A Dads Heart

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

We were all greatly saddened to learn of the tragic crash that occurred Wednesday night between American Airlines Flight 5342 and a Black Hawk helicopter. Rick Karle said it perfectly when he said, “But every one of those 67 people on those aircrafts were VIP’s to their families, and they were just as important as any politician or VIP in Washington, DC.” Please keep their families, their friends, and all the first responders in your prayers as we all deal with this gut-wrenching tragedy.

 

I had actually written a different message that I was going to share this morning. As a dear friend and exceptional professional has taught me, it is an “ever green.” It is not a time sensitive message and can be shared any time. The message I am going to share this morning is time sensitive.

 

As I type this message, my youngest Tender Warrior, Landry, is in a hotel out of town, going through the process to become a member of the United States military. This morning, I am going to share some thoughts, perspectives, and reflections…I think, perhaps, someone can glean something useful from them.

 

1.      From about the time Landry was 3-years old he would tell anyone who would listen that he was going to be a Navy SEAL someday. It was the darndest thing; there was nobody in our family who was in the military, yet he was certain that he was going to serve and that he was going to be in the Special Forces. He would repeat this over and over again for most of his life. Ironically, he had only stopped saying it in the last few years. When Landry was 8 or 9-years old I was telling a gentleman about him and his belief that he was going to be a Navy SEAL someday. The gentleman said, “He is young, you still have a lot of time to talk him out of it.” Without hesitation I stated, “I don’t want to talk him out of it. I want him to be who God created him to be.” For me, it is an indescribable honor and privilege to be a dad. Thanks to God, the Bible, Bible Study, and prayer, I have had a very strong conviction that there is a purpose for each of my kids lives, just as there is for yours and mine. With this, I don’t think I have all the answers, that they should do what I want them to do, or that I should talk them into or out of anything. Thoughtful guidance, things to think about, etc. Absolutely! To tell them what they should do vocationally or what they have to be? Absolutely not!

2.     When my Beautiful Bride, Kathy, and I were speaking with Landry about college, what he wanted to do, etc., he stated that he felt like he had to go to college because, as a dependent of someone who works at the college, it is free. I told him that this was the wrong reason to be going to college and further, college is not for everyone and that is o.k. Again, different people, different paths. And no matter what path he should choose, his mom and I would walk every step of that path with him – loving him, supporting him, and helping him any way we can so long as we are alive.

3.     With my oldest Tender Warrior, Payton, and now Landry both joining the military, people always say, “You must be so proud.” It is kind of awkward for me. You see, I completely understand the sentiment and yes, I think it is absolutely amazing that these two have chosen to serve our country. But the thing is, I could not love them more or be prouder of them, or my middle Tender Warrior, Gehrig, than I already am! They don’t have to be, well, anything to make me proud. I am genuinely amazed by each one of them and excited for whatever beautiful journey I get to walk with them. My love and pride has nothing to do with what they do or accomplish, and everything to do with the kind, gracious, beautiful hearts that beat within the chest of each one of them. They genuinely care about others, they have hearts to serve, and they are willing to do anything to help anyone. I truly believe – with these attributes – they will find peace, joy, and contentment in whatever they do. To be sure, I am a very proud Dad of all 3 of my boys.

4.     After stating how proud I must be, most will follow up quickly with something like, “How is Mom?” or “How is Kathy?” First, I will tell you all she is doing amazing! Yes, she feels all the feelings and has all the emotions, however, to honor God and her, and the truly transformational work they are doing together, I must tell you she is doing great…it is amazing to witness. The other part of this that I want to make really clear is that this is every bit as challenging for Dad as it is for Mom. Perhaps you would think, or expect me to say, that I am great, this is easy, blah, blah, blah. There are these two competing feelings/emotions; I am absolutely going to miss them, and I am so excited about the new adventures we will have together during this new season of their lives. I am going to miss their presence day to day, the talks, hanging out, just being. You know that line in “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” that says, “And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again”? Kathy and I have often talked about that; we never felt that. We are a close family, we enjoy being together, and I would always choose to be with them if given the choice between that and anything else. So, if you gave me another day, week, month, or year, I guarantee you, I would want another. So please know, it is every bit as hard for Dad as it is for Mom.

5.     As I tell Kath, the worries, cares, and fears that we have are real and should be expected. As I explained to her, for 18 years of their lives our focus was on leading, guiding, and protecting them. Now, we have two that are volunteering to put themselves in harm’s way. Not easy. As I have talked to God, he has reminded me of a few things that give me peace and comfort:

·       They are not my kids anyway, they are His. He simply has given Kathy the honor and privilege of stewarding them. I heard it said once, “Your kids belong to God and He is going to need them back some day.” Wisdom would be to enjoy each day, cherish every moment, for some day God will need them back.

