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In Memory of Earlene F. Wagner

November 11, 1941 – January 8, 2010

She is Gone by David Harkins

You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she’s gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

To our dear loved ones:

Our family is very thankful to you for your kindness and comforting words of condolence on the death of our wife, mother and grandmother.
Thank you for all of your prayers as we grieve Earlene’s death.

Warm regards,
The Wagner family

I miss you Mom.

Christmas and the Incarnation by Chuck Colson  (via http://breakpoint.org)
December 25, 2009

What image does the mention of Christmas typically conjure up? For most of us, it is a babe lying in a manger while Mary and Joseph, angels, and assorted animals look on.

Heartwarming picture, but Christmas is about far more than a Child’s birth—even the Savior’s birth. It is about the Incarnation: God Himself, Creator of heaven and earth, invading planet earth, becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

It is a staggering thought. Think of it: The Word—that is, Logos in the Greek, which meant all the knowledge that could be known—the plan of creation, that is, ultimate reality—becomes mere man? And that He was not born of an earthly king and queen, but of a virgin of a backwater village named Nazareth? Certainly God delights in confounding worldly wisdom—and human expectations.

Thirty years after His humble birth, Jesus increased the Jews’ befuddlement when He read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives…to set free those who are downtrodden…” Jesus then turned the scroll back and announced, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In effect, the carpenter’s Son had just announced that He was the King.

So yes, the birth of Jesus is a glorious moment, and the manger scene brings comfort and joy and Christmas cheer. But it should also inspire a holy terror in us—that this baby is God incarnate, the King who came to set the captives free, through His violent, bloody death on the cross as atonement for us, His unworthy subjects.

It is through the Incarnation God sets His grand plan in motion. He invades planet earth, establishing His reign through Christ’s earthly ministry. And then Christ leaves behind an occupying force, His Church, which is to carry on the work of redemption until His return and the kingdom’s final triumph.

Do we get this? I am afraid most of us are so preoccupied, distracted by last-minute Christmas shopping and consumerism, that we fail to see God’s cosmic plan of redemption in which we, as fallen creatures, are directly involved.

The average Christian may not “get” this announcement, but those locked behind bars do. Whenever I preach in the prisons, and I read Christ’s inaugural sermon, Luke 4:18, and when I quote His promise of freedom for prisoners, they often raise their arms and cheer. The message of Jesus means freedom and victory for those who once had no hope. They are not distracted by the encumbrance of wealth and comfort.

People in the developing world get it, too. Whenever I have shared this message with the poor and oppressed people overseas, I see eyes brightening. Stripped of all material blessings, exploited by earthly powers, they long for the bold new kingdom of Christ.

Today is Christmas. Go ahead and enjoy singing about, and celebrating, the birth of the Savior. Set up a manger scene in your home. But do not forget this earth-shaking truth: The birth of the Baby in the manger was the thrilling signal that God had invaded the planet. And that gives us the real reason to celebrate Christmas.

This commentary originally aired December 25, 2007. (via http://breakpoint.org)

Today I got the results my 4th CT scan. I started down this road almost 3 years ago. November 17th 2006, I found out I had a tumor the size of a cantaloupe in my colon. Well it didn’t stay contained in the colon. It had attached itself to the abdominal wall, small intestine, another section of the large intestine and the bladder. December 4th, 2006 I had surgery to attempt to remove this beast. The surgeon was successful in removing the tumor along with a bladder resection and colon and small intestine resections. On December 7th, 2006 the pathology report showed that there was no cancer to be found in my system. Nothing in the margins, and 22 out of 22 lymph nodes completely clean. Since then, I had six months of intensive chemo. My oncologist termed that preventative. I have been since visiting my oncologist every three months. I was scheduled to do that for 5 years. I have been informed if my results come back like all previous results that I can be declared “cancer free” by the oncologist. That would be two years earlier than the best case scenario I was given in January 2007.

The results today showed a spot on my liver that has never been there before. They are not sure what it is. It could very well be nothing, or just a cyst. It could be a metastasis. So right now the course of action is to wait for a few months and retake a CT Scan. We will find that A) the spot is gone, B) the spot has not grown, or C) the spot is growing. If the spot is there, or if it’s growing, surgery is in play. Then we may have to look at treatment options again.

While yes, they found a spot ALL other labs, blood work and markers are “exceptional”. So what are we to make of this. Well, this journey has never been about me. This is not “Why me, why now.” Honestly why not me. It has always been about God and His glory.

Here are some lessons I am learning from having cancer. (The catalyst for this was something that John Piper wrote. I would encourage you to read it.)

• I am learning that cancer is the best thing that has happened to me.
• I am learning — and continue to learn — to rely on God for everything. Only God can continue to get me through this. We can only LIVESTRONG™ if we’re GODSTRONG™
• I have begun the process of getting my affairs in order. No matter how long I live, it makes sense to know that my affairs are in — and remain — in order.
• I am learning that dying is not a loss and that staying alive is not the ultimate goal.
• I am learning that having cancer is a great way to develop deeper relationships with other people.
• I am learning that this is a process and not a destination. Cancer will always be a part of me.
• I am learning that sin is worse than cancer. Some of the things I have excused away as “just who I am” are sin.

