Tales from a recovering patient of the love doctor code for Jesus – Valentines to family and friends

As usual I screwed up the only thing I could give you for Valentine’s Day a love letter from me and it got lost in my attempts to email it to you this seems to be the only thing I can barely do on this day and every day I love you with what is left in me. Love, Me .

Email –

I don’t have anything these days but my feeble love that I give to you. How after all these years I still kept it alive is a mystery but what is noted just how real it is and how much it is. Through all the times good and rough you have been there for me. I surly don’t deserve it yet you carry on. I love you with all my pitiful heart can put forth. You still have my whole self. Beyond the loyalty and care you give me is an unrelenting bond that it long last…. lasts. I love you now and always for everything you are. God truly formed our union out of the world to something much more. How than I love you more than that? It will always be so Love, Me

Son while these are tumultuous and yes, lonely times and love is confusion and the light of it seems ever so dim. It never leaves us once it has entered us no matter how much pain there is so understand on this day, the love I have for you son can and will not diminish nor leave me for you. We should keep love alive no matter how much it hurts or when that hurt comes to those closest to us. No matter the loneliness, and I know you feel it, God knows your pain and perhaps He’s the only one who can take the hurt and keeps on loving us anyway. Maybe we can both be like Him with those we love and triumph over hurt and pain with forgiveness and reconciliation. Or just keep on and keep loving. Love you son as only a dad can.

May this day kindle the sometimes flicker of love deep inside and you may know that it comes from places you don’t know or understand love never leaves nor can be extinguished by the worst of times love dad

Precious daughter on this day of love, may your heart always overcome hurt and pain and know that once experienced it cannot be taken away by circumstances and that love is for you from Jesus. As well as this old and tired dad I love you with all a have. Dad

May you and Jackie enjoy the company of true love. The journey has led you both down some tumultuous paths and now you are together. What a wonderful gift. Enjoy that bond today.

Big sis through all the twists and turns of people we’ve known and loved through the years love never ends even when the flame is dim, nor never forgotten. How can I forget the love I have always had for my sis surely there is loneliness on this day for you but be assured that God love is there for you but none greater than my love for you. Be safe today and know that short of God’s love there is none greater than mine Lil brother.

You dear child have so much love and kindness that it can’t be measured in this world and only understood by the Heavenly Father. But for those of us who have journeyed with you, have been blessed with it. Be safe and know that you are loved from people and sources far from you.

I always pray this prayer for you dear heart for it has been elusive for so long maybe this will be good council from an old man who has had his heart broken many a time. It’s always worth the risk for when you finally look back the love can’t be extinguished no matter how long it is in the rear-view mirror it still endures. After three marriages I know this and now after many tries at finding it finally settled down for 22 years. But today I will send a text to all of the previous ones to let them know that love endures forever no matter the circumstances or the choices we made love is always worth the risk of heartache and the reward of success is worth it always. I wish you the best just remember, as I have not always remembered, that relationship is a three-way union you, him and God. Should it be God’s will and peace l long sought be yours.

Today I express what is and will be in my heart no matter the hurt and pain. Love endures forever and those 18 years for me cannot be extinguished by time and bad choices at least on my part. Every day the pilot light of our love never extinguished. No matter where we are life’s journey, we will always have this part to share. I kind of go into this on my blog which I’m writing these days with so much unwanted time I have since the stroke. If you are interested, it is talesfromdepressionanddealingwithit.blog. Covers a lot of years and reflections. Be safe you and your mom and all.

Dear heart on this day know that you are loved by people you have touched even in the smallest ways they mostly don’t express it but an aging old man, that be me, gets it. For it always springs up in unexpected places and many times comes from unexpected friendships. Thanks for being mine.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just for guys and gals it’s about love and nowhere can be found a more profound love than what is my heart for my precious son I love you. Dad

Just another thought from grumpy old dad. I know that your first love ended in a broken heart I know because I’ve been there many times, I knew from the very first day that the way you all played together that you had fallen in love then things change as you grow up and anger and confusion and dysfunctional things happen. I’ve been there several times a gave up a few times it’s all part of life I finally found mom and true love based on friendship and sharing the tough times. Do not be ashamed or in the name of protecting your pride or toughness be disheartened or ready to give up on love. She was a troubled kid similar to girls I loved and married two of them. God lifted me up out broken heartedness until he put me and mom together the risk of a broken heart is always well worth the effort love is always available to us. It doesn’t always come with who we may think and feeling love is part of the deal until God gets in the middle and shows you what is really supposed to be. Don’t give up on it and give thanks to those you share or shared it with you. While people and times change but love shared endures forever. Risk the broken heart and let it lead. True love is s three-way deal, You a women and Jesus. As long as you remember that it will last even longer than mom and my relationship no matter how much we get aggravated with other. You were put in our life for a special reason that God only knows but His love is contagious and here we are the 3 of us, oh and Jesus too.

