Last Friday was the 13th anniversary of my mother’s death. Amidst the views of Spring with blooming red buds, azaleas, plum trees, bluebonnets, and daffodils, I was awash with memories. With thoughts of missing Mom in the physical. Memories of comfort. Memories being comforted. Memories which become more muted every year. But which remain beautiful, comforting, and unfaded.

In the sixties at CyFair High School I had a bleeding blue and gray madras shirt. It was made by HIS. I wore the shirt as often as it was clean and ready to wear. The more I wore it, the shirt became more comfortable and comforting. That shirt was worn as close to me as my skin. As close as the love I got from Mom. The shirt became part of me. Just like all the memories of Mom I reflect on today and every day.

At Cy-Fair there were many times I felt different than my peers. I was not like them. I was in a wheelchair. Then, I had the embarrassment of having the teenage pimples which in my mind were viewed by others as the size of the Astrodome. I wanted so much to be like others and for the girls to like me. When I wore that shirt, I felt incredibly special. Mom made me feel that way. She let me know that to God, I was special too.

Each time the madras was washed by Mom, the shirt bled, and the colors became more muted. Yet, the shirt remained beautifully the same. Muted but not faded. The outside of the shirt appeared a little different after each washing. Yet, it was the same shirt. As Mom aged, as we all age, she looked older and older on the outside. She was still beautiful. She was the same Mom to me. I wore her love the same way I treasured my madras shirt.

Sadly, I do not have that shirt anymore. Neither do I have Mom. But thanks to God I had the blessing of both in my life. I had the shirt. I had Mom. I have beautiful memories of them both, memories that are somewhat muted but not faded with each passing year. As I think about this upcoming Easter and God’s gift of eternal life after death, I thank God that Mom will always remain beautiful and comforted in Heaven. Thanks to the love of God that will never change forever and forever.

I tried to order that same identical bleeding madras shirt from HIS on the internet today. Like my mom, I learned. They do not make them like that anymore.

God has spoken in Scripture on the importance of memories and remembrance of Him.

Psalm 77:11-14

“I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds. Your ways, God, are holy. What god is as great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.”

Let us pray.

God, I thank You for the beautiful gift of memory. Memory allows me to relive moments that are so special to me.

God, please help me to hang on to my memories of those who have loved me and touched me in special and beautiful ways. Such memories and those who loved me are treasures of my heart. I will carry them with me until my last heartbeat.

God, on the Good Fridays of my life, when things are dark and dreary, may I be comforted in knowing that Easter always follows Good Friday. That I and my loved ones never die. That in Heaven and on Earth, I am never a memory to You. I am Your child to be loved and comforted in the glow of Your holy light. Amen
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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo credit: NYPost.com

Like you, in my daily prayers I ask God to give me what I want. After all, doesn’t Scripture say, “Ask and it shall be given you.” Sometimes I remind God what God already knows about me. What good deeds I have done for others. How much I have suffered, or am in need of what I ask from God. “God, I deserve what I want.”

As God’s children, aren’t we all good about asking God for what we want? And not what God wants for us? As our supreme all-knowing loving Creator, how could God ever know what is best for us ? Our prayerful wishes are far better than receiving and doing God’s will.

When I was a first-year student at Houston Baptist College (now Houston Christian University), I met a fellow student. Bill (not his name) was about 10 years older than most of my classmates. Bill was well-mannered, adorned with a head of thick brown hair, and very articulate. In the student lounge area, I asked Bill what he was studying. “Liberal arts,” he replied. I asked Bill what his career path was. Bill said, “I’m going to be a Baptist minister.” Being curious, I asked Bill, “When did you know you were going to be a minister?” Bill’s answer left me speechless.

Bill said, “I knew I was going to be a minister when my parachute did not open after I jumped out of the airplane in Vietnam.” The Army had drafted Bill to serve in Vietnam. He became a highly trained paratrooper. On this mission over the rice patties of the Mekong Delta, Bill jumped out of the airplane. He had done this many times before. This time was different. At five thousand feet neither his main parachute nor his backup parachute opened.

Falling to certain death, Bill desperately prayed for God’s help. He bargained with God. “God, I do not want to die. I promise You, if I survive this fall, I will become a minister. As a minister I will serve and thank You in that way for the rest of my life. God, please save me!”

Miraculously, Bill fell in a rice paddy. God spared his life. After a year of surgeries, rest, and rehabilitation, Bill’s broken bones healed. He was discharged and returned home to Houston. He pursued his education and religious training. He kept his promise to God. God had given Bill what he prayed and bargained for in the sky over Vietnam. In return, Bill gave God what God asked of him. To be a minister, to save and serve the lives and souls of others.

