"Regrets Yes, No Doubts Though"

       November 4th, 1979 is a day forever etched into my mind. I sat at the side of my father's hospital bed and watched as the bleeps on the heart rate monitor became slower and slower...and then they stopped. That day and the immediate days after were a blur to me and I really can't remember much.
        I did volunteer phone work in the Pennsylvania primary for Ted Kennedy's 1980 run for the presidency.  I had been a supporter, a fan is probably a better word, of the Kennedy family for as long as I can remember. I can recall being whisked out of our grade school classroom to line the street and wave as President John Kennedy came to Buffalo and drove by after arriving at the nearby airport. Robert Kennedy's death affected me greatly and Ted Kennedy....well it was just natural to support his campaign for President. My father is buried in Arlington Cemetery a few hundred yards away from the graves of the three brothers.
         I weighed fifty pounds less on that day then I do sitting here on my recliner writing this post. I was a runner back but my Jim Fixx... Runner's Day-by-Day Log and Calendar shows nothing from that fall and winter other than miles ran, weight and occasional comments on the weather or the run. I wouldn't find out until days later that Ted Kennedy's campaign for president began to collapse the day that my father died. He sat for an interview with CBS newsman Roger Mudd three days before his run for the White House was even officially announced and was asked the simple question ".Why do you want to be president?" Had I been watching this live my head would have sunk into my hands as the Massachusetts Senator stammered his way through a vacuous answer that gave doubt of his qualifications to all those watching. There was a long way to go in that campaign but Kennedy never recovered from that interview on November 4th, 1979..
         Another news story dominated the headlines on that day and I did at least catch those headlines but no one could foresee the earth shaking reverberations over the coming years right up until today. President Jimmy Carter had effectively turned his back on the Shah of Iran who was in the United States for medical treatment. Iranian students who were supporting a revolution in their country seized 52 American hostages from the American embassy in Tehran. This hostage crisis would last 444 days and not be resolved until the very day that Ronald Reagan took the oath of office as Jimmy Carter's successor. It has been 35 years since that day and Iran is now a threat to Israel, to the United States and to world peace.
         Six weeks after my father died I started a new job, the same job that I returned home from work just a few hours ago. Within two years I had gone from being a lifelong Democrat volunteering in presidential campaigns to an ardent conservative Republican. I went from wearing a suit to work to wearing a hardhat and steel-toe boots, and I went from a rather non-religious, occasional church goer to a cross pin in the hat...Bible in the back pocket born-again Christian. My great regret is that I had, and have, no idea if my father had considered his eternal soul in his last days and if so what did he do about it. I don't know for I had no clue as to my own eternal soul.
         November 4th always brings back these memories, sometimes a tear or two, and the same recurring questions about my life before redemption....by grace alone...through faith alone.....in Christ alone. I made few comments in those Jim Fixx running logs but one stands out for it also had reverberations in my life. It was on March 5th, 1982...."Saw Chariots Of Fire today." The fortitude and determination of Eric Liddell made me question my own life and I would find answers before the end of the year. There is a scene in the Academy Award winning film where Eric Liddell is asked if he regretted not running on the Sabbath. His answer was...as well as I remember it....."Regrets yes....no doubts though." It was an answer that begs for some further explanation which I cannot give other than to say that I also have many regrets in my Christian walk.....but also.....no doubts.......no doubts on the Lord Jesus Christ, on His majesty, His mercy, His kingship, on the infallible Word given to us in the Bible and on His resurrection, ascension and Second Coming in power and glory along with all the saints...including Eric Liddell.