The Parable of the Story

 The Grace of Attracting The Best

God has given me a special gift.

He has given me the grace of attracting the best. 

My first wife, who passed away in 2008, set her sights on me 8 months before our first date, when both of us were dating others. Upon seeing me, she told her best friend "That is the man I'm going to marry!"

8 months later, on our first date, she gave me a kiss, and told me that she loved me. After 15 days of confusion on my part, I told her that I loved her, and I asked her to marry me. We were married for 40 years.

I have some of the most talented and faithful friends a man could ever possess. I blamed a lot that on my late wife Lynne, but that doesn't explain how Mary came into my life, and it doesn't explain you, my new friends on the internet.

Only the special gift and grace of attracting the best can explain why you are reading this now.

Many of you have had far more successful careers than mine. Many of you are far more adept at writing, poetry, photography, and the skills necessary to navigate this new internet world than I am.

Yet here you are, reading my blog. 

I have prayed for you. I have prayed God would rain down grace on your every step. I have prayed that grace would well out of your heart like an unstoppable flood, and the the lives you are touching will smell the aroma of the frankincense and myrrh of our Crucified Christ.

Introducing The Parables

I have stumbled into the most profound truths after making a simple observation. #rmdo

When the drought hit in North Dakota, my church assumed I had an inside track on the rain problem (watch for The Simple Observation Parable, to be published later). A farmer approached me, and told me that it was my job to pray for rain. And so began a series of events that, almost thirty years later, concluded with my daughter praying that it would not rain on her yard sale.

Following that came a vision from God that revealed to me that He had made my life and the rain miracles into a living parable. He sealed it with an incredible miracle on the evening of a funeral. The living parable taught a truth that could usher in a cascading, irreversible rain of grace that could flood the world with the knowledge of the Lord that would cover the earth like an ocean.

When I try to share these stories, I am greeted with the usual skepticism. Peoples eyes glaze over, and indifference sets in, and they begin to rationalize that it was just coincidence, even when the timing is so precise, and my list of witnesses is long.

This brings me to my next observation. This observation will lead you and I to a truth of stunning power and grace.

I have noticed that stories of miracles do not have imbedded in them the necessary grace to believe them, except for one.

I can tell you the story of Lenna, who was delivered OVERNIGHT from stage four cancer, and blood clots, and 105 degree fever, and you may question it. (watch for The Weeping Woman Parable, to be published later)

I could share about the girl who went outside the church in LaJunta, Colorado and slit her wrists lengthwise, and then came into the back of the church and threw herself on my wife in her long white dress and my wife, covered in blood stains dragged the staggering girl to the front of the church to use the phone and the evangelist at the front of the church prayed a quick prayer, and the bleeding stopped, and my late wife took the girls wrists and tried to pull the skin apart to find the slits and could not find them; and you will say, she MUST have missed them. (If you said that, you did not know Lynne!! Read The Bloody White Dress Parable, already published.)

Only one story has the grace contained within it to stop the skeptic immediately, and unglazed the eyes, and arrest the attention of the listener. When I tell this story, no one whispers, or giggles, or sniggers. When I tell the story of a lone man, who claimed to be the Son of God, whose life was full of works of mercy and compassion, led by soldiers to a cross, every one stops and listens.

When I share how they laid Him on that cross, and nailed His hands and feet to the ends of those planks, then lifted that cross up, and dropped it into a hole with a thud that wrenched at those nails, every mind sees that event, and realizes immediately that the death of The Son of God was for us, for me!.

Have you observed the same thing, how, when Jesus is lifted up in the minds of the listener, on the cross, high above the earth, that we are all drawn to Him?

Doesn’t the truth of that simple observation lead us to the conclusion that THE STORY needs to be told, so that men and women everywhere can find that powerful grace that frees us from sin and fill us with joy and the deep assurance of God’s love?

I will be a fisher of men today. I will tell you my interesting, if somewhat unbelievable stories, as bait, to lure you within striking distance of the story of the cross.

You also have a story to tell. We all do. Tell it, but always remember that all of our stories pale in comparison to the greatest of stories, the story of a bleeding, dying man who claimed to be the Son of God, who claimed to be worthy of worship, who claimed He was there to save the world, who claimed He loved you! 

The Story Parable

How did God break into your life with one of His messengers? I was a boy that lived with my family in a little trailer in the woods of a town called Portage. The trailer court was among the sand dunes behind the grocery store own by “the Greek” called Peter. The store was just off U.S. Highway 20 on a curve that went over railway tracks called “dead mans curve”.

