards. If you have any left over you can make paper airplanes out of them and throw them around the parking lot. Just make sure somebody picks them up out of the parking lot before the next church service. You can tell my son, Matthew, that daddy said to make sure the parking lot is clean.

6. Bible Tracts: I want everyone in attendance to leave the service with a Bible tract. Most likely I will have a stash of them somewhere that you can use for this. The one that I prefer is the one written by John Rice, called; What Must I Do To Be Saved? You can order these from the Sword of the Lord and they will deliver them in about 2-days. These are currently the ones that I order to pass out and to supply the church with. Have the preacher mention that I would like everyone to give the tract out to someone in the next week or so after the funeral.

7. My clothes: I want to be buried in the nicest suit that I own. I just bought 3 new ones this year so if it happens soon, put me in the dark blue pinstriped one with a white shirt. If it's later, if the dark blue pinstriped one still fits and ain't too worn out, go ahead and use it, otherwise just pick the nicest one that will button around my belly.

8. What to tell people: If I die of a heart attack, please tell everyone that I said it was my own fault for eating like a pig my entire life and that I knew better. Tell them that I died happy. If I die of some other reason, tell them that I said, "see there, I told you I didn't need to worry about what I was eating," but still tell them that I died happy. Tell everyone that I'm sorry if I offended or disappointed them in any way. I'm sure it wasn't intentional and that I was only human. Tell the church members that I really appreciate everything they have ever done for me such as attending choir practice, volunteering for Vacation Bible School, or anything else I expected people to do for the Lord. Tell my family that I love them more than they could possibly ever dream of and that I'm proud of them and will be waiting for them in Heaven. Tell them that if I don't greet them at the Pearly Gates, not to worry, I'm probably off somewhere singing or talking to Jesus, or the Apostle Paul and John the Baptist.

9. At the graveside: Please have someone lead the song, What A Day That Will Be, and have everyone in attendance sing along. Have the preacher read John 14:15-21 out of the King James. It's up to him if he wants to expound on it or say anything further. If anyone looks irritated because it is taking too long, tell them that I said they could go ahead and leave.

10. I should have put this first but anyways... I want to be buried, I don't believe in cremation. Don't waste a bunch of money on some fancy casket. A pine box is fine with me, just get whatever is cheapest. You can get somebody to make one out of scrap lumber for all I care. Also don't spend a bunch of money on the tombstone, a big rock is fine with me. Make sure they engrave my name right, it is spelled BYRON. Seriously, watch for that because 9 out of 10 people will spell it wrong even if you write it out for them.

So, there you have it. Those are my wishes for when I die. I'm being serious, this is NOT a joke. You can print this out and use it for the arrangements.

Longing for Summer

2010-02-15T20:13:00.001-05:00

Seems I've been doing this a lot lately. From my Facebook page:

Byron Chesney is driving the cold weather away by drifting back to the summer of '76; walking barefooted in the red clay dirt in daddy's garden, digging taters, drinking from the garden hose, climbing fences, running through Roseberry Creek, walking the railroad rails, catching lightning bugs, and playing Ghost in the Graveyard with my sisters and cousins. Don't wake me up...

Am I Doing Enough?

2010-02-04T23:55:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe it's almost been a year since I started working toward my Master's of Ministry degree through Crown Seminary. I am nearing the completion of my second course. I've only got one more assignment to complete and should have that finished by tomorrow. It took me a month longer than expected because of Thanksgiving and Christmas being in the middle of it all. I've really been buckled down these past 3 weeks trying to get it finished though and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the great things about taking these classes is the way that I am challenged Spiritually. I guess digging so deep into God's Word and doing all of the assignments has a way of opening my mind more. Today I was reading one of the required books, "Following Christ and Fishing For Men," by Clarence Sexton, and it really caused me to do some soul searching. Read on...

I've been involved in church ministry for many years as a music minister, Sunday school teacher, and preacher of the Gospel. I wish I could work in the ministry full-time and not have to worry with my secular job because the only time I'm truly happy is when I'm doing things for the Lord. Hopefully, if it's God's will, after I finish Seminary I can make some changes.

I have a burden and love for my fellow church members. All through my day I'm thinking about them and wondering how they are getting along. We have several members that are going through different health issues and I worry and pray for them constantly. If one of our regular members misses a service I sit and wonder if something has happened to them, if they are sick, or some other problem. I suppose all of this is well and good but one thing that I believe I have been lacking in is reaching out to folks outside of the church. Oh sure, if it is convenient for me I will witness to someone but I don't purposely go about seeking for lost people to witness to. I suppose I've always felt that as long as I was working inside of the church then I was doing my part.

Well, like I said, after reading this recent book, I've really been convicted of not fulfilling the Great Commission as well as I could be. One example in the book was how Jesus went out of His way to witness to people. He didn't necessarily go where it was convenient. Just like in a recent message I preached, Jesus sought people out. I don't think I've been doing enough seeking. It is my full intention to change that and try to do a better job. It is awfully easy to hide behind the pulpit and preach to folks that mostly claim to be saved as opposed to going out and taking that message to a lost and dying world.

So, you pray for me that I'll do God's will in my life. That's all I really want anyways. How about you? Are you saved? If you aren't, would you please listen to THIS MESSAGE? If you are, are you following God's will for your life? Are you doing your dead-level best for the Lord? If not, how about joining me in fulfilling the Great Commission?

Tug's Redneck Olympics

2010-01-30T19:49:00.000-05:00

Like I mentioned earlier, we don't get snow around here much anymore, so when we do, we go completely nuts. Today was no different. When the kids said they wanted to go outside and slide in the snow, my mind started thinking in overtime! I looked out in the garage and saw my neglected Jon Boat and it was like a revelation from Heaven...I thought, "Tug, you need to hook that boat up to the back of your 4x4 and pull the kids up and down the driveway!" So...

I scream, you scream, we all scream for SNOW CREAM!

2010-01-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

We were really excited last night to get to make some snow cream. This area of East, TN hasn't had any significant amounts of snow in quite some time. (We all blame Al Gore.) So, when we were blessed with several inches of the stuff last night, we decided it was time for some old-fashioned snow cream just like mom used to make.

Here is the recipe:
1-can of cream (evaporated milk for you non-Southerners)
1-cup of sugar
1-tbs of vanilla extract
10-cups of clean snow from the hood of your car!

Stir the cream, sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Slowly stir in the snow a little at a time. Mix well until everything is nice and smooth and creamy, like ice cream. Then eat that stuff like it's going outta style!

Below are the results of our snow cream:

A drift back into time

2010-01-26T17:33:00.001-05:00

I wrote the following update on my Facebook account today and thought I'd share it on Tug's Life as well:

Byron Chesney My mind just drifted back to August of 1977 when I was 10-years old, walking barefoot and shirtless up Maloneyville Rd after an afternoon rain shower. The smell of honeysuckles and hot pavement penetrate my nostrils as the sound of an old Southern Railway train rumbled through the thick mass of blackberry bushes while rounding the corner by old man Kruegers farm. Man, I wish I was back there again...

Overwhelmed

2010-01-22T17:00:00.002-05:00

I don't know if you have a Facebook account or not but ever since I started one over a year ago, I have connected with many friends and family members. It is so great to read about what other people are doing and share things with each other. I know Facebook gets a bad rap but it is just like anything else, you can use it for good or for bad. I choose to use it for the good. I get to interact with fellow church members, post pictures, links, and other things with people with the same interests.

Just recently, I was sent a message from Betty, one of my Facebook friends, that used to be a friend and classmate of my sister Pam. Pam had played the organ at her wedding and she had a picture of her that she said she could send me. I was so thrilled today when Mary brought the mail in and she said, "you've got something here, but I don't know what it is." I knew exactly what it was! I eagerly opened up the padded envelope and took out the contents. There inside was one of the best pictures of my sister Pam that I had ever seen. It captures so much of her. It was taken on July 3, 1981, she was 18-years old. It makes me sad to look at it but overwhelmed at the same time. I am so thankful to have this picture and even more thankful to have such fond memories of my late sister.

If you have a Facebook account, look me up.

One Tired Tug

2010-01-14T15:29:00.000-05:00

I reckon I am doomed to always have something stupid happen when I take a business trip. This time was no exception. Along with my previous post, let me tell you about my return trip home...

I was up till almost 4:00 AM the night before I had to fly out of Newark and I got up at 8:30 and headed to the airport. My flight wasn't scheduled until 12:59 but with typical New York traffic and going through security at the airport, I left early enough to make sure all went smooth. Good thing I did...

The traffic was light for New York and I got to the airport in 25 minutes as opposed to the usual hour it takes (according to the taxi driver.) I guess I wasn't thinking real clear that morning. First I went through the first security point and realized I hadn't checked my bag so I had to go back through, check it and then go through again. Then after passing through the last security point and x-ray, I was walking down the aisle toward my gate and realized my boarding pass and passport was missing. I walked backwards through the security line which caused a major interruption in the airport. "You need to go back the other way sir!!!" the TSA agents yelled at me. I held up my hands and said, "but, but, I don't have my passport or boarding pass!" They questioned me thoroughly, made me take off my shoes, shirt, empty my laptop bag, etc.. They kept asking, "are you sure you had it with you?" Duh, I had to have it or I wouldn't have gotten as far as I did through security already. So, then they made me wait outside of a security office while they reviewed security tapes of the airport. I sat out there while a TSA agent stared at me like I was some kind of criminal or crazed lunatic, which I probably looked like one because I was really freaking out at that point. After a few minutes passed by, an agent came out of the office and asked me to come into the office. There they had the whole ordeal on tape. I stood and watched myself go through the security line holding my passport and boarding pass in my hand and then I saw something I couldn't believe. Stupid me, placed my boarding pass and passport into the empty bin that once held my shoes and then place another bin on top of it and just walked off. I felt so stupid!

