Category Archives: Life

The last 15 years

Family, Life

Sunday night I was upstairs in our home turning off the lights because our granddaughters had spent the day with us. I straightened up the rooms a little (very little, ha) and began thinking that these are the same rooms that were my daughter’s rooms when they lived at home.

I was taking a trip down memory lane looking at my oldest daughter’s middle school annual when she was in the 8th grade. I looked at the writings her friends wrote in her annual and all the items still on her bulletin board from high school. Then I started thinking about my youngest daughter’s room across the hallway and all the stuffed animals she used to have and how I would come up each night and pray with them both before they went to sleep. How I would kiss them good night before bed time and hold their hands and tell them I love them.

I was standing upstairs last night wondering how the years have slipped by without my notice. How it still seemed that my two daughters should be in middle school and high school and how I should see them each morning at breakfast. Then I realized that period in my life has passed.

Life is funny that way. Time doesn’t slow down for anyone and before you know it, a period or cycle in your life has changed. There were times when my daughters were little that I thought they would never get past diapers and be able to walk and dress themselves. Then a few years went by and boys started hanging around our house and I knew our life was changing and would never be same. I also knew there was strong possibility I would go to prison when I saw a couple of the boys they were dating. Ha.

I suppose the first lesson of the day is that all periods in life change and the best we can hope for is to accept change with grace as we all move through life. The second lesson would be to enjoy the moments as they happen and be there mentally and emotionally so you can bank the memories. I don’t care how old my children get, I am going to hug them, kiss them and tell them I love them. When the lord calls me home, they will never have to wonder if their daddy loved them. KT

Life examples

Life

In life there are good examples and bad examples to follow. I believe we need both. We need the good examples to emulate how we want our life to be and the bad examples to know what we do not ever want to become.

I had to leave home when I was 17 years old and a senior in high school. I was the captain of the varsity football team and senior class president and yet my home life was a mess. I found a room to rent with a gentleman that was a friend of a friend and got a night job at the Rex Chair Factory. I would go to football practice and afterwards when all the other players went home to dinner with their family, I went to work at the chair factory.

Why am I telling you this? I am telling you this because at the age of 17, I had to choose the examples I wanted to follow and the examples I didn’t. In all of our lives we come to a point that we have to choose what we want to be when we grow up. I had to choose a little earlier than most but looking back on that period in my life, I clearly see God’s hand at work. God saw to it that I met the right kind of examples to follow and recognized the examples that I didn’t want to be like.

I guess you could say that the bad examples in my life almost played a greater role than the good ones. See, it was the bad examples that keep me from going off track and becoming someone I didn’t want to be. While even though at that time I didn’t have a wife and family, I did however know what I wanted it to be like when I did.

Much of life’s most precious blessings can be seen when we step back and take an honest inventory of who we are and how we got here. In my young years I had family members and people I worked with that showed me the way. I also had family members and people I worked with that showed me what I didn’t want to become.

Sometimes in life you are faced with having to change your heroes and examples in order to be around people you most want to be like. There are a few mental imagines that I developed when I was young that I carry with me to this day. They are images of the type of man, husband and father I want to be. You probably have similar images of who you want to be and what it will feel like when you accomplish the images you have dreamed of.

Choosing life examples are important so be careful to choose wisely. KT

Election Day

Family, Life

Today, we as America will elect our next president. While this election cycle has been the most divisive yet, there is good news.

God is still in control of the hearts and minds of America and that includes the Presidency. He is the one that controls the weather, the oceans, the stars, the moon, the sun, the world and the universe. Don’t you think he can handle a little president and the hearts and minds of a country?

I got up this morning and thought about living in a country where I can sleep safely in our home, read the bible, dress as I wish, go to Starbucks, drive my own vehicle and speak as I wish and see my family on a daily basis. I get to go to work and be in a free enterprise environment. I don’t have to worry about the military coming to my home and taking my children, or listening for bombs before my children can go to school. This Sunday I can go to church and worship freely and our children get to go to school every week and my family gets to live in a non-oppressive country. We get to go to movies, eat at our favorite restaurants, go to park with our dogs, celebrate holidays, visit with friends etc. you get the idea.

Don’t ever lose sight of what America is and stands for around the world. It is literally the beacon of hope around the world. The beautiful city built on the hill, the example of a democracy. Today, count it all joy that you get to go and vote freely for the president and leadership of your choice. We get to do that because we live in a free country. So go vote today. KT

Label maker

Life

The only authorized entity that can put a label on something is the one who made it, the one who owns it or the one who purchases it.

