Today, Landon picked up the biggest screwdriver he could find and helped me reassemble the piano keyboard. It was fitting for a couple of reasons: 1) he was the one who poured a bottle of water into it last week and the one most thankful that it still works, and 2) it reminded me of a picture of me and my dad trying out my screwdrivering skills when I was about his age.
I’ve been thinking about that picture a lot today. Dad went home to heaven 5 years and 1 month ago today, and we all still miss him so much. He played many roles in life and we were all molded and impacted by his presence as a father growing up. So, we know the void when that strong presence changed to memories.
We found out last night that the father in another one of our dojo families, Ted Vliet, passed away from cancer. We hurt so badly along with them and, while we rejoice that he is in the presence of Christ, right now…there is pain. We will pray for them, pray with them, bring them meals and hug them tightly – as we have done with the Rylands family since Tom went home just last year. The cultural expression is that “we lost [these men]”, but we know they are not lost at all – they have been truly found, in Heaven.
Well, this started out as another cute kid photo, but my heart has been heavy today and somehow I’ve come here. I’ll end with this thought… I have been working on a longer post about “Finishing Well” in life and I have an ever growing and changing list of attributes – things we should strive for to live a Godly and honorable life. As I look at the lives of these great men who have gone ahead of us and finished well, I think we can narrow it down to two basic principles that Jesus taught us sum up everything in life: Love God. Love People.
Everything else flows out of those two pillars. Our prayer is that we would deeply love our Father in Heaven and those people God has placed in our lives, while we have them. Remember – the thing about finishing well is that we never know when we’ll be finished, so finish today well. Love y’all.
