Keys to the Kingdom

By Carolyn Tucker

Many years ago, I was visiting with a neighbor on her property and she was explaining the layout of her front-yard landscaping. She said, “The ground is so rocky that we simply planted the trees where we could dig a hole, so that’s why there’s no rhyme or reason to them.” Since she mentioned this, I suspect she was a little disappointed with the final outcome. Everybody has 20/20 hindsight. Any decisions we make, or neglect to make, today will always affect the future sooner or later.

Believers really need to live our lives on purpose and not helter skelter. We can’t just wing it and hope everything turns out OK; we have to be intentional. Flying by the seat of your pants  usually means you’ve got a hole in them and have lost your cell phone, wallet, key, etc. Maybe you’re a squared-away person and write a to-do list every morning and meet all your goals by supper. If so, that’s great and you deserve a pat on the back. I sure hope God shows up somewhere on that list.

When you were created in your mother’s womb, God wasn’t just haphazardly throwing a bunch of stuff together in some wild and crazy experiment. You were fearfully and wonderfully made with a purpose! Your Creator had a rhyme and reason to your layout. As Christ followers, we were designed to bear good fruit. So we must stay very close to the Master Gardener so He can prune us in order for us to grow strong in Him.

When we live for God with a purposeful heart, one of our main objectives is to bear fruit. “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things” (Galatians 5:22,23 NLT). Developing the fruit of the spirit never goes out of style and will continue as long as we belong to Christ Jesus. “When you produce much fruit, you are My true disciples. This brings great glory to My Father” (John 15:8 NLT).

We are to constantly abide in Jesus, so we must make our personal relationship with Him our #1 priority. The following quote was written in one of my journals: “If we don’t make time for friends, we won’t have any.“ If we aren’t diligent about making time for Jesus, we won’t have any fruit. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned“ (John 15:5,6 NLT). Basically, if we choose to live an unproductive self-absorbed life, we’ll end up in a worthless stick pile because we‘ve disconnected from the life-giving Vine.

Jesus didn’t come to give us religion, He came to give us a genuine personal love relationship with the Father through Him. “So you must remain in life-union with Me, for I remain in life-union with you. For as a branch severed from the vine will not bear fruit, so your life will be fruitless unless you live your life intimately joined to Mine” (John 15:4 TPT).

The Key: Make sure your relationship with God has a daily rhyme and reason, and  prepare to be pruned.

It seems to be a pattern in our culture to chip away at personal freedoms in order to protect people from themselves.  We heard about an example of this in New York City when the mayor at the time pushed through an ordinance banning the sale of drinks larger than 16ozs; the pushback was so intense that the law was repealed in short order.  The attitude seems to be that we are wiser and better educated than you and we have drawn some firm conclusions on how you should conduct your life; freedom and civil debate are stifled.

Do you remember learning that there are nine planets, sometimes using a clever sentence to remember them in order?  Pluto was recently demoted from the ranks, lowering the number in our solar system to eight. Thankfully, none of us lived in the 18^th Century when bloodletting was a common practice and the probable cause of death of our first President.  If science closed off research and free debate on the topics, we would still be under these misimpressions.

Free debate must be encouraged to get to the truth.

Why do I believe this to be so important?  On a macro level, the American experiment in freedom has delivered the most powerful, the most economically successful nation in human history.  Yes, those truths are diminished somewhat by the poor choices free people make; slavery is a glaring example.  We mourn the consequences of poor choices people make with the privilege of Constitutional freedom, but the free expression of ideas eventually led us to the right conclusions.

This process of reevaluation often plays out on the local level, including Bourbon County.  When people use whatever means possible to silence those with whom they disagree, we all lose.  When we try to shout down local candidates we don’t like because of personal reasons, or they are not part of our particular “faction,” we all miss out on the free expression of ideas and appropriate debate.  Instead, we write and share social media posts with trivial negativity and half-truths about our fellow citizens.  We use whatever personal leverage we might have to discredit or discourage opponents instead of engaging them in healthy discourse.

