Thank you

Thank you for being a father when, although I believed I was long past needing one, I needed one as much as ever!
Thanks for sharing your heart with me. Sometimes even the student wants to know that the mentor is human.
Thanks for genuinely caring. You could have just pretended you do. Actually, you would have been wiser to do everything by the book; safer for all concerned. You never let "the rules" get in the way of real love and concern.
Thank you for allowing me to share some of your burdens. Lord knows that you shared plenty of mine.
Thank you for helping me to see myself more clearly, more positively.
Thanks showing me what I have to offer others but encouraging me not to give up on myself.
Thank you for reminding me what the true meaning is of Godly redemption. It's not striving for perfection. It's the struggle and it's not given up or shying away from it.
Thanks for reminding me that it's going to OK to grieve and to miss you.
You're leaving at a time when I feel like I can least afford that. But is there ever a good time to say goodbye, to grow up or at least grow outwardly, and move on? No, endings almost always feel wrong.
I don't hold it against you, but I'm going to miss the hell out of you.
The future's so cloudly, but thanks for reminding me that when the clouds clear, it's bright on the other side.
I wish you the best. I wish you all the success and happiness you deserve. Thank you for everything. With much love, more than you can imagine, I say Godspeed as you move along the new path He has set before you.

Death of a young wife and mom

It's odd how we can be so moved, devastated even, by the loss of someone we've never met. We are touched by celebrity deaths as if we were their acquaintances. That makes some kind of sense because there's an illusion of "knowing" a celebrity.

What is strange is how painful the death of a complete stranger. Three days ago a young (34) wife and mother of three children (two with disabilities) from our church died of cancer. She was only diagnosed in late fall. No one expected she would be gone so quickly. God took her two days before Christmas, perhaps the worst time for a family to lose a daughter, wife and mother.

I never met this young woman. My wife met her briefly because had worked with one of her children in Sunday School. My wife sobbed when we heard the news. I've been in shock. A little hole has been poked in souls. The sadness is palpable. Maybe it's easy to feel that family's pain because we are young(er) parents. I cannot imagine losing my wife at such a young age (or at all for that matter.)

When a young person dies, more questions are raised than get answered. Why God did you take her now? Why did you leave her young children motherless? Only God knows the timing of tragedies. All I know is that it is painful to imagine being in this family's shoes.

Quite possibly, the lesson for me is to be unceasingly thankful for the blessings of my beautiful, wonderful wife and daughter He has given me. Maybe I am supposed to remember that others are suffering and could use our support. This horrible tragedy is a chance for the rest of us to show love to this family in crisis. I hope that our family and our church step to the plate.