Tag: jesus

Everything looks good … for your age

Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
— Popular hymn written in 1897. Number 118 in the song book at church.

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I am blessed.

The Oxford dictionary defines blessings as “God’s favor and protection.” A good friend and mentor once defined blessings as family, friends, shelter, never going to bed hungry, health, and happiness. That same person, who knew wealth, said, “Money and material things are not blessings; they’re just yardsticks for those who foolishly think they are.”

My loving mother led me to learn about blessings. Attending services with her at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant where I was blessed to learn the heart and mind of being thankful to the Giver of all blessings. Exposed to God’s inspired word with Mom’s careful oversight.

Over the years I ‘ve come to believe, however, that I’m still comprehending more every day about how truly blessed we all are in one way or another. And how I need to be increasingly more grateful.

Concepts of blessings in my youth centered around simple things. Like leaving the classroom convinced I had just bombed a test, only to discover the next class period that I miraculously squeaked by, just above the bare minimum for passing. Or too many times when blessings overshadowed my bad decisions. Amazingly allowing me to dodge jail time and serious damage to my health record.

I have no doubt that I single handedly forced more than one guardian angel into therapy or early retirement.

Thankfully, however, not the one riding with me the long-ago night when a failed motorcycle tire at 70 m.p.h. caused my bike to abandon all natural forces and gravity. Catapulting me over the handlebars and through the cold night air. Slamming the right side of my head and shoulder down onto U.S. Highway 67. Sending me sliding on the pavement, grinding away the right side of a perfectly good safety certified helmet.

Blessings allowed me to get up and walk a quarter mile to find a ride to the hospital. Then allowed me to go home that night with only scratches, bruises, and a separated shoulder.

Some years after that, another poor guardian angel was assigned to bless my ride flying a Piper Cherokee 180 from Center to an Oklahoma destination I’ve since forgotten. My comfort in the reassuring sound of a Lycoming aircraft engine at full power boosting the aircraft upward through 6,000 feet at 725 to 750 feet per minute vanished when the motor faltered, missed, and began losing power.

Emergency procedure training kicked in and raced through my head. Along with an episode of Art Linkletter’s old TV show, “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” When Linkletter asked one youngster who wanted to be a pilot what he would tell his passengers if the engine quit, the little guy thought for a moment and replied seriously, “Now I lay me down to sleep …”

That’s when straight ahead, I saw the runway at Carthage, Texas. Altitude and airspeed were perfect for a straight-in semi-gliding approach. The airplane’s tires squeaked smoothly on the pavement just as good as any planned landing.

Blessings were abundant on Monday of last week in a big-city health care facility waiting room, filled to capacity. Where too many of the occupants required canes, walkers, and wheelchairs for mobility.

“I knew this day was coming … if was lucky,” I thought. “Sure seems like it got here in a hurry, though.”

“Always tried to take care of my health with exercise. Eating properly, sometimes.” I offered the cardiologist. “My doctor said I should come see you. Used that ‘at your age’ thing. The one that isn’t really funny any more.”

I was still counting blessings while walking on the treadmill. “Chest pains? Shortness of breath,” he asked? “Nope,” I responded. I counted more blessings as I watched my heartbeat on a monitor while skilled hands and eyes searched for the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Everything looks good,” the doctor reported. “Great … for your age.”

Christmas is coming. Decorations are in place. I have family and friends who love and care for me, and whom I love and care for in return. My bed is warm at night. I have more food than I have any business eating. And maybe we’ll sing hymn number 118 Sunday at church.

I am truly blessed.

And I’m working harder every day, even at this age, to be more grateful for … “what God hath done.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

We can usually be thankful in the end

“Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
– Anonymous

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“Lifelong member of the church of Christ, serving as song leader most of those years.”

I wrote that last week. One of many notes on one of many yellow tablets cluttering my desk. While struggling for a reasonable resemblance of a forward for my book. I’ve resolved to finish it soon; the forward or the book. Maybe both.

And yes, it was on my list of resolutions for this year and the year before.

A revered mentor once offered as how writing something in longhand commits it to memory. He bought more yellow tablets than anyone I knew. And amazed many with his astounding feats of recall in conversations.

The same practice also works well for soul searching. Remembering years of church singing is one thing. But writing about it was like, “Wow! That’s a long time for someone not to notice that I can’t sing.”

 Most church of Christ congregations reply only on a cappella singing in worship service. No pianos, no organs, no recorded background music. Guitars, drums, harmonicas — nada. However, my adolescent friends and I at Southside Church of Christ in Mount Pleasant used to sit on the back seat and hum a lot. We were always in trouble for something.

Saving theology another time, the purpose for mentioning it in this missive is simply background for the way life is when you were raised in a church of Christ family. Like most of my generation of cousins on Mom’s side. Because Mom and her siblings were reared the same way. Which leads to the story about my cousin Leigh who grew up in the small Panhandle Texas community of Kress, population 596 — salute!

In Kress, you could easily walk anywhere in town then. Probably still can. The town’s one grocery store, the farm supply, the Phillips 66 service station, and even Lawson’s Café were in walking distance. Most drove on Sundays, though. Everybody gathered at Lawson’s after church.  

As the story goes at family reunions, Leigh was in grade school when she attended the Kress Baptist vacation Bible school with her friends. The first morning, singing songs about Bible characters got underway in Baptist tradition. Kiddos singing with the piano while reading words from books. One verse in, Leigh stopped singing and folded her arms. “Why did you stop singing,” the Bible school volunteer asked? “Can you not read all of the words?”

“I can read the words just fine,” she countered defensively. “But I can’t hear the song over that piano.”

I still remember the first time I heard congregational singing as a young song leader. Part of Bible training for young men in leadership roles. Singing, teaching, praying. But the hymns I’d heard growing up resonated differently when I first stood and faced the singers looking back at me.

Luckily, I survived that first song on a Sunday night. And when the last note of “Blessed Assurance” fell silent, I returned to my seat relieved, expecting someone to say, “Well, that one can’t sing.”

But no one objected. So, I learned the basics of 3/4 and 4/4 time. Shaped notes and four-part harmony. I attended singing schools; traveling teachers who visited churches to teach singing. And learned from the old timers about hymns called 7-11 songs. Seven words sung 11 times.  

I was even around for the pitch pipe controversy. Disagreements over whether the use of a pitch-pipe for exact notes was scriptural. Saw it escalate once to the point of two brethren arguing over it before they settled down and agreed to disagree; still being friendly with one another. A rare occurrence in congregational differences itself. I don’t think either changed their mind. They were just no longer enemies as Sweet Hour of Prayer resonated through the church house.

The guy who didn’t want to give up his pitch pipe continued to nonchalantly slip it out of his pocket, though. Blow one quiet note, and then quickly pretend he didn’t do it. The other one simply ignored him.

A lifetime of witnessing debates in doctrine has brought me to believe that whatever the controversy of the day, if we all just focus on God’s word and His will, we can usually be thankful in the end.

I hope everyone enjoyed a Happy Thanksgiving this week. And I pray each of us paused long enough to count our blessings realizing that our gratitude can make what we have feel like just enough.

I’m thankful that I might actually finish my book project soon. And I am grateful for the opportunity to still lead singing in God’s house every week.

But maybe most of all, I’m thankful no one has noticed that I still can’t sing.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2024. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.