Timothy Etzkorn

I've been on a writing hiatus. Actually, I've been on a hiatus in many ways lately. Not allowing myself to get emotional or feel anything. Maybe because I've been afraid that if I allowed it... there would be no ending it. That hiatus has ended.

It ended this week when I learned that Amber, my best-friend from high school, lost her father. Tim Etzkorn passed away suddenly in his home on Tuesday. This is a very hard loss for many... as he was such a wonderful and giving man. He was a father to many of us.
Personally, I do have a very wonderful father and am blessed to have him but there were many of our friends who weren't so lucky.

Tim was a father to the fatherless, a friend to the friendless. He loved the least of us and gave all he had to every one of us. I can honestly say I am a much better person because of Tim. I am a more generous person because of the example I saw in Tim's constant giving and caring for others. Tim and Patti always opened their home up to everyone. They have been true examples of Christ in my life and I am so eternally thankful for their love and friendship in my life. Thank you Brendan, Amber, and Megan for sharing your parents with the rest of us.
This is the most recent picture I have of Tim. And I realized how perfect it is... because the picture is focused on someone else... just as Tim lived his life... always focused on others. In this picture he's holding Brady, one of his many grandchildren. And Patti, his beautiful wife of 36 years is smiling in the background.
Although I have a great dad, Tim was another father-figure in my life and a very important one. I will always cherish all the memories spent with their family in my heart. I know there are many others who truly share the same feelings and sentiment. Tomorrow we will be honored to attend his funeral and lay his body to rest.
Yes, my hiatus is over and I am crying as I write this... but as Rita Schiano said in Sweet Bitter Love: "Tears are God’s gift to us. Our holy water. They heal us as they flow."

Just after I'd learned of Tim's passing on Tuesday, I opened up an email that a friend of mine had sent earlier in the day with a seemingly random scripture at the bottom. This passage comforted me so much on Tuesday and I shared it with some of the family this evening... and it is perfect. When I read it, I know that it's a specific message straight from God to give us comfort... and I read it with all the heavenly hosts in mind.

⁶But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. ⁷Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. ⁸For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord. ⁹How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? ¹⁰Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
¹¹Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. ¹²May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. ¹³May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
-1 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (New International Version)

Thank you Tim for all the love and laughs... I look forward to you greeting me with one of your big, warm hugs again one day... soon.
Love you.

i wish we could time travel

I am under 45 years old.

I love the outdoors and hunting.
I am a Republican reformer.
I have taken on the Republican party establishment.
I have many children.
I have a spot on the national ticket for Vice President
with less than 2 years in the Governor's office.

Who am I?
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States

Who did you think?

When did it become okay for people to question faith? I thought it was politically incorrect to question one's faith? Or does it just depend on which faith is in question?
I really wish that Charlie Gibson could go back in time and ask President Lincoln and our previous leaders the same questions that he's asked Gov. Palin. Wouldn't that be cool to hear their responses? I'd love to hear what they'd have to say... and I'd love to see what they'd do.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a five-star general and the Supreme Commander during WWII, was instrumental in the addition of the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the 1956 adoption of "In God We Trust" as the motto of the US, and its 1957 introduction on paper currency. My guess is that if Gibson could go back in time and ask these same questions to President Eisenhower.... well, I'm thinking Gibson would get his ass kicked.

Lastly, I would like to know what Gibson would ask of President Lincoln's beliefs? This is how our beloved Lincoln said it:
"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party—and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere quiet power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."