Senior year. I remember wearing my letter jacket practically year-round that year as I wanted everyone to know I was on the basketball team. Friday night football games, followed by a school dance. Basketball games followed by gathering with friends at Pizza Hut. Late night meetups at the local college tennis courts to hang Read More…
Why Does She Do It?
She spent hours seemingly every day in endless doctor’s office waiting rooms. After she drives him home, she will prepare his food, do his laundry, set out his medicines,and clean up his tiny apartment. Later from her own home, she will work the phones with social service agencies, home care, and nursing services to Read More…
From Good Riddance to Goodness
“What I ought to do is take a flame thrower to this place!” I saw an article the other day where the author essentially asked of the reader, “Have you ever wanted to just rip a year down off the wall and burn it?” This past year had been very unkind to the writer Read More…
Renewing Our Vows
This morning Becky and I are renewing our vows. We’ve been pointing to this day for some time now. What should we wear? What will we say? I still remember the day we stood in the church and made a covenant before God. “For better or worse, in sickness and health, till death do Read More…
Superman Turns Eighteen
I was the first person to ever see you when you entered our world. I still remember holding you in my arms for the first time and whispering, “I’m your dad, I’m here to take care of you.” It’s now been eighteen years since I uttered those words to you. We were supposed to Read More…
I Never Dreamed
This week one of my good friends accompanied his eighteen-year-old son off to join the Marines. Another friend sent his eighteen-year-old child off to college. My son turns eighteen this month. Last night he peed in the bathtub. The gap between our life and the life of a typical family is sometimes so Read More…
I’ll Never Let Go
I remember holding him in my arms for the first time just minutes after cutting his cord in the delivery room. I would place his sleeping form on my chest, his head gently laying across my shoulder, as we sat in my chair at night. I would rest contentedly when, as an infant, he Read More…
I Know What Matters
He coached my Little League baseball team. He taught me how to drive. He coached my high school basketball team. He drove me off to my dorm for my freshman year of college. When I got married, he was my best man in my wedding. When my son was born, he was waiting Read More…
We Had Fireworks After All
We didn’t shoot off any fireworks on the Fourth of July. We didn’t even watch others shoot them off. Nor did we attend our city’s big fireworks show either. My special-need son is in bed by 8:30 at night and it’s barely dark. No time at the pool or lake. No backyard games and Read More…
“Don’t Let Satan Steal Your Joy”
We turned in an instant and looked at each other, knowing in that very moment what we were supposed to do. Our pastor had just announced that our local crisis pregnancy center was in desperate need of baby beds. He asked if anyone in the audience had baby cribs that they would be willing Read More…