During the holiday season friends and family will gather around a table full of food to celebrate together, OR NOT, depending on your pandemic frame of mind! With Thanksgiving just behind us and Christmas just ahead, even in this hard year there are many things we can be thankful for. At our Thanksgiving table we…
by Tim Bryant, Board Member, DLC ‘77, TTR ‘87 “Tim, the whole family is on the stairs waiting for you!” Jay Fesperman exclaimed over the phone as I stood in a hot phone booth in downtown Franklin. “The van has broken down”, I said, feeling like my faith should be strong enough to lay hands on it so…
She looked a bit pale; her skin “thinner” than the last time I saw her. The turban wound tight and pulled down touching her ears. Her smile slightly less bright. There was a port taped to her skin near her collar bone – the skin angry around the entry point. “You look like you’re in…
I was nervous as I stood near the end of the board. I don’t remember if I had been up there before, but here I was trying to act “big” by climbing the diving board at the Pine Valley Country Club pool in Wilmington, NC. As I looked past my small feet and down into…
“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.” Is. 9:2 NIV We’re all familiar with the complaints. Back-to-School days start up in July, Halloween is a “blip” on the radar and Christmas begins, on the retail level, before Thanksgiving arrives,…
The dust was flying all around me as I held the tractor on the dirt road in between the ditches. The pop, pop, and clank of the engine was loud in my ears, and the puffs of smoke from the stack up front were catching in the wind and blowing back in my face. We…
You don’t have to be a perfect dad to be helpful and make an impact on your wife and kids, but you do have try AND keep trying . . .
I wrote this story a few years ago while thinking about the gifts the Magi brought to Jesus. They were treasures, for sure, and way out of the “norm” for a poor family in that region. I hope you enjoy this story and will share it with others as we celebrate the wonder of Christmas…
Originally posted on It Was On My Mind:
If you’ve read my earlier post, Grandma’s House – Gone But Not Forgotten, you may recall that I was reminiscing about my grandparents’ houses and all the rich memories I have of visiting and staying at their homes in eastern North Carolina when I was a boy.…
Originally posted on Our Father's Daughters:
When my father passed away several dear friends gave me gift cards to purchase a plant in his honor. This was especially fitting since my father was a botanist and naturalist, as well as a biology teacher. I knew immediately what I wanted to plant in his honor… an…
It was sometime in March of 1998 when I received a call from my friend and client, Don Bailey, at The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville North Carolina. “We’re having an event at the Diana Wortham Theater for Mrs. Graham’s birthday on April 5th. Everyone here is concerned that we fill the…
Every year we make our lists of resolutions. Every year we break them. This year will be different – I think.
When you are a kid there’s no place like Grandma’s house. Later in life, when you find out something terrible happen there – those memories are shaken to say the least.
There’s nothing particularly unique about it. It’s a fairly standard navy blue blazer. It hangs in my closet with a clear plastic protector over the shoulders and a disc of cedar around the neck of the hanger. I don’t wear it often – we are mostly business casual at the office these days – but,…
I’ll never forget that day I walked into the music store at Friendly Shopping Center, in Greensboro, NC to buy my first banjo. I had been playing guitar for several years and was writing songs and learning from anyone I could find, but I’m not quite sure what sparked my interest in the banjo. It…
It Was On My Mind 