What Bourbon County needs more than anything is a free people in an earnest quest for truth to reestablish the trust we are now missing, to our great detriment.  Our public forums and debates must keep the quest for truth through the free expression of ideas at the center.  Otherwise, we will not arrive at solutions that represent our best.

Before you attack, demean, pick apart and generally criticize someone with whom you disagree, examine your motives and the general impact it will have on the culture and wellbeing of our community.  Certainly, politely call out those who are stifling open discourse through half-truths and nit-picky acts of disrespect. Let us depend upon the honest exchange of ideas through free and civil discourse in order to arrive at the best solutions for Bourbon County.  Let us reestablish trust through respecting one another’s freedoms.

When I taught high school speech, students wrote a eulogy about someone/thing no longer in their life.  Many were funny anecdotes about losing their baby teeth or learning that Santa Claus is not real.  But some were tragic, and not a few tears flowed as students told about their fathers’ incarceration or disappearance or abuse.

This past weekend we celebrated fathers. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.4 million children, one in four, live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. My father died when I was eight-months old, so all I knew of him were the wonderful things my mother shared. I always wondered what it would be like to be someone’s little princess or to attend the father/daughter breakfast or to have my noggin thumped when I sassed.

Recently, when I asked on Facebook for examples of people who had overcome rejection, a dear friend contacted me to share of her dad’s inability to love.  Only when she was an adult and learned that her father’s father had never modeled love did she start to understand and forgive.

We all know fathers who are present in their children’s lives, those who never miss a Little League practice or a soccer game or a Sunday football game, but how many fail to impart spiritual knowledge into their kids, read the Bible to them, take them to church, and most importantly, pray unceasingly for them?  They are not intentional in modeling a faith-filled experience to their impressionable youngsters.  Let’s face it, fatherhood is demanding business, and merely knowing God does not make a good father.

In the Old Testament, two of the most tragic stories deal with godly men who were terrible fathers.  Eli, the high priest who was hand-picked by Samuel’s mother to raise her son into manhood, fathered rebellious sons who, instead of following in Eli’s footsteps, dishonored God.  Samuel grew into a great prophet for Israel while Eli’s sons died in a battle because of their sins.

Even King David, one of the bravest leaders in Israel’s history, lacked parenting skills. His eldest son, Amnon, raped his half-sister and was later killed by his brother Absalom who set out to sabotage David’s kingdom.  Both Eli and David knew of their sons’ shenanigans but failed to train or discipline them.

No father—except for God—is sinless.  I hope you have a father who tries to do right, who loves you unconditionally, who sacrifices for you and who loves Jesus. I hope you have forgiven him for not being perfect. (“Let ye without sin pass the first stone.”)

The great early American spokesman, Patrick Henry, wrote in his will, “I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is Christ. If they have Him and if I had not given them one dollar, they would be rich. And if they have not Him, and I had given them the whole world, they would be poor.”

Dads, it’s never too late.  Be intentional in giving your children the Riches they deserve.

Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

I know there are women out there who have hang-ups with men. But I’m not one of them because the two most-loving and influential men in my life were my dad and my husband. On April 18, 1980, my hero dad escorted me down the church aisle and gave me away to my soon-to-be husband. In a lot of aspects, Dad and Jimmy were nothing alike. However, both had built their lives on Jesus and neither ever failed to love, provide, and protect me.

“Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God…“ (Psalm 68:5 ESV). When I recently read this scripture, it struck home with me and I said aloud: “Wow, a double whammy.” Then I thought, “That’s me. I don’t have a father or a husband.” Men have a very important role in the family and in society. God needs a few good men to profoundly influence their families and communities.

The importance of men began with God in the Garden of Eden when He created a perfect man. The man (Adam) became a loving husband and, later, a caring father. Strong and faithful husbands and fathers are desperately needed to step over the line of slackness   and fulfill their God-given role. The overly-simplistic definition of a man is “an adult male person.” But a real flesh-and-blood man is more awesome and intricate than that measly definition. So let’s strip him down to the chassis and see what we’ve got.

The following describes an exemplary man: “Since God chose you to be the holy people [men] He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful” (Colossians 3:12-15 NLT).

