This is a re-post of a blog I did around my birthday last year, I wanted to move it from yahoo 360 and share it here with ‘yall…
Yesterday was NOT a good day for a lot of folks, I saw the former CEO of AIG say that he’d lost about three billion dollars…A lot of people are having to accept the idea that perhaps they’ll be working past the time they had planned on retiring. We’re all concerned with the current state of the economy, it can get to you if you let it! Yesterday was my birthday, because my mother sent me a check for forty bucks I had the money to put gas in my car, go to West Plains and buy some groceries at Aldi with my food stamps,come home and eat lunch, and then later go to church. I’ve been having an alternator problem with my car lately. Last night after church it was dark and I had to turn on the lights. A few miles outta town it died on me and I was able to limp it into a turn off beside the road. We (my wife, daughter and I) got out of the car and my wife reached into the backseat to grab the ice cream we had bought in town to go with the cake she had made. I questioned her about that, not wishing for her to carry this melting sack for who knows how long it might take for us to somehow eventually get home, she persisted. We took off walking, it was a beautiful nearly full moon lit night but it was still quite dark. Within five minutes a pickup truck drove by us, stopped…came back and asked if we needed a ride (two women) We all loaded into the truck, girls up front and me in the back. These “Good Samaritans” took us all the way to my house which is located two and a half miles off the paved road down some of the worst roads in Oregon county…I’ve never been so thankful to anybody! Driving through the blackberry thickets,the lady driving mentioned how much she liked blackberries so when they dropped us off my wife gave her a couple of quarts out of our freezer we had picked last summer. After a few minutes of letting my nerves settle we had my birthday party…the ice cream was still frozen! Then my daughter gave me my present she had made, here are some pictures of the book she made for me…
this is the cover…
We love you when you’re sad, (notice she has colored me blue) that’s me sitting in my chair.
This is me when I’m mad!
you guessed it! me when I’m happy…about getting a job!
We love you because you’re YOU!…yup, I trained this one!
It’s quite a wonderful thing in these times of upheaval and stress and so much hardship to be able to appreciate how truly blessed I am. I’m so thankful to God that He loves me, a broken sinner! and that He not only has my present circumstances under control but my future figured out too! I’m so thankful that he gave me my family my friends and for the love they show me. and lastly, but NOT leastly, for the kindness of strangers!
Seeking The Kingdom 
2 replies on “We love you…because you’re YOU!”
You touch me so deeply with your faith and the fantastic job you’ve done with your girls…you’re a wonderful son, true, there have been lots of hard feelings and times that we both have survived and love each other dearly, I read this on FB it was a saying something like this….don’t spend any time on the people that have let you down, but be thankful for the people that have lifted you up….I am soooooooooo thankful for both you and Doug…I have been blessed beyond measure….I don’t know if you remember me telling you that when you were 16 and I didn’t feel I could help you or make you hear me I prayed one night one of those prayers that you just know He heard you….I ask God to be your father because I just couldn’t seem to reach you…it may have taken some time but I believe He did hear and answer that prayer for you when I hear and see who you are and have been for quite some time…I love you with all of my heart and will forever be here for you….love always, mom
Love the pictures, Isn’t it great you haven’t lost 3 billion dollars? You’d feel such a fool, but all these CEOs and big wigs can rationalise it and make it sound acceptable!