Heavenly Father I come to you this Christmas, I come telling you how much I love you and how I praise your name, you have blessed my family and me so wonderfully this year. This is a time that we should take time and inventory and analysis ourselves and see how obediently we have been to you and your will for us. Dear God I am afraid dear God that I have been negligent that I have fallen very short for what you expect of me this year, I apologize and ask you to forgive me, and I will strive to improve next year.
Heavenly Father I want to please you in ever way, I want to be obedient to your every will and command, but I am so weak in my faith to you, I just stumble and fall. Dear Jesus I have grown tremendously in faith to you this year just as I have for the past thirty years, but I still have a long way to be where I want to be, I want to be just like you dear Jesus, I want to live with you in Heaven for eternity.
I am just a poor sinner that is striving to be obedient to your will for me, and there is so much temptation in this old wicked world and sometime it overtakes me and that is a reason that I need a savior like you to lead and guide me and forgive me of all my sins. Thank you Jesus that you give me the Holy Ghost as a helper that dwells in my heart mind and soul that’s leads and guides me every day.
This is the season and the time that we celebrate the birth of my savior Jesus Christ. This is the date December 25th. Has been designated as birthday of Jesus Christ, but my bible does not reveal to me what date he was born. It doe’s not matter to me and I have celebrated it for eighty-seven years and I will continue to celebrate it as long as I live. Infect I celebrate the birth of Jesus every day and all thru the day and especially in my nightly prayer.
I do not decorate trees every day like I do for the designated day of December 25th. But I talk to you dear God to you Jesus and the Holy Spirit in my room and especially when I sit under my shade tree listening to some wonderful gospel songs. What a blessings it is to talk with you listening some good gospel words being said in the songs, and gazing up in the beautiful sky and wondering dear Jesus when you are coming back to get me. It doesn’t get any better then that.
GIFTS
What is important to me is that he was born and he is my lord savior. I do not know why or how giving gifts at Christmas originated, I guess it is because some wise men brought gifts to Jesus after his birth, I think that is a good example to remember the birth of Jesus. I think it is a wonderful gesture that we give gifts to our family members our friends and neighbors to express our love and compassion to them, but not because we feel obligated so, not because someone gave you one before, do it for love and compassion to them, I believe that Jesus would be more pleased if we would give inexpensive less costly gifts, we can not buy our friendship, the same as we can not buy our Christianity. Love is a free gift, Jesus gives us his love and he will give you Christianity if you will ask him for it.
Giving and sending Christmas cards is the same way for me, I thank that is a wonderful gesture but the Government has now made it so expensive it takes away the love and joy; I wonder what Jesus would say about that. Thank God for our computers because we can send Christmas greetings on our computers this year, I don’t know if the Government will take that freedom from us another year.
I enjoy it when we celebrate Christmas by decorate trees and buying inexpensive gifts for family members and put them under the tree and the birth of Jesus is in our minds and thoughts. Now I enjoy a pretty decorated tree with all the ornaments on it and the pretty lights and parsing the birth of Jesus, but don’t do it to try to over shine your friends and neighbors. My bible does not tell me that Jesus does not want us need to do any of these things to celebrate his birth or his life on earth, or his death, or his restoration.
My bible tells me that Jesus came here from heaven thru the virgin birth and his primary job was to die for our sins, and teach us and show us how we can have eternity life in heaven with him if we will believe in him and obey his commandments.
Now let me be a little bold, as the apostle Paul was very bold talking to his churches, Jesus refuted Peter on occasions, so I John Davidson, still have the freedom to criticizes the ACLU, the GOVERNMENT, every one that does not believe in God, and anyone that does not celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, and the SUPREM-COURT that does not have the wisdom to interpret Gods laws, and they are obviously being paid by the ACLU to do what they want them to do for them. For God help us.
May I brag a tiny little bit, I cannot preach like the disciple Peter, and I cannot pray like apostle Paul, I just take my sins to Jesus because he died for us all. Once on time some people were criticizing the great coach Paul Bryant of the University of Alabama for bragging for his football players and he stated to them that bragging is not bragging if it is true. So what I am writing it is all true. The great apostle Paul explained to the Corinthians how he was treated and what he had done in the name of our Lord. So I am not bragging for what little I may have done I did it in the name of my Lord and to please him.