So, the TSA folks had to go through all of the plastic bins in the area that I had went through. They found it! Praise the Lord! I tell you what. I had all of these news headlines flashing through my mind of how some idiot shut down Newark airport and delayed thousands of passengers for hours. I'm just thankful that it all ended okay, well, except for my pride.

I guess the lesson I learned was not to trust my judgment when I am really tired. I don't reckon I've ever had anything like that happen to me before in my 43-years on this earth. It was a tough lesson. You can't imagine how good it felt to get home and have my wonderful family greet me at the door with hugs and kisses. It just made everything better.

Tug just doesn't fit in

2010-01-11T18:00:00.000-05:00

Warning, this post is not for folks that like or love New York City. You might as well visit another blog because everything I'm gonna say here is just going to make you mad. You've been warned.

Well, it was bound to happen and it finally did. Here I sit, smack dab in the middle of Manhattan on the busiest street in the entire city...unreal. Yep, I had to come up here for a trade show.

I have never, ever, ever wanted to visit New York City. There ain't a thing in the whole blasted place I care to see. Tall buildings don't impress me. Gaudy landmarks do nothing for me. The 8.3 million whiny, pushy, angry people disgusts me. The 10,000 taxi cabs nauseate me. The "church" of Scientology that I have to pass by every day sickens me. As far as I'm concerned they can take this whole ugly place and flush it down the toilet where it would fit right in.

In my defense (not that I need to defend myself because this is my blog and not yours) I've got a pretty bad cold; coughing, sneezing, runny nose, headache, burning eyes, scratchy throat and on top of all of that (not to be gross, but...) got diarrhea and cramping stomach today. I started out trying to look on the bright side and look for things to like about this place. Well, I gave up on that shortly after. There ain't one thing I like about this place. Wait, I take that back... the one thing I like about it is that I DON'T LIVE HERE!!! I even tried to see some good in the people here. That got squashed after some clown jumped in front of me after I had hailed a cab to get back to the hotel from the convention center. Throw in the jerk in the hotel elevator that said "there's one in every crowd" after I stuck my suitcase in the closing door so I could get on. Oh, and the little angry woman in the restaurant last night that was yelling and screaming at the waiter just because he didn't bring the kind of bread that she liked. Plus all of the pushy, nose in the air, suit wearing, "I'm better than you" people that apparently think I am invisible. Man, I can't wait to get outta this stinking place.

I was trying to see what was near the hotel so I pulled up a Google map and low and behold the map shows some idiot walking around in his underwear with cowboys boots, hat, and a guitar. (yes, I know what he is called but I don't want his name on my blog.) I think that pretty much tells you what kind of place this is. I don't fit in.

The proof is in the pictures!

2009-12-18T22:18:00.004-05:00

Okay, so here's proof! Even after 30 years, my older cousin Danny continues to torment me! Ever since we reconnected last year, I knew it was just a matter of time before he reverted back to his evil ways. Oh sure, he acts all sweet and innocent but the minute you turn your back....watch out! A head lock, a small package, a body slam, or any number of submission holds, he'll strike when you least suspect it.

In all seriousness, I had a great time tonight when Danny and Drama came over to our house for a visit. We ate, told stories, laughed, and just had great fellowship. It's such a shame that we allowed so many years to pass between us.

A rural treasure

2009-12-07T20:36:00.001-05:00

You can't choose where you are born and that's a fact. Every now and then I think about that and am thankful that the good Lord saw fit to allow me to be born and raised in one of the greatest places in the world. Oh sure, if you are one of them high falutin' folks, you probably look down your narcissistic nose at me and where I come from. That's okay, I'm glad not everyone has the same tastes because if'n we did, we would all be bunched up together in one spot.

I'm right proud of my neck of the woods with all of it's hills, creeks, ponds, barns, fences, and railroad tracks. When I was a young feller I never once thought about going to a far off place or visiting exotic locations because in my mind I lived in the most wonderful place on earth. Once I stepped through the back screen door of my parent's little 4-room cinder-block house my possibilities were endless and my imagination was unlimited. I could head off in any direction, North, South, East, or West and discover the most fascinating things.

If I headed south I would cross the road, climb over the fence, cross through the cow pasture, balance myself over the railroad tie bridge that spanned Roseberry creek, and I would be standing on a long stretch of railroad tracks. I could spend hours walking the rails, picking up shiny rocks, looking for discarded railroad spikes, it was a virtual wonderland. I would make my way down the tracks and end up at the railroad trestle that crossed the creek where cows would gather to drink. I would jump in the water to cool off on a hot August afternoon. Or drop a fishing line from a cane pole baited with a wiggly red worm or kernel of corn. I spent many hours of my life in that spot. We never went to a public swimming pool because we always had the creek to play in. Besides, swimming pools didn't have rocks, snakes, fish, and crawdads like the creek did, which was all the things necessary to occupy my mind.

Behind my parent's house was the 11-acres that my papaw Chesney owned. All I had to do was walk through the backyard and through the homemade wooden gate that my dad had built in the fence row. I would cross the wide flat patch of ground that used to bubble when it rained. Dad always said there were sink holes under the ground. Once I passed that spot I would be in the woods walking the worn trails that we used to get back and forth from our house to the large garden that dad shared with papaw on top of the hill. It was in those woods that all of us kids would spend hours on end playing and camping out. It was far enough away from my parents house to feel like we were a long way off but yet not so far that we couldn't hear the gravels underneath car tires if someone came to visit. If we were needed at the house my parent's could just walk out in the backyard and yell real loud. If we didn't answer back they would blow the car horn and you better believe we would come running then!

I was fortunate that most of the houses in my neighborhood belonged to family members. I could walk forever through yards and woods without the worry of somebody getting mad that I was trespassing. Of course trespassing was one of my favorite activities anyway. My best friend Kevin lived just a mile up the road and we either road our bikes or walked the road or railroad tracks to get to each others houses. We had the best childhood imaginable. How I wish my children could experience what it was like to live in those times. We never worried about being abducted or molested or anything like that. I guess it was the age of innocence.

Well, I'm not sure why I wrote all of that. Just had a lot of stuff on my mind and thought I'd jot it down. One of these days I'll probably be too old to remember all of these wonderful memories and I'll have to sit around reading about it.

I'll let you go first Tug!

2009-12-07T00:03:00.001-05:00

This weekend we got some snow here in East, TN. We normally don't get any until Jan, Feb, or March, so it was kind of a surprise. I spent some time outside playing in the snow with my kids. It brought back a ton of childhood memories from when I used to play in the snow, especially with my cousin Danny. Let me tell you about one of those times...

It was probably around 1978, when I was 12-years old. We used to have some pretty big snows back then. This time in particular we had well over a foot of the stuff lying on the ground. Lucky for us kids we grew up in hilly East, TN. My papaw owned 11 or 12 acres of farm land and there was a huge hill on one side of it. We just called it "the hill." I spent many hours hiking up and down that hill from our property to the large garden that was located at the top of the hill. I also used to love to sit on a big rock that was about 3/4 of the way to the top and look out at the beautiful landscape. So, getting back to the story... like I said, we got a pretty big snow. Well, we always used to sled down the hill whenever we had the chance. Usually we would use some old car inner tubes. This time Danny came up with a brilliant idea. "You know Tug, the best sled in the world is an old Volkswagen car hood," he said. "Really?" I asked. "Sure," said Danny. So, we set about finding us a VW car hood. There just happened to be an old junked VW in the woods so we removed the hood and pulled it to the top of the hill. This is where things get interesting...

"I'll let you go first Tug!" Danny said. That sounded like a fine plan to me and I was appreciative that my older cousin was thinking of me and giving me first turns. Danny held the sled and I climbed onto it, settling down on the backside. We had tied a rope on the front of it so we could pull it around and I took the rope in my hands, sorta like holding the reigns on a horse. "Okay Tug, I'll give you a big shove." Danny got behind me and pushed me as hard as he could. That VW hood took off on the snow like a greased pig. I was sailing down the hill at top speed. If you remember, I said that my papaw owned "farm land." Well, part of having a farm is having cows. Part of having cows is having barbed wire fences. So, naturally, there were several fences on papaw's land. I reckon being 12-years old, I didn't think much further than the next 2 steps I would take. That barbed wire fence at the bottom of the hill never crossed my mind until about half way down when I saw it rushing forward to meet me. "Oh no!" I screamed. There was no slowing that hood down. It was inevitable that I was going to hit that barbed wire fence at full speed. I never even thought about jumping off, I was too terrified. I know it could have only been seconds that I was sledding down that hill but in that tiny time span I must have imagined a million different things, mostly how I was probably gonna die a bloody and painful death.

I don't know if you've ever rammed a barbed wire fence at 60 mph while sitting on a Volkswagen hood or not, but let me tell you, it's an experience you'll never forget. The tip of the hood sat just high enough to go over the bottom strand of wire. The hood managed to slide completely through the fence raking me off the back of it and depositing my body in the middle of the fence. As I hung there sideways with a hundred, tiny, sharp barbs sticking in my skin, my cousin Danny was laughing and running down the hill towards me. When he finally reached me and asked me if I was okay, all I could think was, "now I know why he wanted me to go first!"

Those were the days my friend. I wouldn't trade those fun times for anything in the world.

Chips off the old block

2009-11-15T14:49:00.001-05:00

Today was Youth Sunday at our church. The young people filled all of the leadership positions; taught classes, lead singing, sang specials, and brought the message. I was proud of all of them of course but I was extra proud of my children. My daughter Jess taught our Sunday school class and she did an excellent job. Matthew brought a devotion before Sunday school and he and Liz sang Amazing Grace during the service. I didn't have to do anything except sit back and enjoy watching my children demonstrate a life of being raised in a Christian home. I felt really blessed.

It's a family tradition!

2009-11-11T00:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I wrote anything on Tug's Life. I've been so busy it ain't even funny. I'm struggling with seminary work this semester. I've got so much stuff going on at work and church that it is really hard for me to get my focus back. I know I'll dive into it eventually. I doubt I'll make my planned finish date of December 30th though.

