Miss you Dad

 

Be Faithful

 

Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

Rev 2: 10

Tony Snow-Testimony

 Tony Snow's Testimony 

 
This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President Bush's former Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer. Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow, announced that he had colon cancer in 2005. Following surgery and chemotherapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary. Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen,- leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but has resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue ' other interests.'  He died recently.  It needs little intro... it speaks for itself. 

'Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,' Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations. The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer. 
 
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out. But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face. 
 
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere. To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life,- and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered. 
 
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease,- smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise. 
 
'You Have Been Called' 
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces. The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter,- and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.' 
 
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.  The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. 
 
Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment. There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do. 
 
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears. 
 
'Learning How to Live'. 
Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of love. I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.' 
 
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms. Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do? 
 
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, - to speak of us! 
 
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God. 

We don't know much, but we know this: 
No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and everyone of us who believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.'  - Tony Snow

If I Could Your Heaven Sent Angel Be

Many years ago, I received a poem in the mail. It had no return address and no signature. The year was 1974. I received it when I was 16 years old, living in New York city, during a very dark time in my life right after a time my good friend Mike was killed in a car crash. (Mike has his very own label right here in my blog.) It was such a beautiful poem filled with love and comfort. I kept it folded in my wallet for many years never knowing who sent it to me. As a matter of fact, I still have it. 

So many years later, through the gift of the internet ,I was in touch with an old friend from back in New York. He admitted it was he who had written the poem to me all those years ago.  I was glad to have had the poem mystery solved. But more importantly, I finally had the chance to thank him and told him how much his words had helped me through some very sad days and how often I read that poem at the time. 

It's funny. I didn't know who wrote it and he didn't know how much it meant to me. Sometimes in life you just don't know. Sometimes in life things happen and you really don't need to know the who or the why.  Something like angels I guess.  You just know that someone, somewhere is out there. And sometimes there is one who cared enough to send a kind word and those words help to either get you through another day or give in to pain and grief that wanted to swallow you whole. 

That very day, some 45 years later, he wrote me another. Thanks Bart. You're an angel.

If I Could Your Heaven Sent Angel Be 

Now that we are so many years older
I wonder could I be a wee bit bolder
And say to you if I had angel’s wings
I would not be one who heavenly sings.

As in poems of youth I tried to comfort thee
When sad darkness was all that you could see
When one love was lost - there at your side,
There was a love - that I chose to hide.

Now no songs of happiness and of loves lost
Or of how to be brave and bear the costs
While hiding tears and subduing fears
And keeping up smiles all these years. 

Instead I would wing my through chill night
To you as you sleep, drawn for just the sight
Of the beauty you held then, and still now hold;
I’ve cried for years never to have been so bold.

And should you awaken as I come near
I would shudder at discovery’s fear
Would it be ever too much to bear
So much that I’d swiftly flee from there?

Or would I stay a moment longer
Would my resolve grow any stronger
Would your sweet smile me embolden
Or to shyness would I stay beholden.

I beg my inner self to me would show
by some magic that I would stay - not go 

That I would not fly alone into the night 

Trembling afeard of such a beauteous sight.

Tonight, should fallen angel promise me
That this dream could become reality
For one night of this, my soul I’d sell
And brave eternity in downtrodden hell.


Yet, if I could your heaven sent angel be,
There would be joy and no mystery.
For I would forever be there at your side
And my love for you I could never hide.

Yet a weak man am I, without angel’s wings
And dreams of mine - are but misty things.
Yet through night’s mist I now see you smile
And for that I’ve winged o’er many a mile.



Love,
Bart (yes this one I wrote, just tonight)

Dear Lord

 

Dear Lord, I thank you for this day. 

I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me. Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you. I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm. Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over. Let me continue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil. And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive the forgiveness of God.

And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example -- to slip away and find a quiet place to pray. It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits. I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart. Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong that I may help the weak. Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others. I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way. I pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for those who don't know You intimately. I pray for those who are afraid to share their faith and love of you with others. I pray for those who don't believe. But I thank you that I believe.

I believe that God changes people and God changes things. I pray for all my sisters and brothers. For each and every family member in their households. I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes. I pray that they are out of debt, both materially and spiritually, and all their needs are met through you.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight. I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them and every mouth that confesses them willingly.

This is my prayer.

In Jesus' Name, Amen.

