A Bad Night's Sleep Resulted in This Personal
Plain Truth Magazine
August-September 1977
Volume: Vol XLII, No.8
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A Bad Night's Sleep Resulted in This Personal

Personal from Herbert W Armstrong
TUCSON, Arizona, May 20, 1977:
   I've had a bad night. Upset stomach - my own fault. Couldn't sleep any longer. Thoughts came rushing through my mind after I had a bad dream which awoke me - thankfully. Glad it was only a dream.
   I got back to sleep. But only for an hour or two. This time I was awakened with another bad dream.
   I tried to get back to sleep, but my mind was working and I could not get drowsy or sleepy. I was thinking about the cause of my bad night and upset stomach. Always there is a CAUSE.
   Mrs. Armstrong and I had returned to Tucson last Monday evening after graduation exercises at Pasadena and a meeting at my home with Gloria Swanson, the original glamour girl of the movies - now 78 and a great-grandmother of two. (She's ahead of me - I have my first great-grandchild now on the way.) Miss Swanson was hosting a health luncheon on Thursday (yesterday) afternoon at the Student Center of Ambassador College in Pasadena, and lecturing afterwards. I very much wanted to be there, but was unable to return from here.
   The Raders had telephoned to say they were coming from Pasadena yesterday afternoon and suggested we have dinner together at one of the restaurants here. At this dinner, I ordered what I do NOT recommend you do (I do usually try to set a good example): smoked salmon followed by beef stroganoff. Like the little books swallowed by Ezekiel (3:1-3) and the apostle John (Rev. 10:10) in their visions, it tasted delicious in my mouth, but in my stomach gave me a very bad night.
   Lying in bed, trying to get back to sleep, my mind wandered to Stanley Rader. He is somewhere near the age of my son, Garner Ted - approaching fifty. He is in the very PRIME of life, when a man's value in his profession or business is at its peak. Mr. Rader has been first a C.P.A. - Certified Public Accountant - then a lawyer and professor of law at the University of Southern California. In fact, he graduated from law school at! USC with the highest grades in its history, and I understand both Harvard and Yale sought his services as professor of law. However, he preferred to give all his time and talents to "the Work," as we call it at Ambassador College and in the Worldwide Church of God.
   We think it significant that Mr. and Mrs. Rader's elder daughter, Janis, has graduated from the USC law school, has her law degree, and is now ready to pass the bar examinations and become a practicing attorney. Their son Stephen has just "sat" for the Certified Public Accountant exam, having finished his training as a C.P.A., and should immediately be able to start active practice (and, I will add, is in a matter of days marrying a very charming young woman, whom I know well).
   We thought this significant since my son Garner Ted also is following in his father's footsteps.
   Mr. Rader's talents, brilliant abilities, and experience have been in altogether different fields than mine. He is experienced in politics, government, world conditions, etc. - and brilliantly and expertly so. I started in advertising and journalism in newspapers and magazines - until age 35, when God called me, converted me, completely CHANGED my life, called me into His ministry, and in July 1933 conferred on me the staggering responsibility of THE GREAT COMMISSION - taking to the world Christ's TRUE gospel - the GOOD NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT of the soon-coming KINGDOM OF GOD to bring WORLDWIDE PEACE!
   The amazing, AWESOME human potential revealed by this true message also CHANGED the life of Stanley Rader, and brought us together. I baptized him in March 1975. Since the NEW phase of the Work was opened to us a few years ago - the "OPEN-DOOR" phase in which the living Christ is opening the doors to kings, emperors, presidents, prime ministers and others high in government, education, finance, business and industry - Mr. Rader has traveled the world with me, speaks with me before audiences, and is always with me in personal meetings with these heads of state.
   We complement each other. Our backgrounds, training, and experiences are far apart, but Mr. Rader is brilliantly familiar with government and financial affairs, and is of indispensable help to me in meetings with these chiefs of government and leaders of world affairs.
   Many who know us both well have said to me, "He loves you as his own father." My love and affection for him is like that for my own son - and all members of God's Church who are led by God's Spirit are, directly or indirectly, my children in the Lord (in the sense of Titus 1:4).
   Isn't it wonderful? I have next under me in God's Work my very own son, whom I love probably above everybody else on earth - partly, of course, because of his top position in the Work - and Mr. Rader as constant traveling companion. These are tremendous blessings from God.
   Well, I was just musing on these things, trying to get back to sleep, and decided instead to quietly slip out of bed without waking the lovely new wife God so recently gave me, come to my study in our new home here, and share these thoughts with our vast family of readers. By now she will be up and waiting for me to have morning coffee with her on our veranda with a beautiful vista.

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Plain Truth MagazineAugust-September 1977Vol XLII, No.8