Well, I wrote a book.  Most of you could have probably written it, but since you were busy I did it for you.  It’s a book about doubts and fears, accomplishments and failures, dreams and visions.  Kind of like life.  We all have ideas of what life was going to be, at least when we were young.  Somehow some of those dreams didn’t materialize, in fact probably most of them.  So how do we respond.  What are we supposed to do with all the stuff of life?  Are we to just shove it under a rug and forget about it?  You and I both know that isn’t going to happen so easily.  

    Lost dreams hurt.  Disappointments hurt.  They don’t just go away because we try to will them to.  If we could will our dreams true, we’d all be millionaires with yachts and planes and cars and fancy homes, right?  But it doesn’t work that way.  Life punches us in the face and most of the time we can’t punch back!  When your daughter is diagnosed with cancer and you ask the doctor why and he says he doesn’t know.  You can’t punch back.  When your 15 year old son dies in a car crash with some friends and you find out he was an innocent victim, you can’t punch back.  

    Life is full of punches, most of which we are receiving.  When family was gathering at my brother’s fiancés house prior to their wedding, I walked in and I heard someone say, oh good he’s tall. I was the best man and the lady I was escorting was tall so she was relieved.  You know when you’re tall it has its advantages.  My size is intimidating and I forget that sometimes.  I look down on most people, not figuratively but literally.  I’m reminded of that when I see pictures of myself with other people.  

 

    But, then there is the downside.  I have to duck once in awhile.  If I don’t I pay the price.  Life is full of this stuff, even for the Christian.  If you find the verse that says life will always be easy for the Christian, please point it out to me, because I still haven’t found it!  Now, before you all start boohooing me let me tell you I’ve had some high times.  I’ve seen some famous people like Billy Graham and General Norman Schwortskoff.  I’ve met some famous people whose names you would recognize. 

    The last time I ran for congress, I was coming out of the station following a tv interview and who do I see waking in but Kweise Mfume.  He was one time Mayor of Baltimore and head of the NAACP.  Now don’t get me wrong, we are not of the same political persuasion, but there he was so we talked very briefly.  Just as a side note, that was the interview where the technician put the wrong speech on the teleprompter.  I had two versions of the same speech, a long and a short.  He was supposed to insert the short, he inserted the long.  Part way through the speech I realized, oh no he put the wrong speech in.  Somehow I managed to edit the speech in my head as I was delivering it on a live tv recording.  

    So, life is fun isn’t it?  You know we’re taught a lot of things in college and some of it is actually useful. (ha,ha)  One of the things they taught us was to use words that began with the same letter.  So, here we go, I’m going to talk about:

 

 

 

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