I remember my first adult love at about your age she broke my heart because no matter how much I tried I couldn’t make it work. God figures this out when we let Him. Sometimes love just waits and circles around, you never know. Women are a mystery to us guys but also something we can’t live without even for a short time but don’t give up on them and let God protect your heart. We may think it will be broken forever, but it will pass, and real love will spring up again and you will be truly blessed. Just give it time and never give up or feel foolish. I love you son.

After God’s amazing creation of the universe if He didn’t think that we were worth loving no matter how much we feel unlovable, the earth would be just another rock hurling through space devoid of love or life itself. He put us here for this purpose. He is Love, and we’re not just another spec of space dust moving at high-speed trying to escape the Son (spelling intended).

Is Jesus Real?

This question is often asked out of frustration, cynicism, or faith challenges. As a Christian, I have been through educational “church” bible studies and read numerous books and material and Archaeological treatises on the historical Jesus.

Contrary to popular belief, some are not aware Christ is not his last name. He was known by name as Jesus of Nazareth, as was the custom of his time to name people using the name they were from. However, Christ is what makes him set apart from all of us on earth as the Messiah of the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament. It is here where believers acknowledge that he was the Son of God, the Holy Spirit, and God incarnate in human flesh. Now again, I’m not a Theologian, and I’m barely schooled in the machinations of Christianity. For those of you who are about to click from this post as thinking I’m about to proselytize you into being a Christian, you may find there’s a bit more here. In my opinion, there is as much myth as there is fact-based faith. I am an analytical thinking person.

What I accept as faith comes from an innermost trust in what comes from my heart and as King David was described as a man after His (God’s) own heart. Whatever I learn and experience is governed by this simple truth. In my earlier posts, you may recall that the wisdom from an old rabbi friend told me about the definition of truth is “fidelity to the original.” So I am skeptical and vigorously question(and many times accept) the teachings and accounts of Christianity. The secular world and so-called scientists are seldom questioned or subjected to the scrutiny needed or the examination of who was and is Jesus. In today’s world, we accept science as gospel and turn it into a religion unto itself. Man’s true science exploring the amazing things in our world is in our nature. As believers, a part of God’s creation of free will in us not to be as the smug skeptics among us call us “knuckle-dragging mental Neanderthals.” Excepting some one’s concrete assertion that 1 million,10 million or 5 billion years ago is at best a theory mainly because there was no one around to corroborate those theories.

Yes, we can make assumptions and calculations based on many theories and extrapolations of the here and now. We really don’t know much about the huge universe we consciously live in, even if we are a spec in the continuum of history or time itself. Well, I just proved that I’m not much of a scientist either. So, I’m coming around to my experience with Jesus.

I explained to my Neurologist that I have been having some experiences where I get a tremendous overpowering sense of a struggle with evil accompanied by a bad taste in my mouth and a bad smell. I’ve of late been prone to having seizures, and all said a collective “Ah Ha, we have the answer! It’s a pre-seizure aura, and it’s in your mind.” They increased the anti-seizure meds, and they have seemed to go away. I told them that the only way the experiences I described subsided is that I said, “in the name of Jesus, Satan Leave Me!” The episodes would, with rare exceptions, immediately subside whether I had a seizure or not. The Neurologist gave me a “sure whatever ” look, so I went home. This happened about half-dozen times since then, and If I preemptively pray mostly, they don’t happen. The attacks happen in various instances while I lay sleeping, sitting on the porch, or even once while I was on my mower mowing the grass or outside doing some pruning. These are terrifying beyond my description, and I’m a hardass. Little frightens me since I became an adult (I use that term loosely since others, including my wife, thinks I’m more juvenile than my years). After getting the rope-a-dope from the docs saying we don’t know what’s causing this except a veiled, “it must be all in your head,” I had a thought. I contacted a retired Episcopal priest and dear friend of mine and asked him to come by and chat out on my back deck. I’ve known him as an intellectual and spiritual man that I respect for a no-nonsense Christian. In our small talk, describing my reason for calling him, I relayed my experiences. He listened as he knew just exactly what was going on. He said that this comes from unrepented sin or, in my case (since I pretty much cleaned up the wreckage from at least the top ten) an attack that is very real of evil and demons that wish to envelop you into their realm of reality, which is just as real. They wanted me for my good steadfastness, he said, and saw an opening in my physical health to find my vulnerable state to take me down. He had the creds because he fought these similar battles when he was a teenager on up to his seminary days. He said the rebuking in the name of Jesus was exactly what he did to fight back. Once in our church (which is an Evangelical church but pretty tame in the supernatural things), I’ve seen him just stand up and say God put it upon his heart to speak to the pastor’s sermon in about a paragraph that complimented the words of the pastor and was uncannily profound. Sort of like speaking in tongues or healing services in the pentecostal churches. While these are real experiences, there is also fraud and opportunism associated with these spiritual moments because humanity will capitalize on anything. So I fought back, invoking the name of Jesus with more forcefulness as if we were side by side brothers in arms fighting for my soul. I say, “Sweet Jesus, stay with me; I’m afraid.” They say that there are no atheists in foxholes, well these are those moments because I have never been tested like this. My friend prayed over me and anointed me with oil (I’m not one who accepts this seemingly ritualistic thing, but that day it felt comforting).

