I know a young man who is a warrior. But he has been concealing his true heart in the costume of a court jester. That statement is the most honest, apt description of how he has grown into the sum of his parents. His father has the heart of a lion. He is strong and bold. When someone he holds dear is challenged he is the most fierce being on the face of the earth.…
The Load is too Heavy Our devotion today revolves around lending a hand to an overwhelmed friend. Yes, I mean assisting others with talents and gifts God has put in us. Here is our guiding passage Matthew 11:27-30. The story below is a good example of what the passage means. Mark you, it is a real story that happened in some remote parts of Africa. Let us read together, In most remote parts…
The desire to belong is rooted deeply in the heart and soul of every person. No one wants to be left out, and not a soul can help but ache for the sad-faced child who is always the last one to be picked for a team or picked as a partner for a class project. And it is that burning desire to belong to a group or to fit in that causes some behaviors that…
It’s always difficult to face the reality of a parent’s illness. Most children grow and thrive within the warm, protective sphere known as a loving parents care. And even when the relationship has been difficult or dysfunctional, there still seems to be a connection of more than simply genetics. This emotional connection to a parent might simply be a single, thin shred of hope that someday this complicated, or almost nonexistent relationship, will somehow…
In a hospital waiting room in Dayton, Ohio, Mahler Symphony No.2 “Resurrection” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHsFIv8VA7w&t=225s) plays for a comatose patient. I had chosen this piece of music for my brother, Ryan. It was his favorite Mahler symphony. The theme of the symphony is resurrection. Like Martha from the John 11 Bible passage, my family had the faith to believe in the future resurrection of my brother’s soul but we’re wrestling with the faith that his seemingly lifeless…
When I tell people my story, I’m always told that I have a lot of Resilience, but I’ve never understood what it means. According to the Oxford dictionary, Resilience means “The Capacity to recover from trauma”. My life has been full of events that will challenge many and provide a whole new meaning to resilience. My story begins in 1990 at the end of Ceausescu’s reign, the Romanian dictator who took the population’s…
Little Golden Books, now celebrating their 75th birthday, were among my favorite childhood books. Appearing on the market in 1942, Little Golden Books were the first high-quality books for children most parents could afford. Priced at just 25 cents and available where people shopped every day, they caused an instant sensation and were sold by the hundreds of thousands. My all-time favorite is still The Little Red Hen, nearly seven decades later. In fact,…
As parents, we sometimes forget that our children spend a great deal of time looking up to us. They watch what we do and learn far more from what they see rather than what we tell them. In a sense we are more than a mirror for our children, we are a looking-glass which provides a glimpse of what they can be and achieve in their future. Be the role model and project an image of…
I would like to thank Dr. Wayne Norton for this guest thought of the day. Though this appears to be a simple concept, it is one that many people seem to struggle with. Being a leader is not about telling others what to do, it is about showing them what to do and how to do it properly. A good leader is measured by the successes he helps other achieve rather than just his personal…
Sadly, our society has chosen to use two words interchangeably, when they actually have very different meanings. Stars and heroes are two very different things. When we apply the term star to a person, in most cases it is very accurate. A “star” is a person who is bright and shiny, one who sparkles for attention and whose luster or attraction could be very fleeting. After all, the stars in the sky do burn…