Remember and Honor

       I recently went to Virginia for a family wedding and then stayed with my brother in D.C. While there we do a lot of walking and seeing the sights. One evening he retired early and I headed out to the Mall (not stores but the green in the center of D.C. for you who do not know it). I ended up walking over 5 miles that night. At night the monuments are lit up, as I passed each one a hush falls on you as you remember. I walked past the Washington Monument, the WWII monument with it's lit up fountains and continued on to the Lincoln, my favorite (and it seems everyone else's). I read the plaques, the speeches, the quotes. John and I read a lot of history books because we both loved it. Maybe it is because looking at the past should teach us about the future. I could get political here but do not desire to. I wish to remember and honor as these monuments do, a man who changed my life.

         Today is John's birthday and it does not matter how many years pass, I cannot forget. His gentle, patient loving nature made me always feel so at home with him. I did not feel loved for my looks, my abilities, or my paycheck. He loved my soul and told me so. He exampled to me and to his children what it means to be a man after God's own heart. He showed His devotion to God in constant, faithful and daily prayer and completed that devotion by loving us so beautifully. In today's world that seems so angry and selfish I miss him greatly. When I came home in the evening he was there, we would worship and pray and I would confess my struggles and sins and he would speak encouragement, always encouragement. No impersonal "pep talks" that left you feeling like a loser. (I've gotten plenty of those). But he was gifted, so gifted in making me see beyond myself, to see God in me. To feel so loved that it lifted my soul above what I was going through. 

To honor him I want to share an excerpt from one of his journals from 

            

   February 1980,  He was only 26 ......

   "So many will enter into heaven and receive their rewards for all that they did while here on earth. But how many will enter which have allowed the pureness, the holiness, the meekness, the spotless character, the Truth of the Holy Son of God to be forged, formed, incorporated into their beings, lives, while here on earth. Our life down here is but a vapor. Hours daily must be given to this purpose or it will not be accomplished." 

  Oh how he did give himself to that end and oh how he continues to inspire me and others to do the same. Let us not forget the "little" man with the huge heart of God. I will never forget......

      

          In Memorial.......