Category: Our Choices Make Us

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid

Yesterday, Chapin and I went to the mid-day showing of Diary of a Wimpy Kid at the Pleasure Island AMC 24 Theaters.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is based on the New York Times Best Seller book series by the same name.

I don’t do movie reviews, but I do pay attention – even when I try not to. And there was one line that I had to write down, in the darkness of the AMC theater:

“It’s our choices that make us who we are.”

Sometimes Most of the time, I feel like the lead character: misunderstood, freakish, and out of place.

But with Faith and Hope, our journey continues, and it begins anew today – like it does every day.

Will you have the presence of mind to think about the long-term effects of your choices today?

Of course, it is hard work. That’s one of life’s secrets. Some call it “the cross we bear”.

The long way is the short cut.

Guest Blogger Returns

What Will You Headline Read?
What Will You Headline Read?

We don’t think about death often enough. Why? No idea. Fear, maybe. Not socially acceptable, maybe. I’m not really sure.

But I do know that no one I know thinks death should be dinner table talk.

At the end of the day though, people will talk at the dinner table about us after we’re gone. Some for a few seconds, some for a few days, others may never. And some may never stop.

Here’s a fresh perspective…on “legacy”…

Bob Stewart shares an insightful look at life, our Faith, and our responsibility to both. Take it away Bob….

“Mom called me the other day from Tennessee, where I was raised, to read to me a couple of obituaries. I know – that sounds so exciting, doesn’t it? But that’s what my mom does. She does it to let me know who I should know who either died or is related to someone who died.

But on this last call, she read to me about Albert Hamby, who died at the age of 87. Why should that stand out at all to me? I didn’t let this obituary go without a reverent moment of reflection. Albert was my pastor when I was little – when I made Jesus my Savior. That was and is a spiritual “marker” in my life, and an important person in showing me the way was Albert Hamby.

Are you living a legacy, as Dr. Johnny Hunt said in his book Building Your Leadership Résumé, which is going to outlast you? Are you building “markers” in other people’s lives that, after you are gone, are still there to help others along the way? It could be multitudes or your own family, and it is a question I am asking myself as well.

I am reminded of a song from Steve Green back in the 1980s, called “Find Us Faithful.” In the chorus, he stated, “Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful. May the fire of our devotion light their way. May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe, and the lives we live inspire them to obey. Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful.”

Again, I ask, “Are you living a legacy?”

Bob Stewart

Children’s Liturgy of the Word

Children’s Liturgy of the Word. God’s Word.

And the fact that I would be delivering homilies (sermons) to dozens of elementary school children boggles the mind.

Yet, it will happen again today, like it does the fourth Sunday of every month. My wife and I volunteer to do this.

Four years ago, a woman from our Church made an appeal to the congregation that she needed more volunteers or Children’s Liturgy would go away. After Mass, we volunteered, thinking we would simply be helpers “on the sidelines”.

Funny how things turn out exactly opposite from the way we expect.