Bill is not alone. In prayer each of us, on occasion, have received from God exactly what we have asked for. Yet, many times all of us have not received what we asked God for in our prayers. What we received from God was what God wanted for us.

From the age of six until in my 30s I prayed to God every day to give me what I wanted. To be cured of polio and paralysis. To have my spine straightened. My muscles made strong. To get out of the wheelchair forever. To live the life I would have lived without polio.

At one time I really believed that God was not listening to me. God did not love me or even care about me. I was wrong. I learned that God was listening and answering my prayers all along. I had asked God for a cure. Instead, God healed me.

I came to believe that God thought I could do more as His child with my broken wings than with a strong body unbound by polio. Healing was not what I asked God for. But that is what God wanted for me. The purpose God had for me could be better fulfilled by me being healed, not cured. In my condition I could do more good for others as a collaborative divorce attorney, husband, father, grandfather, and child of God. In serving others as a polio survivor, I could better serve the God who created me and loved me.

God has spoken in Scripture about how to pray and to learn God’s will.

Psalm 37:4
Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.

James 4:3
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Let us pray,

Dear God, I have been selfish in asking You for what I want instead of what You want for me. Please forgive me.

God, in prayer please help me to patiently wait to learn and understand Your will and plans for me.

God, when I ask You in prayer to give me what I want, may I trust You, my Lord, to do what is best for me. That doing Your will is Your way for me to be Your love and light on Earth. The path for me to one day live forever under the lamppost of Your heavenly love for me. Amen
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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

A young boy has a vision impairment.  His mother takes him to an optometrist.  The boy looks through his prescription glasses. He sees the world differently than he ever has before.

A woman is born colorblind.  She has never seen all the colors of the rainbow.  On her birthday her husband has given her a pair of EnChroma glasses.  She puts on the eyeglasses.  She is no longer blind to all the colors of the world God gifted her.  She chokes up, cries, and hugs her husband.  How she looks at the world around her will never be the same.

The mother and the husband gave gifts to son and wife, respectively.  Just think what they, as givers, without expectation, received in return by giving.

God’s love is like that isn’t it?  By that love, we see life, death, others, and ourselves with heavenly eyes, not with human eyes. We see living our lives as spiritual journeys.  By God’s love, our vision of the world is transformed in profound, contradictory, and unexplainable ways.

With heavenly eyes, we see a much different world in which we live, love, and die. Things are turned inside out. Upside down. Death becomes life.  A weakness becomes your greatest strength.  The loss of something or someone is transformed into your biggest gain.  A precious, sacrificial gift given by a daughter to her dying devoted mother in home hospice care becomes a gift from God.  A final, never forgotten, unexpected gift from mother to daughter.

That daughter is my friend Donna who lives in Palacios, Texas.  Donna’s mother Tina died at 3:00 am. on February 27, 2023. Friday, Dorothy and I got in my old Honda van which has more bruises than an old banana.  On this beautiful Spring-like day, we drove South down Highway 59 to El Campo.  Turning left, we made our way down Highway 71.  We passed by the spider lily- lined ditches.  The roadsides laced with little yellow flowers. Driving passed Danevang, the cotton fields had been plowed and seeded for the harvests of late summer.  An army of tall, side-rolling irrigation sprinklers were seen marching and raining down on acres and acres of St. Augustine grass farms.

We pulled into the parking lot at Taylor Funeral Home for the services. Taylor Funeral Home is the blue-collar equivalent of George H. Lewis in Houston.  There are funeral homes like this in small towns across America.  Homes in which local folk who are the backbone of our country celebrate the lives of people like Tina.  The small chapel was overflowing with a crowd of people Tina had touched in ways that made a big difference in their lives.  If I had not brought my wheelchair, I may not have had a place to sit.

Donna bravely spoke about what she had done for her mother Tina.  Because of a stroke, Tina had been living in an elder care center.  As Tina was to receive hospice care, she asked her daughter Donna to discharge her from the center and bring her to Donna’s home.  Donna wondered whether she could do it.  Her mom said, “We can make it happen together.” Donna found strength in her mom’s encouragement.

Soon, she and her husband Kenny, moved Tina to their home. Placed her in a hospital bed.  Made her as comfortable as possible. With Kenny’s and God’s help, Donna gave her mom the gift of constant companionship, care, and love until death came.  Tina’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren often visited her as Tina waited for the homecoming to be with her God forever.

