80 Men Who Made History

This article about the 70th reunion of Doolittle's Raiders appeared recently in the Washington Times. It is a great story to read on Memorial Day, and it gives us a snapshot of the kind of extraordinary people who serve in our military.  READ MORE

The Happiest Day of My Life

For years, I was hesitant to share my testimony with people because it was so unusual, and because it was such a precious memory for me. I did not want to have to put up with people making fun of it.  Also, it was a long, messy and complicated story. 

Then last year my son talked me into joining a week-long missions trip to Guatemala. One of my assignments during this trip was to share my testimony with several groups of elementary school children. This forced me to prayerfully condense my first meeting with God down into a four minute presentation that was suitably G-rated and simple enough for young children to understand.

So I invite you to pretend that you are a Guatemalan third-grader, and join me on this very compact trip down memory lane. I warn you, this story sounds strange. But I swear this is just the way it happened.

When I was growing up, I often wondered about God. How could anybody really KNOW if God was real? How could you KNOW if He heard your prayers? I could not imagine how it was possible to know such things.

I got married when I was 18 years old. My wife and I were too young and immature. We argued all the time.

We tried to get along, but it was not a happy marriage. After being married for seven years, we had our first baby. She was a cute little girl who we named Stephanie.

After Stephanie was born, my wife and I argued even more. When Stephanie was 8 months old, I finally decided to move out. I did not know what else to do. I did not want to spend my whole life arguing all the time.

I went to live with a friend of mine named Dennis. I was very upset. I felt so guilty about leaving my baby girl. I felt like my life was a failure.

On Good Friday on April 4, 1980, I was trying to go to sleep. I kept thinking about all the problems in my life. I was afraid that God would never forgive me for the sin of divorce.

I did not know if God was real, or if He even heard my prayers. But I cried out to Him in my despair. I was tired of living. I asked God to please just kill me and get my life over with.

Suddenly I felt these huge fists pounding all over my chest and stomach. It felt like some big strong man was beating me up. I thought, “God really is going to kill me!”  I was terrified.  I did not understand this at all.  I thought that maybe I was losing my mind and imagining things.

This beating lasted for about a minute. When it stopped, I was afraid to move. Finally I looked over at the clock by the bed. The time was midnight on Good Friday. I thought, “That is strange.” Then I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning I was in a daze. I wondered what had happened to me. Was it just a bad dream? I just felt dead inside my heart. I do not remember very much about that Saturday.

I went to bed that night and quickly fell asleep. Then early on Easter Sunday morning, about 4:00 a.m., the telephone rang and woke me up. The telephone call was about a friend of mine who was in big trouble. He needed my help right away.

I could hardly believe this was happening. I already had so many problems on my mind. Now I had to get up and go take care of my friend. I got dressed and went outside to leave.

As I sat down in my pick-up truck, I felt like the most miserable man on earth. I laid my head on the steering wheel and cried out in despair, “God, I just can’t take it anymore! I give up!”

Suddenly the love of God just flooded over me. A wonderful ecstatic joy filled my heart. I felt a warm tingling vibration throughout my whole body. I felt like God was hugging me!

 All of my anxiety was gone! All of my fears just disappeared! God had instantly washed away the shame of all my sins. My heart was at peace, and my mind was clear. I had never felt so alive before.

Instantly I knew that God was with me. I knew that He loved me. I heard His comforting voice speak deep down into my heart. He quietly said, “It’s all okay.”

After dreading God’s judgment for so long, it felt so wonderful to know that He was not mad at me. I had actually met God! And He was being nice to me!

All of this was such a surprise to me. I probably was acting a little crazy. I did not really understand what had just happened, but I sure was happy!

The next morning I went to my job. I worked with a kind woman there who was a Christian. I told her about everything that had happened to me over the weekend. She was very happy for me. She explained to me from the Bible that I had been saved. She explained to me that when I gave up to God, He came into my heart and I was born again.

She explained that being saved is more than just believing things ABOUT God. She said you must SURRENDER your heart to God to be born again. When I had told God that “I give up” He was merciful enough to accept that as my surrender.

It amazed me that God had such a sense of humor. He beat me up on Good Friday and then saved me on Easter Sunday. I thought that was pretty funny. I have seen God do a lot of other funny things since then. 

For example, He got me a good job as a mechanic even though I am very clumsy. When I was younger, I did not like children. Now I help teach a Sunday school class for 2-year-old children and I love it. God is full of funny surprises.

Since that day back in 1980, God has been so good to me. He brought me back home to my wife. He healed our marriage and gave us a good life together. He blessed us with another baby, a little boy named Steve.

