For Sunday May 13th, 2018

Hello everyone, here's a story. A 92 year old man enters a nursing home and gives up on life. He had been abandoned by his mother at age three. At age four his father left him in an orphanage. At 17 he entered the military. By 24 he was in a challenging marriage with children. He soon moved on to other difficult marriages. And over the years his spotty connection with his children became even more tenuous, not seeing one for 30 years.

Now, laying in the nursing home, he wrote his military record on a tissue box. It looked like a monument, a cry for help, "Someone please notice I was here."

Over the course of a few months the children he had abandoned gathered around him, no longer constrained by other wives. They visited, they joked, they teased, and went through old pictures of days gone by as if they had never stopped loving him, and they told him so.

It worked. 

In a group hug around his wheelchair as they were saying 'I love you' his ancient, battered heart opened. Through tears he finally replied, "I realize that now. I didn't know before."

He may pass at any time. He may hold on a while. But when his time comes, if all goes well, perhaps he'll be open and willing to reconnect with the mother he hasn't seen in nearly 90 years.

May we sit this evening for the power of applied love, for the miraculous changes it can bring, and for the future of us all.

Thank you,

Richard