In Week 4 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a welcome visit.
Sunday night I receive a text, “Hey Uncle Paul, I was wondering if I can come over there tomorrow and we can watch the college football national championship together”
My nephew is a son to me. He is so dear to me. Of all the things he could be doing, to think he’d want to spend time with here with us…
It brings tears to my eyes, even now.
Because there’s no where I’d rather be.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG
In Week 2 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a walk with Mom.
We took a long, nice walk in the pasture.
Mom recounted where the family garden was, how much fun she and her brothers and sisters had in the loft of the barn, where she hopes to build one day.
We capped it off by visiting with my aunts and uncles who all shared their own stories. It was a stroll back to a beautiful time with the most beautiful soul I know.
The best things in life are free.
I’m grateful.
#52wog
In Week 48 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for our Thanksgiving 2024 hosts, the newlyweds, our nephew and niece, Mr. Leroy and Mrs. Shannen Williams.
They did a wonderful job bringing our family and friends together. You could tell the amount of thoughtfulness and work that was put into it, including the recruitment and coordination of a lot of help from many wonderful people.
Even as we were cleaning up, they said, “We can do this every year!”
For years, the home of Willie and Mary Harris was the epicenter of our gatherings. When they passed, there was a concern about whether we could stick together after the glue was gone.
But as it turns out, the glue isn’t gone—they put it in us, as shown by the many family members who have stepped up over the years to create safe spaces for the family to come together. This year, it’s Leroy and Shannen.
The attitude of “We can do this every year!”, stepping up to put in the work for your family, is the spirit of Mary Harris.
Our future is in great hands.
Thank you to everyone who helped and participated, and especially to Leroy and Shannen for leading the charge this year.
Melissa and I love each and every one of you.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG #Thanksgiving
As I stare down our children graduating and leaving our home, I look back over the past 18 – 20 years and it puts things in perspective.
A lot of urgent things happened in that time.
There were pressing issues at work that demanded my attention: emergencies, new projects, pending deadlines, bills due.
They felt big and important at the time.
But, they weren’t.
As I look at outcomes 20 years removed from their causes, it is clarifying about what is truly important. Very seldom was it the things that I thought were important.
I got a lot of it wrong.
And as I ponder these outcomes, good and bad, the things that did not seem urgent 20 years ago, were the most important: playing with my kids, kissing my wife good night, and spending Friday nights with other believers in marriage ministry.
Sowing into people are the labors that make for a harvest.
The work that seemed all important tends to only produce beautiful dead things, things with no nutritional value, with no ability to make for a healthy soul.
Wise are the words in Ecclesiastes 12:1,
“Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the difficult days come,
And the years draw near when you say,
‘I have no pleasure in them'”
Because,
“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”
— Proverbs 16:25
I see in retrospect the importance of trusting and obeying God, not only when we cannot see our way but especially when we think we can, and to follow Him despite the path that seems good to us.
The decisions we make now, will be the ones we eat from in the latter days.
Looking back, I do not ever regret a single time that I followed Him and I wish I had followed Him more.
He truly does lead to green places (Psalm 23:1-6).
He truly is Lord of every harvest that I’m enjoying right now.
In week 16 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for an incredible gift.
If I mention the black, opening crawl of “Star Wars” you can see the logo and almost instantly hear the theme music, can’t you?
Iconic, right?
What if I told you I personally knew someone who played first chair in a section of the orchestra responsible for that original score?!
But, what if I told you that they conducted the score for that orchestra?
Or, what if I told you they wrote the score for that 100+ piece symphony orchestra?!
That would be amazing, right?
Well, my brother, Nehemiah Luckett, composed, orchestrated and directed music for “Ruby”, a production that I am confident will find it’s way to Broadway.
My mother and I drove 26 hours round trip to see it.
It was worth every second.
The story, the writing, the acting, the choreography, the music, and the vocals were stellar.
I hesitate to say pitch-perfect for fear of sounding like I’m overstating the case because he’s my brother, but it was just that good.
No. It was better than good.
It was excellent.
As it unfolded, I forgot I was watching a play and it challenged me in ways that good art tends to do.
