He was born September 8, 1918 and began broadcasting on the ABC radio network at age 14. He broadcast his show, News and Comments, on weekday mornings and mid-days and at noon on Saturdays. From the 1950s to the 1990s his radio programs reached upwards of 24 million listeners a week. His news program, begun in the later days of World War II, was later carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations, and 300 newspapers.
His name was Paul Harvey Aurandt, better known as Paul Harvey, and, by me at least, best known for his radio show, The Rest of the Story, which premiered as its own series on the ABC Radio Networks on May 10, 1976. And now, in the spirit of Paul Harvey, I’d like to offer you the rest of the story.
Linda continues recovering from her fall. There is no appreciable functional decline. She has seen no loss of speech or vision. She still cannot lie flat in bed or bend and turn to the left without incapacitating vertigo, but she has discovered simple ways to avoid the motion and movements that recreate the symptoms.
Everything Linda eats, she says, tastes like it comes from the sewer, but she has learned that if she holds her breath while she’s eating, the taste is not so bad. She still gets tired and takes naps, but she is returning to her active, creative self. There’s no evidence of any personality dysfunction as a result of the brain injury. Time will tell if the vertigo and foul taste will resolve. But we are not afraid.
Please forgive me if that sounds redundant. I do mean to repeat myself, but I don’t mean to just repeat myself. I just want you to understand, as you read these words, that knowing Jesus as my Savior, and trusting God with my life is not mere theological theory. Faith is not some academic exercise to be argued and debated. Faith in God’s inherent goodness, in the reality of His presence, in the certainty of His promise daily keep me from floundering in pessimism and losing hope.
There was another man who broadcast a message to the people of his day. His name was Jeremiah. You can find his message in the Bible in the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations. In those books he records the living history of a nation who had a unique relationship with the one true God, but walked away from that relationship to find their own way in the world. Some people refer to Jeremiah as the “Weeping Prophet” because of the sorrow that fills the books he wrote.
His people rejected God and suffered attack, defeat, and exile from their homeland. Jeremiah does not abandon them, though he does have to remind them from time to time that he warned them of the disaster they would encounter if they would not reconsider their ways and return to God. Mixed with the words of warning and lament are these words, “Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-23, ESV).
When it would appear from external circumstances he has no grounds or reason for hope Jeremiah remembers.
He remembers that God’s love for him does not cease when he fails to measure up to God’s expectation of him. He remembers that God’s love for him does not end when he screws up or when bad things happen in his life.
Sorrowful events are no evidence that he has been abandoned by God, rather, they are an occasion to seek God’s love that is never ending, God’s mercy which is renewed without interruption like the dawning of each new day, God’s faithfulness which cannot be fully measured in its infinite greatness. Remembering the true nature of God and the unshakeable love he offers is the work and reward of faith.
God loves you. His mercies toward you never end. Your circumstances may be the result of a great many factors, but being abandoned by God and unloved is not one of them. No matter who you are, no matter what you have or have not done, no matter where you’ve been or where you are going, God wants you to know this: He loves you, and if you will come to Him in faith, you will find Him ready to embrace you as His own dearly loved child.
And that’s the best of the story.
Pastor Dale McIntire has served as pastor of the Cornerstone Community Church in Grand Marais since April of 1995.
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