HE IS REAL. And so is Satan. I know it not because I read about it or saw a movie or studied scripture or listened to some charismatic preacher, but I’ve experienced it. And know that without the powerful friend and loving son of God and the power he has is made available in a loving way too little insignificant me. I also know that skeptics and questioners may not be worse than hands in the air churchgoers who want a tantalizing “religious experience” singing Hallelujah and leaving the church with a temporary “high” Church certainly can be genuine but more than not is populated with a large segment of agnostics and posers. I convict myself as occasionally slipping into that form of hypocrisy but rarely in a time of weakness. I return to my Jewish friend’s statement about truth that I mentioned earlier. My tolerance for BS is low, so when I tell you these things, they are the real deal. My sinfulness is far greater than the Apostle Paul, who thought of himself as the greatest sinner of all. This is an ongoing battle I fight as my priest friend told me it would be. I will persevere with God’s powerful personality, Jesus. I coined a short sentence that kind of sums it all up for me, and I try my best to live by it (and this is only a couple of years old for me) “The road of conviction leads to God’s grace and is paved with repentance and washed clean of GUILT by the blood of Jesus.” Live life with no regrets. There is a God. He created us and all of creation with a meticulous exactness that all the best scientists will only be able to explore so far. We are linear and finite. Our days come and go, our projects are great and small, but God transcends all dimensions, time, and space. Scientists don’t need to theorize beyond scratching the thin surface of the knowable in this world and let faith bridge the purposely unknowable gap. You don’t have to “know” it to understand truth.

It just is like God started with nothing and made everything. If you subscribe to the “Big Bang” theory, well ponder this “who lit the fuse” and started this perfectly ordered universe into motion. Call it what you want Dark Matter, Light-matter, what really matters is a creator who put it all together and is perfectly capable and wants you to prevail over the dark matter. We have to have faith and join with him by choice. He wants it that way. Therein lies the love part between creation and the loving creator. When it hits the fan, He’s bigger and more powerful than that boogeyman that attacks us. He transcends death and the suffering as horrible as it can be, especially from man against man. He makes it temporary in favor of a created place where suffering is no more, and the only thing in our way is that pesky old Satan, who again is just as real as Jesus, but we’ve got the power and the glory forever. Amen.

What is Love ? – Part 2

I am continuing my topic from last week. What is love? Even our beloved pets (for me its Bear dog) have love and give it and receive it.

Again, one thing I know is that love lasts forever. One of the most extraordinary loves of my life started in high school with a girl that became my soul mate. We petted and passionately kissed but were never intimate, just talked and explored thoughts of “what If and why is this” and confided our deepest thoughts, never really thought about marriage, and didn’t even “go steady” as it was called back then.

She moved away, kept in touch, and occasionally when I would go up to upstate New York to visit my daughter, I would stop by and see her and spend maybe a day. The last time she was battling some health problems. She confided in me that her heart was broken when I was married to my first wife. I never knew that until that moment. After all those years, a divorce on her end and two on my end that she wanted us to be more. In my opinion, though, I’ll never know for sure, but God either wasn’t listened to or had other plans. We both turned to God through Jesus as life went on, we would occasionally write and chat (with incredible faith an understanding, and trust from my current wife of 22 years). Then years ago, I lost touch with her. We both had a habit of no matter where we were, be it alone or together, we would gaze up at full moons and somehow or another feel the special closeness that was unique to us like kindred spirits. After losing track of her a few years back, I felt a loss; maybe she decided to move on, or maybe she passed away and didn’t say goodbye.

As things go, I was recently a part of a Facebook page on my old high school and history of Melbourne and connected with two cousins of my soulmate, and they let me know she passed away a few years ago when I lost contact. I thanked them for letting me grieve and have closure to a remarkable stretch in my life’s journey. Love lasts into eternity.

My first love, however, was in the 5th grade. Her name was Miko, and she was an adopted Japanese girl by Military parents stationed there after the war. We were bound by love, true love as in the innocence and honesty of children. To illustrate, we would walk from school on Friday afternoons me to my sister’s house (my mom would go grocery shopping on Friday, and I would meet her at my sister’s house near the elementary school.) We would hold hands, juggling our books in the other hand. After elementary school, One Friday in November, tragedy struck as we were all instructed to gather in our homeroom to watch a tearful Walter Cronkite say that President Kennedy had been shot. I walked her home while she sobbed, and I was at her side when she needed a true friend who could be strong and by her side. Miko moved away because her dad was transferred to the Florida panhandle. We wrote to each other for a couple of years, and as time went on and we grew up and apart.

Fast forward to 1990. I’m the president of the Florida Jaycees, and I was speaking at a membership drive meeting at the Panama City Jaycees. I noticed a striking, attractive Asian lady in the audience, making occasional eye contact with me. On a break, she walked over to me and said, “Do you remember me?; you would know me as Miko. I’ve been a Jaycee for a while and have been inactive for a few years with marriage and kids demanding my time. I saw a newsletter and saw your name, and I had to come to the meeting.” I was floored, we hugged, and memories flooded back of a simpler time. We said that we would keep in touch, we never did, but love is eternal, without physical proximity.

Mitzi, I met at a band camp at UF when I was a rising junior in high school. She lived in St Augustine and I in Melbourne. We became close, and as per my custom, I was a pretty good kisser. We were a
long-distance couple writing and commuting. We really had fun being together, and yes, love settled in again between two young souls. We even went to each other’s proms all on the same weekend, hers on Friday night and mine on Saturday. This arrangement went on for about a year, and after graduation, we became “promised” to each other (a kind of 1st step toward engagement). One night as heavy petting turns into more, we lost our virginity. Not a glamorous moment, but memorable just the same. But that changed everything; what was once innocent became different. Secrets that were meant to be discovered after marriage were known too soon, and we lost the moment. The kind of love we had for each other had changed from exiting innocence to something else. She went off to college, and I met my first wife, and we drifted apart and just gracefully said goodbye. To this day, I don’t know whatever became of her, but once again, love visited and was shared, and then like a small pretty flower, we just let it slip out of our hands and on to the grass to wither and die only to spring up again with someone new.

Now, after you have tediously waded through my rather mundane love life, I model myself as a tiny archetypal version of King Solomon, son of King David. The similarities are that he had a successful dad who was “A man after God’s Own Heart” who won victories and accumulated wealth to pass on to be managed by his son to build a great temple. The son Solomon was a builder and person of great wisdom, and the greatest of this wisdom was to ask God for the discernment between right and wrong.

He did a great job on the temple building, being a shrewd businessman and a leader. He also had large concubines of women and around 200 wives. He wrote many wise things and the rather racy Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, which details intimacy that makes many blush. Even though he is in the lineage of Jesus, at times, he was a little less than a saint. Like me, God was laying out the righteous path (lay off all the women, deal justly with your workforce, don’t rip off your father’s friend Hiram, don’t tax everyone to death, build my temple to the exact specifications I have given you) he did all the stuff in parentheses above and then some. He did great and wonderful things and is utterly flawed, but he is my hero of the Old Testament because I can relate. However, all his stuff makes my stuff look pretty small, especially the women stuff; I couldn’t even handle a few, let alone a few hundred. On a much, much, much, smaller scale, I’m that guy as a character. The one thing that touches this topic is that Solomon had many women around him, but he loved only a 100 or so. Well, I had only maybe five and I married 3 of them and finally settled on one. I loved these all, and a few more I dated, so I’m not exactly a lover of biblical proportions.

What is Love? God is Love.