A real man enjoys his responsibility to nurture, love, and cherish his wife and children. He is compassionate and stalwart. He loves, laughs, and cries. His love is tough and gentle; he is faithful to God, family, and Country. He knows how to balance work and play, and spends time with his wife and children. He has integrity and holds God and His Word in utmost reverence. He humbly knows where his abilities come from: “Awesome is God…He is the one who gives power and strength to His people” (Psalm 68:35 ESV).

A godly man will bear good fruit in his everyday life. “But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!” (Galatians 5:22,23 NLT). And there’s no law against a little dirt under your fingernails or mud on your truck tires. There’s also no law against arching your eyebrows, but please don‘t. It disturbs me to see a man’s eyebrows look better than mine!

In a world of worrisome role confusion, God needs men to stand up and be real men. A nanoscopic number of women might think men are a dime a dozen, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. Real men are absolutely priceless. Hats off to all the bona fide men who serve as awesome role models. You are important, valued, loved, admired, and appreciated!

The Key: Real men never go out of style. Happy Father’s Day!

In the daily lives of small town Americans, we have learned to live with some aspects of our economy that would have been quite abnormal 50 years ago.  For example, what goes on in Asia and Europe has a significant impact on what we can buy and for how much in Bourbon County.  Increasing the price of energy seems to be the agenda of an international consortium.  Many nations, including the United States of America (“USA”), are racking up huge national debts, while government retirement programs have become an IOU instead of providing us the intended security.  We are woefully behind on infrastructure maintenance and repair, not only in our community, but nationwide.  What has happened?

In my view, much of it began with a small group of elites led by Richard Nixon in 1971.  In response to some short-term problems, including a rising trade deficit and inflation, this small group of men decided to unilaterally execute some radical economic strategies, including eliminating the gold standard as a backing for the American dollar.  I believe that move has had the biggest impact on our economic lives today.

How so?  When the USA adopted the Gold Standard after World War II, it ushered in a protracted time of economic prosperity for our nation.  The USA become a world leader and our currency became the standard for international exchange.

What was the Gold Standard?  Simply put, every dollar issued by the USA was back by actual gold reserves at a price of $35 per ounce.  No new dollars could be printed without the mandatory amount of gold stored at facilities like Fort Knox, Kentucky.  After we came off the standard in 1971, every world currency was valued at what people perceived that it was worth, rather than a sure measure.  This decision gave us 10 years of economic chaos, including “stagflation”, unemployment, and gasoline shortages.  Gold went from $35 per ounce to $800 in short order.  Anyone remember waiting in a line to get gas in the 1970’s?  It influenced politicians to think from a short-term, defensive posture.

The long-term impact that affects us all today is the national debt, which has also given rise to state and local obligations; the large debt payments require higher taxes.  There was no way to accumulate $30 trillion dollars of national debt while we were on the Gold Standard.  Politicians have used this leverage in order to pursue short-term projects that have in immediate impact on voter sentiments, rather than planning for the long-term.  Infrastructure maintenance and fully-funded pensions are not effective campaign slogans.

Bourbon County does not have to follow the national trend.  We can be a jurisdiction which breaks the mold by creating administrative efficiencies in the many government entities in our county such that we can invest in infrastructure, housing, education, health care and the other critical services that impact quality of life.  We can become a low tax, high standard of living haven.

Four stops in ten minutes.  Unheard of.  Dave and I had driven the Mazatlán-Kansas route for eleven years, and rarely were we asked to stop our car for an inspection.  Even at the border, the agents would see an elderly couple (us!) driving a mini-van and wave us through.  No checking for contraband.  We look, I guess, innocent.

But this time, in a ten-minute span, four Mexican check points were there to make sure no one tried to bring as much as a tomato into the U.S.

I knew that this vegetable/fruit issue was risky business. Years before, while flying into Mazatlán, an airport security officer asked if I had any such item on me.  My confident “No, Señor,” was met with an overactive dog who sniffed “something” in my carry-on, the “something” being the partially-eaten apple I had stuffed into my bag that morning.  I might as well have been a serial killer, the way I was scolded.

