faith

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Our Easter Prayer

This Easter Sunday our family gathered for an evening meal, and it’s always been a tradition of sorts that someone say the blessing. I’m kind of a box of chocolates when it comes to prayer aloud, and you could hear about starvation in Croatia or our sick feral cat with one ear if I’m saying the prayer, so I usually opt for someone like Lisa or someone more trustworthy to say the blessing before our meal. For the past few years, one of our 7 grands, Dawson who is 7 years old, has volunteered to say the blessing during our family gatherings and to be honest, I don’t know exactly where that came from but nonetheless Dawson continues to lead us in the blessing at family gatherings. Dawson knows about prayer from going to church with us from time to time and at his old daycare, for years they said blessings when they ate. This Easter Lisa and I talked about who would say the blessing and I told Lisa that it should probably be her or Dawson. Dawson is young and a little nervous when it comes to the blessing, so I told Lisa to take over in backup for Dawson if needed.

When the time came, right before our Easter meal, Lisa asked who wanted to say the blessing and immediately Dawson piped up and volunteered for the task. He didn’t shy away from the challenge once again and I was very proud that he had no fear of praying in front of others. He started a little shaky and I could tell he was losing his concentration. I was thinking Lisa was going to jump in for assistance, but Dawson stopped mid-sentence, smiled and glanced at me very briefly. He started over but this time it was more fluent, and he hit the mark we were looking for by the time he had finished with an amen.

The more I think about that event, the more I think that grandfathers are supposed to be the one that gets that quick glance when there are uncertain times and grandfathers need to set the example for their grandchildren in order to establish generational faith. I’m super proud of our grandson Dawson taking over the duties of saying our family meal blessings and I’m looking forward to Tate and Jasper doing the same one day.

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Prayer, Patience and Persistence Pays Off

Before I left for the American Bass Anglers Military Championship on Lake Hartwell, I was packing my bags and the challenge coin pictured below fell out of the pocket of a folded pair of shorts in the closet. I had bought 10 of the coins a few years back to give to some of my friends. The inscription on the coin is scripture from the Book of Ephesians in the Bible. I told Lisa about it and showed her the coin that was tucked away in the closet for months. I have no idea how the coin got there but I felt a strong desire to put it in my pocket and do some praying for our trip. I prayed for our safety, strength, patience and as far as the fishing went, I said that if it was his will to provide the fish, it was my will to give him the glory. I carried that coin for the next 5 days and I gotta thank the good Lord for the armor, the fish and the hardware! On the 5th day and the last day of the tournament we caught exactly 5 fish early and never caught another bass all day. It’s the 5 fish that we needed for a second-place finish in a 90-boat field, and the good Lord knows that we battled some adversities for that finish. It was such an awesome feeling on the final day.

Speaking of hardware, it was around 15 years back when a good friend from the Navy and I cruised over to Lake Hartwell pulling my center console for a big striper tournament and we took home some hardware for another species of fish. The trophy and picture sit in my man cave and sometimes you can see the picture in our podcast. My dad gave me that picture years ago. I had given him a smaller picture and he had it enlarged and eventually gave it back to me. That makes this trip extra special.