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I was strong during her rapid physical decline. I was strong during her painful suffering and death. I was strong at her funeral and at the graveside. But today the tears came. They came in simple, trivial ways. Shutting off her cell phone. Cancelling reservations in Branson. Closing a department store account. Returning books received but [...] By many miracles, God delivered Israel out of Egypt and across the Red Sea. Immediately thereafter, they were three days in the wilderness without water. When they did find at Marah the water they had desperately sought, it was bitter (Exodus 15:22-25). How would they respond to this disappointment? Not understanding this test from God, they [...] “I’d like to live my life over again,” some assert, “if I could just know what I know now.” Not me! Nevertheless, I’ve purposely relived a few brief hours this past week through a number of old video tapes I’m trying to convert to more durable DVD. We loved our Jenny intensely in life, but the films [...] When we first met the Brown family in 1982, a problem immediately surfaced: what to call Mr. Brown. His wife, Judy, referred to him as "Bill," but their mailbox said "Foy." My wife soon resolved the dilemma by dubbing him "Mr. Bill Foy," a term of endearment that even his recent death hasn't erased. Some knew [...] Regular readers know our daughter Jenny, who died unexpectedly in October 1995. So in honor of Father’s Day, I share this brief essay about her that I prepared for a writing contest. And to that I add a few journal snippets from Father’s Days past. War’s gruesome visage snarls from flickering screens with bone-chilling horror. And with each explosion, every flash, the cost of freedom visibly manifests itself through death and destruction–right before our eyes. Not many years ago I stood in poignant reflection as a mother decorated the grave of her son killed in battle at age 18. The ever-youthful [...] The threads of our lives intertwine in surprising ways. And if we begin to gently unravel them, we may discover how they tangle in common experience. Consider this letter my wife recently wrote to her niece. The hand on my shoulder gently shook away the deep sleep. "Get up," my dad whispered. "I hear it again." For several nights a peculiar sound had awakened him, not by its loudness, for it wasn't. But it belonged elsewhere, to the war perhaps, where sporadic, high-pitched tones reminiscent of Morse code might not have seemed [...] For those not planning on dying soon, "how to die in peace" may seem a peculiar topic. But we die in peace the same way we would live in peace–and that should interest us all. I don't have the original source for the points enumerated here, but they came from studies of people who were near [...] When our son was young, he asked a simple question about his sister. "Daddy," he said, "did God know before Jenny was born that she would be retarded?" "Yes, Son. God knew that." "Well, if He knew, then why did He let her be born?" And while I struggled to give an answer that satisfied a [...] |
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Copyright 2012 James McAlister - All Rights Reserved |
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