Photo credit: The Guardian

Beginning at 4 a.m. today, I watched the second Coronation in my life.

On the cork-covered living room floor in front of the finely polished mahogany encased RCA black and white television, as a young boy, I saw the first Coronation. From my mother’s sharp focus on the screen, I could tell that this was something especially important. Mom glowed as she watched Princess Elizabeth in the royal horse drawn carriage pass the crowds towards Westminster Abbey to be crowned Queen of England.

It is a Norman Rockwellian memory. A mother standing behind her ironing board. Performing such a mundane task. A task of toil so ordinary in the presence of such a beautiful and extraordinary occasion.

Although Mom was just 30 years old that day, she had already experienced the ugliness of the Great Depression, the absence and death of her father from TB, and the death of her mother from pneumonia. Looking back, I realize Mom needed to witness such beauty, grandeur, and pageantry to forget for a little while those things.

Reflecting on indelible memory of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth 70 years ago, I witnessed another—the crowning of King Charles III of England. This time in color. As a grown man. Sitting up on my Tempur-Pedic queen-sized mattress with my Queen of Royalty in the Family Emmott, my wife Dorothy.

I saw and appreciated the importance to England, the Commonwealth, and to the British people of the crowning of their King. I was captivated by the sheer beauty, symbolism, and historical significance of the rituals of the Coronation. I was amazed by the sheer number of participants required to perform the process of crowning their King. An event accomplished so well and so perfectly in an otherwise imperfect and dysfunctional world.

I will always remember the music, the pomp and circumstance. The majesty and pageantry of the entire Coronation of King Charles. The King and Queen waiving to hundreds of thousands of people standing in front on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Yet, what I think was the most important aspect of the Coronation were five words spoken by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“Service is love in action.”

The Archbishop said that with great privilege comes the duty to serve and not be just served as the Head of England. Service. Servants acting in love and with love of others.

Today, every person needs to witness golden-leafed moments of beauty, perfection, and exquisite adornment alongside the ugly, broken, dysfunctional, frightening, violent and divisive world in which we live. However, what we truly need is service, love in action. Can you imagine what our world would be and become if everyone served with love? Not with indifference but with acceptance. Not with judgment but with kindness. Not with resentment and anger but with forgiveness and peace. Not with hate but with love.

We were given a privileged life gifted to us by God. In return each of us has a duty to serve our God with acts of love towards another. Serving the King of Kings. Bearing to others gifts of unconditional love.

In my collaborative divorce and family law practice I strive every day to be “love in action.” God is calling me to serve, to love, and to give. It is possible to uncouple with civility, dignity, and respect. With love the relationship between couples during and after divorce can be protected and preserved.

If everyone would serve the King of Kings with love in action in all things, Heaven would descend on Earth. Our time on Earth would be grander and more glorious than any Coronation of a King of England.

God has spoken in Scripture on serving with love.

John 13:34
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

Let us pray.

Dear God, I thank You for my life and for Your help in living it.

God, I praise You for the beauty on Earth and for the perfect spirit You ensouled in the imperfect child of Yours I am.

God, may I serve You as my King, Creator and Redeemer, in my actions of love to others. May I love others as You have loved me and love me now and forever. 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

I led Ellisa home from the park in 2016. We were each so different. One old. One young. One with little feet. One with big tires. One in perfect health untouched by disease. One navigating life on wheels. Yet, both of us were and are alike. Children of God. Each a Child in search of our eternal and sacred home. The home of our Father in Heaven.

When I returned home from that walk, I wrote the following words. On Facebook I posted these words and this timeless photograph of granddaughter and grandfather on the path we are all navigating as best we can.

We are all different.
Whether walking on two tiny feet
Whether on four wheels.
Very young or
Not an infant anymore.
We are all on the same path to the Father.
We are all going home.
May our steps
Beat in the rhythm of angel wings
As we share
Heavenly moments on Earth.
Peace

God has spoken in Scripture on the path to Him.

Psalms 16:11
You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Let us pray,

Dear God, in watching the news and on social media, I see so much which divides our Nation. So much pain and heartache. So much loss, uncertainty, and despair. In prayer, please open my eyes to see the unseen. Your angels near me. Your spirit in me. Your love in everyone around me. Your sacredness in my ordinary days.

God, please calm my senses. For if I am truly part of America, One Nation under You, I must join hands with others who are struggling like me. To know and follow the Holy path. The path which leads to You. To the end of my earthly journey. The heavenly place where the only things that matter are Your love and to be Your child.

God, in walking hand in hand with others, may Your love lead me until I hold Your right hand in Heaven, forever. 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: gbfclife.com

In an Iron Lung for seven years, my friend Nita had ample time to think about not forgiving God, her husband, and the Maid of Honor at her wedding.