The trailer that we lived in was 8 by 40 feet. My father worked in construction building the steel mills around the Lake Michigan shoreline. There were 6 of us in that tiny trailer. Along with me, my two brothers Tim and Ted and one sister Terry slept in bunk beds on one side of a narrow aisle that divided the master bedroom from the kitchen and living room. A small furnace in a closet and a set of drawers that went clear to the ceiling were on the other side of the aisle.

My dad was a genius when it came to making a shack into a castle. The bunk beds had a cage on top that was my baby brother Ted's crib. I had a train set on a 4 by 8 foot board that was lowered onto the bottom bed with rope and pulleys. The bed in the master bedroom rose up into the wall so that mom could get out her ironing board and sit and iron while she watched her soap opera’s on TV, which was at the end of the trailer.

The tiny television was in the front room facing the couch at the front end of the trailer. Dad had strategically placed a huge mirror above the couch so that mom could watch it while she ironed. They would sometimes lie in bed and watch TV, and I would lean slightly out of my bed and watch TV also. I loved Steve Allen as the host of the late show. I learned to read the letters of “What’s My Line” backwards in the mirror. I made the mistake of laughing out loud, whereupon my skeptical mother said, “You can’t read those letters backwards?” But I could.

One day a man stopped at our little trailer to invite us to church. Someone had told him that my parents had both attended Nazarene churches before they were married. He invited the whole family to attend church the next Sunday. I remember him standing in our tiny living room, by the door, no room to sit down. I remember him saying there was Sunday school for the children.

We went to the small white Nazarene church on Central Avenue in East Gary, now Lake Station. Rev. Nederhauser was the pastor, and he preached an interesting sermon about hell and sin. He told me of an eternal hell with burning flames and painful suffering for those who rejected the Son of God. The story fascinated me, and I thought to myself that it would really interesting to be there.

But then he started to tell about the dying man on the cross, who looked right at me and told me that he loved me. I did not know it was 2000 years earlier. I did not know it was on another continent, in a city near the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea in a city called Jerusalem. I did not know that the dying man spoke in Greek and Hebrew and Aramaic and Latin, and that I spoke in English. I did not know, and I did not care about those details.

I did know that my heart was already condemning me for the times I had lied, and the times I had disobeyed. The preacher said that the man on the cross had forgiven me of my sins, and all I had to do was ask for that forgiveness, and it would be mine. 

I was the first one in my family who made the move towards God. I went down to the altar, and confessed my sins. The man on the cross somehow, miraculously came down from the cross and came to live in my heart from then on, till this very day.

I am now 78 years old. I have told this story, or something akin to it, every time I got a chance, any time someone would stop and listen. I rearranged my entire life so that for over 35 years every Sunday, in song and in word, in some way I told about the amazing love of a God who sent His only begotten Son to be lifted up on a cross and looked at you and me, and as He was dying, said to us that He loved us.

God has been with me these many years, and has led me through many adventures, all of which make great stories. Sit by me and I will tell you a story. Walk with me and I will tell you a story. 

The stories are sometimes amazing, and sometimes miraculous, sometimes funny, and sometimes sad.

But the story that is the most miraculous, and the most amazing of all is the story of a dying man hanging on a cross in a different millennium, on a different continent, in a different language who looked across the centuries into the face of a skinny boy in a sandy woods in a tiny trailer, and said, “I love you!” #rmdo

JOHN AND BILL

 The time is 7:31 I've driven my electric chariot over to garden Court East center and I'm in the foyer. At the age of 78 I finally understand who I am and who God is. I've been a gospel preacher and witness since I was a young man or even a young boy but my scholastic ability was greatly hindered supposedly by my obsession to be outdoors whenever possible. And now I understand why God created the outdoors. Because he loves the outdoors also. And so did his son Jesus Christ who was a perfect illustration of who God the Father is as we like to say and mental health and possibly genetics the acorn doesn't fall very far from the tree. Both my uncle and my father after whom I am named William Michael dittner that's d i t t m e r silly AI loved the outdoors. They were raised on a farm in Southern Illinois where their oil worker/farmer father and mother lived. My dad had polio but he was still quite able to get around and Uncle John both were mechanical geniuses. My uncle was also a scholastic genius and after world war II he used the GI Bill to get into and be a part of Mount olivet college in Illinois where he graduated. They had an outdoor business before that where they had purchased a caterpillar the big diesel kind and they also were experts with dynamite. They would bulldoze and blow up tree stumps for farmers. My dad used to say he could blow a stump out with only a quarter stick of dynamite but they'd use five or six sticks for free advertising. Another thing that I know my dad was an expert at was slinging a hammer at a chisel so you could drill a hole to stick dynamite into. I know this because he got mad at some guy that stole my $0.50 every night by challenging my skinny little body to the strong man display where you hit the lever with the sledgehammer and the weight goes up and hits the bell. After the third time my dad decided it was time to show this Yahoo a lesson and he took me down to the carnival holding my hand and he had a huge pocketful of quarters which was necessary for the pop machines. I watched him hit and dang the bell repeatedly and if you got it all three times for a quarter you got a prize and he did it maybe a dozen or more times and loaded me up with prizes while the guy was begging him to stop because he knew my dad was mad because this guy had tricked a little boy who had worked at the carnival for $0.50 a day into giving up his 50 cents. So yes my dad loved the outdoors and yes my uncle and him had a business together and yes there were women that love them and adored them and stayed with them till one of them died. Both my mom and dad passed away under the supervision of my awesome and scary sister at the age of 74. Now it's time for me to wrap up the story boys and girls. Both my heavenly father and my earthly father love love love the outdoors so did his son Jesus Christ. Later Gators.

