By Bruce Chesser
President, Tennessee Baptist Convention
Senior pastor, First Baptist Church, Hendersonville
On Nov. 20, 2020, I was conducting a wedding rehearsal in southern Kentucky. The plans for the wedding had changed significantly. It had gone from a large celebration of several hundred family and friends to a very small gathering of just family.
We wanted to be as responsible as possible and follow all of the proper protocols. But we still needed to rehearse what would happen the next day during the ceremony.
After the rehearsal had concluded I began to feel a little strange. On the drive home my wife mentioned that the skunk odor that had just invaded our truck was a very putrid smell. I said, “you smell a skunk right now?” She looked at me kind of sideways and said, “yes, it’s awful. Can’t you smell it?” My honest answer to the question was, “uh-oh. No, I cannot.”
That began our journey into the world of COVID-19 which would last 24 days. By the next morning I was running a fever of about 101 which would last for the next 12 days. Taste and smell were gone. I felt like I had the flu. [Read more…]


