Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations”
COMMENTS: I feel motivated to share a couple of wonderful experiences, God moments, this Thanksgiving week. Today is the day after Thanksgiving Day. A day often called “Black Friday” when shoppers feverously start doing their Christmas shopping hoping to find bargains. Others are preparing for deer hunting to begin in Pennsylvania this coming Monday. But I want to take a moment and reflect.
A couple of days ago David Fay came to tune our piano, our daughter’s piano, and our church sanctuary piano. He does so once a year. While here we enjoyed conversation with Dave sharing family and life experiences while observing God’s abiding presence. His last stop was to look at a piano in our parsonage left by a departing pastor a few years ago. We are planning to sell our parsonage and were going to find a new home for that piano. While inspecting it, he discovered he had tuned it a number of years ago but also his grandfather had tuned it in mid 1970’s. He hadn’t noticed nor remembered that on previous visit. Memories welled up of family listening to him play and impact he had on David including passing on the passion and skill in piano tuning. That experience nudged me with an idea of where to place that piano to bless a few several of us share responsibility to have worship with on Sunday afternoons.
We had our Thanksgiving family gathering and meal the day before Thanksgiving due to work obligation of our daughter. Yesterday a neighbor posted some pictures of their family gathering on face book, so I decided to do the same.
Thanksgiving is such a good and important time to reflect and give God the praise and gratitude and love that He so deserves and we need. Doing so reminds us of His faithfulness and love and impact that has had on our families from one generation to another. Materials things do not last nor should be valued over what God would want. But they can be useful in reinforcing our faith. Our home was my parent’s home and the home I grew up in. It was also my mother’s grandparent’s home before them so has been in my family since 1890’s. It was built in 1864, so Arlene and I are only the 4th owners of our home. But even more important is remembering my parent’s faith and wonder legacy of faith they passed on with their example. I remember very fondly also the many family meals around their dining room table in this same house. They too had similar memories of similar family gathering of my mother’s grandparent’s family meals in this same house. I too now have such memories of our children growing up with family gatherings including my parents over the years in this same house.
This year, a dear sister in Christ, Cheryl Hovis decided to sell her home and belongings and move to Tennessee to be near family. She and Gary were lifelong dear friends and a part of our local church family. Gary passed in 2015 leaving a huge hole of faithful service which I still feel. But God has provided. I say all this because we now have Cheryl’s dining room set in our home and this Thanksgiving was the first time using it for our family meals. They had used it for many years for their family gatherings with a legacy of Christ centered fellowship and faithfulness much like ours. So for us to use it in the home of my great grandparents is a double blessing for us.
I share this to encourage you to take time and reflect on those treasures of people that are part of the army of witnesses who showed you God’s faithfulness and love with their lives. You may not be living in your parent’s or grandparent’s home. You may not have their furniture or any possessions. But a picture or two placed in a visible location or even a note on your refrigerator or mirror to remind you of them would serve the same purpose.
Granted, Christ is our perfect example and reminder and His Word is our living guide and reminder. But if you are like me, other reminders of those who positively impacted us over the years can be very helpful too. Gary and Cheryl Hovis were two key influences for us over the years. Arlene’s and my parents were also key. But there are so many more and am sure such is true for you too.
Now we are the patriarch and matriarch and our children are in the place of reflecting and responsibility of passing on that legacy to their children and those they have influence and impact on. When we are young, old pictures and time with grandparents are nice but their experiences don’t have importance and value to us that they do as we approach their age. Well, I believe those opportunities to share and reflect will be a rich part of what we will enjoy in heaven with our Savior and with them.
We do serve an awesome and wonderful Savior and God. I hope and pray this will stir you to do a similar reflection and discovery. I pray you too will discover a fresh and meaningful realization of God’s faithfulness and the rich legacy He has given you too. Below are a few pictures showing my grandparents and parents and my son and daughter and their families. I also included pictures of our church when my great grandparents were young and attended, my parents too, and as it looks now where we and our daughter’s family worship.
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 303 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
You may also access my Face book page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Face book page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Face book page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.
My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
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