RickPage

Despair A friend died last week.  Let me clarify that...a friend took his life on Friday.  He left behind a beautiful family - wife, five children, loving parents.  They are left angry, grief-stricken, hurting and perhaps the cruelest blow of all - questioning with no hope of answers.  Friends and acquaintances are no better off.  This man was a leader within the church, a worship minister, a shepherd and one who helped others.  What could bring a man who believed in the Eternal, and hope for believers in Him for eternity, to the point of self destruction? Pain. Despair. However, that is only supposition.  That is the cruelty for those left behind by suicide.  Picking up the pieces and questions without any answers.  The answers, what few we can get, come from those who have been close, but not successful in their suicides.  They can help...a little. Pain.  Physical pain can be the basis, but the real culprit is a pain stretching down so deep in the soul that only thin

F ear aith April 20, 2016 I've been talking to a lot of people lately - actually, for quite some time - about fear.  Their fear or fears I should add.  Some fears are well founded, but most fears just leave me wondering about faith and fear.  I should add that I have grown into my current worldview.  After all, I've been faced with a few fears. There are fears we all face and grow beyond.  Correction, fears we all face and most of us grow beyond.  Like the fear of being called upon in class.  Some of us face that fear still on Sunday mornings, "I hope no one asks me to read Scripture this morning!"  There are fears related to performance in a new job.  There was the time as a teenager when a group of us thought we were being chased by a sea monster.  There was the time I was at the police station with my buddies and didn't want to call home for a ride - I walked.  There was the time in college when it was the middle of the night, I was driving, took a