Sunday, November 18, 2007 11:50pm

Hello to all!

How are you all doing? I am doing ok! I cannot believe it has been two weeks since I last published. They have gone by so fast and so much has happened. God is good – all the time! All the time – God is good! Praise the Lord! Now so that you don’t get me wrong, I have indeed had my ups and downs during the past two weeks. There is no question that life is different and it will take time to get adjusted to it. It is indeed lonely and so easy to fall in the traps of the devil with your feelings and not see the awesome things that God is still doing in your life and God’s constant presence in your life.

When I last published the kids were coming in for about 28 hours or so to go to the hospice memorial service. It was a very nice service and I was certainly glad that they all came and that we all went to the service. God was indeed present and so were some other people who I knew had had loved ones cared for by hospice this year and some that I was not aware of. So it was good to talk to them and to talk to the staff again.

Election Day was an awesome day as well for a couple of reasons. In the first place those who I really wanted to see win in the city election did so. Praise the Lord! The last four years the mayor has really done a great job of making positive changes in our community and he was reelected - Praise the Lord! There was also a number of new council people elected that I really think will work more directly and closely with the major, which should really be positive. And the second thing that was so awesome on election day is that we had a Community Chili Cook-Off at our church to raise money for a family in our church that has some really major medical bills. It was the first time we had tried such a thing and possibly the first time for the community and it was a really big success – we raised over $1700 and though we were to serve from 4:30 to 7:00pm all 11 organizations that made chili ran out by 6:00pm. Everybody had so much fun that it was a given that we would do it again next year and everyone would make more chili. Praise the Lord and thank you Lord for awesome experience that brought so many people together in ministry and mission. What a blessing!

Since this is “Jack’s Dispatch” and brings up my ministry with fire service and law enforcement I will relate that there has been one time with each that I have been involved in the last two weeks. We had a fire to which four different departments responded and the remodeled mobile home was a total loss. A young family of four lived in it, and none of them were home, so thanks be to God I can say that no one was physically hurt, family or fire fighters. It was a hard fire to get out, because of the remodeling but persistence won the battle. Then I was the first one from law enforcement to arrive at a very bad injury crash. There were only two vehicles involved with one person in each. The one was not hurt at all, and the other had some very serious injuries but it will be a week tomorrow and to the best of my knowledge they are still fighting to live. In both these situations God was indeed present and continues to be to help these families. Praise the Lord!

I know that there were a couple of other things that when they happened I said “I need to share that on the blog” – but do you think I can now think of what they were. Some people would say that that has to do with age, and it probably does since I even forgot to write it down so I would have it. But at least I didn’t write it down and then forget where I put it – so there is always something positive!

God is so good! A couple of things that I have learned in the process of the last 14 weeks are: First, the death of a spouse is indeed different than the death of other family members. Second, but all of the things that I have ever learned and taught about grief has been true. And an important part of that is to know that God is present, and His love, grace, strength, and Holy Spirit are so close and so available to help in the process. It is so important to make use of that help and not run from it. Praise the Lord!

One of the things that I have had a real problem with is getting down to doing the thank you notes. I really do appreciate all that so many, many people did and that is part of the problem, it is just kind of overwhelming. I believe there are over 125 notes that I have to write. I know I have told my self that if I would do 10 a day I would be done in less than two weeks. And I am going to do my best to start that tomorrow. But in the mean time I do want to express my thanks to all of you who have been so kind, loving, and helpful not only during the year Marty was the sickest, but for the entire time of her struggle with cancer. You have all been so helpful and God has been so good! Praise and thanks be to God!

Well, it is Thanksgiving week and Eric and Erin will be coming over for about 24 hours or so and we will be going to friends for dinner. I am looking forward to having a positive day and giving God thanks and praise for everything. I hope that you will have a positive day as well, and know God’s presence in all that you do.

Take care, be positive, and God bless.

Jack
Romans 8:28