Humble or Inspirational Moment?
I regret that I am unable to tell you the name of the man I am about to write about. Perhaps that should be ashamed? You see I only saw him for a few moments on Sunday morning around 1:00 AM as I was having an exciting time ironing my shirts as we night owls do.
The television was on and it was a gospel music show from some church and I thought that the show was called the awakening however when I Googled it under this name nothing came up but whatever the name of it the singing was excellent. You see I wanted to find a web site for the show to be able to name this individual to do him the honor he deserves. I hope that he will forgive me if I call him our friend though we never met because we are after all brothers in Christ.
He is closer to God than any of us because it said that he died this year and we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Our friend had an unpronounceable disease which if I remember correctly is so rare that only 350 people have ever been diagnosed with it. I do remember that as he sat in his wheel chair he described the pain as being like two people twisting your bones from either side over a hot flame.
What moved me to tears and many men and women in the audience and some of the band members was that this man face racked with pain, head bowed, stood up and supporting himself with a walking stick stood in obvious agony and sung the country and western song "I can only imagine".
It was more speaking rather than singing but it was simply a beautiful inspirational moment that made one both proud to be a fellow Christian but also humbled you at his obvious faith in God and Jesus Christ. I have heard that song many times on the radio but it never touched me as it did last weekend.
Watching our friend also took me back in time to when I was a little boy. It was the year that my father died. He had had a cerebral hemorrhage the year before and the stroke left him paralysed down his left side and unable to speak. Always a very active man he wanted to walk around our block before he died but as we lived on a very large oval of about half a mile and part of this uphill he was not able to complete his walk. I remember looking up into the face of my hero standing there supported by his walking stick face racked in pain as he admitted to himself that the task was impossible and the slow walk as we headed back home as he dragged his now calipered and painful left leg. A second stroke took my dad shortly thereafter but at least he had not lost the courage that took him from El Alamein to the shores of Normandy and across the river Rhine.
I am a man now and not a boy and over the years I have seen many brave men and women give tremendous inspiration to those around them. One thought that often comes to me is how much more difficult this must be for those who do not believe. To not believe in God is alien to me. It is just something I do not understand. Even more is the aggressive campaign by those in America who attack Christianity. Why would you need to attack something that you do not believe in?
Dust to dust and ashes to ashes come to all human beings but those who touch our lives even if only for a moment are remembered. I will never hear the song "I can only imagine" without thinking of and remembering our friend.
God bless you and yours,
The television was on and it was a gospel music show from some church and I thought that the show was called the awakening however when I Googled it under this name nothing came up but whatever the name of it the singing was excellent. You see I wanted to find a web site for the show to be able to name this individual to do him the honor he deserves. I hope that he will forgive me if I call him our friend though we never met because we are after all brothers in Christ.
He is closer to God than any of us because it said that he died this year and we know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
Our friend had an unpronounceable disease which if I remember correctly is so rare that only 350 people have ever been diagnosed with it. I do remember that as he sat in his wheel chair he described the pain as being like two people twisting your bones from either side over a hot flame.
What moved me to tears and many men and women in the audience and some of the band members was that this man face racked with pain, head bowed, stood up and supporting himself with a walking stick stood in obvious agony and sung the country and western song "I can only imagine".
It was more speaking rather than singing but it was simply a beautiful inspirational moment that made one both proud to be a fellow Christian but also humbled you at his obvious faith in God and Jesus Christ. I have heard that song many times on the radio but it never touched me as it did last weekend.
Watching our friend also took me back in time to when I was a little boy. It was the year that my father died. He had had a cerebral hemorrhage the year before and the stroke left him paralysed down his left side and unable to speak. Always a very active man he wanted to walk around our block before he died but as we lived on a very large oval of about half a mile and part of this uphill he was not able to complete his walk. I remember looking up into the face of my hero standing there supported by his walking stick face racked in pain as he admitted to himself that the task was impossible and the slow walk as we headed back home as he dragged his now calipered and painful left leg. A second stroke took my dad shortly thereafter but at least he had not lost the courage that took him from El Alamein to the shores of Normandy and across the river Rhine.
I am a man now and not a boy and over the years I have seen many brave men and women give tremendous inspiration to those around them. One thought that often comes to me is how much more difficult this must be for those who do not believe. To not believe in God is alien to me. It is just something I do not understand. Even more is the aggressive campaign by those in America who attack Christianity. Why would you need to attack something that you do not believe in?
Dust to dust and ashes to ashes come to all human beings but those who touch our lives even if only for a moment are remembered. I will never hear the song "I can only imagine" without thinking of and remembering our friend.
God bless you and yours,
posted by Wisdom at 5:36 PM
1 Comments:
Its refreshing to read words by a man who displays no hesitation in describing his thoughts and his feelings.
This one in particular was touching.
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