If you haven't noticed I've been struggling with things to be thankful for. LOL! Thank you, faithful followers, for encouraging me along the way, especially when I feel like giving up and deleting this blog.
I have been mulling ideas around for the last few days and nothing seemed right for today until I thought of Shorty and how much I miss him.
I met him at church and as I got to know him, I began to love him dearly as a brother in Christ. He was such a character. You would never know that he had been an alcoholic that God gloriously saved. When he got blest in church, he busted loose with "Amen, Hallelujah!"
As he got older, he struggled with letting go of being active in Christian service. His spirit was willing, but his earthly body was weak as he developed cataracts, heart problems, hip replacements, diabetes, and skin cancer. The one thing he felt he could still do, when waking in the wee hours of the morning and not being able to go back to sleep quickly, was pray. He kept a prayer photo album of all the people he met and felt led to pray for close at hand. You see, when he was a small child (this was during the American depression), he was pulled from school at the age of nine, to help his dad put food on the table. So he never really learned to read and write well, but with a photo album he didn't need to write anything but names of each person in there. Shorty knew that God knew who those persons were. And yes, my family and I were in that book.
So Shorty, who is full of joy at God's supper table, we'll meet by and by and I will be able to tell you then how grateful I am for your shining light. And thank you God, for bringing him into my life. He was such a dear man to me.
"Grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:2-6, NIV.)