I am an unkind jerk to many people including my wife and my boys. That needs to change. I am quite arrogant.

Having cancer has greatly humbled me, but I seek more humility.

• I am learning that I don’t need to sweat the “small stuff”.
• I am learning that it is better to influence others rather than simply inspiring them.
• I am learning that I can be just like the Israelites of the Old Testament. I was given a miracle 3 years ago and the further away I get from that, I find I can forget the miracle.
• I am learning that every day I wake and my feet touch the floor, it is a great day!
• I am learning that God has a purpose for me, my wife and my boys with this journey that He’s placed us on. May we be faithful.
• I have been given a platform to share what I believe and I am learning to use that.

“What’s the next step?”

Quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia

Posted via email from sawagner30’s posterous

Keeping Christmas (HT Gunnar Simonsen)
Henry Van Dyke
________________________________________

There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you;

• to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world;

• to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;

• to see that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy;

• to own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life;

• to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness.

Are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children;

• to remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old;

• to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough;

• to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts;

• to try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you;

• to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you;

• to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open—

Are you willing to do these things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

Are you willing…

• to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world—

• stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death—

• and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?

Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you can keep it for a day, why not always?

But you can never keep it alone.

- Henry Van Dyke

Posted via email from sawagner30’s posterous

War on Christmas attacks religious free speech

by Mike Devine

“You can’t legislate morality.”

“They want to impose their religious beliefs.”

So go the arguments meant to persuade courts to ban voluntary prayer and Bible study in schools, ban nativity scenes and displays of the Ten Commandments on public property, and legalize same-sex marriage and abortion.

Judges shaped by the moral vision underlying such decisions have imposed them on an America whose revolutionary Founders were intent upon government by We the People, not by one king or five justices. The Constitution they ratified guarantees freedom of all speech, not just non-religious speech. Earlier this week we documented the actions of the educators of such judges that embrace a warped moral vision that bans Christmas trees as offensive but needs commissions to study whether offensive racial epithets deserve prominent display on “free speech” graffiti walls.

Happily, advocates of speech-squelching judicial activism have yet to muster sufficient popular support to see their religion-devoid vision ratified in even one of the 50 states. Indeed, they can’t legislate their morality.

Not that they haven’t tried.

Not so long ago my former S.C. Democratic Party tried to silence the “God talk” of Christians to avoid offending non-believers, then, amazingly, invoked the words of Jesus to justify high taxes and a turn-the-other-cheek U.S. approach to the Soviet Union.

Christians fled to GOP

Large swaths of the offended Christian demographic responded by retaining their free religious speech and creating a new political juggernaut called “Reagan Democrats.”These former Democrats were aware that the Pilgrims came to the New World to flee persecution for religious speech and that the Founders were inspired by their Creator that their rights came from God and not man.

The abolitionists who opposed slavery, President Abraham “The Great Emancipator” Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. were all inspired by scripture. Franklin Roosevelt quoted the Bible to justify saving the world from fascism, as did John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in opposing “godless” communism.

What kind of nation would we be, and what kind of world would we live in, absent those Americans inspired by religious free speech?

Yet too many do not want to hear religious speech in the public square and wish to relegate those who wish to speak within the confines of church walls and stained glass. Recently they even turned on one of their own, when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi dared utter the name of Christ in public.

Since the 1970s, Washington Democrats have confirmed federal judges primed for discovering illegal “establishments” of religion where predecessors had not: nativity scenes on government property, invocations at high school football games, the reading of a Bible at recess.

But the Constitution seemed content to ban only established churches like the one from which the Framers themselves had fled — state churches that fed off tax revenue and compelled worship attendance.

When President Reagan nominated the Constitution-fixated Robert Bork (pictured above), liberal U.S. senators crucified him upon a cross of political correctness and mischaracterizations of his record. Bork conservatives find no right to not be offended by the speech of others in the Constitution. Rather, they embrace its right to speak and vote against speech and laws they found offensive.

Look to the Bible

Last year Democrats in South Carolina opposed a bill that would require pregnant women seeking abortions to first view an ultrasound picture of the developing human being in their womb.

Would the words of Jeremiah that “before [God] formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee” be more persuasive than the Left’s “It’s my body”?

We need the wisdom and inspiration of religious speech. We don’t have the luxury of the “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkeys of cartoon fame.

In his classic book “Witness,” Whittaker Chambers describes the continuing choice of history to be as old as the Scriptures, where in Genesis the serpent invites Eve to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge so that “ye shall be as gods.”

Man’s choice to be his own god resulted not only in banishment from Paradise but in the slaughter of millions under the names of Nazism and communism in the 20th century.

The majority of Americans who believe in Judeo-Christian principles need to legislate some morality we believe in. America needs the wisdom of religious free speech. (portions originally published in The Charlotte Observer)

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Minority Report columns
[All links available at original Examiner.com edition.]

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Posted via email from sawagner30’s posterous