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