On this trip, three out of the four traffic stops were uneventful.  What were we doing in Mexico?  Where were we headed?  Where had we been?  Usual questions with kind, smiling responses, waving us through.  We were impressed, however, when one such detainer held a long-handled mirror which he used to look under our car.  But this detaining duo seemed different.

I, the driver, was asked to raise the hood so one of the men could search under it.  His partner walked to the back.  Dave got out of the passenger seat and joined him as he searched the rear of our mini-van.  He opened my backpack and looked through each zippered compartment.

The guy in front was another story.  After he checked the engine, he knelt in the driver’s seat and proceeded to smack the back of each seat as well as the padded roof. This pair was clearly intent on finding something illegal.  Everyone else had recognized innocence when they saw it, so why not this pair?

Unless, of course, they weren’t legitimate.  We had heard of a checkpoint where the searchers distracted the driver of the car while a third man dislodged and stole the spare tire.

We didn’t consider that option, however, until we were told we could leave and were miles down the road.  The point is, we had nothing about which to be concerned.  We were hiding no drugs, no people seeking asylum in the U.S. and no certainly no apple or cucumber that would cause alarm.  They could look all they wanted; there was nothing that would incriminate us. We were taking no risks. It was a wonderful feeling to be completely innocent.

Oh, if only I could say the same for my heart.  If God could search it and find nothing of which I would be guilty!  If I could confidently stand before Him and know that I was holy and innocent and loved everyone and never judged/complained/worried and never told Dave that he was getting on my nerves.

In Psalm 139:23-24, King David prays to God: Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. 

 Now, that’s a risky prayer.

Keys to the Kingdom

The city of Jericho was the home of a prostitute named Rahab. Her story in the Old Testament is one of amazing faith and backbone. Rahab‘s life shows God’s mercy and loving nature in using the less than perfect, the unlikely, and the improper to accomplish His purposes. God still loves to empower ordinary people to fulfill His extraordinary divine plans. With the exception of her family, Rahab chose to leave everything and every idol behind. Because of her spunk and newly-found trust in the Israelites’ God, she eventually became an ancestor of king David and King Jesus.

If it’s been awhile, you may want to re-read Rahab’s intriguing story in the book of Joshua, chapters 2 and 6. I love the verse where she helped the Israelite spies escape from her home: “Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall, so that she lived in the wall” (Joshua 2:15 ESV). I found nine other translations confirming that she lived in the wall. Here’s a couple: “She resided within the wall itself” NRS. “She dwelt in the wall” RSV.

We believers are hidden with Christ in God. I like “in God” because that’s as good as it gets. “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2,3 ESV). When the men from various caravan routes crisscrossed at Jericho, they told news of a multitude of Israelites. This swarm of people had a God unlike any idol Rahab knew about. She  heard how the one and only true God miraculously dried up the Red Sea and gave astonishing  victory in their battles, which caused the Canaanites’ hearts to melt with no spirit to fight.   Rahab made up her mind to cast her lot with God’s people. When she lived in the wall, she chose to risk her life by protecting the two Israelite spies. Before Jericho was destroyed, she actually switched from living in a wall to living in the God of all.    

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6 NKJV). Since believers are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, we can enter into rest and peace in our spirit and soul while here on earth.

Ike Davis and Ray Heady put their musical heads together and penned the classic song, “In the Shelter of His Arms. The tune and lyrics came to my mind as I thought about Rahab living in the wall, and how blessed it is to exchange a stone wall for the loving arms of Jesus.  “When my soul was disturbed with sorrow and my heart was broken with sin; Jesus opened His arms of mercy and tenderly took me in. There is peace in the time of trouble. There is peace in the midst of the storm. There is peace, though the world be raging, in the shelter of His arms.”

If you ever feel like you’re beating your head against a wall, just turn around and you’ll find Jesus standing there with His arms open wide.

The Key: Don’t live in a wall when you can choose to live victoriously in Christ Jesus.

A common misunderstanding of what makes a country or jurisdiction economically successful is the belief that it relies primarily on an abundance of natural resources and money to invest; “It takes money to make money,” the saying goes.  The explosive economic prosperity generated by the United States of American (“USA”) is often attributed to the rich natural resources available to our founders.

One only has to consider that the natives of this land occupied it for centuries and did not come close to generating the economic success that this relatively new nation did in our first 200 years of existence.  They had access to the plentiful resources long before the first immigrants set foot here.  What made the difference?  The answer is knowledge.

Successful businesses rely on knowledge that gives birth to innovation and popular products and services.  A person or group of people with a knowledge base experiment until they come up with new way to meet the needs of their customers; they build a better mouse trap.

I remember attending a technology seminar in 1991, and a presenter told the large audience that in the near future, each of us would carry around phones with us and have individual phone numbers. How could this be?  I did not have a vision for it.  The cell phone has replaced land lines, long distance service, local telephone companies, answering machines, GPS devices and more.  The inventors that imagined the cell phone built on decades of previous knowledge bases, and envisioned what was possible and what people wanted.

The USA became the most prosperous nation in human history because of this explosion of knowledge and innovation, unleashed by unprecedented personal freedom, private property rights, and the belief that people are capable of governing themselves without a controlling central authority.  Totalitarian monarchs or emperors had ruled nations in all the years of human history prior, squelching freedom and economic prosperity.

Then why is the economic engine of this great nation slowing down?  Because of the erosion of freedom which suppresses knowledge and innovation.  We are gradually headed down the European road which has embraced a utopian vision of a risk-free society.  Entrepreneurs and innovators sometimes fail and people lose money.  Socialist nations try to take the risk out of the business cycle by tightening their grip on economic activity through regulation and fiscal and monetary policy, and the USA is following suit.  When businesses spend an enormous amount of time complying with regulation rather than innovating, the quest for knowledge is inhibited and business activity slows down.  This has the unintended consequence of impacting small businesses disproportionately. Large corporations have the resources to hire compliance experts and lawyers to help them understand complicated laws and defend themselves against regulatory overreach.

As a nation and a community, let us continue to invest in education and the knowledge base of our young people.  Let us drop this notion that a central government can create a utopia for all of its citizens.  Let us continue to give businesses the freedom to innovate and sometimes fail.  In the end, it will mean more prosperity for a broader spectrum of our people.

For six days Dave and I had driven our mini-van in Mexico and never noticed that our floor mats were not ours.  These were thin and shredded in spots—clearly not the nice, thick ones we had paid extra for when we purchased the vehicle four years ago.

The only explanation was they had been replaced at the car wash—one we frequent regularly—the previous week.  Dave had gone alone and had sat outside under an umbrella while attendants dried our car.  When he checked their work, he noticed the shiny dashboard and nice buffing job on the car’s exterior but paid no attention to the floor.

Predictably, Hubby relied on his “I speaka no Spanish” excuse. “We need to go back there, Patty,” he said, “and you need to tell them that they gave us the wrong floor mats.”  Thanks to Google translate, that was no problema.  I explained to the manager what had happened.  He took our floor mats, walked to the back of the store and returned with others we didn’t recognize.  I understood a few words like “tomorrow” and “10:00” and “check the cameras,” so the next morning, I drove back to the carwash.  This time I was told to wait until Gabriel, a senior manager, met me there.  Perhaps he and I would look at the cameras together?

Gabriel spoke little English, but when I questioned the cameras, he said—at least, I think he said—that the security company had the code to view the tapes, and it was impossible to reach the people who worked there.  Hmmm.  He asked to look inside my mini-van. Since they had failed to remove the mat in the trunk of our vehicle, he could see the quality of the ones we were missing.  He assured me that there were three stores in Mazatlán that “probably” carried them.

They didn’t, but Gabriel’s subsequent text was a pleasant surprise.  If I came by the car wash at noon the next day, they would give me $140 in U.S. dollars.  I told Dave that he needed to go with me because I probably was going to be abducted and tortured, but he told me that he had confidence I could handle myself just fine.                                                                                       I mean, how sweet is that?

The fact that I am writing this article tells you nothing happened to me.  I drove up, the manager handed me the cash, apologized, and I drove home.  When I shared my story with a girlfriend who lives in Mazatlán, she said that the same thing happened to her husband on three different occasions. Three times?  I mean, one time was enough.  Never again will I get into my vehicle at a car wash without looking at my floor mats…and after reading this article, you probably won’t either.

Not a life-and-death matter, of course, and this one was resolved, but it reminded me of another area where I take things for granted…and sometimes not even three times is sufficient to get my attention.  In Hebrews 2:1, Paul warns us of such danger: We must pay closer attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. Paul is not talking to those who never accept Jesus as their Lord; he is talking to Christians who don’t learn their lesson the first time and heed the little things that then cause them problems.

One Sunday on the golf course instead of at church turns into weekends of buddy- time. One time talking behind the boss’s back starts a rumor mill that won’t be stopped.   One peek at a porn sight leads to an addiction that ruins a marriage. One excuse after another finding no time to read the Bible or talk with God causes a faith to back-slide

Not paying attention to floor mats is not the end of the world.  Not paying attention to our faith, however?  That’s an entirely different story.

Keys to the Kingdom By Carolyn Tucker

“The farmer had to tow his tractor out of the field because it died and that’s all she wrote.” We’ve heard this colloquialism many times. Our life can be compared to the pooped-out tractor — one minute it’s running and the next it’s not. Our days on earth are numbered and we don’t know the day nor hour of our last breath. When the heart stops beating, “that’s all she wrote” because life is all over, completely finished, done for.

I’ve heard, “Never put off ‘til tomorrow what you can do today.”  I’ve also heard, “Never do today what you can put off ‘til tomorrow.“ The problem with procrastination is there’s  no assurance we’ll even have a tomorrow. Bill and Gloria Gaither composed the  contemplative song, “We Have This Moment.” Some of the lyrics are: “Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come, but we have this moment today.” All we have is right now — that’s it! We need to make sure we live our moments carefully and wisely. “People have to die once. After that, God will judge them” (Hebrews 9:27 NIRV).

When eternity knocks on your door, whatever you’re doing at that moment will be the last thing you ever do on this earth. So if you put off something that you fully intend to do, it will be too late to git ’er done when you’re dead. Believers should never practice procrastination as a usual way of life. “So if you know of an opportunity to do the right thing today, yet you refrain from doing it, you’re guilty of sin” (James 4:17 TPT).

There’s no guarantee of another day or opportunity to make things right with someone we have a grievance against. Today is the day to offer the apology, forgive the offender, pay the debt, say the compliment, own the blame, show love, extend mercy, etc. Don’t withhold blessing someone when it’s in your power to do so. Procrastination is often associated with depression, guilt, and regret. You certainly don’t need that baggage weighing you down, so make the decision not to procrastinate so you can live regret-free.

In 2004, Tim McGraw released the song “Live Like You Were Dying.“ Penned by Nashville songwriters Craig Wiseman and Tim Nichols, it was a tribute to McGraw’s father who had recently died. The song skyrocketed to #1 for seven weeks and caused people to take a long hard look at how they were living their lives. The storyline involves Tim asking his father what it’s like to live knowing he doesn’t have much time left. “And he said, ‘Some day I hope you get the chance to live like you were dyin’. …I loved deeper, and I spoke sweeter, and I gave forgiveness I’d been denyin’.” These lyrics are powerfully  biblical. “Get along with each other, and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13 NCV).

This column is not about dying, it’s about living to the hilt. It’s about not procrastinating in doing what you know to do. It’s about living and dying without any regrets. It’s not about living life perfectly, but rather living life with a perfect heart of love. By the way, the 1970 movie quote, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” is a bunch of baloney. If one of your kids beats his sister over the head with a leg of lamb, you make him say, “I’m sorry.“ It’s simply the right thing to do. We must learn to say, “I’m sorry” and “I love you” because it’s a life-changing moment that will set you free.     

The Key: Today is the day to love deeper, speak sweeter, and forgive unconditionally.