My Good News this morning is about an organization, Tunnel to Towers, that is doing incredible work for veterans, first responders, Gold Star families, and homeless veterans. It was founded shortly after 9/11 by the brother and family of a firefighter who lost his life running into the towers.

They have several programs:

Smart Homes for Injured Veterans and First Responders – They are building large, very nice homes that include all kinds of amenities to help these heroes live the best lives they can. To date, they’ve built 239 smart homes.

Gold Star Families – They are paying off the mortgages of any family that has lost a service member or first responder. To date they have paid off 411 mortgages. In addition, they are paying full college expenses for children of families that have lost a service member or first responder. If a child is already in college, they are reimbursing full expenses already paid.

Homeless Veteran Villages – They are committed to providing a home and full services to all homeless veterans. They are buying hotels and some surrounding land and completely renovating them into very nice accommodations with full services for the veterans. To date they have 16 villages completed, broken ground or under contract in cities across the nation with plans to add more as soon as possible.

The support they ask for from folks like us is only $11/month.

As a veteran Betty and I support them and I just wanted to let other folks know about it.

If you’re interested in finding out more information, check out their website at T2T.org

Yay, bacon memes are back …

Since we’ve had the World Cup. Soccer does seem to have a lot of hypochondriacs …

A perfect sign …

Seems appropriate given the recent Bison/Grandpa encounter …

No names, but this reminds me of some of my family members …

Good pun …

Hot dog class distinctions. Who knew …

No truth in advertising …

Ah, the good old days …

Seems perfect to me …

When childhood sayings come true …

Finally some good advice …

I recently had three situations where I was challenged to trust God or myself.

(1) The first was when Betty’s sister Margie died last March. She wanted her ashes to be buried next to her parents graves in Alabama. The coordination for all this fell to Betty and me along with her brother Jim and his wife, Melissa. The planning was complex with a fair amount of uncertainty – can we get it done in time, can we do it well, will it all work out. It was a lot of work, especially Betty and I worried about her.

(2) At the same time, the second issue was with Betty’s medical insurance coverage through our retiree plan. The story is too long for this post, but again there was a significant amount of uncertainty associated with this issue. It was possible she could have lost her coverage.

(3) Finally, I was a witness to a serious accident between a motorcyclist and a pick up truck in April. Again, the whole story is too long, but about a month ago I was subpoenaed to be a witness at a criminal trial against the driver of the pick up truck. The trial was scheduled for last Tuesday. I had no idea what to expect my part would be as I’ve never been involved in anything like this before.

All three occurred at the same time and could have easily resulted in many sleepless nights and worrisome days.

In all three situations, I could have easily worried about what the future would hold and what I would do. That would have been my practice in the past. The fact there were three situations on my mind made it worse.

God used these situations to teach me the importance of trusting Him in uncertain times, trusting the future to Him and staying in the present moment with Him. When I focused on worrying about the future, I wasn’t present to God in the moment and that’s the only place I could experience Him.

All three issues were resolved with God’s grace. Margie’s celebration and burial of her ashes went even better than hoped. Betty’s insurance coverage issue was resolved satisfactorily. Finally, I got a call from the court last Monday that the trial I was supposed to attend the next day had been canceled. The defendant had passed away. I knew no other details other than it wasn’t something I had to do

Throughout all of these I kept returning to God and trusting him to work each situation out in His way and in His timing, not mine.

I believe God used these issues to teach me how important it is to trust Him and his timing. As the old saying goes, “God is never late, never early, but always on time.”

“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? “(Matthew 6:27)

PS: The stenosis in my back issue came up after all of this was settled.