What is Love – Part 1

In my previous post (which has been some time due to my lack of inspiration and struggling with the surprise threat of seizures), I said that my next topic was going to be “What is Love.” Well, now, as I start to write, I realize just how hard it is for me to answer a question that, for me and maybe for many of you, is allusive and intrusive into your heart that we fight to keep people away from. You see, we all don’t want to be hurt inside and the fear of opening our hearts and subject ourselves to the risk of being broken-hearted. I’ve been hurt and broken-hearted but always willing to share what is on my heart.

While there is a sting of rejection, being open and honest about what is on your heart, for me, has been worth the risk. As Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-33). Therefore, especially as I get further down my life journey road, I have that comfort, even in times of depression.

My depression comes mainly from being cut off from my passions and self-perceived failure to “finish the job” that I wanted in life for my loved ones and me. This last line may be a good segue into the thing we call love. The only way my mind can work if I am genuinely trying to make some points is to deviate from my albeit meager prose and poetry and put my thoughts into bullet points. So here is the opening barrage.

God is Love. Equally hard to understand if we are honest and not just reciting Christian song lyrics and thoughtful sermons. I always find myself defaulting to Isaiah 55:8 when trying to grasp ahold of Him. Because God is so hard to understand most of the time, so love is a mystery as well, especially if they (in my mind without a doubt) are the same thing. The following is the Apostle Paul’s definition of love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

These verses are used at countless weddings and other occasions. Sometimes, however, shortly after the wedding, we as God’s unruly children, can drive that into the ditch of envy, carnal lust, tit-for-tat relationships. Relationships that demand reciprocity, an intimacy that grows cold all too soon, career hijacking passion, child-rearing, and a host of other things and distractions that push God aside from the center of the mutual bond and it unravels. Many (thank God) avoid these things and live out their years through the bumps and smooth paths because they never let the distractions keep them apart and keep God at the center. I can self-convict on all the above, for as I have confessed earlier, I have been married now for 42 years, but the caveat is that that it took me three marriages to get there. The first was for 18 years to my college sweetheart, the second was for two years, who was my answer to lost passion (see above), and my last for 22 years (we celebrated our anniversary Sept 5th.)

I can only speak to this topic by personal experience; thus, I’m not a philosopher or theologian, just another in the fraternity of humankind trying to figure some things out. One thing I’ve observed in my life when in relationships I can share, and hopefully it will be useful if not pathetically amusing, I loved and still love my two previous wives. My first, in general, is not too happy with me and still views me with disdain as I hurt her when I ended our relationship as husband and wife. While nothing is ever one-sided, I must take responsibility for ending it. All the things mentioned above were in play. She says she has forgiven me, and the last communication we had was via text after my stroke and soon evolved into a replay of the financial settlement issues, so I guess that trumps any attempt at reconciliation on her part. But I still love her, because love isn’t a subject, for me at least, relegated to finite time and space. Once I have experienced love, it never leaves me.

While born out of a thirst for “something more” than a marriage falling victim to again, all the above things came loving wife number 2. She was the victim of a hard and tumultuous life, and she was looking for honest compassion, and I was looking for vitality in my personal life. What started in carnal ways evolved to shared love even though, in perfect hindsight, a bad choice. However, because God loves us, and we screw up so much, he blessed us with a closeness that, while not physically shared these days again, lasts forever and blessed us out of all the chaos a precious girl who is now 28. We finally gave up on a relationship, and it was very painful as it always is. Today our daughter lives with her and takes care of her in her poor state of health. We pray for each other every day, and love will not be broken by broken, misguided choices we make. Like God, Love transcends all.

Through all the chaos of life, a failing business, failed hopes of a career; only music remained as a passion. Enter my last marriage. By then, I was worn out with marriage and misguided choices, but someone God surely must have sent to have mercy upon me. In her words, she married her best friend, and that is what has kept us together. She is 11 years my junior but about the same age mentally. She stuck and still does through all the hard times, as now is one of those hard times for me battling all I have mentioned previously.

Jesus said, “no truer friend is there than one who lays their life down for another” she has met that test and more for she lays down better alternatives, better just about everything that a slug-like me, yet she perseveres because she loves me agape with little expectation for the outcomes, she just loves. And I, as I get older, will love her till the end.

You see, love never dies. We just misplace it once in a while like that old worn bible. Both my present mate and I were void of compassionate, caring, and honest love. She, with a trail of relationships, with the exception of one, that were more about being the one who gives and the other side taking and moving on. The serious one ended in a tragic death, and finally, a guy (that be me) who was sent out of no logical circumstance to be her mate for life and her mine.