Simple Formula

 

A Baby's Prayer Kathy Troccoli

I can hear her talking with a friend
I think it's all about me
Oh, how she can't have a baby now
My mommy doesn't see

That I feel her breathe, I know her voice
Her blood, it flows through my heart
God you know my greatest wish is that
We'd never be apart

But if I should die before I wake
I pray her soul you'll keep
Forgive her Lord, she doesn't know
That you gave life to me

Do I really have to say goodbye
Don't want this time to be through
Oh please tell her that I love her Lord
And that you love her too

'Cause if I should die before I wake
I pray her soul you'll keep
Forgive her Lord, she doesn't know
That you gave life to me

On the days when she may think of me
Please comfort her with the truth
That the angels hold me safe and sound
'Cause I'm in Heaven with you
I'm in Heaven with you

Andrea Bocelli, Matteo Bocelli - Fall On Me

A beautiful song between parent and child.

I thought sooner or later,
The lights up above
Would come down in circles
And guide me to love
But I don't know what's right for me,
I cannot see straight.
I've been here too long
And I don't want to wait for it

Fly like a cannonball
Straight to my soul,
Tear me to pieces
And make me feel whole
I'm willing to fight for it,
And carry this weight
But with every step
I keep questioning what is true

Fall on me, with open arms
Fall on me, from where you are
With all your light

A light will illuminate you soon
Follow it always; it'll know how to guide you
Don't give up,
Be careful not to lose yourself
And your past will make sense to you
I'd like you to believe in yourself, but yes
In every step you move down here
It's an infinite journey
I'll smile if in this fleeing time, you take me with you

Fall on me, Listen to me
Fall on me, Hug me
Fall on me, if you want

I close my eyes
And I'm seeing you everywhere
I step outside,
It's like I'm breathing you in the air
I can feel you're there

Fall on me, Listen to me
Fall on me, Hug me
Fall on me, If you want

The Will of God

 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you"

As I Sit In Heaven

 

Letting Go

 

LETTING GO

 To let go doesn't mean to stop carrying your child’s load, it just means you can't do it for them.

 To let go is not to be in the middle arranging the outcomes, but to allow them to effect their own outcomes.

 To let go is not to deny, but to accept.

 To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out our own shortcomings and to correct them.

 To let go is not to cut yourself off, it's the realization that you don't control them.

 To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.

 To let go is to admit our powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in our hands.

 To let go is not to try and change or blame them, but only change ourselves.

 To let go is not to care for them, but to care about them, not to fix, but be supportive, not to judge but to allow them to be a human being.

 To let go is not to adjust our children to our desires, but to take each day as it comes and cherish each moment.

 To let go is not to criticize and regulate them, but to give them wings to become what they dream they can be.

 To let go is not to regret the past, but to grow in love together and live for the future.

 To let go is to fear less and love more.

 As parents …..To let go .... is to let God!

I Promise

 I can't promise to be here for the rest of your life, but I can promise to love you for the rest of mine. 

I Can Only Hope

 "One lives to hope they become a good memory"

The very breath of God

 

 

She Was Beautiful

 

Suzanne Reynolds
 

SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL....
.... but she didn't know what that meant.
When she was a little girl they told her she was beautiful
but it had no meaning in her world of bicycles and pigtails
and adventures in make-believe.

Later, she hoped she was beautiful  as boys started taking notice
of her friends and phones rang for Saturday night dates.
She felt beautiful on her wedding day,
hopeful with her new life partner by her side

but, later,  when her children called  her beautiful,
she was often exhausted,  her hair messily tied back,
no make up, wide in the waist where it used to be narrow;
she just couldn't take it in.

Over the years, as she tried, in fits and starts, to look beautiful,
she found other things  to take priority, like bills and meals,
as she and her life partner worked hard to make a family,
to make ends meet,to make children into adults,
to make a life.

Now, she sat. Alone.
Her children grown, her partner flown,
and she couldn't remember the last time she was called beautiful.

But she was.
It was in every line on her face, in the strength of her arthritic hands,
the ampleness that had a million hugs imprinted
on its very skin, and in the jiggly thighs and
thickened ankles that had run her race for her.
She had lived her life with a loving and generous heart,
had wrapped her arms around so many to give them comfort and peace.

Her ears had  heard both terrible news
and lovely songs, and her eyes
had brimmed with, oh, so many tears, they were now bright even as they dimmed.

She had lived and she was.

And because she was,
she was made beautiful.
~ Suzanne Reynolds, © 2019

Michael W. Smith - There She Stands 9-11-01 Never Forget

Moses' Rod

“Remember Moses’ Rod….

There are no little people, there are no little places”. 

Courageous Persecution

“Something is wrong when our lives make sense to unbelievers.” - Francis Chan

Transformation

Proverbs 3:5-6

In other words...."When I drive my bus I go in the ditch.
When God drives it’s a smooth ride."

To Live In The Hearts.....

        

  "To live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die"...Thomas Campbell.

One day I was reading a romance novel on the bleachers of Farmers Oval Park where my friends and I hung out as teens. My friend Mike came and sat next to me and I read him this caption which was written on the beginning page of the book.  I couldn't have known then that he would be killed a year later and this saying would remind me of him for the rest of my life. I even took out an ad in my high school year book with this caption dedicated to him on a special page. The year he was killed he promised to take me to my high school prom. He died 6 months before.... Happy Birthday, my friend. I promised you as I walked away from your grave that I will never forget you. You have not died. As you will always live in my heart.

Soak. It. All. In.

When you first have children they talk about the challenges of parenting...the struggles of a baby waking in the night, the toddler who wont't stay in their bed, the cost of childcare, injuries from sports...

Having to take off work to pick them up from school when they don’t feel well, helping them with homework, a messy house, the never ending laundry, the cost to buy school clothes, packing their lunches....

You watch their eyes light up on Christmas morning....and try to soak in the magic of those moments.

You coach them in sports, rushing to practices and ballgames...and tote them all over the country to let them play the game they love...no matter how exhausting or expensive it becomes.

Life is just so busy that you rarely even stop to think what the end of those days look like.

In fact, it’s not really even something you can wrap your mind around.

You go into it thinking that 18-20 years sounds like a long time....

Then suddenly hours turn into days...days into months...and months into years.

That little person that used to crawl up next to you in bed and cuddle up to watch cartoons...suddenly becomes this young adult who hugs you in the hallway as they come and go.

And the chaos and laughter that used to echo throughout your home....gets filled with silence and solitude.

You’ve learned how to parent a child who needs you to care for and protect them....but have no clue how the whole “letting go” thing is supposed to work.

So you hold on as tight as you can...wondering how time passed so quickly...feeling guilty that you missed something....

Because even though you had 20 years.....it just somehow doesn’t seem like it was enough.

You ask yourself so many questions...

Did you teach them the right lessons?
Did you read them enough books as a child?
Spend enough time playing with them?
How many school parties did you have to miss?
Do they really know how much you love them?
What could I have done better as a parent?

.....When it’s time for them to go, it all hits you like a ton of bricks.

And all you can do is pray....hope....and trust that God will protect them as they start to make their way into the world alone.

Parenting is by far the most amazing experience of your life....that at times leaves you exhilarated....while others leave you heartbroken.

So for all the parents with young children...whose days are spent trying to figure out how to make it through the madness...
Exhausted day in and day out...

Soak. It. All. In.

Because one day....all those crazy days full of cartoons, snuggles, sleep overs, Christmas morning magic, ballgames, practices and late night dinners...

All come to an end.

And you’re left hoping that you did enough right, so that when they spread their wings....But one thing is certain.....it’s never enough time...💕

They’ll fly...💕💕💕
@MistyBrewerLee

Credit to the Amazing Author:

At The Foot of the Cross

At the Foot of the Cross
Fearing the battle was over
And I’d already lost the war,
I was tired of trying and failing.
I just couldn’t fight anymore.
So, dragging my battle-scarred body,
I crawled to the foot of the cross.
And I sobbed. ‘Oh please, Father forgive me.
But I tried…I tried.. and still lost.’
Then the air grew silent around me.
I heard his voice just as clear as the dawn:
‘Oh, My child, though you are tired and weary,
You can’t stop, you have to go on.’
At the foot of the Cross , where I met Him,
At the foot of the Cross, where He died,
I felt love, as I knelt in His presence .
I felt hope, as I looked in His eyes.

Then He gathered me lovingly to Him,
As around us God’s light clearly shone.
And together we walked though my lifetime
To heal every wound I had known.
I found bits of my dreams, long forgotten ,
And pieces of my life on the floor.
But I watched as He tenderly blessed them,
And my life was worth living once more.
I knew then why I had been losing.
I knew why I had not grown.
At the foot of the Cross came the answer:
I’d been fighting the battle alone.

At the foot of the Cross, where I met Him,
At the foot of the Cross, where He died,
Then I knew I could face any challenge
Together–just my Lord and I.
by Marcia Krugh Leaser

Babe- Styx

I went to the record store and bought this 45. I crossed out "Babe" and wrote "Mom" on the cover sleeve and gave it to my mother to play on her phonograph. The year was 1979. Research claims it was released in September of that year but I specifically remember giving it to her while I still lived at home prior to my wedding and I was getting ready to move to Connecticut. That would have made it's release prior to July '79. Either way, every time I hear it I a reminded of my best friend and the hardest goodbye I ever said.