HAVE YOU CONSIDERED...

There is a lot to like about Fall. The cooler temperature is refreshing. The colors of the Autumn leaves make our world a beautiful place. Life moves at a more relaxing pace. As an avid football fan, the beginning of football season is one of the joys of Fall.

Last month, I spoke in Michigan. My friend introduced me: “He has probably been in more football stadiums in the U.S. than any other Presbyterian minister.”

This statement probably is not true, but then again it might be. What my friend failed to say, however, was that during many of these visits there was no game in progress.

When our four children were small, and even today, when in a city, I make it a point to go inside a stadium I have seen often on TV. Usually I had to talk my way in to an office receptionist. They have been remarkably sympathetic to this fanatic.

The stadiums are too numerous for this column. One was particularly interesting. I was accompanied by 45 of my church members. From the church in Charlotte, N.C., we chartered a Silver Eagle bus to attend a conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The morning we left Ann Arbor, I asked our driver if he knew where the University of Michigan football stadium was. He took us there, stopped the bus and all of us enjoyed walking around the playing field of that 100,000plus seat stadium.

One experience automatically comes to my mind at the start of every football season, though it occurred 40 years ago. I was pastor of a church in Augusta, Ga. My brother Bob was in the Army at Fort Jackson in Columbia. My good friend Willard Brown lived in Abbeville. During my pastorate there, he and I were hunting buddies and also attended many college football games together. We had two tickets to the South CarolinaGeorgia game in Columbia. I invited Bob to attend the game with us, explaining we did not have him a ticket but would find one to buy outside the stadium. After we had parked the car, as we walked to the stadium we met a man with one ticket to sell. I looked at it. Amazing!

At that time, the USC stadium seated 53,000. This ticket was for the same section, same row and only one seat from the two we had. After arriving at the seats, the man beside me graciously swapped seats, allowing Bob to sit beside me. It was super quality time as we enjoyed the game together. Out of 53,000 seats, how often do you imagine this would happen?

Even that night I felt that God had really done a nice thing for Bob and me, even bordering on the miraculous. Later, there was no doubt. I knew for certain that He had.

Only several months later, Bob was killed in an industrial accident. That time together at the football game in Columbia was the last real quality time we had together. The last fun time we ever got to share.

It is true. Sometimes our Heavenly Father will do something very special for one of His children. At the time it may not appear all that significant. The full value and importance of the gift only becomes known by events that happen later.

(Dr. French O’Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.)