53 years

 

 Well my dear ones,

 

 

You may think this is the dumbest thing

you’ve ever heard, and that’s OK,

but each day,

if I leave before my wife wakes up,

I always leave her a note,

and it always ends the same way:

“I love you!

 Have a great day!”

 

That way, should anything ever happen to me,

the last thing I’ll have every said

is that I love her

and wished her the hope of a great day.

 

*shrugs*

 

I think everyone wants to be loved,

and everyone needs a little hope.

 

I doubt I’m the only one who thinks that;

although I never met the man,

I do believe that Robert Lee Miles Sr.

would agree with me.

 

A friend of mine found an obituary,

(actually called a Homecoming Celebration

 ...I kind of like that =>),

for Mr. Miles that was left in a rental car.

 

To my way of thinking,

it was left there for a reason.

And reading it now, there are three really

cool things that stand out about the man:

1) Robert came to know the Lord at an early age

2) His passion was singing praises for the Lord

and

3) "his wife, Inez J. Jones Miles of 53years"

 

So, he got hooked up with Jesus at a young age,

he loved to sing to God

(apparently "The Lord Will Provide" and

"Tangled Up in Jesus" were his favorite hymns),

and he managed to stay married for 53 years!

 

He also lived to be 99 years old,

which is impressive,

yet plenty of people have done that;

the being married for 53 years

is the part that impresses me,

as not many people can do that.

 

I’m going to send this blog link

to his church

(Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church

 in Hyde Park in Memphis, Tennessee);

if any of his family or friends read this

and know a thing or two about

Robert’s and his wife’s secrets to

such a long-standing marriage,

please do enlighten us (& thank you!).

 

Meanwhile, if I had to guess,

I would guess that not a day went by

where his wife had to wonder

whether or not he loved her;

I’m sure he told her all the time.

 

Robert, I’m sure you’re in a better place,

reunited with your beloved Inez;

yet in a world where things seem fleeting,

and commitment seems hard to come by,

thank you, for showing us

an example of enduring love.

 

 

Have a great week. =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave

 

Resurrection (or “Leo, Beck, Buck, and The Man”)

 

Well my dear ones,

 

 

I think I’ll start this story at the end,

and then work backwards,

which will hopefully make some sense

when we get back to the beginning.

 

A few days ago, I was walking across the parking

lot of our local home improvement center

when I saw a young man running back and forth

helping people load and secure their purchases.

 

Thing is, their twine roll had a broken cutter,

so each time he needed to cut some cord

to secure some lumber, he had to get another

employee to cut it for him.

 

The young man, Beck, as he later told me,

disappeared somewhere in the store,

yet on my way out I saw him and called him over.

 

I told him I liked his style,

as I could see that he went out of his way

to help people, even more than his job required.

I said that I knew he couldn’t accept tips,

but God had put it on me to give him a gift.

Then I handed him the Buck knife I was wearing,

and told him, “This was a gift to me, and now

it’s a gift to you; use it to help others.”

 

Fortunately, I had a warranty card in my wallet

so I was able to give him a copy of the

Forever Warranty...

 

(which I had previously blogged about here:

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2014/04/forever-warranty.html )

 

...to go along with his new-to-him hardware.

 

 

Beck was touched, and wished me a blessed day.

As I walked away, I thought about how Jesus

had a great point: it really is more blessed

to give than to receive (and it’s fun, too!).

 

 

And that got me to thinking about

the Resurrection, which called to mind

another type of resurrection,

that of the saddest looking piece

I’ve ever come across.

 

I bought this thing on eBay,

thinking it didn’t look too bad;

but in real life,

I could see that the internet pic

didn’t come close to reflecting

just how awful this thing was:

 

 

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2014/10/buck-model-501-before.html

 

 

That’s pretty much the sorriest knife

I ever bought in my life.

What I thought was just a broken tip

turned out to be a knife

with lots of vertical play,

even more side-to-side play,

a non-locking lock,

and scales (side panels) that pretty much

looked like really course sand paper.

In short, it was a real piece of junk.

 

I put in a call to Customer Service at

Buck Knives, and talked to Chad;

I told him my tale of woe,

and asked if this thing could be repaired,

since, in its current state, it was useless.

 

The one thing I asked was that,

rather than replace it,

I would prefer to see this thing restored

using as much original parts as possible.

 

A month after shipping it out,

this is what I got back:

 

 

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2014/10/buck-model-501-after-pic1.html

 

 

http://theeverencouragingword.blogspot.com/2014/10/buck-model-501-after-pic2.html

 

 

 

Amazingly, these are all the original parts!

The bolsters (ends) shine like mirrors,

the scales are gorgeous,

and the re-pointed blade is sharp as a razor.

 

*shrugs*

 

Well, for a company that looks to God

(which is rare in this day and age),

and prints John 3:16

on the back of their warranty,

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised

that they didn’t just repair my knife,

they resurrected it!  =D

 

They made something perfect

out of something beyond flawed.

 

They took the broken,

and made it into the beautiful.

 

That really resonates with me,

because it reminds me that,

no matter what we’ve done wrong,

God can do an extreme make-over on us,

can restore us,

no matter how bad off we think we are.

 

Fortunately, this knife arrived just in time

for the coming-of-age ceremony

that my friend was having for his son, Leo.

 

Hence, the Resurrection knife

(as I like to call it)

got passed on to Leo

in order to help remind him that

as he grows into manhood,

no matter what line of work he chooses,

and even if he winds up a company

that doesn’t set the bar as high as Buck Knives,

there is no reason why he, personally,

cannot choose to set a high biblical standard

like Mr. Chuck Buck,

and stand up for God in his work life

as much as in his personal life.

 

For the one who does that,

God has many blessings in store.

 

As ‘The Man’ said,

 

"I have come that they may have life,

and that they may have it more abundantly."

 

                              --- Jesus

 

 

 

As for me, just to have the Resurrection knife

pass through my hands was a blessing.

It was a reminder that the Resurrection

is the Centerpoint of human history,

the time when the Author of the universe

set aside the law of death,

and brought forth life,

showed us a precursor of how things might be,

by showering us with hope.

 

No matter what has happened to us,

or what we may have suffered through,

we are never more than

one touch of the Master’s hand away

from living the abundant life

of which Jesus spoke.

 

May God bless you with it!

 

 

Have a great week. =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave

 

Buck model 501 after, pic2

Buck model 501 after, pic1

Buck model 501 before