On the far left is my dad William Michael dittmer senior. Next to him is John Dittmer. Next to John is I believe Helen. And next to Helen is Aunt Rosie. I don't know who the  5th lady is. 

THE OUTDOORSMAN

 I am going to make some outrageous claims. I would appreciate your patience. I cannot answer all your questions now. 

I think for the next several weeks I'm going to start with the subject of outdoorsmen. It will be a common theme possibly from now on. 

You will begin to understand some men if you stick to two common themes. A real man loves the outdoors. 

The women who love real men also love the outdoors. 

Outdoorsmen are geniuses. Let me suggest one example. Abraham Lincoln. 

I do better if I take my time and I love the outdoors myself. So this is all I will share for now. I am sitting on my bed with my faithful companion Betty White. She's black and white and has a mustache like Hitler and sleeps on the bed with me and has a lovely fur coat. I'm going to get in my chariot and tour the court quietly. I need to purchase or find a fluorescent vest for the outdoors. Maybe I'll put on one of my flashing flashlight that get on the forehead. So I don't scare this s*** out of my neighbors. It's nice that my secretary pixel 6 edits my language because I've been hanging around outdoorsman since I was 3 years old actually younger than that. 

Later Gators. I'll put a picture with this later.

RACIAL STUPIDITY

 I am a movie lover, drama, action, and especially historical drama. I have been watching God flush out The American soul through the lessons of history racial stupidity. My mother, who also strongly taught me to stand up to bullies, also taught us that black people were made in the image of God. We had a lovely gentle woman who worked part-time for us when my mother worked full-time. Her name was Sally. She only had to supervise in the loosest of ways we children for we were what would now be called free range children in the days when neighborhoods had a much higher standard of supervision and neighbors were responsible for each other. One day Sally accidentally stepped on our lazy cat and broke her back. My hard headed brother picked up some bad language from my cousins and called Sally the n-word. Sally quit that day. My mother made the Spanish Inquisition of me and asked me what happened and because of my testimony reluctantly, me not her, she washed his mouth out with soap I was a witness of that. Tim doesn't remember. 

I am watching hotel Rwanda starring Don cheadle which talks about racial profiling done by the belgiums between the tootsies and the hutus and the deep racial resentment cost a mental illness among the hutus. Mental illness in a collective sense is extremely dangerous and stupid. People will do collectively what they wouldn't have the nerve to do individually. 

At this time our government was being ruled by lawyers. My opinion and I am only guessing is that lawyers were ruling the United States because of the over a thousand years of collective stupidity by men maybe even further back. Men had greater knowledge since the time of Adam and Eve. God is strictly holding men accountable and in the United States he decided to give women at their request the opportunity to vote. Would you mind if I said the s*** hit the fan. Now there were divorce lawyers. And men c

ould go so far but no further and if a woman got tired of it she could hire a lawyer and divorce the dumbass. This took a while to work out. There are a multitude of consequences when we do that but it's still settling out. 

Now here's the rub. Leaving lawyers in charge of world government for too long is also stupid not for the women but for the rest of the world because God raised up United States to stand up to bullies. At the same time we finally got our act together and created a nation for safe Haven with the Jewish people. And at the same time God started building an army slowly not for colonization but to protect those other people that are being bullied. 

So now we are watching the transition from lawyers to warriors. It's in Revelation. I've talked about it. Do your own research. Don't bother me with silly questions. I love you guys but you need to straighten up. And let me announce two things. I have given up my war against daylight savings time. Sigh. I don't think the world is going to change with me. I am also giving up my one man wore against the stupidity of Republicans and I'm going to become truly and I'm saying now I'm rolling my eyes bipartisan. Before you cheer too much for Democratic people remember I am rolling my eyes and I still don't put up with any b*******. We need to do like we've done for many years and learn to get along together. 

