What I love Today

Things I am loving this Wednesday.

Not one, but two delicious cups of coffee

Teaching Apologia"s Human Anatomy and Physiology

 

One last swim before the pool closes (not ours, but a dear friend's who let's us swim all summer)

The anticipation of a surprise party this weekend (LOVE surprises)

Knowing I have been REDEEMED

The sun rose again this morning announcing the gift of a new day

As long as there is breath in me

HOPE REMAINS.

Friends in my life who hold me accountable

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

 Two are better than one,
   because they have a good return for their labor:
 If either of them falls down,
   one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
   and has no one to help them up.
 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
   But how can one keep warm alone?
 Though one may be overpowered,
   two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

Today

Living each minute with joy today.

Sudden loss causes reflection and brings the important thing in focus.

Hope you are living life today with all that you are...

like Sophie!

Tribute

There really isn’t a collection of superlatives that you could string together that would do justice to Capt. David Hortman, a beacon of all our hopes for the future taken from us last Monday in a training accident at Ft. Benning.
He represented the best of us, distilled and concentrated in the body of a young man endowed with immense ability and yet tempered by a disarming humility. I knew him, and my life is the richer for it.
His life was set so firmly on a trajectory of increasing achievement, and all who knew him lived with the certainty that here was a young man who would change the world.
That he most certainly did in the 30 years he lived among us.
But for those of us who remain and are now contemplating a future where we can’t see that greatness grow ever greater, where we can’t talk to him or hear him laugh or see that dazzling smile – we are left with the unanswerable question: why?
I am certain that David would be uncomfortable with the praises others and I are paying to him and his memory. But even more than this, I am certain he would point all of us to the God in whom he had an unassailable faith. He would remind us that God has a plan for every life and that every moment of every life is a gift.
I don’t know why God decided that David and fellow pilot Stephen Redd had done with their missions here, but I am sure they were greeted with the words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
In circumstances like this where such promising lives are cut off seemingly prematurely, I can only think that sometimes God is so pleased with the service of such men that He calls them to his side all the sooner.
With the loss of such men as these, who can argue that our community, our state, our nation does not pay a heavy price to safeguard our freedom? There is no distinction between losing such as these in combat versus losing them during training. Such men are our heroes whether they fall to a rocket on a hillside in Afghanistan or are claimed by mishap amid the pines and scrub of south Georgia.
David Hortman remains a leader, and the most fitting tribute we can pay to his memory is to try to live by the same principles of compassion, faith and selfless service that made him such a beacon of promise and achievement. He shows us what is possible if we live up to our highest natures.
I realize that my words offer cold comfort to David’s family and to the people of this community this marvelous young man touched. In closing I offer the words of John Donne from 400 years ago as he lay in his sickbed contemplating the meaning of a tolling bell. He expresses so eloquently how we all should feel at the tolling of the bells for David’s passing.
“All mankind is of one author and is one volume. When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book but translated into a better language, and every chapter must be so translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice, but God’s hand is in every translation; and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another…”

Jay King can be reached at (864)237-4154 and at jking@hometown-news.com.

 
1st. Lt. David Hortman in March 2006 shortly after he completed Ranger training at Ft. Benning.

(written by my friend Jay King)

He Gives and Takes Away

I can't even begin to imagine the depth of grief that our friends are going through as their lives have been forever changed.

Please join me as we lift this family up in prayer.

David was a faithful, brave and courageous man who fought in the Iraq war.

He once spoke in church after returning.

He said he thought of heaven each minute and knew that God was with him in the midst of danger.

His faith and courage touched many lives

and

we still praise God.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Crying with HOPE Today

 We are mourning and weeping with dear friends today

who lost their son tragically at Fort Benning yesterday.

Hug those you love often

Say I love you

Love deeply 

Don't sweat the small stuff

It really doesn't matter that your living room has not been updated in years or that you don't have the latest clothes or... 

the list could go on and on.

What really matters is loving God

and loving others.

Things of eternal importance.

Live each day as if it were your last.

 

 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 

Silliness, Lost Teeth and What We've Been Up To

 Silly SOPHIE

 Learning to crochet

 He lost his tooth but we found it!!

 Sliding with Nina!

 Swimming with friends

Getting new hairdos at the Spa

What have you been doing this summer?

Hangin' On

To see the Summer Sky
Is Poetry, though never in a Book it lie -
True Poems flee.
~Emily Dickinson

Relishing the dog days of summer.

Hot they may be, we are savoring the days of freedom and fun.

Hope your summer has been full of picnics, swimming and star gazing

with only a few itchy mosquito bites.

Trying not to think that in less than a month we'll be back to the books.

 

But for now, I think Longfellow says it best.

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow