Tom L. from Lurray, VA at Palm Springs June 6th 1971

My name is Tom Loving and I'm an alcoholic.

I guess I would have said Tom L, but I've been walking around four days with it written on the front of me read across this room.

I also thanks for chucking my sake. We ought to remind you that I know doctors that lost patients permanently,

and we didn't lose this one. The treatment took a little longer.

I, like many of you, also know that I

I'm a member of the clergy of the Methodist Church

and I want to kill you, that I am a part of the ministry because of A8

and I am a member of this blessed fellowship because I belong here and need to be here.

I certainly want to express my appreciation tomorrow and to

all of the lovely people here who have made possible this wonderful three or four days for Gay, my wife, who is my Lindley from heaven, and myself.

I, I feel some resentment and I feel like I ought to get rid of them before we talk about a spiritual program. And if you give me a couple of minutes, I'll do a quick inventory and we'll try to get rid of them.

One of the resentments you have nothing to do with. I've been a part of the ministry for almost 22 years

and I don't ever recall having a congregation this big

and have it alone makes me want to preach and take up an offer and I.

We were fortunate enough to be invited here on Thursday and we had a marvelous little dinner party Thursday evening. And

at this time, we who were you to this marvelous thing you do here at Palm Springs, were acquainted with some of your traditions that have grown in these eleven years.

How is he just

flabbergasted with the beauty of the Hostess? I've been to so many a a affairs over the last 22 or more years and

I never seen anything quite like this.

And as we said that Thursday evening, the Hostess, GAIL said for the Hostess that now, you know, our job is to look for people who seem lonely and, and don't know people, and we're going to do something to make them happy. And I just got my conference started off great on Friday morning until Gabe taught me standing around in the halls looking lonely all the time.

And you get yourself invited to a thing like this. And, and, and they didn't tell me Luanne was going to precede me on this program. I've been through this at Miami last July. And she destroyed Messiah.

But but they walk around all weekend with the armabouts of shoulder and they pat you on the back and and then they bring in these blockbusters from everywhere you know. And you, you sit for three days and listen to them make your speech.

And then when it's all soared and everybody's had about, I feel they can handle. They come around so well. Tom, you can talk this morning. And I kind of resent this, but

I think it'll be all right. I think you're going to make it all. And I'll tell you something else. I was in a little bit. Ever since I got here, they've made a big thing about the fact they've never had a Protestant clergyman here before for 11 years, just Catholic.

If I could just remember what you teach me about patience with my resentment, I wouldn't have had to care this one until last night. I this was solved last night for me.

I want you to know about your first Protestant drunk here and your intendant increased by 600.

Now I quickly want to share 11 thought were you about this time. This is the first time in 22 years I want a sports coat on Sunday morning.

It feels good.

And all status to my friends and how I love them, Father Fred and so many of them.

I said to Gay last night as we were talking about this program, as we do so often as our day finishes.

I have been privileged to sit on Ecumenical Council

at colleges of Concern for the need to bring people of various religious leanings together for a good many years.

And I said the gay last night. You know

how strange and how simply beautiful

the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous thought Jew, Catholic and Protestant to a common ground of prayer 35 years ago. So what you

now this is a spiritual meeting and I I don't know how to how to make it that except to tell you what God revealed through you has done in my life and is doing this study.

I I tell a sense of laws for how we are to get into this. It's it's a little bit like an experience of some years ago in our home and a Parsonage where we have lived all these years. You, you, you have certain things you just have to do.

It's hard on children because it's hard to make them understand this is not really your home. We have been loaned this

and essentially on the Sunday morning we were at this time of about which I chat with you for a moment. Serving the church in one of the 8 original Shahs of America in Tulsa City County, Virginia down in the James River Basin

and Al Harshness was located next door to the church.

And on Sunday morning we went through some rather hectic times gay time to get 4 little boys ready and the preacher over at the church before the 1st parishioners arrived it. It doesn't do for you to be second.

And this morning was not unlike others. We were busily engaged in what everybody had to do. And since there are no girls in our household, our four sons were we told to do some household things. And and on this morning they they, they were doing the things that were supposed to do. The twin boys, our older son, of course, had reached the age where he accepted as graciously as a teenager can his responsibility. Our, our little twin boys, about seven or eight or nine years old, were finding

difficult. And on this morning they were cleaning their room and painstakingly making their beds. And, and our youngest son, Mike, the little fellow and, and, and well, he's the best way to describe Mike. He's got every stinking attribute I ever had

Cleanliness to. Mike is if you can't see it, it's clean.

It was then. He's reached the age now where they take eight baths a day though.

