Good evening, men! Travel day for the Runyans and admittedly, I wasn’t prepared!

The past few days I have been in Sherwood, AR with my family for Christmas. It started on Christmas morning with 14 people and 8 animals shuffling between two houses to open gifts, unpack, fix food, cleanup and wind down. Hectic to say the least. On Monday, Sarah and I took my oldest son out with my dad to his high school to let Derek try out his new baseball bat and glove.

Tuesday is where things changed a bit for me. I watched my dad wake up at 6:30, make everyone breakfast, play with the boys and then head out for chemotherapy. He was at the hospital from 9:30 am until 2:00 pm, and came home with his pumped attached for the next 2 days.

For the next 24 hours he played with my sons, watched football with the family, got up at 6:30 and made breakfast AGAIN, shopped the Internet for a new baseball glove (a mouse ate his while he was in Pittsburgh for treatment last month) because he is determined to play again in 2017, cleaned his workshop, set up the batting cage because my son wanted to hit some more, and helped us pack to come back home.

Not once did he say a word about not having enough time or energy to do any of those things. If he had wanted to sleep for the whole day Tuesday and today…..nobody would have blamed him or said a word. Instead he talked about his blessings and how much he loved being around his family. 

Philippians 2: 14-15 says:

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world”

A buddy of mine the other day told me, as a code enforcer in a nearby city, he had 6 consecutive people tell him that they had cancer as excuses for them to not move belongings/ clean properties/ etc. I’m not saying that Pops is perfect, nor am I saying that none of those 6 people had a valid excuse. What I am saying is….as Christians we have an opportunity to stare sickness/ depression/ loss/ poverty in the face and publicly proclaim that Christ is greater and, even though things may be rough, we are blessed beyond measure.

Have a blessed day, men!

M.I.T.T. ~ Runyan