Afterthoughts

     Many children live in fear and sadness by living in a home with violence.  I lived in one.  Even with turmoil surrounding them, children can find hope.  At the age of fourteen, I overheard my youth director's wife say her favorite bible verse was Romans 8:28.  I latched onto the verse and have treasured it.      Since this is a new year, I want to share two poems with you. I pray there is peace within each and every home. Happy New Year! Within The Walls Within the walls came the silence of night, To be replaced by foul exchanges and weeping. Angry words filtered through folds of cover on the bed. Sweet morning dawned. With it came uncertainty. Times of peace were haunted by times of turmoil. Within the walls.                                                     ...

      During the Thanksgiving holidays, my youngest son, Robert, asked me what I thought of the television set they had recently purchased.  I commented, "It looks great.  It takes five to eight minutes for the lines to go away on mine.  When it goes out, I plan on getting a sixty-five or seventy inch."      Little did I know what Robert and his wife, Cecilia, planned for me. The very next Saturday they knocked on my front door.  To my surprise there they stood with a seventy inch television. Because of the words I had spoken, they bought the bigger TV instead of the fifty-five inch they intended to get.. Their youngest son, Shane, bought me a sterling tobacco barn door TV stand to put it on.      Overwhelmed I  struggled on what to say. How can I accept such an extravagant gift with grace?  Then I remembered what my middle son, Roy, once said,  "Don't take away the blessings someone receives from gi...