He loved

I have never known somebody who made so many people feel special.

He would get excited when he saw me and usually make some sort clever remark and I always felt loved and special. I have admit I felt like a favorite, but in reality he did not just do that to me, but he did it to many.

He was the old guy on a tiny campus bursting with energy and craziness.

Monday through Friday we had classes and if we had classes we also had coffee break. Not sure where that tradition of my school started, but it was certainly helpful to breakfast skippers.

Jerry would pull up to campus in his red pick up. He would go and sit at his same table and if anyone dared to sit in his seat well they would know the wrath of Jerry. His chair might as well have had his name engraved on it.

A man not afraid to speak his mind, which often made us roll with laughter and sometimes blush.

He poked fun at us and we eagerly poked fun back in return.

He had the audacity to say that my apple pie was better than his wife's, which I couldn't quite believe, but the flattery warmed me anyway. I never minded saving him leftover blueberry muffins from breakfast. He would tease me about finding a man to cook for and I would blush with embarrassment.

He was to me a grandfather. I grew up without really ever knowing any of my grandfathers, so that was really special to me to know Jerry.

But this just isn't my story. I don't know how many countless other people could tell the same story of the care Jerry showed for them.

Over the years Jerry said hello and goodbye to countless students, yet even though getting to know a new crop of students was strange Jerry never stopped coming to coffee.

He never let the exhausting act of pouring out love stop him from getting to know people. He was an active member of his church body, loving people there too.  I can't get over that example.

We were crazy young people and Jerry didn't mind being crazy right along with us.

I think about the way Jerry's face would light up when he saw his friends and I think I want all my friends to feel respected, loved, and cherished just as Jerry did to me.

I write in the past tense because Jerry is now with his Savior. I'm sure Jerry's face is beaming. Jerry loved a good time and while I ache at such a sudden loss I know that because of Christ Jerry has lost nothing in his death, but has gained eternity.

Thankful to have been blessed so deeply by such a man.

God is Good

God is good.

I think this when I see the bright colors of the sunset streaking across the sky and I have caught a few moments by myself.

I think this has a write yet another laborious research paper. God is good to give me this opportunity to study His Word.

I'm reminded that God is good when I talk with friends, and remember just how blessed I am.

I know God is good each day when I open His Word and am blessed by His Words.

God is good when I realize there is yet another area of my life that needs pruning. For God is good to not let continue in my old ways, but He is making me new.

God is good even as I am weary.

God's grace has covered our sins. God's grace has given me the strength to run.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

God is good, three words that are spoken often and often flippantly said. Those words should not be carelessly said. God is good because of the cross. God is good because He gave us His Word to live by.

God had given us everything pertaining to life and godliness. 

Simply overwhelmed by God's goodness tonight.