My Testimony
I joined the church in about the year of 1938, when I would have been the age of 16 years of age. It was a country church in a sawmill town and was built and given to us by the owner of the company, and it was no particular denomination, we all called it our church. When we had particular revivals of any denomination most everyone would attend regardless what denomination it was. I joined the Baptist church in a Baptist revival, probably because my Mother and Father was Baptist. My life style did not change very much, I was not considered to be a very bad person before and I already knew who God and Jesus was because our parents read us from the bible. I do not believe that I considered being a born again Christian at that particular time, I believed. I prayed some of time. This was in the depressions years and we seldom had a paid minister most of the time they were paid by a revival by donations from passing around the hat. I still remember it to be the old time religion.
I then went in to the army when I was 20 years old and I still was considered to be a pretty good god lad. Being getting out in to the big wicked world I begin to partake in to all the sins that the world has to offer. I begin to drink like a fish out of water and many other sins that I will not go in to save you of the embracement. After the war was over and I was discharged from the service and I continued to practice my new life style that I had developed while I was in the service. Let me say empathy here that the service or the people that I choose to associated with did not cause me to change my life style and do the things that I did, it was my weakness and my desires to do what I may have done, no one is to blame but myself.
Any way I met a beautiful young lady and it took me about one and half years for me to convince her that I was the person could make her happy and we married September18th in 1948. After being married and as we were thanking about razing a family I decided that it was time for me to change my rowdy ways and come back in to the fold of living for God again and I am sure that my wife could take some of the credit for helping and inspiring me make my decision to change. After marriage we some time went to church but not with any regularity and with no participation or activity in it. We then had our daughter Kay in November 18, in 1949, and then we had our son Rick, in July10, 1953, and our last son Greg was born July 1, 1959, it was in 1956, that we thought that we should get Kay and Rick in Sunday school and we both knew that we should have already been activity and join the church, I then moved my letter to Goodwater Baptist and Helen joined the church at that time as well.
They immediately put me to work as adult secretary and general secretary and I served in that position for twenty-six years and until my wife had become so disabled and I had to take some time off to take care of her I was still active in many functions of the church, but there were a couple years I could not attend regular. My wife spent twenty- six years active teaching and serve as a secretary and serving on many comities.
I served forty-eight years and served in all but two position of the church, I did not teach and I did not preach I served as deacon, trustee, secretary, most ever kind of committees and as chairmen on many of them different years. We both served faithful and carried our children to church thru these years.
All through out my life I have had many trials and tribulations many hurts and disappointments and made many mistakes, but God has stayed by my side and blessed me all thru all my trials and tribulations, he gave me the loving grace to help me endure all my hardship and at the same time and prosper. It was around the year of 1979, or 1980 that I had the feeling that I was a born again Christian; I know that I was a Christian all thru out of the previous years, I believed in the lord Jesus, I knew that he died for my sins, I praised him and his name and tried to obey all his commandments, but I did not have the burning desire to study his word and learn more about him. It made me feel a little embarrassed that I was just playing church that I was not doing every thing that God wanted me to do. I knew that my faith in Jesus was not as it should have been.
It was about that time that god may have been testing my faith in him, now I do not know if God test our faith or not but there was a lot of things that occurred in my life for a long period that I could not understand. My older sister developed throat cancer and died in 1981, our company president had a massive heart attack and died in 1978, and I had been a vice president since the year of 1959 and after his death I was promoted to be executive vice president and my responsibility increase tremendously. My father had passed away in 1965 that was terrible shock to me. I quit smoking in dec.29th 1981 after the death of my sister. In year of 1983 our new president had surgery for three or four by-passes and the total responsibility fell on my shoulders to keep the company going in full speed, and we had several many delinquent orders and many of them were government orders and that required a lot of negations to satisfy them. During while our president was home getting over his operation we suffer a big fire of about half of our fabrication plant costing one half million dollars, it was very fortunate that I had increase fire insurance coverage on all of our buildings and machinery the previous December, so we had adequate insurance to cover most on our lost, but then we had to file with the insurance companies and get started rebuilding the fabrication building and buying the necessary machines to replace the lost machines.
