Lessons Learned

Paper Star Sipping a cup of coffee one cold winter day, I sat in silence as the old timer shared a Christmas story. Sixty years had passed and the old timer never spoke of this particularly cold and lonely Christmas Eve. I looked into his sparking blue-green eyes and I was transported in spirit to a Christmas of his youth. The old timer spoke and I sat in silence sipping my coffee. Sixty years ago, the old timer was just a small boy. A few years previously his mother died. The night of her funeral he started his first job. He knew if he was to eat that he would need to work. His father was a man of intellect and unique ideas.  However, his father suffered from the terrible illness that we call addiction. Consumed by his addiction he left his eight motherless children to meet their own basic needs. The old timer’s eyes glistened as he talked about being home alone on Christmas Eve. He went to the window and wiped the frost from the glass. He looked at the houses around hi...

A Self-Reliant Man Providing for Others On Thanksgiving Day,  my mom called.  I knew when the phone rang that the Lord called my Uncle to build a home in heaven.  Everyday of his life, my Uncle constructed a life on his terms and in his way. Uncle Jim's life is a lesson that often seems lost in America today.  He lived a life based on self-reliance and providing for others.  How many young men today could benefit from embracing a life of self-reliance and providing for others?  My Uncle didn't wait for someone to show him the way.  He cut his own path. My Uncle was a depression era kid.  Like many men his age, he did not have a childhood filled with carefree playing.  Due to harsh childhood conditions, my Uncle left school early to provide for him and others. He would work hard his whole life earning his way in the world. My Uncle went to war.  He was a combat engineer in the World Ward II European Theatre. He earned two Bronze Stars...