Last night Donya asked if I remembered what I gave her on that first Valentine’s Day we spent together. I did, sort of. I remembered I gave her a blouse or a dress or some such. (I am sure the mountainous, volatile, protective Tommy Weir was thrilled that the big-eared kid with the silk shirts…
Dreamers Take it to the Limit (one more time)
“You know, I’ve always been a dreamer…” These lyrics have forever resonated with my soul. I have dreamed more than I have done and I have done more than I dared dream…and still, I dream of more. While others my age and in my station in life are setting the cruise control and coasting into…
The sun shines…even when it doesn’t
Some trips are for business; others are for pleasure. This was neither. Having just come off a lengthy business trip that also included times of fun and relaxation, my wife and I landed at DFW early Thursday morning, only to leave Friday afternoon on a trip both of us wished was not necessary. We learned…
Thoughts on the New Year (and the old): Seven ways to say goodbye to 2017 and welcome 2018
Some are saying goodbye to 2017. Others are saying good riddance. In our little corner of Creation, 2017 has been a tough year. Early on, our daughter fought for her very life, battling an infection that refused to yield to treatment after treatment. She spent a month in the hospital. Dear, sweet friends lost their…
Christmas is a Promise Kept
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. ~Isaiah 9:6 Perhaps there is a more profound Christmas bible verse, but I cannot think of…
God for Dummies – Can you believe if you don’t understand? | Morning Manna
[Copied and edited from my Morning Manna daily email devotional, 2000 – 2005] GOD FOR DUMMIES Can you believe if you don’t understand? Friday, November 3, 2000 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isa. 55:9 (KJV) I don’t…
Out on a Limb – A Devotional | Morning Manna
OUT ON A LIMB WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2000 Jesus was going through the city of Jericho. A man was there named Zacchaeus, who was a very important tax collector, and he was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because he was too short to see above the crowd….
Five-Legged Dogs – A Devotional | Morning Manna
The following was originally written as part of a daily email devotional, which I wrote from 2000 – 2005. FIVE-LEGGED DOGS Friday, October 31, 2003 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall…
BLESSED REJECTION – A DEVOTIONAL | MORNING MANNA
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2004 BLESSED REJECTION “Blessed are you when they revile you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.” Matt. 5:11,12(NKJV) Rejection. Nobody likes…
A twist to the tale – or – the Journey, continued
I have come to embrace, appreciate, and even love the thing I once hated most about my personal journey. Uncertainty. It is an uncomfortable word and a difficult way to live. It is easy to look at the well-ordered, seeming predictable path others travel with envy. Those people who seem to know exactly who they…
The gospel according to Hank …and Holly
I grew up with a Bible in my hand and big chunks of it systematically planted in my heart and mind. For that, I am grateful. Every sermon I ever heard about the poor, wandering, lost sinner sounded eerily like this: I’m a rollin’ stone all alone and lost For a life of sin, I…
The Darndest Things – or – the wisdom of the child
“Kids say the darndest things.” You know it. I know it. We love it. Back when he was one of America’s most beloved and cherished comics, Bill Cosby demonstrated this fact in a TV series by that name (it ran 1998 – 2000). Art Linkletter ran the original “Kids Say the Darndest Things” as a…
Where does the time go? ~Putting the Past and the Future into Perspective
“Where does the time go?” An old friend and I were reminiscing not long ago, talking about old times the places we had been and the things we had done together in days long gone. His was a rhetorical question – one that I have asked and heard others ask innumerable times. It is a…
The 60-Year Wedding Anniversary: A Milestone for the Mighty in Love
Tommy and Mary Weir, my in-laws(for 37 years and counting), are celebrating 60 years of marriage this very day. SIXTY! YEARS. This is a milestone not many of us will pass.You gotta get it right if you wanna get it done. To make it 60, you have to marry fairly young and really well and…
Dear Mom, Thanks for the benefit of the doubt
I woke up this morning thinking about my mother…Mom, I call her. I think it was the residual thoughts of a dream I dreamt, but it slipped into the recesses of subconscious and disappeared in the fog of fading memory. I can no longer confirm that I dreamed of her or dreamed at all. At…
A Father’s Day Remembrance: Little Granddad – the dad who almost wasn’t
I have honored the dads in my life just about every year around Father’s Day. My own father, William David Strother, died at age 51, when I was 30 and left a million memories of my childhood and a million more what-ifs behind. My wife’s father, Thomas Henry Weir, now 80 and still spry, still…
A word about truth, perception, and perspective
Truth, perception, and perspective this may be a subject too large to tackle here. Let’s attempt it anyways. I am settling back into the routine of my life following an eventful week that started with the funeral of a 21-year-young lady thedaughter and sister of dear friends taken suddenly and without warning in a tragic…
On the loss of Snowflakes (my complaint against the Right)
One of the Right’s worst moves in recent memory has been to co-opt a perfectly wonderful word – and beautiful feature of Nature – and wield it as a pejorative term. Look, I don’t care for the over-sensitive, safe-space seeking, racial strife-stirring, victims†of everything they don’t like and everyone they disagree with Millennials with…
18…Again – A note to my firstborn on the 18th anniversary of her 18th birthday
A few days ago, my ever-so-curious and talented son-in-law Edward Frys discovered a long-forgotten and deeply buried treasure of floppy disks bearing assorted thing I had written and saved over the years. I had not seen them or anything on them in 15 years or so. Among the digital cobwebs on these vintage computer disks…
Prayer: To Whom are you talking? – a Devotional | Morning Manna
Originally published inMorning Manna THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2000 Prayer: To Whom are you talking? “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have…