For six days and nights, Donna gave that gift to her mom.  She feed, bathed, clothed, and met her mom’s personal needs in every way.  Donna crawled into the small bed and slept with Tina. Donna embraced her mom’s final breath.  At that very moment at 3:00 am. Kenny heard a gust of wind outside the home as if the wings of angels lifted Tina’s spirit heavenward into the arms of God.

Donna said, “I thought, in granting my mom’s wish to go home, I was giving mom a precious gift.  However, now I know that Mom was the one giving me the gift.  That’s just like my mother.”  God made sure the gift giver received the gift.  In God’s view, the one who gave love was the one who received it.

God has spoken in Scripture as to giving and receiving.

Deuteronomy 15:10 

You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.

Let us pray.

God, please transform and open the eyes of my heart by Your love.  That I might see as You see.  That underneath the world and others I see with human eyes, may I see You. Angels. Signs You have placed before me as Your child.

God, with an enlightened heart, may I see the purpose You have for me.  That in my sacrificial service to a parent, family member, friend, or stranger in need, may I be the giver of a gift who receives the gift of Your love to me. Amen

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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.

Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

God did not give me polio. God did not rob me of a life better lived in not protecting me from polio. God gave a son with polio the best mother to bear the cross of polio with and for me.

Just look at this photograph of Mom and Dad in the Spring of 1942. Just newlyweds. Mom 19. Dad 22. So much joy. Just a few months later Dad would leave to serve in WWII in Italy. Little did Mom know whether Dad would return alive. She did not know she would not see him again for more than four years. Can you imagine the hole Dad’s absence caused my mom? Or the vacuum left in the wake of the loss of their first child later that year?

I can easily look back. I can describe how polio changed my life forever. Today, for some unknown reason, I have been thinking about how polio changed the course of my mother Lucile’s life. Faced with the reality of the possible death of her once healthy son, her loss was filled with many things. Endless daily and nightly prayers for me. Praying for me when I was quarantined in the hospital. Praying for me for years during my recovery and rehabilitation. Finding the best doctors, braces, clothes, surgeons, physical therapists, and teachers to give me the best chance to be happy and succeed in work and life. From the day of my birth to 23 years of age she sacrificed and served as God’s greatest gift of motherhood to me.

At age 23 Dorothy and I were married. Two weeks later I left Houston to attend the University of Texas School of Law. Prior to moving out of the only home I had lived in for 23 years, Mom had managed every detail including providing underwear, orthopedic shoes, braces, handkerchiefs and even the comforting flannel pajamas from the legendary Height’s department store, Kaplan’s Ben Hur. She nursed me when I was sick. When I was bedridden for many months in sickness or after seven orthopedic surgeries, Mom, without complaint, discharged innumerable, unpleasant, and inconvenient bedpan and urinal duties as only a saint would do.

The day arrived to move to Austin. Mom, with Dad’s help, packed my bags, furniture, and the minimal belongings. They loaded them into the back of the yellow U-Haul truck. At our apartment in Austin, the U-Haul truck was unloaded, the moving boxes unpacked, and the drawers and kitchen cabinets organized. Mom gave me a big hug. She and Dad got in the truck. The engine started. The truck pulled away and out of sight. What Mom had physically done for me for the last 23 years was left behind. All her time, worry, planning, and care of me stopped. Another angel, my wife, Dorothy, would now do what Mom had always done for me.

A big hole was left in Mom’s life. She had lovingly and beautifully done all she could have for her son. Now, Mom had to fill the hole left in her heart when I left her. How many of you, moms and dads, have experienced that same void when your child has left for college, gotten married, moved out of the house, or relocated to another city to pursue a career? Worse, your child died or suffered a catastrophic illness? Your devoted mother or father die?

How do you fill that hole? What things do you do to cope with the vacuum left with loss? Some fill it with anger. Others with booze. Recreational drugs or retail spending. Some just crawl in the hole and give up. Life is too overwhelming. This prayer invites you or someone you know to follow my mother’s footsteps. Her example.

Due to her faith in God and in the power of prayer, Mom continued to pray as she always had done. That did not change. What did change? All the time and physical energy she had expended on me were no longer needed. Mom’s newfound time enabled her to give much more time and love to her younger sons, Gary and Russell. To serve on the Altar Guild at St. Francis. To meet every Thursday morning in church with the Ladies Prayer Group. Each week to fold the next Sunday’s Service Leaflets. In such giving to others and so much more, God filled the hole in her heart with His abundant healing love.