·       Here is a declaration we learned at church a few months ago:

“I am not anxious or worried because I have a Heavenly Father that cares for me and will meet my needs.” (Matthew 6:25-34; Philippians 4:6-7; John 14:27; Psalm 23:1) Man, I am telling you, as I speak this declaration every morning my Spirit soars! My Heavenly Father cares for me…and you too!!! And He will meet my needs – whatever the season, trial, or challenge, He has, and will, meet my needs. I look back over the course of my life and I can testify to the truth of this declaration. Thank you, Jesus!

·       Philippians 4:6-7 means so much to me; “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Again, I can testify to the truth of this scripture. Over and over again, day after day, as I pray, I cast all my cares on Him, reminding Him of the promise of peace, and He has yet to fail in delivering it to me.

 

So, here we are! My boy is pursuing a dream that he has cherished in his heart since he was 3-years old. I am genuinely happy for him, looking forward to this new journey we get to take together…clinging to Jesus’ hand the whole way!

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

 

Kev

Remember & Encourage

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day begins to dawn in my Sweet, frigid, Home Alabama!

This morning, I am not going to tell you anything you do not know. My sole hope this morning is to remind you of a simple truth and to encourage you in all your interactions.

Gautama Buddha once said, “Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.” So wise! The words you and I speak matter…greatly!

I have the honor and privilege in my work to meet so many truly remarkable women and men. It never ceases to amaze me how so many stories start with, “So and so told me…” People had spoken life into them, they received it, and it forever altered the trajectory of their lives. Time after time when I met with physicians I heard about a teacher when they were in 3^rd, 4^th, or 5^th grade who had told them that they could see them being a physician one day. And because of the life-giving words of these thoughtful educators, not only were there lives filled with passion and purpose, can you imagine the number of people whose suffering has been alleviated and lives saved? Our words matter! I have spoken to so many people who are making a real difference in this world, across vastly different vocations, who have a story about someone believing in them, encouraging them, speaking faith into the dark, encouraging the person to keep going despite the obstacles, situations, and/or setbacks. Yes Friends, our words matter.

It happened again earlier this week. I was meeting with a gentleman who is near the end of his career. He has a family, he has achieved a lot in his career, and he was telling me how he needs to find a high school teacher to tell him “Thank you” for believing in him and encouraging him. He stated that it all started with that one person and the words he spoke to him.

Please Friends, don’t ever forget, our words matter. As Napoleon Hill wisely stated, “Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.”

I also want to encourage us to look for the good in others, no matter how much dirt we must move to see it! If I stumble and fall, I guarantee you I don’t need you to tell me I stumbled and fell…nor do you! I certainly don’t need you to laugh at me or ridicule me. We all have failing moments, tough days, and difficult circumstances. Instead of pointing out the weakness in another, let's look for the strengths – we all have both! It is a matter of choosing what we will focus on and, as we all know, what we choose to focus on grows.

I don’t mean to get all philosophical this morning however all this – life – is not that complicated. We would be wise to remember the saying many of us were taught when we were young; “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” And I can assure you, though people have tried for centuries, tearing someone else down will never make us stand taller.

I want to close with two quotes that I respectfully ask you to ponder and decide, what will your influence be?

“If we understood the power of our thoughts, we would guard them more closely. If we understood the awesome power of our words, we would prefer silence to almost anything negative. In our thoughts and words, we create our own weaknesses and our own strengths. Our limitations and joys begin in our hearts. We can always replace negative with positive.” – Betty Eadie

“The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channeled toward some great good.” – Brian Tracy

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev

We Have a Choice

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day as a glorious new day prepares to dawn in my Sweet Home Alabama!

I mentioned Dr. Viktor Frankl in a previous Happy Friday. I have always been fascinated by him. He authored the book, Man’s Search for Meaning. When organizing my personal library over the holidays I found the book and realized I had not read it. That is in the process of being changed! I have found many profound thoughts in it and this morning, I simply want to share them with you. Before doing so, I want to provide you with a little background information on Dr. Frankl. The following can be found at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Viktor-Frankl.

“Viktor Frankl (born March 26, 1905, Vienna, Austria—died September 2, 1997, Vienna) was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist who developed the psychological approach known as logotherapy, widely recognized as the “third school” of Viennese psychotherapy, after the “first school” of Sigmund Freud and the “second school” of Alfred Adler. The basis of Frankl’s theory was that the primary motivation of an individual is the search for meaning in life and that the primary purpose of psychotherapy should be to help the individual find that meaning.”