Before being struck with polio, at age twenty-two, she was living the perfect life, the loving marriage, and the beautiful blessing of 2-year-old twins.  Nita and her husband, Bill, had just had dinner at the Metairie Country Club in Louisiana.  Her husband opened the car door for her, and she got in.  As her husband drove the car out the driveway of the Club, Nita was overcome with emotion and gratitude.  She said, fearfully or prophetically, to her husband, “Everything is so perfect.  I am worried that all of this will end.”

A few days later, as Nita dined with her husband at the Club, she complained of a strangely stiff neck.  An unexpected difficulty in raising the fork from the plate to her mouth to eat.  The end had come.  Within hours, she was confined to an Iron Lung.  The Lung kept her alive to witness the death of the magical and perfect life she had been living.

Nita asked her husband to bring the twins to see her in the hospital.  Fearing harm to the kids from seeing their mother in the Iron Lung, he refused.

A few years went by.  Her husband said he needed a divorce.  He had fallen in love with another woman. “Who?” Nita asked.  Nita knew her well.  The woman had been Nita’s best friend.  Her Maid of Honor.

Divorced, single, and alone, Nita still had one person who loved her and in whom she could trust.  Her dad.  Nita’s beloved father had become her best friend and source of comfort and consolation.  He was a successful traveling salesman.  After every trip home, he religiously came to the hospital to spend hours sitting next to her in the Iron Lung.  Then, Nita received the unthinkable news.  Her dad would not be visiting her anymore in the hospital.  On a business trip her father had been killed in a fatal car crash.

At one point, Nita was temporarily transferred to The Southwestern Poliomyelitis Respiratory Center in Houston to address a medical need.  There she met Dr William Spencer, who later Founded TIRR (TIRR Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation and Research).  After returning to hospital in Metairie, Dr. Spencer called.  He said, “Nita, if you ever grow tired of being in the Iron Lung and don’t want to stay in New Orleans for the rest of your life, I have an offer for you.  Move to Houston.  TIRR will hire you as a full-time employee.  You will live independently.”

In 1959 after morning prayer and 7 years in the Lung, Nita saw a beam of sunlight piercing through her hospital window.  The light intersected with the Lung which held her body.  Nita told me, “Jack, I knew it was a sign from God.  It was time to get out of that hospital.  Time to accept Dr. Spencer’s invitation to live again.”

Initially hired as a receptionist, Nita became the Director of the Volunteer Program at TIRR.  Her leadership resulted in over 60,000 volunteer hours in volunteer patient services.  I was one of those volunteers.

After many years at TIRR, Nita received a phone call.  The man on the phone said, “Nita, do you know who this is?” Shockingly, Nita replied, “I know who this is. This is my Bill.”

Her former husband was in the hospital with severe heart problems and wanted to apologize to her for what he did to her after she had polio.  He did not want to die without asking her to forgive him.  Instead of withholding forgiveness to the unforgiven, Nita said that she had forgiven him a long time ago.  Nita said, “Bill, I was not the only one who lost something because of polio.  You lost too.  You lost a wife.  You lost a mother to care for our children.”  Nita had become a beacon of hope to show others what the power of forgiveness can do for those who forgive and those who have been forgiven. 

God has spoken in Scripture about forgiving the unforgiven.

Luke 6:37

Do not judge, and you will not be judged.  Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

Matthew 6:14

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Let us pray.

Dear God, thank You for forgiving my sins against You and others.

Please help me to forgive others as You have forgiven me.

God, please keep me ever mindful that when I harbor resentment in my heart towards those who have wronged me, I don’t hurt them.  I harm myself.  Bitterness festers in me which causes needless anxiety, stress, and lack of peace.

God, please guide me to live the good and godly life by following Your supreme example of forgiveness.  May I forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness.  Rather, because that is what they and all Your children need.  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: Christianity.com

Years ago,  I struggled with what to believe and what not to believe when it comes to God.  When it comes to Jesus.  The virgin birth.  The Crucifixion of Christ.  Good Friday.  Easter Sunday.  The  death and the Resurrection.  Eternal life after human death.

Mom and Dad gave me the gift of their faith in God.  Despite the faith that was passed on to me from my parents, the struggles I faced with polio shook my beliefs in God.  Why did God let me have polio.?  Why did God not help doctors make the polio vaccine sooner?  How could God allow me to be quarantined and alone at Hedgecroft Hospital at age six?  How could a merciful God leave me in the iron lung to breathe at night for five years?  Why did God not answer my prayers to be cured?

I am lame from polio.  However, my faith was not and is not blind.  Through years of prayer, I saw evidence with my senses that God and His grace were and are present in the darkest of times.  That darkness enabled me to clearly see the light and love of God around me.  Witnessing God’s presence in my life, the easier it became for me to choose to believe in God.

I understand that others have doubts in the existence of God.  The forgiveness of sin in God’s sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ.  I get it.  There were many doubters over 2000 years ago who learned otherwise on the very first Easter Sunday.  Those apostles, followers, saints, and forgiven sinners showed us God’s truth, way, and light.  They showed us what is worthy to choose to believe, now and always.

As I have grown in my faith, I have chosen to believe that God is real.  That miracles do happen.  That God created me.  At birth God ensouled me with a perfect spirit.  That God chose for me the exact time and place in which be born.  That God had, has, and always will have a purpose in gifting me life.  That angels are as real as the surgical scars on my back.  That God is always present with me.  That God is there to cry with me when I cry.  To laugh with me when I laugh.  That Christ died on Good Friday so that I (and those I love) will live forever.  That my death will not be the end of me.  My death will be the beginning of my new and eternal life with God, the Father of us all.

I choose to believe that I am not an accident.  That what happens in my life is not just a series of random events.  I choose to believe I am a child of God.  So are you.  I choose to believe that one of the purposes God intended for my life was for me to write these weekly prayers and that you may read them.

I find it inconceivable that one day I will die and that will be the end of me.  Instead, I choose to believe that in my world and within everyone there is God.  That the moment my heart stops beating, God will continue to believe in me and love me forever.  Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday.

God has spoken in Scripture about choosing to believe.

Hebrews 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Let us pray.

Dear God, when I doubt You or Your divine presence in my world, please open my eyes.  With my eyes opened, I, as a rational person, can see evidence which reaffirms my faith, my beliefs, and my trust in You.

God, thank You for choosing me in Your grace to be Your special child.  In thanksgiving for the gift of Your grace, please strengthen in me my choice to believe in You.

God, every infant child has an insatiable active mind, a child who uses the senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch to know and understand what is truly real.  May I, as Your child, use the same senses to know and see You in my world.  To see Your signs around me. Your angels near me.  And Your spirit in me.

God, may I choose Your way every day as You have chosen me, Your child, to live forever in the birth, death, and resurrection of Your Son, Jesus Christ.  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

Last week, I attended the 16th Annual State Bar of Texas Collaborative Law Course in Austin. One of the talented financial professionals and presenters, David T. Brunson, said something which caused me to pause. David mentioned, as an aside, that his wife told him “You have poor leisure skills.”

That remark underscores why I have attended this annual conference for the past 16 years. Learning the law is easy for me. The difficult part for me (and likely most of you) is to work (and worry) day after day for years and still remember how to play, to rest, and not to lose my leisure skills. Or what Robert Bly refers to as losing the “golden ball.”

Amidst learning how to be a better Collaborative Divorce Attorney, I learn how to be a better me. How to look at my work in a sacred way. How my calling is a spiritual journey. That my body of work touches others as children of God. Moms. Dads. Their children. My work and that of my fellow amazing members of Collaborative Divorce Texas is dedicated to healing others in divorce so they can fully experience life and leisure as children of God. To protect the relational estate in families from harm that may be caused by adversarial divorce.

I was once a child without adult responsibilities. I suffered from polio. Yet, at age eight, I recall spending every summer afternoon playing in a three-foot mud hole with my cousin Bruce. My mother sat me on the ground. Bruce and I filled the hole with water from the garden hose. We navigated our imaginary front end loaders, tractors, and army tanks over the fake levees we built. I did not have a care in the world. During those innumerable hours of play with Bruce, I never thought about the undeniable fact that I could not stand up on my own if I wanted to.

Today, I find it extremely hard to be that same child again. To be totally absorbed in leisure time. To be at the place where my thinking, working, worried brain disconnects from the adult world. Where I, like a child, dwell in a place of perfect peace.

If you look around, you can easily see other examples of perfect peace. For me, one is today’s photograph of my granddaughters, Ellora and Ellisa on this Florida beach. These two little souls and children of God had no problem with their leisure skills. Like them, when I was four, I walked along the shores of Matagorda Beach. I only wore my underwear, a straw ball cap on my head, and a t-shirt on my chest. I have never forgotten the feeling of the sand between my toes and the sound of waves rolling on the shore. A time not burdened by life. A time without thought of polio to come two years later. A time of play I often contemplate when I pray to God to help me have more moments like that.

Let us remember that whether we are young or old, we are all God’s children. God wants us to be responsible adults, parents, grandparents, and energetic workers. But God also wants me and you to be and act like children too. God’s special eternal children who rest, play, and pray in perfect peace every day.

God has spoken in Scripture about recreation and leisure.

Mark 6:31
“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’”

Ecclesiastes 3:13
“That each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”

Let us pray.

God, in prayer please help me find the quiet peaceful place in which to be thankful for the fruits of my labor and my service to You.

God, please help me to be Your child, with a forever young and ageless heart, to make room for and enjoy leisure time with You in prayer and with others.

God, may I use my leisure time to ponder the sacredness of the precious life You have gifted me.

God, may I use leisure time as an opportunity to pray, to go to church, to journal, to meditate, do yoga, to appreciate the arts and music, and to be fully aware of what it truly means to be your wondrous blessed child. 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

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