God has spoken in Scripture about this.

Psalm 32:7-9
Therefore, all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble;
when the great waters overflow, they shall not reach them.
You are my hiding-place; you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance.
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go;
I will guide you with my eye.”

Let us pray.

Dear God, something happened in my life which is a great loss to me. I do not know how to fill the hole left in my heart. In my faith in You I know You can fill the emptiness which robs me of joy and happiness.

God, in prayer please lead me down the healthy healing path.

God, please help me serve my needs by serving others in Your holy name.

God, rather than turning away from what I need to do, please help me to turn to see Your face. May I put all my trust in You to make me whole in Your eyes. May You fill my loss with Your overflowing beautiful, exquisite, and never-failing love. Amen
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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Unlike God’s steadfast, never changing, constant love for you and me, our lives change every single day. Just when we are comfortable or when we have finally overcome a loss or significant challenge, the rug gets pulled out from under our feet.

I have been inspired by two “differently abled” people who adapted in amazing ways to change.

One was Fred (not his name) who had polio like me.  He had a razor-sharp brain for math. However, polio left him with two totally paralyzed arms.  One he named Charles and the other he named Steve. With a good sense of humor, Fred said that his arms, Charles and Steve, never did anything. They just “hung around like good old friends.”

Fred became a successful accountant.  He learned to write figures in ledgers by placing a pencil between his toes on his right foot.  Fred was not ashamed or embarrassed by his condition.  One day, I witnessed his courage  when we went to lunch at a restaurant.  Fred sat at the table.  Next, he removed  his  shoes. Then, he placed his two bare feet on the table for the remainder of the meal.   When Fred was thirsty, he placed his two cupped-feet around the glass to drink his iced tea.  He ate his meal with a fork held between the toes on his right foot.  He cut the meat on his plate with a knife held between the toes in his left foot and a fork held between the toes on his right foot.  Fred was oblivious to the stares of the others who dined next to our table.

Then, there was Edna (not her real name).  She was born without any arms.  Her mother had taken Thalidomide to prevent morning sickness when she was pregnant.  Thalidomide caused the deformities which Edna had to adapt to for her entire life.  Edna became a successful engineer.  She  learned to dress herself and to drive a car.  She magnificently coped with change and always retained a profound sense of humor.  Edna told me that on a drive to San Antonio on Interstate 10 a State Trooper pulled up beside her car.  The Trooper turned on his flashing lights.  He vigorously waived for  her to pull over.  After pulling over and coming to a stop, Edna looked at her rear-view mirror.  She saw the Trooper walking briskly  toward her car door.  She could see the anger on his face.

Edna rolled down her window.  The Trooper exclaimed, “Lady, you might think it is funny.  But you cannot drive a car in Texas with your feet on the steering wheel!  Step out of the car right now!”  The moment Edna got out of the car, the Trouper knew that he had stepped in a huge pile of doggie fertilizer.  Seeing that Edna had no arms, the Trooper profusely apologized.  Edna graciously accepted his apology.  She told this story to everyone with laughter and with no bitterness toward the Trooper or the condition Thalidomide left her in.

Fred and Edna embraced their physical imperfections with dignity, self-worth and good humor. They each overcame the anxiety and stress experienced in having to adapt to unwanted and disabling conditions.  To live.  To learn.  To work.  To love others and themselves.  If Edna and Fred can do that, why cannot you with God’s help?

God has spoken in Scripture words of encouragement in adapting to change.

Joshua 1:9

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

Isaiah 43:19

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Let us pray.

Dear God, I fear change in my life.  I am anxious because I do not feel in control of the life You have gifted me.  In prayer I ask You to help me learn to trust You when change happens.

God, may I manage change and adapt to it in ways for me to grow and to become more like You.

God, I thank You for having plans for my life.  I need not fear that You will ever abandon me when adapting to change seems impossible for me.  For in You and with You, all things are always possible.  Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo credit: Companion.com

Click here for Jack’s song, “What Is Love?”

Those of you who are part of my prayer community have read my prayers which often touch on love–giving it, receiving it, sharing it, and knowing what it is. It is hard to imagine a life truly lived without it.

One cannot stress enough the importance of love and the harm to every person who does not receive it, especially at critical times; times I call Prayerful Passages. When death, loss, tragedy, or illness strikes. We need love then more than ever.

You and I have spent a lifetime learning what love is. It is in you and me. It magnificently shines from the lips and hugs and the little things children do. It happens when we pass it on to others.