To give a synopsis as to who I am. I have not been intimate with many women in my life, because I was timid and never considered myself as “desirable” to women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the hunchback of Notre Dame, but not (pick the male idol of your choice) either. I was always the gentleman at the beginning of relationships, and then when I thought they could handle it, expose them to my more crass and earthy side. Through all of this, if intimacy was initiated, I was always the tender giving put the partner first kind of guy. No matter how out of order, I got it only on rare occasions was intimacy a casual thing either initiated by her or by me. In my way, sex was just one way to express my heart and compassion (not just passion) and respect and considered myself in a more servant capacity, not a dominant personality. I think on my few occasions, this is what those women really wanted. Someone real, even if it was a bit clumsy now and then.

In my weak moments, I let my carnal side dominate. I know, because of my compassionate side,the relationship became something on their part that went beyond my good heart. I pulled back and realized what I allowed to happen and, as gracefully as possible, pulled away. I can’t be dishonest no matter how the truth of self-conviction hurts or hurts others for the better. Here lays the case for abstinence. Now looking back, life would have been less tumultuous. I would have had the good sense and wisdom to let God run the show. Love doesn’t go by the numbers, and leads us in directions that we are not prepared for but is always present. In its truest form, it’s experienced, not felt.

In possibly a bizarre non-sequitur, some old pop songs say it well. Boston More than a Feeling is a metal rock way of saying it. How deep is Your Love by the Bee Gees asks the question and poses the answer of the from the heart love we have that is true. Amy Grant and Pablo Cruz, Love will Find A Way, Foreigner asks the question we all seem to ask 40 years later, I want to Know What Love Is. So, in these words, I don’t think I did a very good job of answering the Foreigner song question either. It’s a mystery, but without it, we are nothing. Check back tomorrow for a continuation of this topic

Tales of Two Men – Part 2

The second man is a man who I will call D. D grew up in a household where he had a loving mother and dad, but dad was controlled by alcohol. This man’s story can be paralleled to the true story and motion pix “I Can Only Imagine” the story of the lead singer in the Christian group “Mercy Me.” We were and are close friends and worked together in music and ministry over the years. Sometimes being persecuted for our unconventional approach to worship and caring for the least of these.

He broke out of his childhood experiences rose above them, forgave the past and self-educated himself into a marvelous musician, a good career in high tech digital systems, and a wonderful Christian family with kids being musicians and excelling at everything they do. However, soon after his marriage, the demons of his father plagued him as well, but his strong wife stood beside him, and he was redeemed, and life moves forward.

He shared with me that he and his wife went to see the movie mentioned above, he needed her to calm himself for that was his story, and it was overwhelming. Maybe sometimes putting people in our lives that will be a part of that redemption can complete the circle in life’s worldly twists and turns.

So, looking back on part one and part two together. We don’t know what happened to M in his search for redemption, but D’s has amid a tumultuous journey a happy ending. Why is this? One man’s struggles reach out, reads his Bible, gets a few breaks, but still, redemption alludes him. Another man goes through somewhat similar experiences and succeeds. The first man is black and the other white, we can stipulate to the economic and prejudicial differences. But I gave M a chance and loved him like a brother. D battled through his life, not particularly gifted by stature economics or even race to a great degree. Why is that? As the Christian song goes, “God Only Knows.” I don’t cloak my outward self in my Christianity. Still, I do know, especially now, that if I couldn’t bridge the human gap between God and me with Jesus in my present state of depression, it would be virtually impossible in my eyes to understand his ways remotely.

So, where am I? That is the question of the day. I’m not nor have not gone through what these two men have endured and am as lost as they were. In many ways, even though now I have a life to look back upon with more hits than misses. I had a wonderful loving mom and dad to raise me and, at last, grown or nearly grown kids, and at last, as well a loyal, devoted wife that takes care of me and for now a roof over my head and daily provision. Why Lord have you blessed me with such rewards for my good deeds and helped me weather the storms of the not so good, only to forsake me and leave me helpless to do a few chores and write drivel? Is this all there is? I guess I’ll just keep reading out of my tattered well-used old Bible and try to make sense of it all.

A Tale of Two Crosses

As I see and hear the constant replay on Fox news, the idiots and manipulated hordes of at first just hooligans, now galvanized by misguided ideology violence; of course, the ever-present evil or duped corporate and other fat cat financiers, that want to rule the world by being the last one standing in the destruction of a godless as well as a timid God worshiping society to faithless to stand up for what is right—preferring to go along with mass manipulation like marionettes dancing by the strings of the more powerful.

When I see the destruction of monuments by lackeys of the manipulators where the lackeys don’t have a clue as to any of the totality of the history that these monuments and statues represent. I shudder as to what is next. The manipulated lackeys would not be nearly as compliant if, in their small brains, they studied history both the good and the bad that makes these things so important. These monuments should not be worshiped as idols nor despised as archetypes of evil, just as milestones of our journey through history. Our society is going headlong into a future, not unlike the vision of the1960’s futuristic film by the genius but slightly warped Stanly Kubrick Clockwork Orange (not a film for the faint-hearted. As an aside this film was rated “X” went it first debuted but now only carries an “R” rating a testament as our march toward acceptable depravity).

I had an idea in mind about 12 years ago when we built a new sanctuary at the church, our family, and a hand full of brave believing souls started in 1963. The congregation first started as a home church then purchased a 3.5-acre piece on the corner of Lake Washington and Croton Roads in Melbourne, Florida. My dad was instrumental in purchasing the property. He had skirmished with the small congregation about buying a piece “out in the middle of nowhere.” Once again, he faced the ridicule and short-sightedness of others, like when he moved his family from Wisconsin to sell sand in Florida. The church as it grew moved from a house to meeting in a nearby fire station. Every Sunday, sometimes we had to wait for the firemen to move the trucks out of the garage so we could set up a makeshift worship place, pull the tarp off of an old piano in the corner behind the fire hoses and have church.

Then the folks raised enough money to buy a build it yourself boxed wood building that the congregation put up themselves, not unlike an old Midwest barn rising with a “picnic on the grounds celebration” and began meeting. The bureaucracy was virtually nonexistent back then, and churches were given some slack.

During the ’70s and ’80s, the congregation grew, but was always under 100 members, and built a more permanent building and turned the old “barn” into classrooms. The old “barn” showed its age, and space was made for Sunday School in the “new” building. Time went along, and with good leadership, we outgrew that building and upgraded the grounds and parking and constructed the sanctuary that sits there today. Sorry to put my readers through this rather tedious history, but I’m getting to the point here soon, I promise.

Shortly after we moved into the new sanctuary, I could see that we were on a now valuable corner in a very developed Melbourne. As I looked at the community and commercializing of the intersections, I feared that future generations would raise this church and sell it off to be the next Walgreens or such. I had a plan. I convinced the congregation to raise a few more Shekels to match me dollar for dollar to construct a commemorative cross between the two buildings, the old as a fellowship hall, and the new a sanctuary. My plan, that was like my dad’s, was somewhat scoffed at was to build a 2’x 2′ roughly 30′ tall solid concrete cross with an 8′ square solid concrete foundation. The cross was formed and poured in the parking lot and hoisted and set with an 80-ton crane with a total weight of over 40-tons. I wanted this to stand forever, and no one will defile this site with a mere 7-11 or a Walgreens. The demolition of this and the outrage of knocking down this symbol of Christ would surely never happen. As of this writing, it still stands, but the crazies may soon attack it and try to bring it to the ground. Good luck with that. You’re going to need a lot more than a few ropes, as used on old Andy Jackson or George Washington. There is a copper lightning rod poured into the concrete running the full length of the cross designed as lightning protection, but I think God might have one of those wrath moments and send a little extra lightening through there and fry these jerks.

As time went on, the pastor from Pineda Presbyterian church (near the Pineda Causeway and Wickham Road in Melbourne wanted to know if I could build one for them. I said, sure! Cover the cost of the concrete and steel, and a couple of guys from work and I will do it. An elderly man in the congregation funded this, to honor his deceased wife. We discreetly installed, as part of the cross her wedding ring. So up went an exact copy of the one at Crossroads Community Church. My name doesn’t appear on either cross and only mentioned on a commemorative marble plaque to the founding members and pastor at the Crossroads one. I jokingly refer to these as my Ebenezer stones (look it up Bible Nerds lol). As I get old and drive-by, these old but timeless mementos of my faith, which wavers daily, the pilot light is still on. So, if you happen by these spots, they are still there, and only Armageddon will bring them down because there will be a new landlord in town.

Keep believing my friends, and if you need a little encouragement, just stop by one of these crosses and behold some things last forever and that is Jesus, but these come pretty darn close.

Palm Sunday

On this Palm Sunday, I am writing a small message to all. I am also attaching a picture from a wonderful time I had with my youngest son and a co-worker.

