Sons of the Shepherd

  Sometimes God Answers No       There are a lot of things that I miss about Tiffanie, things that I'm pretty confident that will never be satisified on this side of heaven the way that they were on earth, things that only heaven can fulfill.  Things that are distinct, memories forever etched in my mind that will make me smile and laugh.  One of them was Tiff's love of childrens music. Children's ministry ran through Tiff's veins.  She was created by God to reach children with the Gospel, and one of those ways was song.  She would lead chapels and teach the children songs like 'Salvation', "Inch by Inch", 'God's Power', etc.  I can still picture her singing Jesus love is sweet and wonderful and leading the hand motions, or Baa Baa He's the Good Shepherd.  But the song that comes to mind the most is a song about prayer.  It goes like this, 'Sometimes God answers yes when I pray, sometimes God answers wait when I pray, sometimes God a...

Missing Identity Through the Male Lens        There are many things we lose as widows and widowers that go far beyond the obvious loss of our spouse, we also lose parts of our "identity."       What I’m focusing on here is what men lose in relation to our roles as husbands and fathers. Too often, men adopt the mindset of “just get over it and move forward as quietly as possible” for the sake of masculinity or societal pressure tied to assumed roles and expectations. We hear phrases like “take it like a man” or “feelings are for girls,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Men experience the same full range of human emotion, love, happiness, sorrow, and pain, both physical and emotional just as deeply as women do. The difference is that while it is publicly acceptable for women to show emotion, men’s emotions are often ignored, devalued, or simply less acknowledged.       This mindset has been ingrained in us for ge...

The Power of Music to the Grieving Heart       The Lord has blessed me with many different gifts and talents.  I love teaching, preaching, and spending time with people.  One gift that I do not have is the gift of music, namely singing.  If you are close to me then you probably chuckled when you read that.  I am a notoriously bad singer.  I've been known to bring people to tears, and no in a good way.  I've also tried to play musical instruments (piano and ukulele) all of which has caused me to not quit my day job.  My first wife Tiffanie was an excellent singer.  He and my children would sing together at churches.  My current wife Leslie also is a great singer, and she's gifted at playing the guitar.  God seems to have given the two loves of my life all the musical talent and left me with none.  I'm the guy that uses the verse (maybe abuses) that all God wants is joyful sound.  It sounds joyful to Him, but not ...

Going Solo: The Journey of a Solo Dad After Loss       I sat on my couch holding a box of tissues.  A dark curtain fell that day.  It was November 25th, 2024, Tiffanie's best day, my worst one.  The day where she heard the words "Well done my good and faithful servant" and the day I heard her breath her last earthly breath.  How could one event be so great for one person and yet so horrific for another.  I sat on the couch she bought, waiting patiently for my mom to bring home our three children.  They had no idea that eight hours earlier that their mom passed away.  The teachers at their school knew, how they held it together I'll never know.  My kids begged for us to come home.  Our youngest eagerly asked multiple times when 'momma' was going to come home.  We told them that Tiff would never be back in the house and that they next time they saw me in the house would be when Tiffanie passed away.  I was wrecked and...

Death is our Enemy         I was recently watching an interview with Ben Sasse.  Ben served as the Senator of Nebraska for eight years until leaving to become the President of the University of Florida.  His tenure was shortened because of a health issue that his wife was suffering.  Last year he heard the devastating news that he had cancer.  Not just any cancer, but pancreatic cancer that had spread to multiple areas of his body.  It was an advanced, aggressive stage four cancer.  In his own words he described his cancer diagnosis as a death sentence.  At best his doctors gave him a few short months to live.  Since then he has thrown everything he has at the cancer, even trying experimental treatments that have created open sores on his face.  This father of three is facing a reality that none of us want to face, the reality of death.  This is what Sasse said during his most recent interview:  “Death is terribl...

 Lessons from America’s Past Time       Baseball is without a doubt my favorite sport in the entire world.  It is the American pastime.  A matter of fact this evening I am watching my first game of the year, Penn State versus WVU.  I love the smell of a freshly mowed field, the beauty of the sandlot, the sound a ball makes off a wooden bat, or the snap of a fastball in a catcher's glove.  Or to hear the crowd roar over a homerun, or boo over a missed call.  The taste of a hotdog or nachos at a ballpark is superior to that of a five star restaurant.  It's a seventh inning stretch, singing take me out to the ball game.   Most boys dreamed of playing in the big leagues.  We played little league pretending to be our favorite ball player.  For me it also meant moments with my dad, which were far and between at times.  It meant my grandfather watching my only game when I hit a homerun.  Baseball to me is as America as...

  From Broken to Beautiful:  Our First Easter as One Family       First's for a grieving person are extremely difficult.  A widow or a widower struggles with a first meal in public alone, a first church service without them, first major holidays, first birthdays, first mornings in an empty bed, first wedding anniversary without them, and a mine field of other firsts that no one can expect or foresee.  Tiff passed away on November 25, which meant that I had a lot of really heavy firsts to emotionally stare down.  I had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Christmas program at my kid's school, first urgent care appointment without her, all three kid's birthdays are in the winter, etc.  Those first few months were littered with moments on my calendar that were supposed to be triumphs, not tragedies, moments to celebrate, not cry.         First's are hard, but not all first's are bad.  I look back in time and I remem...

Who Am I?       Two very short years ago, I was 47 years old. I was living in the parsonage at our  church in Clinton, CT, the wife of a pastor. I had been Zack’s wife for 26 years, and he  was the only boyfriend I’d ever had. We had one kid left at home with us and a brand  new grandbaby that we were looking forward to seeing in a few weeks at Christmas  time. I had just started as the church secretary about two months before that, and I was  leading the women’s ministry as well as teaching everything from the kids to ESL. I had  no idea that in about three weeks, everything, and I do mean every – single – thing, was  going to drastically change.       On January 5 of 2024, God decided to take my husband Zack home to Heaven just  before his 51st birthday. He collapsed during his morning workout in the basement, and  emergency personnel couldn’t get his heart to recover. In just minutes, I was no longer a  ...