I heard a sermon by Andy Stanley this past week and it was on this subject. Much of this concept is taken from that sermon but I also want to add a few of my own thoughts on the subject.

Labels are important and also valuable. If you don’t think so, just go shopping this weekend and you will see people paying more for things because it carries a certain label or manufacture. As an example, look at Kate Spade purses, Ray Ban sunglasses, Brooks Brother’s suites, Mercedes cars, Gucci Apparel, Ann Taylor clothes etc. As you know there are thousands of brand name labels in today’s market.

Think of the labels you have allowed other people who had no right or authority to place on you. Let that sink in just a minute. Many labels we have allowed on ourselves are hurtful like, dumb, silly, ugly, stupid, failure, slow, uncoordinated, unpopular etc. You get the idea.

This is important. The problem is not when someone tried to label you, rather the problem was when you started acting as though the label was correct and when you accepted it as part of who you are. I have stuttered all my life and all my life there were labels people tried to put on me. Fortunately God gave me enough self-esteem to not pay attention to what others thought. At some point we all have to decide that we don’t really care what other people think about us and that we refuse their labels and then you will be free to be your own label maker.

The only person that has the right and or authority to put a label on you is either the one who made you, the one you purchased you or yourself. No one else has the right. If there has been labels put on you against your will, you don’t have to accept it and continue to live with it. Take back your identity through recognizing that God made you, he purchased you on the cross and besides yourself, there are no other authorized people to put a label on you. KT

United States Navy SEALs

Career, Life

I heard a statement recently where the Navy spokesperson was referring to a planned mission. He said “God may choose to have mercy on them, but the United Stated Navy will not.”

I was in the Navy from 1976-1980 and during that time I learned how to be respectful of leadership and respectful of being an American. Regardless of what anyone tells, being in the military makes you grow up quick and when you have completed your enlistment, you are proud of your country.

I will never forget boot camp in Orlando in July of 1976. They beat on us mentally and physically like nothing I had ever been involved in. I was on the enlisted side and my drill instructor was 1st class petty Officer Black. He was a devil in a white uniform, ha, and I think he was trained in hell because that is what it felt like to us recruits. His job was to basically see if he could make you quit.

So here we are in week 6 doing obstacle courses, running in combat gear, sweating like a showerhead and some officer walks up and calls us to attention and announces that they are doing tryouts for the Navy Seal program. No,,,, I did not try out. I do however remember what the qualifications were to even get an opportunity to get looked at. They took the ones that wanted to try out over to the Olympic pool and gave them a little physical screening test called the PST.

While the qualifications may have changed over the years, that day, In order to qualify, the recruits had to breast stroke or side stroke 500 yards in full gear in under 10 minutes. An Olympic pool is 50 meters or 54 yards long and to swim 500 yards is basically 10 full laps in the pool. 80 pushups in under two minutes, 80 sit-ups in under two minutes, 25 pull ups and run 1.5 miles in full gear in under 10 minutes.

If you passed that, what these recruits didn’t know was that if you got sent to Seal School you had to pass another little physical screening test to be able to stay in the Seal program. This little PST included 1000 meter swim in under 20 min, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups and a 4 mile full gear run in under 31 minutes.

If you passed that little hurdle (no pun intended) you got see if you have the juice for the real deal. Keep in mind that in Seal training, you could quit anytime by ringing the big bell and walk away. You could hear the bell all over the training facility and it was frequently rang. The real deal was 10 weeks of which the first 3 weeks was to see if the navy needed to spend the money on training you. Week 3 is called “hell’ week and only 25% of all recruits survive through this week. It is simply the toughest training in the US Military. If you survive the training and get to wear the Navy Seal Insignia, you are part of the most elite and lethal military group on the Globe.

When I was in “A” school in San Diego you would occasionally see a guy in uniform with the Navy Seal insignia of the eagle holding the rifle with a shiny ball on the end. If you saw this on some guy’s uniform, trust me when I tell you, he is not the guy you want to get into a fight with. He is the guy you want on your side.

If you want to see a real spectacle, take an active duty Navy Seal and put him in the ring with the Tae Kwon Do or Karate champ and you would see the difference of training in a gym with padded mats and head gear versus full combat mission preparedness. It would be over in about 20 seconds.

Go Navy. KT