Pay for the coffee for the next car in line at Starbucks. Make donations of clothing at Goodwill. Write a personal letter of condolence to one who has lost a loved one or pet. Just like God’s love, the number of things you and I can do to show our love to another is without limit.

One day my heart and yours will stop beating. But, our loving acts live forever in those we leave behind. Gifts of love are seeds of God’s love that grow in the hearts of others, generation after generation.

On Valentine’s Day, we celebrate love. We give love and receive it too. From school children giving cards and candy hearts which say, “I love you,” or to a special dinner, cocktail, flowers, and a box of chocolate to our special Valentine.

My Valentine card to you today is my song, “What Is Love.” My deepest praise to Stephanie Jones, lead vocalist, Brian Carrion, guitarist and accompanying vocalist, and to Brad Burks of Austin who added the lyrics and graphics to the video. Click here for the YouTube video.

On Valentine’s Day, I will be with my Valentine for life, my wife Dorothy. Dorothy means “gift from God.” Thanks to God and to Dorothy I know what love truly is. I get to celebrate love not just on Valentine’s Day, but all year long.

God has spoken to us in Scripture about receiving and sharing love.

2 Corinthians 9:6-8 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Let us pray together.

Dear God, in prayer may I see all the gifts of Your love You have given me.

God, may I be forever thankful for receiving Your love directly from You and from others in my life.

God, please help me to honor and serve You by sharing my love, compassion, and care with others.

God, may I strive to love others on ordinary days and not just on Valentine’s Day or special occasions. For You love me because I am special to You every day of my life and one day in Heaven. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo Credit: Womanshealthmagazine.com

In a recent episode of All Creatures Great and Small I heard something remarkable. “Time heals all wounds, but the scars remain.”

In hearing these words, I immediately thought about my journey with polio. The losses I have suffered. The scars which remain from orthopedic surgeries. The healing I received in the passing of time. It is that healing in the passing of time and from God’s love that I have been blessed. Now my scars are sources of strength and wisdom, not weakness. In serving others in divorce. In assisting others in probate after the death of loved ones. Every person I have represented is on the same journey as me. The wisdom, suffering, and meaning I have received because of polio have all made me a better servant of God in serving others. Others who, in one way or another, have scars just like me.

There are different kinds of scars. The physical ones. Most everyone has some of those from skinned knees from learning to ride a bicycle or how to roller-skate as a child. Cutting of a finger or hand from the knife used improperly. I have some of those in addition to the scar that runs from the base of my neck to the top of my tailbone. The scar that left its mark when Dr. Harrington inserted 3 steel rods in my back at the age of ten. The scar is ugly. Yet, there is so much beauty and joy in my life that resulted from being scarred in that way.

Then, there are the mental ones. The scars that you cannot see with your eyes. They are the scars that are felt in the heart. The unseen scars of the walking wounded. Those scars are invisible to the human eye. Yet, the gravity and the consequences of those wounds of the heart are profound.

One of my pet peeves is use of the term, “closure.” Psychologically, the idea that you and I can suffer a loss, a death, a trauma, polio, illness or divorce and have “closure” sounds good. Everything is in the rear-view mirror. When I hear someone ask another, “Do you have closure?” I cringe. For me, as with my polio, there is no such thing as closure. The scars of polio, both physical and mental, will always dwell in me. The scars are part of the best me I am now. The scars remain alongside the lessons, the wisdom, and the gifts that I received from them.

People in divorce are the same as me. So are people who have lost parents, spouses, children and friends. They have wounds which need to be healed. Those scars will always remain. Yet beside the wounds reside gifts that remain. The blessings of love received, memories of human embrace, the touch a healing hand, and the flowering of gifts and abilities that would otherwise have gone unappreciated or neglected.

I believe in Angels. I believe that time and God’s love heal what is broken in you and in me. As for the scars that remain, I believe that they are eyes for us to see the light and the love of God.

God surely transforms our scars into our greatest blessings—just as the five wounds of Christ on the Cross transformed death into eternal life. In prayer my wounds and scars from polio became portals for God to step in and say, “I will heal you because I love you as my child.” In my calling I feel that every day God asks me to share my wounds and scars with others so that they too may see the love of God in their own suffering, pain, and scars.

God has spoken in Scripture about our scarred and broken hearts and appreciating the strengths that come from our weaknesses.

Psalm 34:18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

2 Corinthians 11:30
If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness.

Let us pray together.

