A Tribute to One of My Heroes

Saturday evening, one of my heroes passed away. SSgt. Everette Stanley McDonald, USMC, Ret., was the uncle of my beautiful wife. He was a Marine, a fire fighter, and a police officer. He was a Vietnam veteran, a drill instructor, and a leader of men. He was also simply, “Uncle Stanley.” The first time I [...]

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What’s your theme music?

It was in the movie I’m Gonna Git You Sucka that I first heard a quote about every hero needing theme music. Given that the movie was a parody, it mocked the fact that previous movies would do just that. However, a lot of us have a song or two that gets us going. For [...]

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A Simple and Easy to Remember Prayer

There are various versions of Saint Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer out there. It’s a rather lengthy one to remember if one chooses to memorize it. However, contained within is a fairly short stanza that is this: Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me, Christ beside me, Christ to win me, [...]

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Make the Most of Every Moment

Perusing Facebook this morning I was reading about things like the following: Co-worker passed away after fighting severe burns, leaving small children behind. Grandfather diagnosed with lymphoma and has begun chemotherapy. Little daughter diagnosed again with a tumor. It is a reminder of something Gretchen Rubin (blog | twitter) says, “The days are long but the [...]

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“It’s okay.”

A while ago I read a productivity blog post where the author basically adopted the attitude of “It’s okay,” for things that would get most people worked up. Things like: Waiting forever at the doctor’s office. The server bringing the wrong food at the restaurant. A flight being canceled or delayed. Actually, for him, just [...]

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“Better than I deserve.”

If you’re a Christian, you have bad days like everyone else. There are days when nothing seems to go right or when the unthinkable happens. I’ve been there. And I’ll be the first one to admit it is easy to lose focus and perspective. But C. J. Mahaney kept it in perspective in his book, [...]

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How is your walk, in $2 or less?

Today for our youth discipleship time (we do this once a month), our associate and senior high pastor (and over the children/youth overall), Larry Fraser, came up with an interesting challenge for youth and adults alike: go into Dollar General and pick out something costing $2 or less which represents your walk with Jesus Christ [...]

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Bible in about a Year: Together

The benefits of reading aloud to children are well discussed and there are scientific studies to back up this practice with smaller children. There are even some who tout anecdotal evidence for reading aloud with teens. And let’s face it, reading through the Bible is usually touted as a good goal for any Christian. When [...]

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Review: For This I Was Born

Every person, whether they believe in God or not, has a purpose on this earth. That’s the message of  For This I Was Born. It’s a book written by the senior pastor of Hillsong Church, Brian Houston, and its purpose is to encourage believers in Jesus Christ that they’ve been created for a purpose. Life [...]

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Review: The Road to Unafraid

About a year ago I got interested in studying what happened in Mogadishu back in 1993 and leading up to it. One name that came up repeated was Jeff Struecker. That name stuck with me and when I was doing some more research recently, I saw that he had become a U.S. Army chaplain and [...]

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