I have to go back to stupid Las Vegas this weekend for the G2E tradeshow. I've been the past 4 years in a row and frankly I'm sick to death of it. None of the other application engineers have attended a single tradeshow since I started with the company 5 1/2 years ago. Considering I'm the only one that has a spouse, children living at home, taking college classes, and working a second job, it doesn't seem right to me. Not only does it interfere with my family life but also my church life, worship activities, and study time. Not to mention I totally despise Las Vegas and everything it represents. I don't gamble or participate in all of the lewd activities that go on in that God forsaken city and I would rather be chained and beaten with a whip than to attend the "team" dinners.... I better quit talking about it because I'm getting so mad I can hardly stand it.

So, on to the reason I started writing this post...

The other day my mother took some pictures in her Sunday school class at Union Baptist, where my dad is a teacher. I couldn't help but notice how much we resemble each other. I found a picture of myself teaching my Sunday school class at Highland and then I remembered one of my son teaching my Sunday school class as well. So, I rounded them all up and placed them all in this post.

And, here is one of us at the Coffee & Christ fellowship that we had at my church this past Saturday.

I was wrong

2009-10-29T21:01:00.005-04:00

For the past 43-years I have been doing something that I shouldn't. I'll go ahead and confess that until this year I have never felt convicted of it. In fact, I've bragged about NOT feeling convicted of it before. Even at this time last year I was boasting of it, along with my entire family.

Now, bear in mind that what I'm about to tell you, you may not agree with, and that's fine. It may not be wrong for you, who am I to say? I can only tell you my feelings about it and why I feel convicted of it. So, here goes...

Hallowe’en. The eve of All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day celebrated the last night of October. In the Old Celtic calendar the year began on November 1, so that the last evening of October was the night of all the witches, which the Church transformed into the Eve of All Saints. Source: The Oxford English Dictionary.

When I was a young child growing up, we always celebrated Halloween. We didn't worship Satan or conjure up spirits or anything like that, no, we simply dressed up in masks (false faces) and went to our neighbors and families houses to trick-or-treat. Just innocent stuff. We never ever related the holiday to anything Satanic. It was just a fun time for us kids to get a bunch of candy and to scare each other with our costumes. I carried this same tradition to my family. My oldest daughter is 16, almost 17 and we have brought her up celebrating Halloween. We dressed her up in different costumes; princesses, different animals, witches, etc... it was all just in fun. We did the same as I did as a kid, trick-or-treating at our families houses. Just last year our whole family dressed up in scary outfits and had a big time of it.

So, what is different now you ask? Let me explain... I guess it started with observing the teen sensation that is sweeping our land with the Twilight series of books and movies. I have noticed how our teenagers have become obsessed with anything Vampire related and supernatural. These things affect the way they are dressing, wearing their hair, talking, and thinking. What seems like an innocent thing, really isn't very innocent at all. They are glorifying things that God calls an abomination. Don't believe me? Look at Deuteronomy 18:9-13:

9 When thou art come into the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
13 Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God.

Yes, I realize that was written under the Law of Moses for the Jewish people, however, the Bible says that God sees these things as an abomination. That has nothing to do with the law, that is God's thoughts. God's thoughts do not change regardless of the Law or when it was spoken. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He thinks these kind of things are an abomination then I have to see them that way as well. God hates these things so much that he destroys those that practice them. Look at 2 Kings chapter 21 and Exodus 22:18 for proof!

So, as for myself, a born again child of God, a confessed believer in Christ, a preacher of the Gospel, how can I glorify things that God says is an abomination? I CAN'T!!! Please don't try to tell me about the origins of Halloween and how it used to be a day to reverence the dead, I'm fully aware of it's origins, but that has NOTHING to do with how Halloween is celebrated today. Read more about this HERE.

I know it seems like no big deal to most people. Folks decorate their yards and adorn their homes with signs and symbols of witchcraft, demons, and Satanic symbols. How do you think God feels about this? These same folks that practice this type of behaviour are the same folks that profess to be Christians. Just the other day we drove by a house and my youngest daughter (9-years old) looked out the car window and started crying. On the lawn were life-sized zombies, vampires, witches, and all sorts of creepy things. She had nightmares about those things for days after seeing them. She couldn't understand why anyone would put such things in their yard for little girls to see. It was difficult trying to calm her down and explain to her why people do those things.

I will fully admit that I used to be one of the world's worst. I loved Halloween. I loved scary costumes. I loved horror movies. I had hundreds of dollars worth of the awfullest, bloodiest, goriest horror movies you have ever seen. I had them all; Halloween, Friday 13th, SAW, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scream, etc... I have since destroyed all of those movies. I did not want them in my home any longer. It was like a scene from Acts 19:18-20 when the folks at Ephesus burned all of their curious arts and books after Paul had preached the Gospel to them!

So, my family and I will not ever be celebrating Halloween anymore. Instead, we are starting a new tradition; a Fall party. We are preparing a bunch of things to eat; chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, cheeseball, cheddar and bacon tater skins, chicken-n-biscuit crackers, etc.. just a bunch of junk like that and we are going to spend time together at home as a family. We are going to watch one of my favorite movies, Ben Hur, instead of the usual Horror movie. If you come by our house to trick-or-treat, we will give you something. It may be a can of soup or whatever we have in the house but you will also be presented with a Bible tract.

I'm looking forward to our new tradition!

Now let us...

2009-10-21T16:13:00.000-04:00

I posted this audio/video clip on Facebook so someone could hear my family singing. This is my 2 sisters and my mother and me singing, Have A Little Talk With Jesus. This was recorded in the mid to late 1990's. The picture I have with it was taken in the Summer of 1973 and it is of me and my 2 sisters.

Singing is, Pam on lead and playing the piano, Jennifer singing soprano, Mom singing alto, and myself singing bass.

Gonna hold who needs holding

2009-10-19T21:30:00.001-04:00

Have you ever stopped to think about just how short life is? I sure have been thinking about it lately. Back in the book of Genesis, chapter 6 and verse 3, God said this: "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Also, if you look in the oldest book of the Bible, Job, chapter 14 verse 1, it says: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Over in the New Testament in the book of James, chapter 4 verse 14, it says: "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."

So, we are not guaranteed a long life and we can rest assured while we are here it will be full of trouble and will seem but just a vapour to us when our time comes to an end. We should really think about what we are doing with our time while we are here. In my sermon last night at church, I made mention that the only thing that matters while we are here on earth are the things that we do for Christ. The pastor said essentially the very same thing in his sermon yesterday morning.

The picture at the beginning of this post is of me and my aunt Barbara. It was taken this past Saturday at a surprise birthday party that we had for her at my aunt Brenda's house. This picture means a lot to me. It seems like only yesterday that I was a little kid visiting her house on DeMarcus Ln off of Greenway Drive. She used to teach my sisters piano. She also taught me for a while but being a little rambunctious boy, I found it hard to sit still on the piano bench long enough to learn. I can remember that Barbara always kept a bowl of mints at her house. I would carefully lift the lid of the crystal candy dish she would keep it in and get one out and pop it in my mouth and let it melt on my tongue. It was a big treat for me. Usually my mom would end up telling me to quit eating up all of Barbara's candy!

Back in those days, Uncle Chester (Barbara's husband) ran Greenway Tire Co. I used to love to go down there and visit while he worked. He would buy me a cold Mountain Dew out of the coke machine. I really felt like a big man on those days.

Nowadays Barbara plays the piano at our church, Highland Baptist, and Chester works in the sound room. I always have people telling me that I do such a good job leading the music at church but what they don't realize is, without Barbara I wouldn't be worth a hill of beans! She painstakingly lowers each piece of music for me so I can lead it. She also helps me out when learning new music.

Barbara was diagnosed with cancer last year and she has been going through so many problems and treatments. We have been praying for her daily. Just as with my sister Pam, I don't understand why certain people have to go through things like this. I do know that it builds faith in God. I hope and pray that when it's all said and done with that I can be like Job and say, "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." But, until that day comes "I'm gonna hold who needs holding, mend what needs mending, walk what needs walking, though it means an extra mile, pray what needs praying, say what needs saying, Because we're only here for a little while." - Billy Dean

Time to man up

2009-10-12T23:55:00.003-04:00

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." - 1 Corinthians 13:11

It's been a while since I posted on Tug's Life. It is Monday, October 12, 2009, at 11:55 PM. I tried going to bed early (early for me) but couldn't go to sleep. I normally stay up till 1:30 or 2:00 at night studying until my eyes glaze over. Then I stick the ear buds in my ears and go to sleep listening to a sermon on my Mp3 player. I usually make it through about 15 minutes of a sermon and fall asleep. Some nights I get so excited about the sermon that I lay awake and listen to the whole thing though. But, tonight I was lying there listening to a great sermon by Pastor Sexton and my stomach wasn't feeling too great so I just got up, fixed me a cheese sandwich (yes that calms my stomach) and thought I'd study or blog, or work on my upcoming Coffee & Christ meeting that I'm having at church next month. As you can tell, I'm starting out by blogging.

I've got a lot of stuff going on lately. As I mentioned in my last post, I started my second Seminary course, Advanced New Testament, and that takes up most of my spare time. Of course 10 hours of my day is spent driving to work, working at the office, and driving back home. My job is extremely stressful and by quitting time I'm usually at my breaking point. I won't say anything negative about my occupation because I am grateful to be employed so lets just leave it at that... Church work takes up a lot of time as well but it is something that I love and enjoy and feel is meaningful.

For a long time I have had a huge burden for the families of our church and community. I look around on Sunday mornings and see so many empty pews and my heart breaks for those folks that don't seem to place church very high on their list of important things to do. They say they are Christians, and they join the church and say they belong to the church but yet you never see them. Some of these folks have children that are not saved. Those are the ones I worry about the most. As bad as our world has become (especially under the current president) families need Christ in their lives more than ever. They need the basic building blocks and a firm foundation to stand on. According to my Bible, the man is the head of the household (Ephesians 5:22-33). As I have posted and preached, it is the man's responsibility to see that his family follows the Biblical commandment to worship God and read the Scriptures (Deuteronomy 6:1-9). This is where men have to stand up and be men. It's time to quit messing around and being wishy-washy. The responsibility that men have to their families should be the most important thing in our lives other than our personal relationship with Christ. I can say this with full authority. There was a time in my life that I lost sight of that and nearly saw my family destroyed. It can happen to you before you know it. It is only by God's grace that we were able to survive. I don't want to see others make the same mistakes.

Our children today need a strong Christian upbringing so they know the difference between right and wrong. When the President of the United States doesn't even know right from wrong by the way he embraces sodomy, sodomites, murder, alcoholism, anti-Christianity, and no telling what else, we are in deep, grave danger. That's why we men must take control of our families, bring our children to church, teach them Scripture and give them the armor necessary to stand and fight for their lives.

So there you have my little mini sermon for the night. I knew there was a reason I couldn't go to sleep!

Still pressing on...

2009-09-30T16:03:00.000-04:00

I was finally able to pick up the books today for my second seminary course, Advanced New Testament. I took a little over a month off between courses and it feels like it's been years since my last one. I am really excited about digging in.

My course outline this time is the following:

1. Read the entire New Testament
2. Prepare a conprehensive Advanced Old Testament Notebook
3. Read volumes I and II of Scroggie's "Unfolding Drama of Redemption"
4. Read Sexton's "Earnestly Contend for the Faith"
5. Read Sexton's "The Parables of Jesus" Volumes I and II
6. Read Sexton's "Following Christ and Fishing for Men"
7. Listen to and take notes on the 9 audio sermons in Sexton's "Introduction to Advanced Old Testament"
8. Complete the 32 course assignments in the Advanced Old Testament Notebook

My goal is to complete this course by December 30th, 2009. Keep me in your prayers that I'll be able to do everything I need to do.

Precious memories sealed forever

2009-09-24T20:30:00.007-04:00

Last night while I was preaching a sermon at church about Eternal Security, I was talking about the sealing of the Holy Spirit and as often happens, my mind drifted back to my childhood days. I compared Jesus sealing us with His Holy Spirit with the way my mother used to seal canned vegetables. I recalled how we used to sit around and listen to the Kerr lids seal on those old Ball jars. I was amazed at how much detail just flooded through my mind about how my mom would can. If I sit here right now with my eyes closed and think real hard, I can almost smell the different scents and feel the steamy hot kitchen from my childhood home.

All of this made me realize how different things are nowadays. My kids don't know a thing about canning vegetables. Where we live the ground is not suitable for a garden so we just buy our vegetables. We rarely ever bought store canned vegetables when I was growing up. Seems we always had green beans, tomatoes, tomato juice, corn, and of course, pickles. It was always my job to help shuck corn, string green beans, shell peas, dig taters and stuff like that. Dad grew and picked the vegetables and Mom prepared them.

Some scenes that unfold in my mind are of a large pressure cooker shooting steam from the top. Watching the little round pressure regulator dance around on top of the pot and imitating the pshhh, pshhh, sound it would make. Dish towels spread out on the kitchen counter with Ball jars sitting on top of them. Listening to the "tink" sound that the Kerr lids would make when the jars would seal. Man, those were some good times back then but of course I didn't realize it at the time. What I would give to be able to go back in time to those precious days. Sitting barefooted around the kitchen table playing with plastic cowboys and indians, while my mother worked away canning as she listened to radio broadcasts on WKXV radio. Dad in a white t-shirt with red clay dirt stains mixed with sweat, chasing flies around the house with a fly swatter. Pam in the living room banging away on the piano keys. Jennifer with her thumb in her mouth, dragging her tattered blanket around, scratching the silky edges with her finger. I hope my kids have such fond memories.

For all you listeners out there in radio land...

2009-09-11T20:33:00.000-04:00

I was tickled to death to get my hands on an old cassette tape of my papaw, Edd Spencer, doing a WKXV radio broadcast back in 1954. I'm not sure where my aunt June got the tape but she loaned it to my mother and I brought it home and connected my stereo to my computer and used some audio editing software to clean up the tape hiss and voila! I am amazed at how good this tape sounds after 55-years! As a bonus feature, there is a quartet that sings on it and my other papaw, Lorn Chesney, is singing the bass part in it. Man, this is the kind of thing I live for!

Well, enough of my blabbering, if you want to listen to the broadcast, just click on the play link below:

There's No Place Like Home

2009-09-08T10:19:00.001-04:00

It was coming down to the end of the fiscal year at work and I still had a week's vacation to take. I had to either take them or lose them so, naturally, I took them. We didn't really have big vacation plans or much money to do anything but I had 65,000 Marriott points I could use. We decided to blow 30,000 points by staying in the new Fairfield behind the Bass Pro Shops in Kodak for 2 nights and just do whatever comes to mind (on a limited budget).

We started off by going to Douglas Dam for a very nice picnic. Mary had fixed fried chicken, potato salad, deviled eggs, and had bought some of those pull-apart rolls. We ate like kings! We spent an hour or so taking pictures up around the lookout and then drove down to the base of the dam. There wasn't very many people out for a Saturday and we were very thankful for that. I guess we spent a little over an hour down by the dam taking pictures and goofing off and then we headed toward Sevierville.

By the time we got to the Parkway, traffic had really picked up. Two lines of cars as far as you could see were heading into Pigeon Forge. Making things doubly worse is all the road construction being done on the Parkway. I grudgingly took my place in the traffic and putted along with the rest of the idiots on the road. We finally ducked into one of our favorite places, the Christian Book Warehouse. We were in there for a long time browsing the books. I found a great buy in 3 used Westminster Larger Catechism books which are packed full of good sermon material.

Finally it got close to 3:00 and we were able to check-in at the Fairfield. Since it is a brand-new hotel everything was spotless and the carpet still smelled new. It was a nice place but our room was a little cramped for all 5 of us. We settled in and were just thankful that we weren't having to pay for our stay there. Mary had bought a DVD for us to watch while there, Race To Witch Mountain, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We find it really fun to turn out all the lights, close the curtains and watch a movie in a hotel room. It makes for some great family togetherness.

We didn't do a whole lot while we were up there. It was just way too crowded since it was Labor Day weekend. We packed up and checked out on Monday around 11:00 and headed back toward home. I came home the back way and we stopped off at Mascot Park which is only 7 miles from our house. We had more fun at the park than we did on our entire stay up in Sevierville. We started questioning why we even went up there considering we can't stand to be around a lot of people and we didn't have any money to spend. Oh well, live and learn I reckon. One thing is for sure, there's no place like home!

Sue's Slippery Slide!

2009-09-02T23:40:00.003-04:00

I forgot all about this little video clip that I uploaded on photobucket a few years ago. This is my mother sliding down a water slide in the backyard during the Spencer Family Reunion in 2006.

She is not an animal

2009-08-27T21:30:00.001-04:00

This post was originally written in February of 2008. It was updated on Aug. 27, 2009, and moved to the front page.

"She is not an animal, she's an angel!" That is what I wanted to scream out at the overdressed snooty looking lady standing just one isle over from us. I could see her pointing, gasping, and whispering to her husband. I looked at my precious little angel, with her arms wrapped around my wife’s neck. I couldn’t help but cry. “Oh God, are you punishing my daughter for something I have done?” I had not been the best husband and father for months leading up to her birth. I won’t go into the details in this post; lets just say I would not have won any husband or dad of the year awards.

Elizabeth Hope was born on July 14, 2000, at St. Mary’s Hospital in Knoxville, TN. She was a beautiful baby, and not just because she was my daughter, even the nurses at the hospital commented on how beautiful she was. My wife and I looked down at our little bundle of joy and thanked God for delivering her with such perfection. Liz was our 3rd baby, so this was nothing new for us.

A week after we had brought Liz home, we noticed a tiny red dot on her left cheek. “Hmm, wonder what that is?” We asked ourselves. We took her to a follow up doctor’s visit and the doctor noticed the red mark. He looked inside of her mouth. I could see something wasn’t quite right. The doctor called in a specialist. Now several people were looking at my daughter’s cheek. They pulled us aside. “What we think this is is a birth mark.” “A birthmark, well that isn’t so bad,” I thought. “However, it’s not a regular birthmark.” The doctor then went into explaining all the different types of birthmarks that babies can be born with. We were introduced to names that we had never heard of before. “This particular birthmark is called a Hemangioma. “Hemangi what?” I asked. He went into explaining in details how this Hemangioma worked. “Eventually, it’s going to fill completely up with blood, and she will have a tumor on the side of her face.” “Now hold on a minute, now it’s a tumor?” “Oh, it’s a benign tumor and it should eventually go away.” “We can’t really predict how long she will have it, maybe a couple of years, maybe longer.” He referred us to a specialist. This is when things got complicated.

We visited the specialist that we were referred to and he was a very nice doctor. He examined Liz very thoroughly. The diagnoses of a Hemangioma was correct. By now Liz’s cheek had gotten much larger. The whole left side of her face was swollen to the size of a baseball. You could count the blood vessels in her cheek that were straining just below the surface of her skin. The cheek was very hot to the touch. The doctor told us right up front that he had never witnessed a Hemangioma like the one she had. He consulted with some more specialists. Our daughter became a new entry in medical journals. The tumor encompassed the area from just underneath her left eye, all the way down to her chin. Her little lips were pulled in a downward fashion along with her eye. The specialist also validated that these things normally go away all by themselves in a few years. Again, he couldn’t give us a definite time, maybe a couple of years, maybe ten. He laid out our options. We could do nothing and hope it goes away. We could give her steroid treatments to reduce the size. Or, as a last result, we could opt for surgery. Surgery was not recommended due to the location of nerves and blood vessels around the tumor, there was a chance she could lose the ability to blink her eye, or move her lips or total loss of feeling in her cheek. We decided not to do the surgery. We went with the steroid treatments. This is when hell on earth began.