It was about that time I had developed a stomach ulser and the doctor thought I was having heart problem and I thought so as well, I just drank Maalox for a couple years, until another doctor diagnosed and give me a potent medicine and cured it.
In the year of 1979 my wife had a severe auto accident right in front of our home and she suffered a severe laceration on her head and she was given a blood transfusion and we always thought that is how she contacted the disease that killed her in 1985, I will not go in to the details about her illness because all my family knows all the details and I have written about it many times.
While my wife was in the hospital while they were trying to confirm her diagnosis and they had to perform a biopsies
She went down severely and the doctors and my family told me that I would have to put her in a nursing home that I could not take care of her I first refused but finally I decided that I would try it for a while. I knew a nice lardy that had experience that I could hire her to sit with her while she was in the nursing home, but that did not satisfy me this lady was wonderful but I would get up every morning and go to the nursing home and put Helen in the shower and dry her off and put her back in her bed and straighten her sheets and blankets and go get her breakfast and feed her and about the caretaker would come and I would go to my job. I then would come by at noon time and see if she needed any thing the caretaker would usually feed her lunch, I would go back to the office and work until I could leave work I would go stay with her until about 10:00 O’clock and go to my home and sleep if I could sleep, and in the next morning I repeated that same procedure the next day.
After one month I knew that that was going to kill me before she died and I told my family that I am taking her home regardless what any one has to say about it. I told them that that my care taker Jessie Worrell told me that she could find a couple other ladies that I could hire to help with her just to short a long story short these three ladies were three angels that if there ever has been an angel on this side of heaven, I will be indebted to them the rest of my life.
It was in the year of 1983 that I had a call from a neighbor telling me that my brother had had a massive heart attack and was dead that put me down out of my mind, I thought I was going to loose my mind I thought that there is no more that I can endure, and Helen was not in any condition to help me, she was more confused then I was, she could not comprehend what was going on. While Helen and I was waiting at the home of my brothers home and for the funeral, I received a call from my son Rick saying that he was unable to come to the funeral that his wife Linda was in the hospital that she had had a miscarriage and that upset me but I noticed that my wife was not being able to comprehend what was going on that depressed me much.
It was over in the latter part of the year of 1983 or 1984 my sister lived in Florida and she and her husband had retired and they came over to live with us to help take care of my wife and take care of my mother, which lived next door to me and they had been there about a month and my sister was taking my mother for a Sunday afternoon ride and they were returning back to home when they met some motor cycle riders speeding and passing cars in a sharp curve and my sister met these idiots coming on her side of the road and she had to leave the road to keep from killing a couple of them, so they had a terrible accident and almost kill both of them and both of them suffered damage that stayed with them until their death. This accident occurred within two miles from my home but I could not go to the accident because I had to take care of my wife. I remember that it was about two weeks after the accident and the both of them were still in the hospital, and they call me and informed me that if I could possible come to the hospital, if I wanted to see my mother before she died. I remember that I become numb in mind and soul, I remember feeling that it does not make any difference any more what ever happens to me that I will handle it, any way one of my care taker always stayed with me until eight or nine O’clock and I ask her if she could stay until I could go to the hospital and she stated that she would be glad to stay until I returned.
Any way when I arrive to the hospital a nurse came to me and stated that she could not understand it but my mother suddenly changed and had much improved and that she had tried to call me and tell me that she had improved, my mother continued to improve and in a few weeks was discharged from the hospital, and lived another five years and died at age ninety-five years of age. God works in so many mysterious ways doesn’t he, thanks dear God for answered prayers.
I continued to work at my job and I do not believe that my duties suffered thru all of those episodes. My Pastor would frequently come to my office and console me and encourage me and we prayed much together and he was very patient with me and allowed me tell him about my problems and troubles and let me cry to him. He would always tell me to read the book of Job and he would tell me that the Lord will not put any more on you then you can stand. I did read the book of job and I guess that the Lord did not put any more on me then I could stand because I did not die.
