Practicing Medicine without a Clue!

Hello folks, I hope your week has been a good one! Mine has been wonderfully challenging. As always, I’ve got a story for y’all, but first– a little recap. I’m writing you from Houston where my man and I haven been on grandparent duty keeping the grand boys of Texas. Our daughter and her husband are out of the country on a mission trip. Here’s a pic of them sharing the good news of Jesus in El Salvador! Make a mama tear up posting it, yes it does. Meanwhile, our annual 30 Days of Thanksgiving Drive kicked off here on the porch– and brought with it a ton hundred of details. You can read all about it here. A slew of other authors joined me this year, giving me that much more to be thankful for! You can join us here. I hope you’ll consider a minimum of $10! Let’s BE a miracle, shall we?

And now for that story I promised y’all…Let’s chat…~smile~

Many years ago, my Papaw, the Reverend Marvin Stone, acted as a mentor to another young pastor named Brother Jerry Reed. Papaw was a great help to Brother Jerry on the ministry end, but bless his heart, the mentee had to put up with a lot of Papaw’s shenanigans.  Papaw Stone was a full time preacher with a flair for comedy.

Papaw’s been gone for many a year, but Mama and Aunt Marleta got to visit with Brother Jerry Reed recently. They couldn’t help but ask him about his sinuses.  Brother Jerry said he hadn’t had a problem with his sinuses since their daddy fixed him up! Yeah, there’s a story there.

It happened one day that Brother Jerry was at Papaw’s house when he began to complain about his sinuses. Papaw told him not to sit tight, that he had just the thing— and off he went to the medicine chest to retrieve some highly effective nose drops that he himself had used months before. Only Papaw had forgotten that he’d used up all of those nose drops and refilled the bottle with his old coon dog’s mange medicine. Yes, sir, we’re talking full strength turpentine.

Papaw instructed Brother Jerry to lay his head back on the chair. Then he took the eye dropper, and filled it up with what they both thought was super duper clean your sinuses out nose spray. They were not disappointed. Papaw filled both of Brother Jerry’s nostrils before his poor friend could even react, but a couple seconds later, the pain paralyzed Brother Jerry saw the light. He shot off that chair and commenced to hollering, jumping, and running circles around the house. How fast was he, you ask?

Well, Papaw used to say Brother Jerry was running so fast he thought he was gonna have to snort some of that stuff up his own nose just to catch him!

Hugs, Shellie