We were building a 1/2 mile road in the mountains of north Georgia to a property we had. Before the stroke and recent virus, which is killing small business like ours faster than the disease itself. Since we build roads in Florida, this was interesting being in the hills with different construction methods, especially since we used no engineering just some rented equipment, a tape measure, and a $19 permit from the Union County public works dept. An old guy, 15-year-old kid, and a devoted employee cracked this ½ mile road in 5 days built to Georgia specs with one 15 minute drive-by inspection. Take that Army Corp of Engineers! Lol. I guess now, if I wasn’t old and stroke debilitated, we’d be building sites for emergency hospitals instead of being sequestered in our home in Florida. Those were the days my friend I lament the end of them. Anyway, here’s my little message.

Whether or not you are a “believer,” a struggling seeker, or a non-believer, maybe this will be of use to you, especially if you are a member of the depressed minions or rather a new veteran such as me.

Historical Jesus is an indisputable fact of history, but what is unique to those with faith is that He didn’t just die on the Cross but overcame it. His human side suffered pain so horrendous and the heartbreaking ridicule, that exceeds anything we can imagine, he still could love us humans so much that he gave his life. Jesus knew a better place awaited him, going boldly into Jerusalem to face the trials awaiting him. He asked God that if He could arrange to have him escape this trial, I despair, please do so but if it is your will, I will go on and voluntarily do your will and die a painful and beaten death so that all the rest of humanity can follow me into my home with you. Jesus wasn’t a martyr but was on a mission. He submitted to the task going into Jerusalem, knowing it was the end, but his human side probably didn’t comprehend the horrors that await him. Probably nervous and distraught just like we feel when we think it’s all closing in on us. He went anyway. We can have the same courage if we just believe in Him the way He believed that Abba (daddy) would bring him home when all man’s cruelty played out and ultimately was futile.

This virus may kill some of us, and the economy will probably kill more, and the trials we face will be severe. But if you can at least muster some hope remember that through our distress and yes whining no one in history had a bad day like Jesus did and he suffered and came through it even if it meant his earthly life which he put up to show us the way. We whine when we have to put up collateral or personal guarantees for loans or purchases. He laid down His life to purchase something that lasts for eternity with no recourse, just belief. Christians believe that he was God in human form. What is amazing to me is that God let it happen, and his own human free will chose to do this because it was God’s will, and he cried just like we do when faced with what he was going to go through on Friday. If you believe in God or the science allowance for a “Supreme Being,” this creator loves us and wants us who he created marvelously with free will to come back to him and love us more. He suffered on that Cross to show us that Satan will be overcome and that just ahead after we live out a life of flawed but the goodness of the heart life, it gets a whole lot better JUST BELIEVE!

Being gripped with depression doesn’t mean I don’t believe. But it teaches me what it must have been like in that lonely garden in Gethsemane. All his human friends went to sleep while he wept and wanted some human comfort. We are no different, my distressed friends, but he asked for his disciples to stay and watch with him. We ask and try to rely on our friends and family to be there and understand, but they can’t. They’re just human and limited.

Jesus is always there even though we think many times he’s not or even exists at all. But he is all I have had as I have stated in my previous posts, that He has pushed the devil away from me. All I had to do was cry out in his name. The filthy coward (Satan) retreated just like the terrorists do when we righteously stand up to them and defeat them one episode at a time. How can you not love someone who gives his life for you and just asks us to believe in him? Such a simple task, yet so hard for anyone who doesn’t have their way. Shunned for your good deeds or feels discouraged or depressed. One of my ex-wives and a recent follower of this blog has gone through the horrendous ordeal of rape. The scars last forever, but remember, Jesus’s scars remained as well, and He overcame just believe in him. What he did, and a level of mental healing will change you and allow you to forgive just like Jesus did on the Cross. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

How can we not forgive and pick up our lives and follow him? As he said, “there will trouble in this world, but if you let me inside, nothing in this world is greater than you and I together (paraphrasing from John 16:33). If you have been taught to be self-reliant, like I have growing up in the Midwest, notwithstanding that noble and God-inspired way of living, you can’t do it alone. You need divine help so, put your pride aside and ask. That’s called prayer for those who aren’t used to doing that. We Christians are often criticized and ridiculed by secularists, and other “religions for saying Jesus is THE WAY” It sounds exclusive but not so. It is the door, and though narrow it’s open to All, and if you spend all your time searching for nirvana, trying to scale the walls or building your own tower of Babel, your wasting a lot of earth time taking the long way to God’s home. It’s the quickest way “home,” but we have to head straight for the door and maybe quit thrashing around in that cornfield from my earlier posts. God loves you all. Be on the lookout for Jesus; He’s a lot closer than you think.