And now God has blessed us with an extended family. When she grew up, my daughter Stephanie married a good man named Ken, and they gave us a beautiful grand-daughter named Miranda. God has also blessed us with a wonderful daughter-in-law, Andrea, who has given us two sweet grandsons named Zeke and Malachi. I love my family very much.

Jesus has guided me and blessed me for over thirty years now. I have made many mistakes along the way.  Many times God has had to discipline me to teach me a lesson.

But His love never fails. He always forgives me when I come to my senses and repent. I would never want to go back to the life I had before I knew the grace and mercy of God.

The day that you come to Jesus will be the happiest day of your life. He is kind. He is nice. He loves you. In fact, He loves you so much that he died for you.  He is waiting for you to give up your life to Him.

Say Goodnight, Dick

As a life-long resident of Indianapolis, I have voted for Dick Lugar on numerous occasions.

He was our mayor for two terms, from 1968 to 1976. He helped put Indianapolis on solid financial footing by working to push Unigov through the the state legislature.

In 1976 he was elected to his first term as a Senator from Indiana. He distinguished himself in the Senate, and won re-election handily for the next 30 years.

Lugar did a fine job of representing us during his first three or four terms. He had organized an efficient staff. Constituent letters were always answered promptly (in noticeable contrast to Evan Bayh, whose staff never replied to any of my correspondence).

In years past, Senator Lugar gained a reputation for expertise in foreign affairs, and he did a lot of good work serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He was a Center-Right Republican, and established a reasonably conservative voting record. His overall rating with the American Conservative Union was 64%, which was a bit tepid for an Indiana Republican, but he enjoyed a 75% rating from the National Right to Life Committee for his generally strong pro-life voting record.

Unfortunately, Senator Lugar stayed in Washington two terms too long, and morphed into a RINO (Republican in name only).

As so often happens to politicians, the extended stay in Washington gave Senator Lugar just too much time to drink the Kool-Aid, and he began to behave more like a Washington insider than a representative of "we the people" back home in Indiana.

My misgivings about Dick Lugar began in earnest years ago when he supported the new START treaty with Russia, and they intensified while observing his dogged determination to keep pushing the long-debated Law of the Sea treaty. Both of these concoctions are viewed with alarm by most conservatives as unnecessary give-aways of our present strategic advantages and our sovereignty.

Finally, Senator Lugar pushed us conservatives over the edge in 2009 with his vote to approve Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's first wacko leftist appointment to the Supreme Court.

He rubbed our noses in it again in 2010 when he supported the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kegan, arguably an even more radical leftist than Sotomayer.

So when Indiana State Treasurer and local Tea Party hero Richard Mourdock (the man who stood up to Obama's plan to rip-off the state pension funds that had invested in Chrysler bonds, and who took it all the way to the Supreme Court in spite of tremendous political and media opposition) announced that he was running against Lugar in the primary, my conservative heart leapt with joy.

Finally, we had a real alternative to Senator Lugar. We had a conservative with backbone who could represent us in the Senate. For most Indiana conservatives, the decision was a no-brainer.

Apparently, many Hoosier Republicans felt the same way, and Mourdock defeated the six-term incumbent in a landslide -- 69% to 31%.

The hand-wringing of the mainstream media began immediately. Liberal politicians gave interviews bemoaning the departure of Senator Lugar and his "bi-partisan philosophy" which made him so easy for liberal senators to work with. The Senate would now become even more polarized by crazy conservative ideologues.

When your political defeat is mourned by the likes of John Kerry and Harry Reid, what does that tell you? It tells me that you are one big kahuna of a RINO.

After his concession speech, Senator Lugar took a parting shot at Mr. Mourdock by releasing a written statement to the press castigating Mourdock's uncompromising adherence to conservative principles. One of the more pungent of those sour grapes was this excerpt:

"If Mr. Mourdock is elected, I want him to be a good Senator. But that will require him to revise his stated goal of bringing more partisanship to Washington. He and I share many positions, but his embrace of an unrelenting partisan mindset is irreconcilable with my philosophy of governance and my experience of what brings results for Hoosiers in the Senate."

Well, I'm sorry, Senator Lugar. We didn't elect Richard Mourdock to do what you did. Doing what you did is why you lost. We elected Richard Mourdock to help turn our wayward Senate back towards long-established Constitutional principles of limited government. 

The fact that you don't get that perfectly illustrates your problem.

We didn't leave you, Senator Lugar. You left us.

Cartoon of the Week

Photo of the Week

Sign outside the new Jack in the Box in Greenwood

 Wouldn't it be easier to say, "WE NEVER CLOSE?"