I’m sure you have heard of “Roid Rage” in athletes, but have you ever witnessed a 6-month old baby in a fit of steroid rage? It will rip your heart out. We could not predict when it was going to happen. We could be at the grocery store, sitting at home, or at a family member's house. Little Liz would fly into a rage that would put satan's and his demons to shame. She would sit in the floor and bang her head on the hardwood floors. She would scream bloody murder to the top of her lungs. She would be crying, screaming, and flailing all over the place. She had superhuman strength during these fits. We would try to hold her to keep her from hurting herself. It was all we could do to constrain her. Some of the worst times were when she would go into a fit while we were driving down the road. We could not keep her in her child safety seat. She would manage to break loose from it and would get in the floorboards and scream to the top of her lungs. We were at our wits end.

Eventually, the doctor weaned her off of the liquid steroids and we tried a new treatment, steroid injections straight into the side of her cheek. For this, she had to be put to sleep. We brought her to the Children’s hospital bright and early in the morning. The whole hospital staff treated us like royalty. Of course, we were scared to death and worried about our baby. The doctor explained the procedure while we stood by the bedside crying for our daughter. The whole ordeal was agonizing. Were we doing the right thing? Would she be okay? After about an hour, the doctor entered the room and informed us that everything went fine and that she would be in recovery for a while. We were so relieved. The injections worked for a while. Her cheek shrank down to almost normal size. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a permanent fix and eventually the tumor grew again, surpassing its original size. We went through another steroid injection after that and once again, it was only temporary. We still would not consider surgery.

Seeing Liz every day, we had gotten used to her big cheek. When we looked at her, all we saw was our sweet little angel. It wasn’t until we would go out into public that we realized just how bad it was. If I had a dollar for every stare, whisper, and mean comment that people made about my daughter, I could retire a very rich man. When a grown man or woman can come up to an innocent child, look at them in horror and ask, “honey, what in the world is wrong with your cheek?” it really lowers your respect and expectations of humans. Total strangers would approach us and make rude comments under the guise as being "concerned." Just a little tip for anyone reading this, NEVER, EVER approach a total stranger to inquire about some type of abnormality that they may or may not have. It is none of your business, and try to put yourself in their shoes. It is rude and totally unacceptable behaviour. As a little baby, Liz didn’t realize that people were being so rude. But, as she got older, the comments and stares would really hurt her. “Why do I have this big old cheek?” she would ask us. We would try to soothe her and tell her that she had a “special” cheek, and that she was perfect to us. We would lay in bed at night and cry and pray for her.

As the years passed by, her cheek slowly began shrinking. Not a lot, but some. On days it would look smaller and on others larger. We kept her out of school until she was 6-years old. We were hoping that the cheek would go down more in another year. Eventually, we had to send her to school though and we worried ourselves sick at how the other children would treat her. My wife went to the school to explain to her teachers about the cheek so that they would be more informed. Believe it or not, the children actually accepted Liz better than most adults. Oh a few kids made comments and wondered about her cheek, but as time went by, she made friends and they became oblivious to her cheek.

Elizabeth is now 7-years old and her cheek still has not gone down completely. It’s more noticeable when we see her in a mirror. I don’t know why, it just is. She doesn’t seem to be bothered by it right now. Of course all of that could change depending on life’s circumstances, but right now she seems happy. It certainly has not prevented her from making friends and she has 3 or 4 boys at school fighting over her and writing her love notes.

We still pray continuously that God will heal her and the cheek will shrink to normal size. Her cheek doesn’t affect the way we see her or diminish our love for her in any way. There are just so many obstacles in life already that we don’t want her to have one more to have to hurtle.

The reason I am sharing this story is because I know that there are other parents out there that are facing similar issues and you worry yourself sick. It does no good for me to tell you not to worry because I know you will anyway. But, just know that while we may not understand why things like this happen, we can rest assured knowing that our children are gifts from God. Each one is unique and special and we need to treasure them while we can.

UPDATE 8/27/2009: Well, I wish that I had good news to report, but I don't. Elizabeth's tumor has not went down much at all over the past year. We had to pull her out of public school this week and began homeschooling her. The cruelity of her classmates became too much for her. She came home every day crying her eyes out and went to bed crying. All we can do is hold her and tell her how much we love her while she sobs uncontrollably and asks us why she has to go through this? Classmates that she has been going to school with for the past 3 years are the worst ones. One boy, named Austin, has been going around the classroom puffing his cheek out and telling everyone he has a tumor and laughing hysterically about it while the other kids laugh along. Elizabeth is crushed. She has to endure constant teasing, stares, and rude comments from both her classmates and parent's of her classmates. We were hoping it wouldn't come to this but if she is going to survive with any self esteem, we must do this. We cannot force other parent's to do their job by parenting their children the correct way and we cannot go to her school and slap respect into her classmates.

We are going to make an appointment with another doctor that is supposed to be a specialist in children with hemangiomas and vascular birthmarks. We are still hoping she doesn't have to have traditional style surgery and maybe with the advancement of laser surgery something can be done. Please keep Elizabeth in your prayers as we go through this.

Mat-tastic!

2009-08-13T20:51:00.007-04:00

Watching my son ride his bicycle tonight reminded me of when I was a his age. I was rarely seen without my bike. He is just now learning to jump on ramps. Before you know it, he'll have 4 or 5 cinder-blocks under those boards and he'll be "little Tug Knievel!"

Don't know what you've got til it's gone

2009-08-08T20:25:00.001-04:00

I’m sitting here this evening thinking about the past. I probably shouldn’t be because I am really getting depressed. It began when I sat on the couch with my laptop and started going through my audio files. I started playing songs from the New Hope Trio, which was the group my sister Pam sang in when she was living. My two favorites on this particular album were ones that Pam sang the lead on: He’ll Do It Again, (which you can listen to from the video at the end of this post) and More Than Conquerors. She was so talented. It will be 7-years this December 16th since I last saw my sister. I still can’t figure out why God needed her so much that he would take her away so early in life. I fully intend to find out when I meet him. I realize the Bible tells me that his thoughts are not my thoughts and my ways are not his ways, but I can’t help but wonder why?

The other night my son and my youngest daughter were arguing and saying mean hurtful things to each other. I quickly told them they better be grateful for each other and show love to each other now because you never know when one might be taken away. I always thought I would have my big sister in my life. She was like a rock. I always knew I could count on her to be there when I needed her. I suppose I took her for granted. Of course hindsight is 20/20.

My oldest daughter, Jessica, has inherited several traits from Pam. Silly things like the way she takes glasses of things to drink into her room and leaves the glasses sitting around for days until she comes walking into the kitchen carrying an arm load of them to be washed. Some of her mannerisms and even her looks are a lot like Pam. I believe Jess could sing really good like Pam if she would just quit being so shy and put forth a little effort. Jess was only 8-years old when Pam passed away. She remembers her a little bit but not a whole lot.

Pam used to collect things too. She had an amazing cookie jar collection. Everything from very old antique jars to brand new ones. It was always easy to think of something to buy her for Christmas or birthdays because she would always love a cookie jar. She would display them around the top of her kitchen cabinets. There was about a foot and a half space between the tops of her cabinets and the ceiling and she had those things sitting all around up there. She also collected piano figurines and of course music and books.

One thing that I keep thinking about is when she was in the hospital at St. Mary’s. It was around Christmas time and I had bought her a Bay City Rollers CD as a present. I was so excited about giving it to her. The Bay City Rollers were her very favorite rock band back in the ‘70’s. She used to collect all of their albums, magazines, and anything else she could get her hands on. Well, I had found a new compilation CD of their biggest hits and bought it for her. I watched her open the present and she just went on and on about it and acted really excited about getting it. I didn’t know that she already had the exact same CD already. She never said a word about it. In fact, I didn’t know it until after she had passed away and we were going through all of her CD’s and I noticed she had 2 of them. I said something to Michael about it and he told me that she didn’t want to say anything about it when I gave her the one I bought her. That’s the way Pam was. She would go out of her way to keep from hurting anyone even if it meant she would be hurt in the process. I wish I were more like her.

I’m not sure why I wrote this post. I guess since I was sitting here bawling my eyes out listening to Pam, I thought I would try to relieve a little bit of the sadness by writing. It has seemed to help some.

Two score and 3 years ago...

2009-08-05T12:30:00.004-04:00

They say you are only as old as you act. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... I turned 43-years old this past Monday, on August 3rd, or as the King James would say, two score and 3 years old! I still feel young in my mind but my body is feeling awfully old. My family has been really good to me this year. First, my aunt Barbara brought me a birthday cake and put it on the table of desserts at the Homecoming. My kids all made homemade birthday cards and decorated the house in my honor. My mother took me out to El Mezcal for lunch on Monday. My wife cooked my favorite meal of fried chicken, gravy biscuits, mac & cheese, and mashed potatoes, and she also fixed me an oreo/chocolate torte. I've been eating leftovers from that for the past 2 days. My sister, Jennifer, texted me to wish me happy birthday. Her and John and the kids are moving back to Winston-Salem from Arkansas. It will be good to have them closer. My brother, Josh, called me on the phone and wished me happy birthday. His birthday is also this month on August 9th. My uncle Jimmy's birthday was on August 4th, and my uncle Chester's is on the 8th of August. Several people, including my cousin Danny, has emailed me wishing me happy birthday. And, last but not least, my cousin Kim's birthday is the same day as mine, August 3rd. I tried to find an email address to email her happy birthday but I couldn't find one. I saw her last month at the family reunion though.

I'm still in between semesters at Seminary. I hope to start on Advanced New Testament next month. I was so glad that Charlie Lynch preached our Homecoming this past Sunday. He did a wonderful job, as usual. I reckon I would just as soon hear him preach as anybody I know. Church has not been going real smooth lately. We lost a couple of members recently and that has not set too well with me. It was something that could have been avoided. I hate to see anyone leave the church, especially over something that shouldn't have been an issue. Sometimes I have to wonder if the little bit that I try to do makes any difference? It would be nice sometimes to just be able to go to church, listen to the singing and preaching and go home without having to worry about all of the stuff going on in the background. You know, the way it was when I was a kid. But, I know that God didn't call me to be a bench warmer. It's all or nothing in my book. So, I'll keep on keeping on and pray for the best.

Another "Tug worthy" site

2009-08-01T13:33:00.005-04:00

Just a quick post to alert everyone of a new website that just hit the internets, Jerry Butler Online. It's still new and under construction but will be your number one source for all things Jerry Butler bluegrass! So click on over and give Jerry a visit and let him know that Tug sent ya!

Read some more Jerry Butler posts from Tug's Life:

Why Don't You Give this CD a Try?

On the road with Carolina Road

Pickin' on Bluegrass guy Jerry Butler

Another post on the Knoxville Gospel Blog:
No noise but a lot of joy!

What comes around goes around

2009-07-28T00:30:00.000-04:00

I've often written about my grandfather, Rev. Edd Spencer, on this blog. Although he passed away in 1972 when I was only 6-years old, I still remember him very well. I wish he had of lived longer and I could have spent more time with him. But, I reckon God had bigger plans for Preacher Spencer.

Last week while I was studying for this past Sunday's sermon, I got out one of my papaw's old sermons. It is a very rough copy that I made from an old cassette tape. I have it in Mp3 format and uploaded to the Internet. You can give it a listen HERE. I have probably listened to that old sermon 100 times. Some parts of it I can't make out what he is saying, but most of it I can understand. The sermon is on Paul's Macedonian call, from Acts chapter 16. That is the message that I brought Sunday also. You can give mine a listen HERE. I borrowed a few phrases from my papaw and used them in my sermon. I figured if they were good enough for him 38-years ago, they were good enough for me today! As I stood behind the pulpit and preached the Word, I couldn't help but think of my papaw standing there so many years ago expounding from the same passage of Scripture. It brought me great comfort just thinking about it.

I'll never be half the man or preacher that my papaw Spencer was but I want to follow God's direction in my life. I sure am thankful to have such a wonderful upbringing and family history. I think that's important. Some folks may not think it matters much and that's alright if they want to believe that. Personally, I wouldn't have it any other way. You know what they say, what comes around goes around!

Hallelujah, first course complete!

2009-07-25T23:20:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe that it has already been 3 months since I started working on my Master's of Ministry degree through Crown College. Tonight I put the finishing touches on my Advanced Old Testament notebook, which I have to turn in to get credit for my first course. I have never read so much in my entire life! It has been very rewarding for me and helpful in my ministry. I'm planning to take a month off before starting my next course, Advanced New Testament. Once again I'm trusting in the Lord to provide the monetary means for me to attend. I won't go into any details but lets just say things are tight right now.

Our pastor is on vacation this week and I am scheduled to preach tomorrow morning at church and also this Wednesday night. In between various chores and all of my school work, I've been trying to study for sermons. We had a work day at church today to get ready for our homecoming on August 2nd. My son and I went over for a couple of hours but we didn't really do a whole lot. Just carried a few boxes of junk out of the fellowship building and cleaned up the choir room. There were lots of folks working and it looked like they had everything under control so I left early to come home and study.

Speaking of the homecoming, I am really excited this year because Rev. Charlie Lynch is going to be preaching! You can read a post I wrote about him HERE. I hope we have a good turnout. We normally have a pretty good attendance for homecoming but it seems our attendance has been pretty low lately. I have come to the conclusion that people just don't love God. If they did they would attend His church, read His Word, and love His people. Nowadays people love themselves more than they love God and it really shows in their lives and in the shape that our nation is in. All I can do is pray for folks. I feel sorry for them really because they seem oblivious to the fact that one day they will be answering to God for how they have lived their lives. Just as the Bible says in Hebrews 10:31, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Oh yeah, the magazine cover to the left... I did this on some website, mymagpic.com or something like that. Well, I don't have time to be sitting here blogging, I've got to get back to studying. I'll blog at ya later.

Tunnel Vision

2009-07-16T21:15:00.005-04:00

Wow, its been nearly 2-weeks since I've posted on Tug's Life. Time is sure flying by fast. I really don't have the time to be sitting here blogging but I needed to take a small break from my studies. I think all of the reading I'm doing is giving me tunnel vision!

I cannot believe that my first Seminary course will be over in 11-days! I've still got 2 of Pastor Sexton's books to read and take notes on and finish up a few books in the Old Testament. I've only got 6 more assignments left in my Advanced Old Testament notebook that I have to turn in. These last 3 months have passed by in the blink of an eye. I'm not complaining mind you, because I have thoroughly enjoyed all of my studies. I can't even begin to tell you how much it has helped in my ministry. I am so thankful that God has allowed me to take these classes!

I'm also trying to make myself memorize Scripture. I have never been very good at it. Probably because I haven't been disciplined enough to do it. I wish I had learned it when I was young. Things are so much easier to remember when you are just a kid. I have been pulling out Scripture that is important to me and repeating them over and over. On my drive to work while I'm listening to Dr. Stephen Davey on BBN radio, I am constantly quoting Scripture out loud in the car. I am now starting a new method of Scripture memorization though. It is taught by Bro. Greg Locke., pastor at Global Vision Baptist church in Mount Juliet, TN. He is one of my very favorite preachers in the world to listen to. I have every sermon of his that I can find loaded on my MP3 player. I listen to them over and over. Anyways, he has a video that he produced where he gives a method to memorize Scripture. You can watch the video or listen to the audio here: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=626081244250 Bro. Locke's ability to quote Scripture is amazing! I told my children the other night that I would give up all of my other talents to be able to quote Scripture like he can. I'll let you know how it goes for me.

The Lord has really been opening doors for me lately. I was blessed to preach at Emory Pike American Christian church last Sunday ( I blogged about it on my Bro. Byron site tonight). Pastor Dave has also been giving me plenty of opportunities on Wednesday nights to preach at Highland. I brought a message last night based on the 23rd Psalm and the parable of the lost sheep. I left out so many things that I had planned to say, but I reckon I said everything that God wanted me to.

Pastor Dave mentioned last night that he would like for me to preach on the last Sunday morning of this month. I really appreciate my pastor and the way he shares the pulpit with other preachers. Some pastors are so afraid for their jobs or so stingy that they won't ever allow anyone else the opportunity to preach. Not Pastor Dave, he is very gracious and helpful. I thank God for placing him in my life. He is a real blessing and inspiration to me. He has been so good for my children too. They remember every sermon that he preaches. They are all the time quoting him and talking about things that he has said from behind the pulpit. My oldest daughter even has one of his sermons on her Mp3 player and she talks about it all the time. It was one that he brought when he first came to Highland, titled, "What Is A Crisis?" I used to have it uploaded on a sermon site but that site went out of business and I lost it. I need to re-upload it and post it to Highland's Sermon page.

Well, I reckon I need to get back to studying. Just thought I'd catch everyone up on how things are going right now. I'll post some more later on.

Time well spent

2009-07-03T07:00:00.001-04:00

I’m up early again this morning. It is July 3, 2009, around 6:30 AM. We had a wonderful and long day yesterday and I’m looking forward to another one today. So far it has been great. I’m outside on my bench sipping coffee from my favorite cup and listening to the sounds of God’s creation. There hasn’t been any cars running around this morning to disrupt things, only birds of various kinds are penetrating the quietness.

I woke up this morning thinking about my family and how blessed I am. I was listening to a sermon the other day, I think it was Erwin Lutzer from Moody Church but I might be mistaken, and he was stressing the point of how it's not the gifts, but it is the time spent with your children that they remember and value the most. I thought of that several times yesterday as my family and I were driving around upper East, TN and parts of Kentucky. It brought back memories of when I was a child and my parents would take us on trips like that. We didn’t have a bunch of money to spend on things like theme parks or shopping, but we managed to put gas in the car and drive around. Yesterday we were like that. We didn’t have but $30.00 and ¾ tank of gas but we pointed our vehicle North East and began driving. My intentions were to drive to Boone Lake just outside of Johnson City but things changed as I began to drive.

We drove down Rutledge Pike through Blaine and towards Rutledge. I spotted Joppa School over on my left and told the kids that my Uncle Ronnie used to be the principal there many years ago. We then decided to turn beside Joppa and head over the mountain toward Washburn. My wife spent her childhood going to church at Central View American Christian church in Washburn. The pastor, Jerry Epperson, has been there for I guess 30-years or more. He was the pastor there when she and I were married in 1985 because he officiated our wedding and that was 24-years ago. We decided to drive by the church so the kids could see where their mother went when she was a child. The church had really changed since we had been there last. They have completely remodeled it by adding brick and expanding the sanctuary. They also have bathrooms inside now, something they didn’t have back when she used to belong there. The church is really beautiful now but I wish the kids could have seen it the way it used to be.

After visiting Central View, we kept driving through Washburn and hit highway 25. I turned left and headed toward Tazewell. We ended up going to one of our very favorite places, Cumberland Gap State Park in Middlesboro, KY. I have taken the kids there a couple of times before and they absolutely love it. My dad used to take us there when I was a kid too. I saw in the Knoxville News Sentinel yesterday, that the park is celebrating their 50-year anniversary this weekend. We sure enjoyed the time we spent there yesterday. My son still had some birthday money left and he bought his self some replica Confederate money and a hat from the gift shop. That boy is more like me than he wants to admit!

We left Cumberland Gap and headed back to Tennessee and I decided to detour through Lafollette. It was a long beautiful drive. We stopped by a Dollar General store and bought some junk food to eat in the car as we were driving. The kids thought we were really something, letting them eat a bunch of junk like that. I know it wasn’t much, just $10.00 worth of snacks, but it will be something they will always remember. We finally made it to I-75 and headed back towards Knoxville. We did stop off in Clinton to see if there was anything at Hammers we wanted but we didn’t buy anything. Then it was back home in Corryton. We had such a great time just driving around for 4 or 5 hours and we weren’t out anything except a half of tank of gas and $10.00. You can’t beat that for quality family time!

Speaking of family time, we are having the Spencer reunion at my mother’s house tomorrow. There are supposed to be around 50 folks coming in from all over to spend time together as a family. My mother is really excited about it and she has spent many hours getting prepared. I hope we have a good reunion.

Don’t forget to treasure the time you have with your family during this 4th of July holiday and don’t forget the families and men that gave their lives to give us this freedom that we enjoy. You might even want to read over the Declaration of Independence just as a reminder.

A little self assurance

2009-07-02T08:30:00.000-04:00

It is 8:30 AM on Thursday, July 2, 2009. I'm sitting on the couch sipping coffee from my "Don't Mess With Texas" coffee cup. I should be studying. I was up late last night working on some website stuff and listening to some online sermons. Despite being up so late, I woke up early this morning with lots of stuff on my mind and I figured I'd share.

I had the opportunity to preach last night in our Wednesday evening service. Our pastor's son had a medical procedure at Vanderbilt on Tuesday and he had a lot going on so I was happy to fill in for him. I was also happy that God gave me a more upbeat message to preach. It seems like for the past several months all He has been giving me are gloom and doom sermons. It was a refreshing change for me to not feel like I was beating everybody up with the Word. I brought a message about Gideon. It was more like a Sunday school lesson than a sermon I suppose. You can give it a listen if you'd like:

Also, yesterday morning, since I am on vacation this week, my family and I went driving around. I had found a church for sale on the Internet a few days ago and we decided to drive out to Lenoir City to look at it. We pulled up the church driveway and it was exactly as I had pictured it. It just looked like the perfect little church sitting in a beautiful spot up on a hill. Just a small white country church with a tall steeple. It was pretty old and had several things that needed to be repaired. The gutters were clogged and were hanging down in a few places. Weeds had taken over what once used to be flower beds. My heart ached for this church. I couldn't help but wonder why its members had abandoned it. I'm sure at one time there were some happy people attending there that was proud of their little church. I could just imagine in my mind, young children playing outside on a Homecoming Sunday morning, chasing each other through the large churchyard. I could almost hear their laughter. I walked over to the large bell and pulled on the ropes to ring it. It rang out loud, echoing across the valley. I could imagine families in the neighborhood hearing the church bell ring, knowing it was nearly time for services to start. I wanted so badly to clean out the weeds, paint the outside, straighten the handrails and make it look vibrant again. I had my camera with me so I took several pictures of it, which some are attached to this post.

On the drive back home, my kids asked several questions. "Why did we go see that church?" "Are we going to buy that church?" "Why is that church for sale?" I didn't have many answers for them. My oldest daughter became really upset thinking that we were just going to buy the church and move to Lenoir City. I assured her that we would not do anything unless it was God's will. I've learned one thing for sure in my 42-years; don't do ANYTHING unless you know for sure it is God's will. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've got something on my mind and set about making it happen all on my own strength. Nearly every time I've done that, I've failed. It's not until I've beat my head against the wall that I start listening to that still small voice and hand it over to Him. Just like in my sermon last night, if Gideon had of done things his way, he would have went to battle with the 32,000 men instead of the 300 that God wanted. I believe in my heart of hearts if Gideon had proceeded on his own, he would have sent 32,000 men to be slaughtered by the Midianites. But, because he did things God's way, the children of Israel won the battle, even against great odds.

Well, those are my thoughts this morning. I'm really not sure what my point is in all of this. I guess I just needed to assure myself that I need to wait on God for what He wants in my life and you just happened to stumble across this post and was forced to listen.

The Lord works in mysterious ways for sure

2009-06-26T22:40:00.010-04:00

My family and I have been enjoying attending the revival at Emory Pike American Christian church this week. My lifelong best friend and brother-n-law, Kevin Roberts, is the pastor there. They asked Boyd Myer to do the preaching and he's done a wonderful job. Tonight the Lord laid it on Kevin's heart to preach instead of Boyd. I'm so glad that he did. It thrilled my heart to hear Kevin preach. I've not had the opportunity to hear him in several years. He was really in the spirit. I could have listened to him for hours. I just so happened to have my mp3 player in my pocket and I remembered it about 5 minutes into Kevin's preaching. I quickly pulled it out and turned on the recorder. I'm amazed at how good it picked him up. I came home and uploaded it on archive.org. You can listen to it below.

As I sat there tonight with tears streaming down my face, listening to my childhood friend preach, I couldn't help but be amazed at how God has worked in our lives. Just two old country boys brought up in poor Christian homes. We could have chosen different paths to follow. I'm proud of how we turned out. I'm also thankful that God allowed our paths to cross 37-years ago. I would have never dreamed that we would have ended up being married to sisters and both preaching the Word of God. I'll post more about this later on.

A plumber Tug ain't!

2009-06-20T15:20:00.001-04:00

Okay so this whole saga began last Friday afternoon. It was getting close to VBS commencement night service and I hadn't taken a shower yet. I knew the bathtub was stopped up but I figured it was like all the other times and I could just take a sink plunger and plunge it free. After plunging on the stupid thing for 30 minutes I had managed to only pull my shoulder out of socket, the drain was still clogged. I took a shower anyway, standing calf deep in nasty water. Luckily everyone else had already had their baths for the day.

The next day we had plans to get away from home for a while and we wanted to get an early start. There was no way we were all going to shower in that disgusting water. I grabbed a screwdriver and began poking around in the drain. I'm no plumber but I figure there must be something pretty large blocking the drain hole. I kept gouging around in there and finally decided to see if I could push through. I was successful. I had managed to push through whatever was blocking the drain and the water drained out. Everyone showered and we were footloose and fancy-free.

We headed out of town and ended up in Asheville, NC down around Biltmore. We were just trying to get a change of scenery. (I'll post about the high-speed police chase we were involved with on I-40 on another day.) The whole week afterwards we were occupied with work and lice treatments and I hadn't thought much about the drain.

You can only imagine how pleased I was when my wife announced that she had went in the basement to get something out of the freezer and the whole basement was flooded with muddy water. Immediately I knew what had happened. I hadn't unclogged the drain after all, I had punched through the PVC pipe and the bath water was draining underneath the house!

So that brings me to today. I got up early this morning and read my Bible, listened to a sermon, took notes and completed an assignment in my seminary notebook. Then I quickly wrote a blog post and commenced to the bathroom to work on the plumbing. I took everything apart and surveyed the damage. I figured a quick trip to Lowes for a new part and I'd be all set. Not so fast... After looking at all of the plumbing choices at Lowes I finally settled on a new piece that looked like the one that I had destroyed. Of course they didn't sell it by itself, it came in a kit. The kit was $19.99. I grumbled about the price but bought it anyway. I got home with it and started piecing things back together. But, as my luck would have it, it was the wrong dadgum size! I had visions of going to Lowes and slinging all the parts through the front window of the store and then doing doughnuts in the parking lot. I managed to remain under control, went back to Lowes, took the old part back and got a new kit. The new kit was $34.00... of course.

After working on the pipes for about an hour, I finally got everything put back together. Oh, it was a lovely sight. Just before patting myself on the back, I decided to test it out. I turned the water on full blast and filled the tub up to about 1/4 full. I pulled the drain plug to let it drain... nothing. The water just stood there. I could feel a deep anger rising up from within. I turned and looked in the bathroom mirror. My eyes had dilated and were turning white. My skin took on a dark green hue as my shirt buttons tore from their threads. I was in full Hulk mode. I looked around for the biggest object to destroy. I had intentions of ripping the bathtub, commode, and sink from their fixtures and slamming them through the bathroom window. Cities were going to be destroyed. No man or beast would be safe in my wake!

Finally I got a grip on myself, sat down on the side of the tub, threw my head into my hands and prayed. "Why Lord? What has your servant done to deserve going through such misery?" I was sweating so hard that it was dripping in great drops and splashing on the floor beside my feet. I managed to rise up, walk to the bathroom sink and turned on the water. "Well I'll be dadgum," the stupid sink was now stopped up! I grabbed the sink plunger and attacked the sink like a mad man. It was going to come unstopped or I was going to drive it through the floor of the house! You cannot imagine the feeling that came over me when all of a sudden I heard a loud suctioning sound. It was like Norris Dam had just broken loose. I turned and looked at the bathtub. Water was whirl pooling down the drain like in those Tidy Bowl commercials. "Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!!!" I shouted. My whole family came running to the bathroom. "It's fixed! It's fixed!" I proclaimed. For the next 5 minutes we were like the Who's down in Whoville singing fah who for-aze around the Christmas tree. Life is good again! The bathtub is draining and not into the basement this time!

I'd like to say there is a moral to this story but I don't know what it is if there is. I can tell you this much, a plumber I ain’t!

All work and no play

2009-06-20T07:58:00.004-04:00

It's been a while since I posted so I figured I'd write something this morning. I've already been up since 5:30 doing homework. I'm starting to panic because I'm only on assignment 19 of 32 and my notebook is due on July 27th. It seems I have very little time these days to do anything except work. Work at my job as an application engineer, work at my job as music minister and Sunday school teacher, work on seminary assignments, work on my stupid vehicle, and work on this old house that seems to be falling down around us. All of this work is getting to me. I almost feel guilty to be taking time out to write this post!

We had an unfortunate side-effect from our Vacation Bible school last week... head lice. Yep, anytime you get a bunch of kids together from all walks of life you run the risk of being exposed to things that you normally aren't. Sadly, for all of the women in our house, they were exposed to the crawly things. It has been a total nightmare for us here all week. Shampoos, combing, hair bonnets, washing, drying, detoxing stuff... sigh. My wife is at her wits end over it all. Luckily my son and I have escaped. I guess it's because we keep our hair really short? So, things have been really rough for us this week. I'm praying that God sees fit to give us some relief soon.

Well, I've got to get off of here. The bathtub drain broke this week and I've got to spend today trying to fix it. That means crawling in a 2-foot space underneath the house, lying in nasty muddy drain water that has been pouring into the crawlspace all week long and trying to figure out how to repair it. If anyone reads this today and is good at plumbing work, come on over, I'll put you to work!

-Tug

The innocence of a child

2009-06-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

We have been going through Vacation Bible School at my church this week. It has been an outstanding VBS all the way around. I'm amazed at how smoothly things have gone. We have one of the best bunches of kids that we've ever had.

Last night in our final assembly, I was having the kids repeat the memory verses. I had taped one of the verses onto my back and pretended that I didn't know it was on there. As my back was turned to the audience and I could hear those little voices yelling out the memory verse, I kept wondering how may of them would still remember them when they get to be my age? Will they continue learning about Jesus and doing things in their local church? Will they go down that wrong road that leads to destruction? Or will they lose their innocence and get hurt by a so-called "Christian" and give up on church?

When I was a kid I only saw or remembered the good things from church. I didn't ever realize some of the things that went on behind the scenes. The hard feelings, the chips on shoulders, the envy, the jealousy, the hatred, the lying, and all of the other un-Christian behavior that goes on. It wasn't until I was older and began getting involved in church that I saw those ugly things come to surface. I'll never forget the time when I was employed at a local church as their custodian. I was not a member there and I didn't attend services there, I was just an employee. One morning I was inside of my custodian's closet doing an inventory of supplies when the room beside of the closet began to fill up with people. I recognized the voices of the deacons and trustees of the church. I didn't want to fling open my door and cause anyone to have a heart attack or anything so I just sat inside of my closet to wait for them to leave. Little did I know that they were having an impromptu meeting about getting rid of their pastor! This was no small church mind you, they had around 500 in attendance on Sunday mornings and the pastor's salary was $64,000 a year! I heard some of the awfullest things being said in that meeting. My, how they seemed to hate their pastor. As they were ripping their pastor to shreds, I heard the side door of the church open (it had a little buzzer on it that would buzz when opened) and I could hear the people in the room quickly disperse. What I heard next was the clincher. As the pastor walked by the room I heard one of the deacons that had just been in the meeting ripping the pastor apart, greeting the pastor like he was his best friend in the whole entire world. The pastor never had a clue that only seconds before, this same guy was plotting his demise.

My mother also tells of a story that my grandfather, Rev. Edd Spencer, used to tell. He was pastoring a church and one time they had a service where members would pin flowers onto the clothes of people that they loved. My grandfather said he was covered from head to toe with flowers that day. He said that it wasn't a month later that those same people wanted to remove the flowers and stab the pins into him instead!

It is really sad that we, as confessed Christians, behave so badly. I have been involved with some ugly stuff in my years of church work. Stuff that could have been avoided and handled so much better. I think it boils down to pride, which is one of the biggest downfalls of the human race. If we all really loved our neighbor like the Bible says that we should, we could avoid so much misery and heartache. Oh to have the innocence of a child again...

This IS your Father's Vacation Bible School!

2009-06-07T14:00:00.000-04:00

In the wacky world of Vacation Bible School themes, which include; Boomerang Express, Crocodile Dock, Outer Space, and of all things, a Hollywood game show theme, there is one church in Knoxville that is sticking to tradition.

Highland Baptist Church, 6014 Babelay Rd. in Knoxville, TN, believes that there is nothing wrong with doing things the "old-fashioned" way. According to Highland's VBS director, Byron Chesney; "I looked at all of the themes that were being offered and all of the churches in our area were pretty much doing the same thing and following the same themes. The message of Jesus was not clear in those themes, that is why we decided to create our own, based on the Biblical foundations. Our theme this year is "Christ Is All I Need." I don't think there is any mistaking what that theme is about."

When asked about how he felt about the loud rock type music and energy filled atmosphere of most of today's VBS themes, Chesney states; "According to the Bible I use (Authorized KJV) it says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day, and for ever, who are we to say otherwise? Crafts, refreshments, music, classes, pledges, memory verses, and sharing the Gospel message of Jesus Christ is what VBS should be about. Yes, this IS your Father's VBS."

Highland Baptist Church has been a beacon of hope and light in the Babelay Rd / Washington Pike area since 1942. Vacation Bible School has always been one of the largest Gospel outreach missions of the church. Long-time residents of the Babelay Rd. community can attest to that fact. "I can remember Highland's Vacation Bible School parade from when I was just a little girl," says Sandra Zachary who used to live on Babelay Rd. in the 1950's.

Every year the church comes together for a full community parade which includes numerous cars, trucks, motorcycles, dirt bikes, 4-wheelers, vans, and SUV's. This year's parade included 39-people complete with two police cruisers and 14 other assorted varieties of vehicles. "I've been looking forward to riding my 4-wheeler in the parade for a long time," says 14-year old, Jesse Perkey, who lives nearby. Church members distributed around 700 flyers inviting people to attend Vacation Bible School.

Highland's pastor, Rev. Dave Hutchison, says; "I love our Bible school theme. If people only realized that if they had Christ in their lives, all of the other stuff would just fall into place. Christ really is ALL we need."

Highland's VBS is being held Monday, June 8th through Friday, June 12th from 6:30 to 9:00 PM. Friday night will be family commencement night complete with a community-wide cookout immediately following. For more information about Highland or "Christ Is All I Need," visit the church website at: http://www.hbcknox.org/

Okay

2009-06-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

Due to the enormous amount of emails and backlash that I have received from folks that were upset that I deleted Tug's Life, I was able to restore it. I may update on here occasionaly. I'll also try to get the banner and things fixed back up. All of the comments that were posted over the past 2 years have been lost.

The other day, I deleted nearly everything that I had posted online over the past 10-years (except for http://www.tntrivia.com/ and http://www.hbcknox.org/). I've cancelled all social accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc..). I am just too busy to be messing around with that stuff and it consumes too much time. Don't take it personal if you can't find me in your friend list, I'm not on there anymore is all.

When I grow up, I wanna be like...

2009-05-28T19:15:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had someone in your life that you always said you wished you could be like? I'm not talking about some movie star or famous singer or anything like that. I mean just someone that you know or have met that you admired and wished that you could be more like them. Maybe have some of their redeeming qualities? Well, I've had a few such folks in my life. Let me tell you about one of them.

I've often written about my grandfather, Rev. Edd Spencer. As you probably have read on here before, he was the founder and pastor at both Highland Baptist Church and North Acres Baptist during his lifetime. Surprise, surprise, this post isn't about my grandfather, it's about another preacher.

My first memories of Rev. Charlie Lynch start way back when I was just a little boy. Charlie was the pastor at Highland Baptist for 10-years, between 1975 and 1985. The pictures on this post are from Highland's 1984 church directory. It was the year before he would leave to pastor North Acres Baptist church for 21-years. It always seemed to me that preacher Charlie was following in my grandfather's footsteps. I used to love to hear Charlie preach. The funny thing is, he never was my actual pastor. We didn't belong to either of those churches during the times he was pastoring them. But, anytime I was looking for a church to visit I would always find my way over to where he was at.

There is a song in the old red back church hymnal that is one of my very favorites in the whole world. It is on page 16 and it's title is, "I Know He Heard My Prayer." I will always remember sitting in North Acres Baptist church and the choir was singing that song. Brother Charlie was standing up there and he was singing along and big tears were streaming down his face. He was praising God and rejoicing, I don't think he even knew there was another person in the whole church besides him and God. I have loved that song ever since then and have always wanted to teach it to one of my choirs. I haven't found a choir yet that has been able to do it. We are always missing a part, whether it is good strong leads or the basses. I'm sure I'll never be pleased with any of them anyway because I'll always be comparing them to the way I remember it from when I was a kid.

Charlie always has a way of making you feel special. He has a big grin that stretches from ear to ear. Kind of reminds me of when Andy Griffith grins, it just takes up his whole face and looks so genuine. Charlie is a tall man, I'd guess around 6' 4. He towers above my short little 5'9 frame when I am beside him. Anytime I have ever met him, without fail, he'll stick out his hand, spread that big grin across his face and welcome me like an old friend. He always has something nice to say about my wife and children. He always tells me how lucky I am to have such a beautiful family. He usually says something funny like, "how in the world did you ever talk her into marrying you?" or something along those lines. I guess that's one of the things makes him so good at being a pastor. I've always admired Charlie's wife, Kathy, as well. She is always so nice and hospitable. Always faithfully there along with Charlie. I guess in my mind they are what I think of when I think of a good pastor and pastor's wife.

I've told my wife for years that if I die early, I want brother Charlie to preside over my funeral. It seems like he has preached the funerals of an awful lot of my acquaintances and loved ones that have went on. I guess the one that I remember most is my granny Spencer's. I'll never forget how loving and gracious Charlie was to my family during that time. He stood over her casket and spoke directly to us with such humbleness. I've also heard him at other funerals. One in particular was Paul Haire's funeral that he preached last year. The compassion that he had for the Haire family was overwhelming. I sat back about 4 pews from them and watched them as brother Charlie preached and talked about how Mr. Haire was such a hero. I remember wondering to myself if I would ever be able to handle a funeral service as eloquently as he can.

I guess it seems kind of odd to write about someone like this while they are still living. I doubt Charlie would ever stumble across my little corner of the blogosphere though. I certainly wouldn't want to embarrass him or anything, I've just had him on my mind a lot and felt the need to write about it. I don't know if I'll ever have as great of a ministry as he has had. I sure wish I could be more like him though.