My Left Thumb

A lesson in faith from a beloved pastor

- Max Lucado

I FIRST NOTICED THE TREMOR 10 YEARS AGO. My thumb started quivering. Insistently, nervously, mysteriously. As if my thumb lived on a caffeine drip. With a mind of its own. Almost immediately, I assumed the worst.

My father had died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Am I going to go like he did? I wondered. Is this the first symptom? I combed my hair, and my thumb quivered. When I was putting on the golf course, guess what couldn’t settle down? If I raised my left hand to make a point in a sermon, all I could see was a twitchy thumb.

Dad had been an oil field mechanic. He was used to depending on his hands. One day, he squeezed a screwdriver and noticed something shaky. He diagnosed himself and actually informed the doctor that he had ALS. A certain death sentence. He went into a long slow decline. At the time, I was about to serve as a minister in Brazil and worried sick about him. Dad didn’t want me to stay home. He sent a letter and underlined the keywords: “I have no fear of death or eternity.”