One more story and I'm done. I have the two fiercest I most wonderful daughters a man could ask for. Fortunately or unfortunately I taught them both to be free thinkers and really I don't think we have a choice. I also did not discipline them like we were soldiers instead I played games for their safety talk them how to freeze so that they wouldn't run out into the street. And I was very careful how I discipline them. And I told them that I was bending them like branches on a vine with a soft cloth. Although I did cut some extracurricular at branches off when it was going off some wild crazy direction but because I was always gentle they kind of didn't mind although the older one caught more hell than the younger one the younger one watched from learn from watching the older one. When I spanked Rebecca for the last time Wendy was watching and she was a quick study like her mother and she was never spanked. 

Well now it's time for me to wrap up this diatribe I do love the sound of my own voice but it's time for me to say later Gators. Read Revelation especially chapter 12. And no it's not a prophecy in the sense that you can tell exactly when things are happening but instead after it's done you can say oh that's what it meant. Stay tuned.

MENUDO SOUP PART 2

 I just had a very pleasant bowl of menudo soup, on top of ramen noodles, on top of Campbell's chicken gravy, and mixed with organic low sodium chicken broth? In honor of a former restaurant owner who I think is now down in Mexico thanks to the machinations of politics. Now I'm going to tell you about my favorite Democrats. Let's start with Jessica tarloff. She reminds me of my daughters and also my friend that all voted for Kamala. Now I'm going to be controversial but one have I ever stopped that before. I'm going to say Bill and Hillary Clinton. They've done a lot more good than my somewhat insane MAGA friends WILL ADMIT OOPS I had to take the caps off. Are you sufficiently riled up and ready to block me dear Republican friends. Does anybody remember the days when we could discuss this openly and not get into piss fights I might leave that I meant to say fist. Continuing on because I don't know when to shut up when I'm ahead did I just hear some amens? I have now come around reluctantly but still honestly because my one weakness is I can't lie I can be delusional but I can't lie My new favorite Democrat slowly is... Drum roll please. The Obama's. I can hear the you know what hitting the fan now. But I really am and want to be bipartisan and I have voted for Democrats in the past although I will say they were from southbound and pro-life. I think that's enough for now boys and girls. I am going to post this on the shepherd's journal.

Menudo soup

 Proud, bitter SELF hangs DEAD on a cross... Jesus touches... I am REBORN! #wisdompoet

I had to yell at a dear friend today. He started to mention that Trump was a convicted child molester and I stopped him from continuing his diatribe by saying the following. 

Politics is insanity. It reminds me of two tribes of monkeys in two big cages throwing s*** at each other. Then I reminded him that I had prayed for his sister when she had suffered a severe car accident that the family was greatly concerned that the husband might come back and try to murder her. Because I am a friend of God and prayed specifically that God would place two angels by her door, later as she came out of her coma she pointed to the two angels and tried to pop up quietly or pipe up quietly pointing to the two men in white at the door and my friend lean down and hurt her say that and she still testifies to this day that she saw them and while she was in her coma she saw her Grandma and Grandpa who were in heaven and told her that she had to go back. Then I said my friend was Mr peanut gallery and he needed to man up and learn how to shut up and be quiet and listen. It may be quite a while before he speaks to me again. That's all for today boys and girls.

I'm adding these pictures because my manly friend has a father from Mexico and the two of them taught me how to love menudo soup.

7 DAY STATS

I am very blessed. THE SHEPHERD'S JOURNAL on blogspot gets stats back every 7 days. I took a picture of the first 20 although I think only 15 shows up. But it also shows major countries and I was really excited to see that Russia is now checking in. It's not detailed enough to tell me how many but that's still exciting news. 

 

TRUMP AND CHRIST

 

Many people are expecting Trump to act like Jesus Christ. What they don't understand is that there are actually two and here I am searching for the word, seasons of Christ. There is the humble side of Christ how we are to live on this earth and the resurrected Christ that is revealed in Revelation and some of the prophecies. 

I look at Revelation almost like a newspaper but you have to use a timeless viewpoint or a larger viewpoint than the here and now or the there and then. 

I am totally committed to the authority of the word of God and the dependability of the word of God but I don't want to get into the thickets of debating one word. As my dad used to say, My dog is not in that fight. Or as I like to say, I am not a theologian or a scholar or a profit. I'm a musician. 

A brief summary of a couple of observations about the book of Revelation. The first observation is that chapter 12 is unfolding right now. The wilderness that John spoke of was an even known to their world. We did not discover The Americas until the Vikings discovered it in the second millennium AD. 