That was a ten or twelve year period of my life was the hardest unhappiest, sadist, but I kept my faith in god, in fact I grew much stronger to God in each and ever one of these episode. I felt mad to God when my wife died because I prayed so hard that he would let her live, she was so young, she was only 56-years old when she died.
My bible tells me that there is a purpose for every thing that happens in life, that good will come if we believe in Jesus Christ and God how I believe. I do not believe that I will ever truly understand why bad things happen until I sat down and ask God. It has been 24 years since her death and I still thank of her ever day and miss her very much, but God has blessed me so wonderfully and given me the loving grace to endure and be happy and content in life.
It was in the latter part of the eighties that my life becomes more normal and without many trials and tribulations. It was in the year of 1989 that I spent a semi-year of retirement, to see if I could handle fully retirement. After one year of semiretirement I come to the conclusion that I could handle retirement, and I could really enjoy it. After a period of time I decided that retirement from the corporate world was the best decision I ever made, it gave me time to do the things that made me happy and do the things I enjoyed. During my working years my life consisted of family, company, and church, and I guess that was in pretty well of that order, when it should have been God, church family and then company. I believe that we get our priorities out of the proper order in life sometimes.
I volunteered and served for several activities and programs during my working years and several of them were was more like an obligation because of my position in my company and because people more or less expected me to do so. I was a member of the Lion’s club, Member of the American Legion serving as its commander some time its Adjutant long period of time, we developed a Hatchet Creek Corporation for helping companies to get grants and loans, and I served it as its vice president and its secretary and treasure. I joined Southeastern Lumbermen Manufacturing Association, (SLMA); I served several years as a trustee on our insurance programs. I also serve several years on the city medical board. I serve, as a member of the Pride And Action club that sponsored activities for the town and community, like the fall festival, Christmas parades and other. I constructed a nativity scene down town several years with the help of the Hornsby family Jamie, Freddie, Susan. They awarded me with about ten plats over the years expressing their gratitude for what little that I may have contributed to the town and community. I certainly did not feel worthy to receive such a high honor, but I sure did feel good that they appreciated what little I did for them. I believe it is human nature for one to feel good when other people are appreciative for someone who does things in volunteered basis and in the goodness of their heart. I know that it pleases my savior Jesus Christ.
Since I have been here at Renaissance I have tried to minister to my friends here in my limited ability by planting a little garden for them putting devotional documents for them to read and study. I wrote several documents for them to read and enjoy. I tried hard to be cheerful to them and give them a smile when I approach them in the dinning area and let them know that I care for them, and I pray for them every day. I hope and pray that they can feel the Christian love and my compassion that I have for them.
My Christmas Prayer
Heavenly Father what a privilege it is for me to cry my heart out to you this Christmas and tell you how much that I love you. I give thanks to you that you have blessed my family and me so wonderfully this year. Dear God these are some trying times for so many and it saddens me to know there is so much sin and corrupt in our nation and the whole world. Dear God as I look back over the past year 2009 and as I analysis myself, I find that it has been a fantastic year for me, I have had good health very little discomfort was as happy as I choose to be, you have just blessed me with everything that I needed for my physical needs, you have blessed my eyes that I can still read and study your word, what a blessing that is for me. I pray for my family every day that they are walking with you and that they are being provided with sufficient funds to take care their family needs, I do not know how hard the economy has hurt them finicality. Heavenly Father I have grown stronger this year in many spiritual ways, as I have within the past thirty years, I am not where I want to be in relationship with you, but I am a lot closer that I used to be, so I will try harder to strive and achieve to be like you.
Heavenly Father there are so many people that I would like to raise their name to you tonight and ask you to minister to all their needs and give them peace and joy. Dear God I pray that you will continue to bless my family and me and I love you. I will celebrate the day that has been designated to be your birthday. I have listened to many Christmas songs and some other gospel songs as well, there are many good sermons within a gospel song. I have read several good Christmas stories about your wonderful birth in this Christmas season. This story and prayer was prepared by John and with the help of the Holy Spirit, and in honor of my savior Jesus Christ. ANEN and AMEN
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment