Devotion for Dog Lovers - 2009

PSALM 136:25
...And who gives food to every creature. His love endures forever.

We learn many lessons from our pets. A wise man once observed how pleased he would be to be just half the man his dog thinks he is. Sometimes our dogs represent the different stages of our lives.

As puppies they bound across our laps and into our heart, with their clumsiness, perfect trust and adoring eyes. How like us as we seek to embrace all life has to offer, as youngsters, unafraid and trusting.

When the adult begins to emerge, they settle down and focus on their place within the family, sometimes becoming protective, territorial and happiest when it’s just the family. Doesn’t that remind one of our struggle to balance trust with caution and desire with patience?

As our puppy fully enters those grown middle years, they so often develop habits and distinct personalities that reflect the family, their place in the family hierarchy and how they view themselves. Don’t we? As we mature, don’t we often forsake the things of our passionate youth and replace them with the things that we “settle” for, short of our lofty goals and dreams.

At the end stage, the dog finds comfort close to the fireplace, at the hearth of his life and in his family. Days stretch out as he reflects on the stages of his life that brought him to this place. We do, too. As our age catches us, after a life of running from its iron grip, we surrender our youth and adventurous spirit, for a time of calm reflection. It is there we find our hearts returning to the One who provided for us, all the days of our lives and who waits for us near the gates of our eternity.

Peace be the Journey in 2009....

Tearing Off Another Page

2009.

Each time a new year begins and we tear a page off the calendar. What does your page say?

How did 2008 change you?

How did you change the world around you?

What did you leave in the year 2008 that made it a better place?

Did you share Christ in 2008?

Did you show Christ to a world dying for the lack of His Word?

Have you taken Christmas with you each day since December 25th?

Does anyone know that you believe?

In the new year, may God touch you and make you new.

Peace be the Journey...

December 26, 2008 years after the Birth of Jesus...

The day after...

How often we fail to consider the days after the coming of Christ. Mary must have been in such discomfort. After giving birth, at fourteen years old, without her mother, sisters or another woman to help her through it, the child mother of Christ did what she had to do to help sustain the Savior for us all.

The newborn child had all the needs of a newborn and His mother, Mary just a child herself, had all the responsibility for him and Joseph, first time father had no handbook on baby care or how to help his new wife with her first born son.

A new Savior for the world, came with no attendants, no handmaidens, no guards and no servants. This Child of the Living God was born in poverty we can't conceive. He was denied even His home and His mother's bed, sent to be born in a cave, by a capricious, greed driven Governor.

Christ came to and for the least and was born in poverty, just as He would die in the worst possible conditions, thirty-three years later, for our redemption.

Celebrate ALL the days of Christmas this year and keep it in your heart all the days of your life...

Peace be the Journey

Sunday December 21, 2008 - The Lord's Day

We call this Christmas Sunday as it is the Sunday closest to Christmas. Many Churches all over the country have their Christmas Pageants today. We're attending one over in Orlando, later.

The magic of Christmas has nothing to do with trees, lights and presents. It is about Love. God's Love that brought the world to a place where we stop and remember His divine mission and how it changed eternity for all who drink His Water of Life.

When you see the sparkle of joy in a child's eyes this Christmas, stop an consider who put the joy in that little face. Give God a moment of your time, a second thought and a deeper look, this Christmas.

Take the walk of faith and see where it leads you.

He is waiting...

Hello Everyone!

Here's a sample of,
"If I Were the Last Man Alive."

Prologue

It was nearly two hundred and fifty thousand years before the birth of Christ. If a calendar were kept in space, it would have been marked with red circle to commemorate the momentous event taking place. The explosion of radiation that accompanied the quasar began its long trek across the empty universe, expanding and strengthening as radioactive material burned.
As the behemoth raged through galaxies, it vaporized all solid matter in its wake. Space metals, unknown on Earth for millennia to come, disappeared in the blink of an eye as the massive wave brightened and grew hotter. At its core, it burned hotter than a hundred suns. The solar, radioactive wave traveled nearly the speed of light, bending the rules of time and distance as it ate its way across space.
A time would come when this star-eating mass would reach its zenith and begin to ebb. During the reign of Nero, the energy field began to draw into itself, curling at the edges as it fought against the gravitational field that accompanied it. By the time an Italian named Columbus crossed the Atlantic, the massive wave neared its end, contracting into a mass roughly twice the size of Jupiter. It would devolve into a simple energy field that affected relatively few forms of matter. Metals and most solids were unaffected. But softer carbon life forms still suffered from its monstrous solar radiation.
When it missed Jupiter, the dying force had shrunken to just slightly larger than Earth, still undetectable with conventional telescopes or satellites.
On the day it became visible to scientists on Earth, it was much too late.

If I Were the Last Man Alive

Interested in purchasing your own, autographed copy of "If I Were the Last Man Alive?"
Visit our order page at: www.BlessingsRemembered.com
and follow the prompts. Your autographed book will be on it's way to you immediately.

First Things First

It is Thursday...

...Exactly one week before Christmas, 2008 years after the Birth of Christ...

Welcome to My Blog:
Peace be the Journey...

Since this is "First Things First," it is appropriate for me to give you a little history of my current project. If I Were the Last Man Alive, is the result of a chance conversation with my wife, Norita. She has belonged to a ladies Christian book club for a number of years and one night as we settled down she turned to me and said, "I've just finished this book. It was good but you could write one just as good, if not better. Why don't you write one for me?"

I don't like to deny my bride anything she truly desires, so I spent a few minutes checking out the book and getting a feel for the concept.

She was right. Given the time and inclination, I probably could write one and promised to give it some serious consideration. The next day I set to work writing an outline that became, If I Were the Last Man Alive, as an anniversary present for her.

Sixty-thousand words and ten-thousand edits later, I sent it off to be edited and formatted. Jawbone Publishing used to have their HQ just up the road. Frank and Swanee Ballman moved to Newnan, Georgia a few years ago, when Frank retired so they could devote even more time to their boutique, Christian, publishing company.

It was a bit of a whirlwind after that. Swanee submitted several covers and we finally settled on one. Some weeks later we had books in hand and the rest is history.