The American Spirit centers around a low tolerance for bullies. Everybody has a different way of handling them. My mother's way was to offer me a bowl of ice cream every time I came home beat up as long as I could promise her that I stood up to the bully. That American spirit of standing up to bullies, in my opinion, is seen in our current president. 

Another observation is revelation chapter 2: 26 and 27, where are the resurrected Christ says he that endures severe persecution will rule with a rod of iron. Again, my observation is that that refers directly to Donald Trump and what his opponents did to stop him and he endured all of that and now he's in charge with the blessing of Christ, in my opinion. 

This doesn't mean I condemn the Democrats. In my opinion, and let me repeat, in my opinion God allowed women to rise to power politically during this last century. Of course in taking over the world they made a mistake or two, but I think God judges men far more harshly because we know what we're doing and ever since the time of Adam and Eve sometimes women can be a little short-sighted possibly because they're a little short. Like my sarcastic lady friend says duh. But that doesn't mean they can't research and come up with statistics and statistics prove that the real danger for women is men. So God allowed them to be in charge along with their Democratic supporters and divorce lawyers and they have ruled approximately 100 years since Franklin Roosevelt took over for his conservative cousin Theodore Roosevelt. Any Republican had to speak like a lawyer because that was the only way you were going to win over the lawyer praetorian guard around women and their cadre of divorce lawyers. 

This is an unusually long-winded diatribe by me so I'm going to cut it short now and I will explain more as I think of questions that you might think of or that God's Spirit will lay on my heart and remember I'm only right 90% of the time. I don't mind when I'm wrong because I can tell you if I'm revealing it. I don't mind when you're wrong either and I'll try not to humiliate you or be sarcastic about it unless of course it's on my humor insanity blog. Later Gators MAD DOG 

HUMILITY AND HOW I ATTAINED IT

 Oh Lord it's hard to be humble when you bless me in so many ways. I don't mind looking in the mirror cuz I get better looking with age. God made me a little bit scary, but God's grace made me a talented man. Oh Lord it's hard to be humble but I'm doing the best that I can. MAD DOG

Either we follow God and the Father... or DESTRUCTION! Follow me as I follow Jesus.

LIFE IS SHORT

 I am blessed, because I have friends and family who have loved and supported me all my life. 

I am blessed because Jesus my Savior called me to preach the gospel of which I am not ashamed. 

Although I choose not to force my belief onto others, I always welcome anyone to come to Jesus whenever they wish but be aware life is short. Eat dessert first. Have fun and be safe and healthy and if possible do it at the same time. But be aware. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. Now is the day for salvation. Thank you for listening. Later Gators.

NOTE TO MIAMI FRIEND

 I am getting acquainted with a businesswoman from Miami. she follows me on x and I summarized my thoughts on the book of Revelation. she very kindly honored me by saying that I have increased her knowledge.

I am from Plymouth Indiana which is on my profile if you are a research geek like me. I would guess that you are an independent business woman. I am a retired pastor ordained in two denominations but I am not a Bible scholar or a prophet. Like Jake and Elwood blues I'm a musician. I do believe we are now in the time of the book of Revelation but some disagree with me and that's okay because I don't mind if I'm wrong. But in chapter 12 it talks about the wilderness which in those days they were not aware of the Western hemisphere and it appears to me that Donald Trump is mentioned in chapter two verse 26 and 27 as a follower of Christ who is pounding the s*** out of dumbasses that are trying to take over the world.

This is a recent sarcastic picture from my favorite blogger the historical Oracle.

BRAG ON GOD QUIETLY

 Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026 

May I make a suggestion? Find a portion of scripture that inspires you and read a little bit each day. 

Right now, for me, I'm reading Revelation. I don't view it necessarily as future prophecy but an update on current news. Revelation chapter 12 appears to be speaking about the Americas. Revelation chapter 2 verse 26 and 27 appears to mean that Christ himself has selected a leader that rules with an iron rod and breaks pottery which I interpret as criminal leaders. You can either choose to whine about God and the leaders he has chosen or you can pick a side, God's side, and praise and worship him quietly of course or in a group setting, but don't brag. If you do any bragging brag on the Lord God Almighty and his son Jesus Christ. Don't worry about the critics who love to point out that we're all sinners and we all make mistakes. Duh. I am a sinner but God's grace is sufficient in my weakness. That's all for now today boys and girls.

 

It is permissible to disagree with me. I don't mind if either one of us is wrong. Also I am aware that this restraining mask like the one that was on Hannibal lecter also looks like a jockstrap.

OBAMA IS LOSING