| Yesterday morning, as you may
remember, was raining and cold and Uncle Floyd was not in a good
humor. First of all, he had stayed up way too late on Friday
night to watch the last game in the World Series. And then he
foolishly stayed up even later to watch The David Letterman
Show. So when the alarm clock buzzed at 6:00am, he had NOT had
enough sleep. Are YOU ever grumpy when you’ve not had enough
sleep? Uncle Floyd was grumpy. When he opened the refrigerator
he saw that they were Out of Milk! Then it took him forever to
find the keys to his truck, which were right in his coat pocket.
Then he saw that his truck had A Flat Tire! And he got his coat
all dirty and wet while changing the tire. Finally he got the
milk and ate breakfast and drove to the church to do his
Saturday work. When he arrived, he discovered that all that rain
had caused a leak into the ceiling tiles in the Sunday School
rooms. It just isn’t his day.
Now he has his annual job of
washing the gigantic picture of Martin Luther, the man who
Reformed the Church about 500 years ago. Uncle Floyd is sooo
tired. “I reckon when I get this finished, I’m a headed home for
a nice nap.”
About then Pastor Ed walked up.
“Good Morning Uncle Floyd. I hate to tell you this, but the
toilet in the men’s room is clogged and overflowing. I’d fix it
myself but I have a couple in my office planning their wedding.”
So Uncle Floyd climbed down the ladder and went to fix the
toilet and clean up the men’s restroom.
Then he climbed back up the
ladder to wash Martin Luther, the man who Reformed the Church
about 500 years ago.
Then Mrs. Potato Head walked
up. “Good morning Uncle Floyd. Could you please lend me your
keys so I can get some poster board for the display for people
to sign up for the Thanksgiving Dinner we are having at Zion
Lutheran for the homeless people?” So Uncle Floyd climbed down
from the ladder and gave her his keys.
Then he climbed back up the
ladder to wash Martin Luther, the man who Reformed the Church
about 500 years ago.
Then Captain Hale walked up.
“Hello Floyd.” Uncle Floyd looked down from his ladder. Then,
with the best enthusiasm he could muster up, he climbed down and
said “Well I reckon its Captain Hale, Margaret’s brother! What
brings you to Pennsylvania? Aren’t you busy flying airplanes?”
Captain Hale explained how he
flew in from Seattle and he and his sister Margaret have this
great plan for Halloween night. “We are going to sneak into
little, innocent, unsuspecting children’s bedrooms and hide
under their beds and growl like a bear. But we will need ugly
masks to scare them. Could you show me to the Drama Closet.
Margaret said she got permission to borrow two masks.” So Uncle
Floyd showed Captain Hale to the Drama Closet.
Then he came back to climb up
the ladder to wash Martin Luther, the man who Reformed the
Church about 500 years ago. But before he climbed up, he noticed
that his shoe was untied. So he sat down to tie his shoe. He was
sooo tired. It felt good to sit down. And then it happened.
He had a Nap Attack. Hit him
right there. Uncle Floyd just laid down on the floor and went
sound asleep. In fact, he even started to very gently snore.
And then Running Chairs walked
up. Running Chairs talks a lot even when you’d think no one is
listening! And so she said something like “Oh, like its Uncle
Floyd. Like, you know it is so lazy of him to just like sleep on
the job. Like, MY daddy would never let some one sleep when they
should, you know, be working. MY daddy would say that is like
Lazy. Cause, you know, like you are not getting paid to SLEEP
you know. THAT is you know, a bad behavior my daddy would say.
And if you do like BAD things, you will not go to heaven,
because like you know, you must do GOOD things to go to heaven.”
She said all this out loud, and
Uncle Floyd, even while sleeping, heard it all. He gave a sigh,
rolled over, opened his eyes, sat up, looked strongly into
Running Chairs eyes and spoke an important message:
“I reckon you don’t get to
Heaven by doing Good Things. God doesn’t love you because you
are GOOD. You are good because God first loved us. And because
God loves us, he sent his Son Jesus to bring us to heaven with
Him. That is what Martin Luther, the man who reformed the Church
about 500 years ago, taught us.”
THE END
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