Dear God, in my life I have suffered scars to my body and my heart. In prayer I ask You to please heal such wounds in need of healing.

God, I thank You for giving me the time to heal and Your love to rise above the wounds to my body and spirit.

God, in prayer please help me see that there is another side to the pain from my scars. Please grant me the wisdom to see that the pain from my scars can lead me to discover Your purpose in my creation.

God, please help me to view my scars and wounds as Your invitation for spiritual growth. For me to stand ever nearer to You. To be at the place where my wounds are not weaknesses but rather a special place at which I see and share Your love with others. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

My parents, Jack and Lucile never said an unkind word about people of color. The “N” word was never said or tolerated in our home. Dad employed Black men at his printing company. Mom hired Black women as maids and as trusted babysitters. As a Cy-Fair ISD School Board Member Dad fought for integration of Cy-Fair Schools.

Outside my immediate family we had a relative whom I, as a five-year-old boy, loved dearly. I wanted to be like him. To think like him. To treat others like him. View others like him. He did not see people of color the way that God did or does.

At age five I did what most other kids do to be like those they love. I wanted to emulate the relative I looked up to even if he looked down on Black people.  My relative is dead now. But the memory I regret and which I share in this prayer will never be forgotten by me.

From hearing my relative talk, I, at age five, saw African-Americans as he did. They were lesser. Different than me. They could be ignored, disregarded, and treated with indifference.

Armed with this attitude, I held a loaded water pistol in my right hand as I sat in the backseat of a car. My uncle (not the relative) had driven me and my cousin to the old Fairbanks Grocery Store. The store was a long narrow white frame wooden rectangular building set three feet up on cinder blocks.  The store was just beyond the railroad tracks along Old Hempstead Highway. To the south of the tracks was the all Black Carverdale community. To the north of the tracks was the predominantly white town of Fairbanks.

Waiting in the parking lot, I looked out the backseat window to my left. In the backseat of the car next to me a young Black woman sat with a small child in her lap.  I thought it would be fun to pull out my water pistol and point it at the Black lady and spray water on her.

My cousins and I had fun that summer battling one another with water pistols. This lady was far from a cousin. She was a stranger. It did not matter to me that she might be offended if I fired the water pistol at her. At age the age of five I should’ve known better than to treat the Black lady with such disrespect and incivility.

I aimed the water pistol at her and sent a blast of water her way. She gave me a stare that caused me to drop to the floorboard. After waiting a little while, I popped up and fired a second shot of water at her. Then, I ducked out of sight below my window.

As soon as I fired a third shot, the lady let me know in strong words she was not pleased. She angrily stared at me and said, “Boy, I don’t care who you are. If you shoot me one more time with that water pistol, I am getting out of this car. I am coming over there to give you a big ass whooping!” Frightened, I hid on the floorboard until my uncle returned from shopping. I asked my cousin not to tell his father what I had done.

I rode in silence all the way home to my uncle’s house. As soon as the car was parked in the driveway, I remained outside on the swing and thought about what I had done. I was ashamed. I had hoped my uncle would not find out what happened. However, my cousin who witnessed the event spilled the beans.

Out the back door came my uncle making a beeline straight for me. As I sat on the seat of a swing, my uncle stood sternly over me. He said, “Bubba, I heard what you did, and it was very wrong. In our family we don’t treat people like that. I better never hear of you doing anything like that again.”

All children are born to naturally love others. Hate is something children learn.

As I evolved in my faith, and as a child of God in adulthood, I learned that God wants us to see others as He does. God does not see the color of the skin of His children. Nor does God see my appearance as a wheelchair bound polio survivor.

God only sees the heart inside you and me. God saw the heart of that nice Black lady who was treated so disrespectfully by me on that hot summer day long ago in front of the Fairbanks Grocery Store in the early 1950’s. I wish had seen her heart that day the way God looked on it. If she had been a white lady, I would never have pointed my water pistol at her.

Because God knows my heart now, I have been forgiven even though I will never forget what I did.

God has spoken in Scripture about how God sees His children.

Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Let us pray.

Dear God, because I am human, I use my earthly eyes to see others as they appear in my sight. In prayer, please help me to see others as You do. You do not see the color of Your children. You see their hearts.
God, please open the eyes of my heart to see by brothers and sisters, strangers and friends, as You.

God, with eyes of Your grace may I see the dignity, beauty, and Your spirit in all people. I thank You for seeing my heart and the hearts of others, hearts in need of healing and lives in need of mending by Your bountiful love. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist