Today was my last official day at the office. I took off at 4:45pm (yeah, I know, I cheated a little but I wanted to beat traffic), thus got home early. The 2 year-old’s squeal of “Daddy home!” permeated the house. We had a supper of leftovers and spent the evening on the couch watching The Muppet Show, me with a blanket over my aching legs and her on the blanket enjoying her evening milk and her father’s embrace. 2100hrs, time to go night-night I told her. “Fozzie show?” she implores, her name for the Muppet Show and a query for another episode.

So we watched another episode, together, then in the sack with Tigger and Blanket. She fell asleep instantly.

That little girl has no idea of money or illness or lameness, all she knows is if Daddy is near and smiling all is well with the world. And I am so blessed to be there for her.

In your sermon, you might ponder this — we are God’s children, shouldn’t we have the same attitude as my daughter does? So long as we are in the presence of a loving God, loved by Him, aren’t all our needs to be met?

Which, I’d love to expound upon this more but I think I hear her playing in her room, which means she needs a fresh diaper. Were I God, I might think again about making all humanity my children for just this reason.

– Max

13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

19 And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

At times it’s hard to see our way through. But we are supposed to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7).

My main injury was an interarticular fracture of the radius of my left arm. I was hurting like the dickens when I got up to 50 push-ups and went to see my good a friend, and Orthopedic Surgeon I met in the Naval Reserve. He took an X-ray of my left wrist, put it on the viewer in the exam room, and then asked, “What the hell have you been doing?!” I told him I was in OCS with the TNARNG, and his response was “quit.” He showed me the X-ray and told me what I was doing to myself and gave me some ibuprofen and seriously advised I resign. I did.

My hope, and prayer, is you get back to “fighting weight” and succeed in your pursuit. Just take things a bit easy so you don’t find any surprises as I did. If you have no fractures as I had, you should make it. It was predicted I would have full blown osteoarthritis by the time I was 40. I get mild aches in my left wrist and right shoulder when there are extreme weather changes, or I get deeply chilled, but I’m still perking along quite well. I’ll never have a military career, but God seems to have had other ideas for my life.