Dear Bowen,

Happy birthday #6 my #2 grand young ‘un. I am very much looking forward to celebrating your birthday with you and am thrilled that when your mom asked you what you wanted to do for your birthday you said “go to Durham.” I am also excited about the NERF theme, the Chick-fil-A, and the big chocolate chip cookie that will all be a part of the extravaganza.

Speaking of the NERF theme, I bet you did not know that NERF stands for “Non-Expanding Recreational Foam”. It is actually a polyester resin that reacts with another compound in the presence of CO2, which then becomes a freakishly light polyurethane material. I did not make that sentence up – it came from the internet so we know that it is true.

The original NERF ball was first marketed back in 1970 (I was 12 years old) as a 4″ ball that you could “throw indoors, but can’t damage lamps or break windows, or hurt babies or old people.” Now that I am one of those old people I especially appreciate that. It was another 20 years before the introduction of the NERF gun. (I’m thinking that you will see my mad NERF gun skills in action this weekend). Did you know that there are about 450 MILLION NERF darts made each year. And I suspect that I will get hit with my fair share of them on Saturday.

Of course there is a lesson behind all this. Ephesians 6:16 says this: “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.”

Now I don’t expect to get hit with flaming darts this weekend but for sure I have been target practice for the evil one a time or twenty. And it is my faith in the Lord Jesus that has kept me from sure and certain defeat at his hands. So I want to encourage you to take up the shield of faith every day keeping in mind that every day is another day that the evil one is looking for an opportunity to wound your soul, steal your joy, and destroy your life.

So whenever you pick up a NERF gun to play a game with your friends keep in mind that there is a spiritual war being fought in the unseen world. Fight the good fight of faith my young grandson  – I will be praying for you as you go into battle.

And never ever forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

2020 has been one of those years that most people would just like to forget. And in many ways I would agree. But in other ways it has been an awesome year. Yes, a year that has created new challenges but also a year that has created new opportunities. But such is life. Every year will be like this in one way or another. Here is my annual end of the year round up… by the numbers.

0 – I am more than happy to report that I had zero kidney stones this year.

1 – I did however have 1 CAT-Scan – which showed that I DO NOT have any kind of unusual growth in my head. I had to get this checked out because I started having some hearing loss this year in my right ear. So if I ask you to repeat something sometime instead of being annoyed at your aging granddad instead rejoice that I don’t have a brain tumor.

1 – We added one more grandkid to the clan this year thanks to Scott and Mary. Haddon was born back in late February and has been a joyful delight to the family.

2 – I can officially check off a bucket list item. I can now solve both a 2×2 and a 3×3 Rubik’s Cube.

3 – As you are no doubt aware we again held the Reyner Family Disc Golf Invitational over Christmas. One day you will be included in this if you choose to do so. But this year I am proud to announce my 3rd place finish.

4 – To date, there have been 4 members of our family that have tested positive for Covid-19. In all cases, it was a very mild version of the virus. We are hopeful that 2021 will be the year of sayonara to the coronavirus.

9 – Apparently there is this thing called the enneagram that has been around for a long time. I am kind of late to the enneagram party but this year have enjoyed exploring how it works. It is a tool that is used to describe the different personality types that people have and I have found it very useful. I am a Type 9 – which probably explains why I like the Hebrew word “shalom” so much.

15 – Back in October, Nona and I went waterfall chasing and managed to see 15 waterfalls  in the western part of NC. We would love to introduce some of them to you sometime as we enjoyed the pristine beauty of nature in our great state.

18 – Back in March we started zooming with our College Age group from church but started meeting in person (socially distanced as much as possible) in July. We now meet in our church worship center so we have plenty of space to spread out and average about 18 people each Tuesday as we ponder Scripture together.

27 – I have now been serving at Ridgecrest Baptist for 27+ years. I serve with a great staff team led by a great pastor alongside great people seeking to know and follow Jesus.

44 – This is the 44th Pop Pop Epistle of 2020 that I have written. Hopefully I am around long enough to write 1000 of these to youse guys and gals.

36,600 – Back at the beginning of the year I set a goal to do 100 pushups each day. This morning I counted down my final 100 of the year and am pleased to report that I did not miss one.single.day. during the year. This tells me a few things: 1) I was healthy enough to do them every day which is a good thing and 2) a worthy goal is very motivational to me as I seek to pursue health in my advanced years.

4,717,062 – One of my other fitness goals was to keep walking and to minimally get 70,000 steps each week – an average of 10,000 steps per day. As of this writing at 4:43 PM on December 31 I have over 4.7 million steps for the year (a daily average of 12.8k). And for the 4th year in a row I have not missed a week of getting at least 70,000 steps. That works out to 208 straight weeks.

So anytime that you want to call and congratulate me on any of these numbers I would love to hear from you. But just so you know, the number that I love the most, which I did not even mention, is 8 – which represents all of you: Grayson, Bowen, Keller, Miller, Asher, Audrey, Ezra, and Haddon.

Never ever forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

40 years sure does go by fast!

