Common Sense Reborn

Harvest in the Hard Times

¹For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. ²A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)

Greetings Family. I last posted on here October 12. I wrote about my lamentations over the state of the world and the state of America. Then ten days later I got a phone call from my sister that brought my focus of lamentation back home. My mother, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and Dementia, had slipped into her final phases of life. I headed to my hometown that weekend and had my last interactions with my mother when she was responsive. However, due to those horrible diseases, I am not sure how much of our time together she understood anymore. My prayer is that now with her in Heaven, with her mind fully healed and restored, she sees the sacrifice that my father and sister poured into her these last few years. These diseases are horrible. I have been surprised with how many acquaintances in my small circle have family that were affected by the same ailments. As a police officer, I was exposed to trying to help those who called emergency services when their loved ones either went missing or had become too violent for them to handle. Or for the few times the person suffering from Alzheimer’s called 911 to report a stranger in their house, only for us to arrive and learn that the stranger was their lifelong love, standing by with a broken heart as we verify their identity, see the pictures hanging on the walls, and offer empty words that we hoped will help with what they are experiencing.

I was going to put a post together on here lamenting over actions I took in my life where I felt like I had failed my mother and father this last decade. I have felt that I had abandoned them to move back to Georgia in 2018. Through my mother’s final weeks, my wife asked me if I had regretted making that decision. It was a question I did not want to answer, and, honestly, could not answer. To say I regretted moving back would acknowledge that I knew better; that I should have been down in Florida to be there for my birth family. To say that I did not regret that decision would be a lie because, of course, I felt regret for not being able to be down there. But we had made a decision seven years ago to follow what we believed was the Lord leading us back to the Savannah area. That move brought a late-in-life career change, that led me into the field of law enforcement, where I finally found peace and happiness in my working life. Moving back to Georgia has brought countless opportunities in my part-time job of serving as a Soldier in the Georgia Army National Guard, such as my 2023-2024 Poland rotation where I was baptized and led others to the same life-changing dedication. Moving back has allowed us to jump back into serving in our local church and for my wife and I to each launch our own small groups (both of which are having a tremendous success, reach, and given us new purpose in our walk with Christ). Through all of these blessings came the heartbreak of seeing my mother slip away, while I allowed the busyness of these blessings block the ability to be present when my mother needed me the most.

I began this post pre-Thanksgiving weekend. That was a heavy weekend. We laid my wife’s grandmother’s urn into their family cemetery on Thursday, and my mother was interned into her memorial on Saturday. Sitting down to finish this post and reading the two paragraphs above, I cannot even remember where I was going with what I had wrote, but I still wanted to share the thoughts I had in the moment before moving on.

2025 has been a tough year on this family, but we have continued to harvest through these hard times. What we have faced is a season of life all of us have either experienced, or will experience, at some point or another. I have stood on the cornerstone of my Christian faith with the earthly loss of every family member by holding onto the promise that this world is not our home. While it is heartbreaking to see loved ones pass away, it should be a celebration knowing they have reached the finish line and have arrived at their Heavenly home and are dining with Jesus and every hero of the faith. They have been set free from the burdens of this world and have begun their eternal life no longer suffering from the shackles of sin, disease, stress, pain, sickness, and heartbreak.

A few days ago, my home church held a “Prayer and Worship” Service where we brought the focus of our attention back to the celebration of Jesus’ birth and sang traditional Christmas carols mixed with new worship songs. It was a much-needed reminder that nothing else matters but our worship and devotion of Jesus Christ. He is the reason for the season. He is the promise of eternal glory. Without Jesus the tribulation in this world would be crushing, but with Jesus we can have the blessed assurance that Jesus has overcome all the trials and sorrows this world holds.

Take the time this Christmas season to remind your loved ones that Jesus, and only Jesus, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Our time here on earth is temporary so we need to make the most of each precious moment to do the work Jesus commanded of us: to spread the Good News of His Gospels, to Love God, to Love ALL people, to help the least of humanity, and protect all of God’s creations.

With my absence from this platform, I have not been able to share countless amazing new releases from the Christian Music scene. I hope y’all have been keeping up on the incredible work put out the last eight weeks. Today, I want to close with sharing my favorite version of a timeless Christmas carol: Joy to the World. Phil Wickham’s remix from six years ago is a constant staple in my Christmas music playlist, and this live version is absolutely epic. Compassion Christian Church is breaking down classic Christmas carols for their Christmas sermon series (which you can see last week’s by clicking here). Today, the church chose “Joy to the World” and the sermon was amazing. It was a reminder that the Joy of the Lord is the secret to finding joy through every season. I pray you find that joy this Christmas season and you make that the most important gift you give to the world around you. May you all be blessed. May you hold your loved ones tight. May you lift Jesus above everything else.