Lance Cpl. Jon Eric Bowman

This is a repost about one of my heros that I think is appropriate for today and is my Memorial Day tribute to a fallen hero.

I meant to post this earlier, but my work seems to have taken on a life of its own, and I haven't had much time to tend to my blog. On October 9th, 2006, while he was in Iraq, I lost a good friend and someone I considered as one of my sons. Jon Eric had been good friends with my son and had dated my daughter for a time. I had the privelidge to coach him in summer baseball and had many heart to hearts over the years. He was an amazing young man. Since I had served in the military, he would come and ask me questions about it and after he was in the marines he would come by when he was on leave to talk about military life and other things. It was one of those things we had in common, although I had served in the Air Force. But I think one of the most important things we discussed was his salvation. I truly believe he was saved, because I can really grill someone about it, because I want to make sure. This can be a comfort to parents to know that there loved ones are in heaven. But I also believe his death was not in vain. On Wednesday we had his funeral. That night in my class we discussed heaven and that Jon Eric was there and to of my boys made decisions to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. So even in death, new life is born. Thank you Jon Eric for your life.

You Kids have It Too Easy

I was listening to KLove this morning and Sterling read this email she got and I just had to pass it along. Have a good laugh.

Sterling
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious stories about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking Twenty-five miles to school every morning.

Uphill... barefoot...
... See More
BOTH ways!
Yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no I was going talk to my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today - you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves - in the card catalogue!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter, with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napster or I tunes - you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished and the tape would come undone, 'cause that's how we rolled, dig?

We didn't have anything fancy like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-..resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win.
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up we had to use the stove ... Imagine that!

That's exactly what I'm talking about!

You kids today have got it too easy.

You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or before!

Thanks Mom and Dad

Did you ever notice when you were a kid and someone else did something wrong, you were the one that got the lecture? Now you are grown up and when someone else does something wrong, you give a lecture to your kids? And we said we would never grow up to be like our parents. Thanks Mom and Dad for the lectures. I was listening. I think I may be repeating the same lectures word for word.

Can You Be Plucked Out of God's Hand?

I was listening to a sermon yesterday by Adrien Rogers and this jumped out at me and I thought I would get it down while I still remembered it. There is a false thinking that is around today, and that is you can lose your salvation. I personally believe that if you are "Truly" saved, you can't lose your salvation. Here is a verse to remember:

John 10:29 (KJV)
²⁹ My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.

Now this is Jesus speaking, and if you believe the Bible and Jesus, then if we are given to Jesus nothing or no one can pluck us out of His hand. Not us and not even Satan. This is the thought I will put forth today. And it is a logical thought. If Satan could pluck us out of God's hand, he would have done it already and he would have done it to everyone. Therefor no one would make it to heaven. This would make Satan greater than God. And if by chance we did make it to heaven, it would have been because of Satan's goodness, grace and mercy. What a messed up theology that would be. I will try to post some more on the Security of The Believer. But first, be sure of your salvation. If you are not sure if you were to die right now where you would spend eternity, you can know for sure. Admit that you are a sinner and deserve death. The penalty for sin is death. Admit that no amount of good works will pay that debt and get you to heaven. Believe that Jesus paid that price on the Cross for us. Accept that free gift of salvation that He offers and ask Him to come into your heart and be your Lord and Savior. Confess Him before men, another words let someone know of your decision. If you want to talk off this page, my email is mygodsbeengood.blogspot@live.com God Bless.

To My Mother on Mother's Day

I am lucky to still have both my mother and father still alive and still in rather good health, both physically and mentally. Momma was an old country girl. Her parents lived a rather modest lifestyle. Grandaddy had his own mechanic shop at his house. A one man mechanic show. They had a garden and hunted and fished for a lot of their food. The raised hogs and killed and put them up for meat. They had a couple of cows from time to time. They were very frugal and momma would stretch a penny. Something she learned from those years with her parents. Momma could sew and had to to keep us 3 boys and 1 girl in clothes. She would get material and make us boys shirts and my sister dresses. She could sew a quilt, even up to now she still tries to do a little, but her hands are getting so that she has a hard time. She still gets in the truck and goes down to the pond to fish. She was just telling me today that she caught some catfish out of our pond and they weren't mudcat. We can only guess that a crane flew in with fish eggs on its feet and deposited them. Momma had to be strong. Daddy would work offshore a week on and a week off. That left us 3 boys against her. All we had to do was look at our sister wrong and the cry would ring out and here came the belt or whatever was needed. Momma carted us boys and our friends around to baseball games. And she never complained. I remember momma sitting me down and showing me the biology, if you get my drift. But what stuck with me was when I started dating she said, "I better not hear of you mistreating a girl." And she wasn't talking about being abusive. Those words haunted me whenever I was alone with a girl. Thanks, momma. God gave me the right Momma to raise me. God places us in our families, we don't choose them. Thank you God for my Momma.