“After earning a doctorate in medicine in 1930, Frankl joined the staff of the Am Steinhof psychiatric hospital in Vienna, where he headed the female suicide prevention program from 1933 to 1937. He subsequently established a private practice but, he being Jewish, was forced to close it after Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. He then became chief of neurology at Vienna’s Rothschild Hospital, which served the Jewish population. Anti-Semitism was on the rise, however, and in 1942 Frankl and his family were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where his father perished. In 1944 the surviving Frankls were taken to Auschwitz, where his mother was exterminated; his wife died later in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Frankl observed the brutality and degradation around him, he theorized that those inmates who had some meaning in their lives were more likely to survive; he himself tried to recreate the manuscript of a book he had been writing before his capture.”

Dr. Frankl is widely known for the quote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” It was this quote, knowing what is shared in the previous paragraph, which fascinated me about Dr. Frankl. It is easy when someone is having a bad day to tell them, “you can choose your attitude in any circumstance” and it is quite another to have a man who lived 3 years in a concentration camp, who lost his mother, father, and wife, in concentration camps to tell you he has come to this conclusion. The context of it is awe-inspiring to me.

Here are the excerpts I want to share from Man’s Search for Meaning.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually.”

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his suffering or not.”

“From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two – the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of “pure race” – and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards.”

Powerful, powerful words. I won’t share any more excerpts this morning – hopefully, I have already given you enough to ponder. I do want to strongly encourage you to read Man’s Search for Meaning. Dr. Frankl is so humble, his words so gracious and thoughtful. Awe-inspiring…

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev

Quit!

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this post finds you all having a great day on this beautiful snowy day in my Sweet Home Alabama!

 

This morning, I want to encourage you to quit. Sounds a little crazy, right? Let me explain.

 

A couple of days ago I was listening to the radio and one of the announcers was talking about how so many of us make new year's resolutions and most, if not all, of the time they have to do with things that we are going to do. We are going to go to the gym, save money, be on a healthy diet, etc. He rightly talked about how it can be just as important to thoughtfully consider the things we are going to quit doing. He then went on to offer a few suggestions; what would it look like if we quit making assumptions? What if we quit expecting the worst things to happen? And what if we quit comparing ourselves to others?

 

So, yes, I want to encourage you to join me in quitting. Let’s take some time to thoughtfully consider the things that we say, think, or do, that it would be good for us if we quit doing them. And then, let’s be courageous enough to do them! It is our actions, after all that changes things.

 

There is one more thing that I want to briefly mention this morning, consistency. It is the things that we consistently do that determine the lives we live. According to whatever that pretty good commercial is, this is Quitters Day – the day that most people quit, or have quit, their new year's resolutions. I don’t know if that is a thing or not, however let’s 1) make it the day that we identify the things that are not good for us in our lives that we are going to quit, and 2) the day we determine in our hearts and minds to be consistent. Look, we all struggle. If you made a commitment to go to the gym, or whatever it is, and you missed yesterday, just don’t miss today. Don’t let one failing moment become two in a row…get back up and begin. It is consistency we are striving for, not perfection. So long as a new day dawns, there is an opportunity to begin again. How about if we all agree that in 2025, we are going to quit beating ourselves up, that we are going to greet each day as the great gift that it is, and, no matter what happened yesterday, we are going to live the day we are in to the fullest? If we truly do that, I believe many of us will find that 2025 will be the best year of our lives yet!

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you or your family. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

 

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

 

Kev

It's Game Day!

Happy Friday, Friends!

I hope and trust this email finds you all having a great day on this glorious Saturday morning! Additionally, I sincerely hope and trust that 2025 is off to a great start for you!

Last Sunday our Care Pastor, Ronny Poag, preached a great sermon he titled, “New Year/New View.” You can go listen to the entire sermon at igotofaith.com. This morning, I simply want to share a few notes that I took from the sermon.

“You may not have gotten the life you wanted but it is still a gift.”

“Every day is Game Day – there are no off days!”

“Focus on what’s in front of you today. Fight one day at a time.”

“The road you are on is going to lead to your destiny.”

“Don’t spend too much time in the rearview mirror.”

“Life is short, live it.”

“God is not going to give you the strength to fight other people's battles. His strength is for your fight.”

“Get up, show up, and bring your best.”

I promise you; these notes do not do justice to what was a phenomenal message. I really do hope that you go watch it. My hope and prayer for all of us in 2025 is the last point – that we will choose every day to get up, show up, and bring our best. It is Game Day, after all!

Before close, I want to wish you and your family a healthy, prosperous, and Happy New Year! 

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you. I will always help you any way I can. You can reach me at kevin@whatwillyourinfluencebe.com.

Have a great day, a wonderful weekend, please cherish your precious family, and please stay well!

Kev