"A Note To Mom"

Rest easy Mother. I finally understand all you tried to teach me so many years ago. It turns out your words did not fall on deaf ears after all! They were merely preoccupied listing to everyone and everything else around me. Do not fret. I now grasp the extent of your love. I only hope I can bestow such love on my child...my grandchildren...the world moving forward. Your enduring faith has saved me. For that I am eternally grateful. I can never repay you. I can never give back to you equal measure. Please know and take comfort in the fact that the prayers you sent to heaven on my behalf did not go unanswered. Never again will I be the man I once was. I now know it is only through God's Love for us that we are able to truly love selflessly. I will strive forevermore to be the Godly man you envision for me to be. Your Matriarchal legacy will live on through me. I will pass that legacy to my granddaughters.

I Love You Mom!

[This was written in December of 2021]

"HOPE...It's Real & Powerful"

I would like to talk to all of you about Hope. How do you define Hope?

Merriam-Webster defines hope as follows:

"...to cherish a desire with anticipation, to desire with expectation of obtainment, to expect with confidence, desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment, expectation of fulfillment or success."

All of those are pretty accurate I would say. I think hope is so much more, however.

[This was written on 2/19/22]

In my current environment hope is considered by many to be a "dirty" word. Others around me refuse to speak it, let alone feel it. I suppose that sentiment is understandable based on the attitude many of the guys around me have. Hope can be dangerous if you don't understand it and cannot apply it in the right way. 

Hope, to me, is the fuel that has kept me moving forward for the last 25-years and has given me the ability to become better. When I was faced with what I had done, when I learned the impact of what I had done on everyone else, it was the hope to become better that fueled me. It was hope in a better understanding of who I could become that propelled me forward. Hope gave me strength. Hope gave me vision. Hope gave me true purpose. Through them I was able to finally surrender my own will to Jesus and learn to depend on God to guide me into the future. Hope gave me a new outlook and a new heart.

Hope has kept me focused over the years and it has given me the ability to become a man my family and friends can be proud of no matter what the future holds for me. I now have a new understasnding and appreciation for the term "Hope and a Prayer"! Hope is powerful. Hope is tangible. Hope is inspiring. Hope is life sustaining. Trust me when I tell you, if you have hope in a better future, nurture it...use it to fuel you forwards...use it to help write your story.