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Topic: Learning for Life (08/23/04)
TITLE: Lifelong Learning By Brenda Blakely 08/25/04 |
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As the family did an instant replay exiting from the car I collected my dignity and belongings and pondered the situation. If I doctored what appeared to be a broken foot right then everyone would be late for church and far too much effort had gone into getting ready to give up the effort now.
I requested that they help me get back into the house and into a chair, put ice on the foot, turn on the TV and give me the couple of hours, while they were in church, to work through the situation. If it were indeed broken, a few more hours before going to the doctor wouldn’t make a lot of difference.
Acceptance was reluctant but they finally decided to go on to church, probably figuring that letting me regroup for a couple of hours was not a bad idea and I sure wasn’t going anywhere.
My dirtied, misappropriated clothes added to the aggravation as I sat there steaming over the problem. My cool had left and my temperament had heated up considerably. At my request they had left the TV turned on, which incidentally did not have a remote.
The service from some church was being broadcasted and it finally took my attention away from the pain. Slowly I begin to calm down and the worship service began to grab hold. I discovered it to be real hard to sit before a good worship service and pout.
When the commercial came on my temperature went up a notch or two, it was Jerry Falwell, not one of my favorite people at that time, however it wasn’t but a few minutes till he had me laughing.
For sometime now I had been praying Lord, I really do want to go to college but I am home schooling the boys and taking care of my husband. There just seemed no way this was going to happen anytime in the near future. But God had a plan.
Dr. Falwell gave very specific details in the commercial about the Liberty College School of Lifelong Learning. As all of this began to sink in to my mind, I began to laugh at how God had worked it for me to be sitting here, unable to move and with no remote as a captive audience to hear God’s message spoken by Dr. Falwell. In my moment of indignity and temper He had chosen to unwrap His gift to me and to reveal the answer to my longstanding prayers.
When my family came home from church to find me in good spirits and even laughing they could not believe it until I shared with them how God had gotten my attention and showed me the answer to my prayer.
I graduated in 1994 at the age of fifty (50) years old and was even able to vicariously participate in the Liberty graduation ceremonies by watching it on TV. There were so many blessings and lifelong learning experiences from that time in my life. My home schooling boys were able to watch many of the videos with me giving them an opportunity to broaden their horizons.
Incidentally, meeting Dr. Falwell and seeing the work of his hands and the lives that have been changed because of his efforts to follow God’s plan for his life, have changed my opinion about Dr. Falwell and have given me an excellent example to follow.
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