My stepfather was a man’s man. He didn’t play around when it came to the correct way to raise up a child. My biological father, not so much. See, my parents divorced in June 1966, and both remarried thereafter.

His name was Gene Dickinson, and he was a correctional officer at Lorton Penitentiary outside Washington DC for many years. Later in his career, he became an instructor at the prison and taught auto mechanics to the inmates that were only there for a short time.

The scared straight part happened one Saturday when I was in the ninth grade. He needed to go to his office (in the middle of the penitentiary) to pick up some paperwork. He asks if I wanted to go and I said, sure. I was 14 years old at the time and he knew exactly what he was doing and what was going to happen. Once we were cleared through the gate, we were walking to the auto shop school which took us right down the middle of the jail cell blocks that housed the inmates behind bars. Most of these were serving life sentences. Without putting too fine a point to this, the things the inmates said to me and yelled through the bars at me as we walked to the shop, scared me so bad that I made a decision that day that set the course of my life. I was never going to do anything that would put me in a place like this.

Yessiree, the things that were said to a young teenage white boy, will make your ears curl and make you want to avoid ever being in a place like that.

A year earlier this same man sat me down at the table and popped the top on a Budweiser and opened a pack of Marlboros and said, “I know you are going to try both of these things, so I want you to try them first in front of me.”  After I spit out the beer and inhaled half a Marlboro, I never drank after that and never got hooked on cigarettes. He knew exactly what he was doing.

See in life, there is the father that gives you life and then there is the father that gives you A life. That was Gene Dickinson, my stepfather. KT

I am a dog person. Always have been. I believe the dog was created especially for human love. No other animal God created needs the human connection like a dog.

I read this article recently that really touched my heart. It’s about this man who looks about my age who had a dog well into its years that died. It broke his heart, so he went to the local dog shelter and said he wanted to adopt the oldest dog at most risk of being put down. Basically, the dog no one else wanted. He took that dog home and gave it love during its final season of life.

This became his way of giving back and remembering his dog that had died. Now he has 11 aged dogs that he is loving and caring for in their final stages of life. Some are feeble, some are blind, some are so weak they can’t walk. This man loves them, feeds them, holds them and spends time each day with every dog. When one dies, he goes to the shelter and gets another one and brings it home.

This article almost brought tears to my eyes because in the picture of him and his 11 dogs, there is a very old small Yorkie and very old Sheltie like our dogs that died. I imagine that in our final days and hours, God does the same thing for us. He holds us, loves us, comforts us like this man does for these dogs that no one else wants. KT

God is the great I am. It means, I am everything you need. Let that settle in your mind a bit. Regardless of the situation and circumstances, God is everything you need in that moment.

In Exodus chapter 3 is the story of Moses’s first burning bush experience. God told him to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Israelites go free.  When Moses ask God, “who do I say sent me”? God said “tell them, I am who I am. I am has sent me to you.”

Since God and Jesus are one, In the book of John, these are the I AM statements Jesus made:

I am the bread of life.

I am the light of the world.

I am the door.

I am the good shepherd.

I am the resurrection and the life.

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

I am the vine.

You may ask, what does all this I AM language mean? It means, God/Jesus is everything you need him to be. What do you need and what are you struggling with? Whatever it is, Jesus is all you need to get through it. KT

Please view this blog as the reason to be thankful for the all the noise, busyness, stress, decisions and complications a full life brings. Rejoice in all the things you do and have the privilege to be involved with.  

You want all the noise, busyness and complications to end in your life?  Well, just imagine a devastating report from your doctor, a serious health issue, loss of a family member, an accident where your family is hurt, and the list could go on and on, but you get the idea. We are all one event or one call from our life becoming incredibly simple.

Life gets really simple if that happens. All those things you felt you had to do, all the plans, all those places you felt you needed to go to, all the life goals you wanted to achieve etc. all come to a sudden stop. If that event or call happens, the only plan becomes really simple, managing through the crisis.

I had a dear friend and client, five years younger than me pass away suddenly. Him and his wife’s life were full of kids, business, relationships, commitments and the afternoon he had a heart attack and died, his wife’s and his children’s lives came to a sudden halt and became very simple. All the noise was replaced with a profound sadness and everything else faded into the background.

So, the next time you feel rushed and feel over worked and over committed in life, take a deep breath and rejoice in the fact that you can do those things. You do not want the alternative. KT

The D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy France took place on June 6, 1944. 10,000 allied forces died right there on that beach, many before they even got to shore. Germany lost 9,000 soldiers that day. Eisenhower literally risked everything on that one battle. If the US had lost that day, we would simply not live like we do today and many of us reading this blog would not have ever been born.

Tom Hanks starred in the movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’ in 1998, and we watched the movie the other day. The opening scenes are of the landing at Normandy. Even though it is a movie, the fact remains, that that was exactly how it happened.

The troops were loaded from the ships into these little flat bottom troop carrier boats with a gate that dropped down in the front. Men were standing shoulder to shoulder in full combat gear waiting for the carriers to reach the beach. When the carriers hit the sand, the gate would drop. The Germans had machine guns posts along the beach and would start firing as soon as the gate dropped on the boats. Many many young men died right there before they even got out of the boat. The water near the beach was reported to be crimson red from all the blood.

Why am I telling you this? Some people today have forgotten what price their grandparents and great grandparents paid so we could live in a free America. Back then there wasn’t internet sites to grumble, scream, cry and basically tell everyone what is wrong with America. These men just gave the last ounce of themselves so 81 years later their children’s children could read a blog post about that day.

9,387 of the young men that died that day never got to come home and are still buried in France. All those US families were not even able to have a hometown funeral for their sons and daughters. They gave the ultimate gift to us. Maybe before we lash out in anger to our fellow Americans, we could take a step back and realize what a privilege it is to live in America. KT