Dream a little dream

Recently, I purchased a new 2012 Honda GoldWing motorcycle. Just after the first of this year. I have put about 225 miles on it so far. All in all I rather enjoy it. I have yet to be able to take Carolyn out for a ride on it, but my grandson Isaak and grand daughter Ella have both had a ride.

I bought 2 new helmets for us so we could have an intercom between the riders. When I took Isaak out he just talked and talked. He already asked me if he could have the motor cycle when he gets bigger. By the time he is old enough to actually use it, I might be ready to give it to him. Right now I just want to get him a new bike with brakes.

I owned another motor cycle that I bought when my dad died. He owned a Kawasaki Voyager 1200 cc. I put some money in it and it has sentimental value to it. I have given that to my oldest son to ride. I had a 400 cc Honda XR dirt bike I gave my youngest son for his birthday.

All in all I bought the dirt bike to spend time with my youngest son when we lived in Denver. He had a 250 cc and I had the 400. Mine was faster.... Boy we had allot of fun. My oldest son and I have had some fun riding the street bikes.

In today's economy its hard to justify buying a new motorcycle. Especially when you had an old one. The voyager was 26 years old and although in great shape, it just had little comfort. But that wasn't the real reason or at least the only reason.

When I was in my teens, maybe 15 or 16 I remember seeing my first 6 cylinder motorcycle from Honda. If I remember right it was an early model Goldwing. I remember the sales man asking me if I wanted to take it for a test drive. I regrettably said no. In reality it was bigger than that scrawny kid those many years ago. Years later I bought what was known as a Silver Wing. That was a 500 cc. That was a great bike.

Approximately 35 years has come and gone since that day. Last June I turned 50 years old and made a promise to myself that this 50th year was the year that I was going to get that cycle.  You see I had dreamed about having a Gold Wing my entire life since that day. I have probably said to my wife I wanted a Gold Wing so we could tour the country at least a thousand times over the 30 years we have been married.

You see it was a dream of mine to own this cycle. Not one that I obsessed over but one I hoped for and yes even prayed for. Was it selfish to want this? I don't know, it was a dream I had for 35 years. So I guess you could say it was not an impulse buy.

So why am I writing about this topic? Beats me - I just wanted to write tonight. Many times dreams take time to unfold. This one did. I had other motorcycles but they were not the dream. I enjoyed them, had fun with them but they were not the dream. I never let go of the dream that I had.

I saved a long time for this bike. I was able to pull some money out of my investments to pay cash for it. I feel good about that.

You may have a dream that you have had for along time. I don't believe all dreams will come to pass. But what kind of a life would we live if we had no dreams. I do believe we must have hope for the future and for the things we have our heart set on.

Of course that very thing is the reason why we heap so much debt on our selves. We cant wait for the dream to unfold so we just buy it on credit. So rather than going into that I just want to say to you.

Dream big dreams. Not just for you but for your kids, your wife, your husband, your family and your friends. Dream big for your church and even your work place. This one dream of mine was about a thing. I have many other dreams that I am waiting to have come to pass. Most are not about things but about people and how I can be a part of changing a life or two.

Dreams bring hope for the future. My hope for you is that you dream a little more. Then send me a note and tell me about your dream that came to pass.

PS: In the last couple of months I have reconnected with people that have always been very close to my heart. One family that meant so much to me and my family 40 years ago and we lost them a little over 30 years ago. I was able to find then and talk to them and reconnect. Another family that was deeply part of my life then one day was gone has now been found. These are dreams being fullfilled right now. But they took years. I am so thankful I am seeing these come to past.

Seasons of Friends

Seasons of Friends

If you are reading this now, you have likely touched my life in some way. You might even be called a friend. In thinking about friends I realized a few things about my friends.

I have “Life Long” friends. Those that I have known most of my life and we continue to communicate one way or another. My oldest and still closest friends are Mark Miller and Clayton Myers. I can remember no friend longer than I have known Mark. I have other people that I consider life long friends but it seems to be a life time ago since we talked. For those we could meet and talk like no time at all passed. We are friends.

I have some people I work with at IBM that I now consider friends. At one time they were colleagues but at some point they crossed over to being a friend. We have worked, traveled, eaten together and become friends. They hold a special place in my heart and mind. We are friends.

I have church friends. People I go to church with or have known for years. It is the only connection I have with them is that we go to church together. I can think of many people over the years that fit this category. I have two such friends that go beyond just someone I know. Ron and Carol Plinsky in Wichita have been my closest Christian friends. I love them as much as a person can love anyone. I love to spend any time I can with them. I know if they read this, it will embarrass them but they are the best and I am a better person because of their friendship. We are friends.

Years ago our family was leaving Wichita about the time that Pastors Mike and Kerry Clarensau came to Wichita to become Maranatha’s pastors. I remember something that Ron said to me back then was he thought Mike and Kerry would be great friends to us. They were our age, we both had boys the same approximate age. They thought that we would have become great friends. Little did I know that later we were to become friends.

Three years later, we moved back to Wichita and started attending Maranatha again. We came back at a time that personally Carolyn and I needed their ministry. Their unique way of loving people, sharing God’s word and just touching lives was critical to what we needed in our lives. Over the course of the next few years they would minister to us in some pretty important times in our live.

They performed the marriage of my mom to John, they baptized my grand children thru dedication to the Lord. They performed the marriage over our son Josh and Andria. They performed the funeral over my brothers Dan and Joey. Lastly, they performed the funeral over our grand daughter Corrine and her mom Andria. They were there during our high times and our low times. In this we forged a friendship that can never be broken. Something was forged out of life’s circumstances and events that changed our lives forever. You could never repay someone for their friendship. You can just be a friend. We are friends.

Many times when things happen to us, its our friends that stand with us. I do know that true friends will shine and not leave you. A friend is not someone to take advantage of or to wear out your welcome with. But a friend is one that sees you for who you are, regardless of what you have gone thru or what you are and love you anyway.

Through the events in our lives over the last few years I have made many new friends. Life long friends have reestablished communication – even thru Facebook. I have enjoyed every bit of time I have been able to reach out and be a friend back to each person. I am not going to name names here because I could never write about everyone. But you should know I do not ever take our friendship lightly.

Ron Plinsky had no idea how important the friendship and ministry of Mike and Kerry Clarensau has been to our family. We will always be friends. Mike and Kerry have moved on from Maranatha but God has brought to us new friends. Jack and Kaye Chancey here in Samson, and our pastors, have become precious friends to us. I am getting to know many people here in Samson and appreciate so much the friends that we are making.

I have said many times that our life ended on March 10, 2009 and somehow started again on March 11, 2009. It was a slow start but we are moving forward. So many friends that I have made or are making I can consider life long friends. My life of just 2 years. I am very thankful for each of you.

I have friends that I am thinking about (you know who you are) in Minnesota, Nevada, Utah, Alabama, California, Toronto and other places. I hope that when you think of me you can say in your mind and heart that we are friends.

Charles

Life as we know it

I recently watched the movie “Life as we know it”. Carolyn and I watched it after just having buried her Dad a day or so earlier. Life as we knew it was now different. Just as in the movie, some event had introduced change into our lives. In the movie two unlikely people were given care for a child after their parents were killed in a car accident. The movie was all about how they coped with getting a child to care for and it changed life as they know it.

As I watched that and thought about that for several days since then, I was reminded (through experience) that life can bring change. Actually life always brings change. Life rarely gives you the same day over and over again with no change.

To one cancer takes a spouse. To another a drunk driver kills a family but escapes unharmed. To another their son goes to prison, to another a job is lost, to another a home burns down. To another a fight breaks out which ends in divorce. To another the food runs out for the pay period.

I think our lives were created to experience change. So often we blame God when change happens. I talked to someone this past week while on a business trip to Toronto Canada. He asked me the question point blank.  Why did God kill my family members? I told him that God did not kill them. He asked me why did God allow it to happen then? I told him that yes God allowed it to happen, but rarely did God intervene in what man was doing in order to allow him to have his free will. I told him as we sat over dinner that if I wanted to hit him with my fist that God would not stop me. However, my own knowledge of right and wrong prevents me from doing it. He began to see what I was talking about

God knew that his plan for us needed to include instructions on how to focus on him during our times of change rather than leaving us hanging so we would just blame him for things that were not his fault.

Life brings change. Even Jesus who was perfect and completely fulfilled the will of God for his life was murdered. The enemy of our soul thought he had killed Jesus. However Jesus laid his life down for the forgiveness of our sins and to restore a relationship between us and God. You see even in the most horrific death that Jesus suffered, there was a plan.

In Malachi 3:6 the scripture says this. “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. What God was saying here is that he does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We have a rock solid foundation to put our faith in. If God changed and we changed and change occurred to us then how would we know what to hold on to. God says that he does not change and if he did change then he would likely destroy the descendants’ of Jacob because of their sin.

We need to understand that change will occur in our life. Rarely do we like the change that happens either. But in spite of the change that does occur we have someone to put our faith into. I know that my life would not be worth too much without the faith that I can place in the God who loves me and has promised to never leave me nor forsake me.

He never said that nothing will ever happen to me that I don’t like. But he will be with me in my times of trouble. I am very glad that I can attest to his faithfulness to my family in our times of need.

The end of lifes journey

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the end of lifes journey. Not because I want to die but because again Carolyn and I are faced with knowing that her dad is not long from this event. Several weeks ago Pop was a man working, driving and caring for himself and then it hit. Two heart attacks, lung problems, pneumonia .....  It has left a healthy man nothing but the shell of who he was.

Pop is home with us now and has been for a few weeks. He is under hospis care, but Carolyn and I care for him 24/7. We count it a great honor and priviledge to do this for him and would have it no other way. Right now nothing else matters but to take care of Pop.

However knowing that soon more than likely Pop will pass away, it has caused me to reflect on other deaths that I have experieced in the last fiew years. It seems that every family member that has died, had died in different ways. Each death brought out emotions in me and affected me differently. I want to just share a few of those with you.

Several years ago my father Donald Bale died. For reasons that do not seem important today I did not speak to my dad for the 2 years prior to his death. Its two years that I will never get back. I preached his funeral but it took another two years for me to finally cry over him. Not because I did not love him but because I did not seem to have tears. My dad lead me to the Lord when I was 17 just 6 months after I met him. In the end my dad left me with a gift that is and will always be the greatest gift I have ever received. Knowing Jesus Christ.

October 31, 2007 my brother Joey Kay at just 36 years old was found dead in his apartment. We had just brought him out from California about 2 months before to live in Wichita. He died alone. I went thru every emotion of guilt thinking what could I have done different for him to make his life better. I cried and cried for Joey. Although I could not make his life better when he was alive, he made my life better after he died. I realized that I needed to change my life to be a better brother, father, christian and friend. I have tried to live up to those vows to this day.

November 7, 2008 my brother Daniel began the slope down hill to the end of his life. Dan was a severe alcoholic. He spent his last 14 days of his life in the hospital with his family around him. When he breathed his last at 5:30 am I was holding his hand as God ushered him into the kingdom of heaven. Danny does not have any of the health problems he had on earth or the addictions that robbed him of his life. I was sure sad to see Dan go but he did not die alone and he had Jesus as his Lord. He had peace in his heart and was ready to meet his maker. I know Joey welcomed him into heavens gates.

March 10, 2009 is a day that forever changed our world. It is the day that our beautiful grand daughter Corrine Gracy Myers and her mom Andrea Dawn Myers were brutally murdered. To say that our lives changed forever is an under statement. I often think of that day as the day our lives ended and then some how started again. For the first time I realized that I could not get through that alone. It would take God, family and friends, prayer, tears, more tears to finally even start breathing again without pain. Nothing we had ever gone through prepared us for that experience. Still today it seems impossible.

All of these experiences has really opened my eyes to realize we don't have a promise of tomorrow. Every person is precious in God's sight. I can look at these events that have occured and realized just how much God has used them to mold me into the person that he wants me to be.

I won't say that I am a better person because of these events, but I do know that God has strengthened me and created in me a desire to serve him with a greater passion and focus than ever before. I am no longer afraid of death. I look forward to the day when I can meet my dad, brothers and grand daughter in heaven. Where my tears will be tears of joy and not sadness. Death does not have a grip on me any longer because I long for the hope of God and his place for me.

My perspective has changed, my heart has changed and my life has changed for ever.

Finally going to start blogging

Well I guess its time for me to start putting into writting things I want to say. What better way than to do it here. I am not sure if this will work out but for now I am going to give it a shot.  I hope you on occasion find something you enjoy reading.

Charles