I knew the Grand Opening was going to be great. For the past six months I had been working seven days a week from 5:00 in the morning until the last contractor went home for the day or night (some times it was early the next morning). Because of the commitment of a great staff by the opening day our punch list of construction issues were down to just a page and half. Opening in December, three weeks before Christmas was tricky, but I had a great staff who could handle the task. This was the staff that was responsible that I had at the old store.  The excitement of opening a new store with a great staff and a community that was eagerly waiting for the newly designed store of the future (almost four times bigger than the old store) to showcase was an overwhelming physical task.

A few days before opening I pulled my back muscle and could not bend over. Pain was extremely great and all I could do was walk upright and hold a cup of coffee on my hand. After seeing the doctor and was told to stay on bed rest I decided just to tough out the pain. Nothing was going to stop me from being at the store and getting it ready.   Two days later and a day before opening I was 100 percent again.  Yes, toughing it out worked. I soon realized that obstacles that might stop others do not have to stop you. One way to make the day go better is to make yourself get up and start the day early. A good hot shower, and coffee has always been and will be my way of starting off the day.

Also following the Lord wholeheartedly as Caleb did will give you the strength the face your daily challenges.  I have always use Caleb from the book of Joshua as my guide for my physical strength and health. For I would tell others that I have the same God as Caleb did and He will be with us today as He was in the time of Caleb.

As Caleb told Joshua in Joshua 14:6-12 Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God at Kadesh Barnea about you and me.  I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.  So on that day Moses swore to me, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.’^[ “Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old!  I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.  Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

So even to this day I look first to the Lord for healing. Yes, sometimes I need some rest and my personal belief might not be shared by many, however after sixty-seven years on this earth I have witness God’s blessing of health on my life. My prayer to God is to have the physical strength like John Wesley who was still preaching at age eighty-eight, just a few days before he died. He met death signing hymns and quoting the Bible. His last words were “The best of all is, God is with us.” For me it is to say like Paul “to live is Christ and to die is Gain”. However, to live I must have a purpose and that purpose is to reflect Christ in my life.