Musings on Spiritual Matters

Throughout my ministry, I have received some pretty awesome gifts.   Sometimes I feel like the best treated minister in the Churches of Christ.  People are always doing amazing things for me and are always giving me over the top presents.  But this latest gift has been the best, by far, ever.  When I say this, you need to realize that I have been given a car before, I was given a ton of money before, and I was given a Kindle DX for Christmas one time, and I was given A signed Sidney Crosby autograph of him after the game winning goal.  I have received some super nice stuff but none of these compare to what was sent to me in the mail.  It is the most special gift I was ever given so far in my life.  Of course I am not saying this is better than eternal salvation, my kids, and my wife, but hopefully you see the point.  This past Friday, I went to the mailbox and opened it.  There was a package from Linda Wesbrooks, she is the wife of my mentor who passed away last year.  There was a little note in the package explaining the gift.  She said, “Burnice would have wanted you to have this.”  It was his preaching bible.  The little New Testament that he carried into the pulpit with him.  It still had sermon outlines in it.  Of all the things I have ever received this was the most dear to me.  It meant so much because my ministry is such a reflection of him.  He mentored me, loved me, encouraged me, believed in me, and helped me with everything.  It is so hard sometimes these days to know what to do, I feel so alone in this work, because he is no longer with me to bounce ideas off of, or how do I do this in the church, and how do I work out this situation.  How I miss this so much.  But his Bible sits in my office, as a reminder of his influence in my life.

I watched Karate Kid (the original one) this weekend, and in the show there was a line that so reminded me of our relationship.  Daniel said to his mentor, “you are the best friend I ever had.”  And Burnice was the best friend I ever had.  Thank you Linda for the best gift ever.  It means so much to me to have his Bible.  Man, I miss my friend.

Related posts:

1. My Gift to Everyone

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This entry was posted by Matthew on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Church News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.