As I attempted to comprehend all the moving pieces, to think that my brother wrote melodies and words that so beautifully conveyed such hard truths, music not for one instrument but an entire band, vocals not for just one singer but dozens, and helped to orchestrate a production that constantly teetered on making me want to avert my eyes and never being able to look away,
I was left in awe
because my brother is a maestro,
but more so, because he invited me to see his incredible gift and so graciously chose to share it with me.
I’m grateful.
I love you Nehemiah Luckett and I’m very proud of you, always have been.
#52WoG
If you’re interested in learning more about Nehemiah’s wonderful work or supporting it, you can do that here: https://bit.ly/nehemiah-patreon
In Week 5 of 52 Weeks Of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for nickels.
I was around 6 years old when my dad was a student at Gammon Theological Seminary, and on this particular day I am on campus with him at the library.
I mimic my father. As he studied and wrote, I sat quietly and drew.
He then reached in his denim pocket and handed me fifty cents or so in nickels. They were for the copy machine. Copies were 5 cents a copy.
Once my masterpiece was complete, I’d walk intently (with excitement) to the copier, careful not to run. I’d stand in line to copy my work just like the grown-ups.
I don’t remember a single word being spoken but remember the feeling of having everything that I wanted or needed.
In that moment there was no where else I’d rather be.
I was just happy to be with my dad.
I’m so glad I had this moment with my father. It’s a beautiful memory that makes me smile to this day.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG
In week 3 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks to God for a son and an eternal brother.
Marriage by the law gained me someone as dear as a son to me, my nephew, Devin Mabry, the son of my sister-in-law Gloria Harris.
Marriage to Christ by faith through the covenant of His blood has gained me a beloved and eternal brother, because Devin is now the son of God, the Father of our Lord and elder brother Jesus Christ.
He was just baptized.
Another brother, Jimmy Gant, said during a gathering, that the only thing you can take from this life to heaven is your loved ones.
I cannot express the deep gladness I have in knowing I will have someone so dear to me as Devin Mabry in this life and in the one to come.
Such joy is in my heart, pressed down, shaken together and running over.
Welcome, brother Devin.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG
In Week 1 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for a Son’s Heart.
Someone was in need, having lost their home’s much used washer and dryer in the same day.
They were hours away, a new washer and dryer set would have to be picked up, the old ones would have to be removed and the new installed. It would be a challenging job for just one person.
As my wife and I were working through how to help, my son Chris volunteers, “Dad, I’ll go.”
He gives up an entire Saturday that are typically cherished and fiercely protected by college students to help someone else.
I can scarcely think of a moment where I was more proud.
My prayer and greatest hope is that I could ever make God feel the way my son made me feel that day.
I’m proud of you, Chris.
I love you.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG
An incontrovertible truth is that we’re all trusting someone that largely determines the outcomes of our lives.
At the end of the day, life comes down to one question:
“Who am I going to trust?”
If I were a child, it would be my parents.
To enter the kingdom of God we must become as little children who trust God, their Father through Jesus, the one and only mediator, whom He sent.
“Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.'”
—Matthew 18:2-3
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
—1 Timothy 2:5
When I feel,
When I think,
When I hunger,
When I wonder,
When I explore,
When I fear,
When I dare,
When I delight,
In all I do, I run to You, God my Father.
“in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”
—Acts 17:28
Happy Father’s Day
“Here,” my grandmother said as she cupped my left hand and took a tomato from the sill and put it in my right hand.
Then she sprinkled salt from a shaker in my cupped hand. She asked, “Want some pepper?” I shook my head, “No.”
“Bite your tomato and dip it in the salt”, she coached.
Amazing.
It tasted like their home on the farm smelled, of the earth, pure and sweet.
I went outside, sat on the stoop and ate my newfound treat in awe.
In week 20 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for a tomato and salt.
Something so simple is so profound.
It was like I could taste the entire farm: the sunshine and the rain, the dirt and the breeze, the sweat and the love that cultivated it.
My grandfather Percy Brown and my grandmother Sarah Brown built a home blanketed in love.
When you were there, it was at every turn and around every corner. Even the animals seemed to recognize it.
I have so many wonderful memories on that farm in Canton, Mississippi. There was great peace and so much love.
I have such a rich heritage.
I remember it every time I bite into a tomato.
I’m grateful.
#52WoG
Image copyright 2008 Daniel E. Johnson – crossroadone.com