It was 40 years ago today that I asked Nona to be my wife. That decision made it possible for you to read this. If I had not asked and if she had not said yes then we would not have had 3 awesome kids and you would never have been born.

Here’s how it happened. It was Christmas Day 1980. We were both 22 years old. I had gone to Kernersville, NC to hang out with Nona and her family for the evening. Kernersville is where she grew up and the house was the same house that she had come home from the hospital to. Her mom and dad and one of her sisters were there. At some point in the evening we snuck back to her bedroom to privately exchange Christmas gifts with each other. I told her that I had written a poem for her and I gave it to her and asked her to read it out loud. It was entitled “This Poem Is A Prayer” and went like this:

This poem is a prayer
So as you read you ought to pray.
I thought it best the Lord should hear
These words I have to say.

This poem is a love song
So as you read you ought to sing.
You can praise the Lord our God
Who’s given life to you and me.

This poem is a dream
Which I have waited to come true.
I had been asleep for many years
But awoke when I found you.

This poem is an ending
To the two of us apart
And it culminates a miracle
Which brought love to my heart.

This poem is a beginning
To a never ending life
Where two can live as one
And both can live in Christ.

This poem is an answer
To a prayer prayed long ago
As it brings us both together
To a life we soon shall know.

This poem is a question
Which I cannot let you read
But if you’ll look into my eyes
I’ll ask you…

At this point I got down on one knee and finished the poem by saying “will you marry me.” I told her there was something in the toe of her stocking. She fished it out and found a box with a diamond ring. She looked up at me and answered my question by quoting from Psalm 34:3-4 which says, “O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together! I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”  She said YES and told me that the Lord had given her a calm assurance about us being together despite some crazy ideas that I had at this point in my life. (Remind me sometime to tell you the story about how I never became a dairy farmer).

So that’s my story as best I remember it. I will end this epistle by saying two things: 1) It has been an awesome 40 years with Nona full of incredible memories and shared ministry, and 2) 40 years sure does go by fast!

Never ever forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

Dear Grandkids,

Back in 1961, on this day in history, a song called “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by a group known as The Tokens topped the Billboard Chart pop list and became a wildly popular song.

And that brings me to a story I’m sure I have never told you.

Back in the Fall of 1985, Nona was pregnant with our first child (Christy) and I was the student pastor at Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh. I was sitting in my office when I received a phone call from a friend who ran a local Christian bookstore. He called me because he knew that part of my story included a Jewish background. He had received a phone call from a man who had just rolled into Raleigh by bus and was wanting to talk to somebody about how to become a Christian. He said that he also was from a Jewish background.

So I dropped everything that I was doing and rode 15 minutes downtown to the bus stop where I met Alan.

Alan was not in good shape emotionally, psychologically, or financially. His story went something like this: He had grown up in a Jewish household but had drifted away from his religious roots. He had married and then struck it big in the music industry. He was the lead singer for a group called The Tokens who had popularized the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” back in the early ’60s. He sang the opening part of the song for me and he was quite good. Since then, he had lost everything, his wife had died, he was drifting around the country by bus, he was suicidal, and as a last resort called the Christian bookstore as he was passing through Raleigh – who called me.

I listened to his story and then shared the gospel with him which he readily embraced. And then, because he literally had no where else to go, I invited him to come stay at our house. Now a wiser man would at the very least have asked his pregnant wife if this was OK, but alas wisdom was not one of my better virtues. I was 27 years old, naively compassionate, and trying to do what I thought Jesus would do.

Alan stayed with us for six weeks. We introduced him to our church where he was baptized. We found him a job at McDonald’s. And we gave him a place to lay his head and a chance to try to heal.

About week five Nona and I had a weekend out of town that we were obligated to and Alan went to stay with our friends Paul and Macon. Paul and Macon worked  alongside us with students at Providence and had gotten to know Alan. Paul was a lawyer and is currently serving as a judge on the North Carolina Supreme Court. A very smart guy. As they spent time with Alan that weekend some things came up in their conversation that didn’t add up. So he started doing some research. Now keep in mind that this was before the advent of the internet. By the time we got back into town he was convinced that not everything about Alan’s story was true.

So we sat down with him and confronted him with the inconsistencies. And then he told us the real story. The Jewish background – true. The singing career – not true. The wife – not true. The down and out part – true. He had fabricated the singing and wife part of the story as a way to gain our sympathy thinking that if he was just a drifter that no one would give him the time of day. He said that his conversion was genuine. He even went before our church and confessed publicly to the lies.

We believed him. We forgave him. We invited him to stay and make his home in Raleigh and grow in his faith at our church. But his feelings of guilt about the lies made him want to leave. He said that he had people out in Colorado so we bought him a bus ticket and sent him on his way. And so I said goodbye to him at the same place that I met him.

This would not be the only time that I invited a stranger into our home. But that is a story for another day. I will leave you with this thought: Asking the question “what would Jesus do” is always a good question to ask. Sometimes people will take advantage of your desire to please God but don’t let that keep you from asking the question again and again.

Never ever forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop