When I was a boy it seemed that the adult men that I was around spoke in secret code that I couldn’t fully understand. It was like I was listening to someone speak in a foreign language. I understood only bits and pieces here and there. Mostly I was left with a with a large […]
Justifiable Thigh-Pinching
Sunday morning early on Mother’s day I called my mother to thank her for all that she did to raise me. I promise you raising me was a significant task. I thanked her sincerely for all she did. I listed a number of those things. There was a long pause then she asked; “So you […]
When I say, “I Forgive You.”
What does it mean to forgive someone? Here are three among many other things it means when I say “I forgive you.” – I will not bring up that in my mind and dwell on it. – I will not bring up that sin to you again. – I will not bring up that sin […]
An Ordinary Trip-An Extraordinary Memory
Our sixth and seventh-born children are Daniel Wesley and Wesley Josiah. The were born in Knox County, Ohio. Daniel at home in our farm house out on Rutledge Road and Wesley on in our home on Apple Valley Drive a few miles away. Daniel and Wes spent four of the most significant years of their […]
A Warm Gesture
In 1994 we leased a big farm house in west Knox County, Ohio near our church. It was a huge 4500 square foot drafty barn of a house which was heated with fuel oil. We loved the space, the great hardwood floors, the big windows looking out on the fields and all the room for […]
The Yellow Envelope
In my desk drawer for years in a file marked “Children’s Birth Certificates” is a yellow business-sized envelope. The envelope held a stack of eight cards little blue cards—the children’s social security cards. The stack has been getting thinner year by year and the children enter the workforce and they begin to manage more and […]