Daily Verse

Getting Ready

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Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2 NIV

Eighty-one years ago, no one was ready for change, least of all, eleven-year-old Diane. That Sunday morning, she was just slowly waking up. She snuggled down under the blankets quietly thinking of how wonderful it was that her father’s job with the Navy had moved them all the way from Connecticut to Hawaii. The temperature the day before had been in the upper 70’s, and compared to snowy New England, that felt like heaven! Just then she heard the sound of a plane flying strangely low over their house, and she sat up and looking out the window caught a glimpse of a plane as it turned towards the harbor and noticed a bright red circle painted on its wings. Next the phone began ringing, and she heard the door to her parent’s room creak open and her dad’s footsteps padding into the kitchen to answer. Diane slipped out of bed and tip-toed to her doorway, just in time to see daddy running back into the bedroom and hear her mom yelling for her and her older brother Don to wake up. Then from the direction of the harbor, came the sound of explosions, such as she had never heard before. Suddenly everything she knew was turned upside down. My grandfather, who was the captain of one of the destroyers which were not damaged, went out to sea and my grandmother with mom and her two brothers moved back to Connecticut and the world was changed forever!

Photo by John Wolf on Pexels.com

On this first week of 2023 we are no more ready for what lies ahead than Diane (who was my mom) and her family were on December 7th, 1941. Not even the United States Navy knew that 360 Japanese planes were coming to attack our fleet as it sat at anchor that morning. We can never know what challenges, disasters, or difficulties await us this year. What we can do is pray. Prayer means more than simply sitting up in bed to look out the window. Prayer man’s the anti-aircraft guns at the entrance to the harbor of our souls. Prayer means, watching God’s spiritual radar for enemy infiltrations of our airspace and helping our loved ones to a place of safety when we are under attack. Prayer means staying spiritually awake, but not fearfully huddled in a corner, flinching at every sound. We must devote ourselves to prayer in the same way the U. S. Navy did when it repaired its ships, recruited and trained thousands of seamen and went on to win the war. With God in charge at our spiritual Naval headquarters, we can trust that He knows the plans He has for us, and we can be thankful that He will be with us through the dangers and lead us to victory no matter what lies ahead!

My New Year’s Message

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The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. And he thrust out the enemy before you and said, ‘Destroy.’ Deuteronomy 33:27 ESV

17 years ago we used to bring two of our grandsons to church. At three and one years old this was a challenge during the song service, while I was alone with them and Nancy sang with the worship team. Nathan, who was the older, was generally happy to sit and clap his hands – but not AJ. Oh no, he wanted in on the action and decided that I had to hold him so he could see what was going on! Now, I loved holding him in my arms for the first song, but by the chorus of the second, he started getting heavy and by the third I was desperate for some help. Today’s verse talks about God’s everlasting arms and I discovered that mine most definitely were not!

As we enter this new year, with all of its challenges, opportunities and scary unknowns, we need the One whose arms alone can carry us through. If we will trust Christ as Savior, then whatever we face we can know that God’s got us in His arms. They are underneath us even when we are at our lowest and He will never let us go!

Family Update

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Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Deuteronomy 11:18-19 NIV

God sometimes has a way of working that seems strange to me, and none stranger than the weather during our trip to Texas to be with family over the Christmas holidays. All their plans to show us the sights, were frozen in place by temps that plummeted to 10 degrees on the second day. Of course, for those of you up in Buffalo, that might seem pretty tame, but compared to our Florida weather it felt like Siberia! So, rather than seeing a cattle drive, the lake or a park, we huddled indoors with our grandchildren, and what a blessing those ten days turned out to be. There is no scenery in Texas or anywhere else that compares to their smiles!

Though we did make it out to eat twice, the most precious moments were starting a Bible study program with our special needs grandson, Christmas caroling briefly with them at a neighbor’s house and tickling our youngest bouncy grandson while we watched George of the Jungle! Yes, we slept in bunk beds and had to wait for the bathroom to open up on occasion, but now that I sit far away in our comfortable home, I already miss them! The flights were way overpriced, but the time was priceless. We can always make a few more dollars but we can never replace time that has rushed like the water over Niagara Falls and now is gone forever. Today, in my seventh decade of life, I have no regrets over the financial success I didn’t attain, only over missed opportunities to hug my children, wipe away their tears when they fell down or walk with them once more to the park. But I am thankful for the times when I listened to my wife, put down the newspaper, and went out to shoot hoops with our boys before they were gone. I hope you enjoy a few of the photos of our stay. Have a blessed day everyone!