So So on this day, he had kicked everything that he had to under the bed. Why couldn't be seen? And he he stood in his the room with his twin brothers. He watched them working so hard to make these beds

and when they had gotten things where they thought presentable he couldn't stand such order anymore. He he walked in between the beds as he went through the room and tingless beds off of both beds

erased the old cat and a rock in town through her out. His brothers by then had something to say about his actions, and he kicked one of them in the shins and came down the step tirelessly singing Yes, Jesus loves me.

I said the gay you know, I wonder.

I don't have any great revelations this morning for you who are part of this fellowship.

I don't know the one kind of AI and my part of the country we call it Big Book A A.

Now if you found another way to work this, fine,

but you go somewhere else and work it. Don't hang around me with it.

At my age, don't have time to experiment with new ways. I found a successful way

and my life and my story is not unlike yours. It's a

it's a story of darkness,

and it's a story that had a period of the first glimmer of light, a faint grayness coming out of the blackness.

And then, because of you, it is for me this day a story of great life.

But the darkest hours of my life came after my introduction to a

I don't think I need to qualify. Nobody asked me 25 years ago to qualify to be in here.

When I walked in my first meeting they said welcome

and they have to say it a lot of times over the next 3 1/2 years.

I went to a A my first time not because of any personal desire at all.

I went to save my wife, my children and my job.

I love my wife and then one cow, as much as an alcoholic is capable of loving anybody.

And I had an appreciation for my employment because I had been educated as an engineer. It gave me a sense of belonging and a sense of some achievement, and there had been some in spite of my then alcoholism.

I was traveling pretty much over the eastern part of the country for the National Bureau of Insurance Underwriters as a field engineer,

and I already had be troubled,

publicly, unrecognized,

privately admitted once in a while.

Somehow it's been alone in hotel rooms, a bit concerned about me,

but not about to discuss it with anybody else.

We're living in Chattanooga, TN at the time and I remember on a Wednesday of the week and I can remember well days up until that Wednesday because strangely I had gone through for Monday to Wednesday without drinking. Sometimes you just had to work.

And and I remembered on a Wednesday afternoon that we were about to celebrate an anniversary at my house and I I called home from over Nashville, TN and called Gay in Chattanooga and I I reminded her of the anniversary. Of course she already remembered, but she was unrelated. Because I now remembered,

and I made it quite happy that day because I called home sober.

I don't know about you. Gay could smell liquor 300 miles over the telephone.

I

and I told her that I was hurry to finish my work and come as early as possible on Friday and to prepare whatever was necessary and and she and her son would go away for the weekend and celebrate in some way. And, and I hung up the phone, leaving her just very happy.

And I sat down in my room a few minutes and I thought, you know, you have been unnecessarily concerned about your condition.

I mean, a man that's in much trouble is not going to be this gracious to his family and his wife. He's not going to be this concerned and he's not going to remember such days as a marriage anniversary. And I really think, Tom, you, you all were doing the concerns it a little and you, you probably are really entitled to just a drink to help you hurry and get through this week. And I had it and I got home on Friday of the following week

and this had been become a pattern.

I had my first prolonged blackout. It went five days,

but I remember awakening again in Nashville, not in the same hotel.

And it was as though one comes out of a period of loss. And, and I was frightened. And then I realized when finding out that I had lost a week, that I, I had to go home and, and, and, and I was fearful of what I'd say, of what could happen, of what I might find. And I, I saw it at home as best I could. And I remember not being too sick

and all the way home I I tried to think of another lie to tell Gay and I just didn't have any more. They were gone.

Now. This might have been the right clue, but it wasn't.

And I found the source of arrogance that the alcoholic can dig way down, you know, and get when everything else is gone, he can get this. And I thought I well, now here, this is my house

and it's my money

and I have provided well

and I really don't have to take a whole lot of growth about that.

In fact, if it's too bad, I'll just grab a bag of clean clothes until I got a call. I got to go

and I came home, started field for the storm that was going here, and I opened the door and saw the brace for it and gave that very quietly.

And she back didn't say a word.

And I'm telling you some this is terrible when you expect to know.

Finally, she said to me.

Your boss said. Your boss said

right away. I know we're in trouble.

When and if you came home,

you were not to move from this place. So you called him.

I went back to the office that we had in the house and I all the way back, I thought this woman's ruined me. Now he, he, she's been talking with him and they have been talking about me and he's just going to fire me and I'm not going to let him find me. I'll just call him quit before he opened his mouth

and I dialed his number and and he came on and before I could say anything to him, he he he said, Tom, where in the world have you been said you your wife and I have been frantically have looked all over the southeast for you. You've been no way you're supposed to be with take hospitals, police. What happened to you? And I had a stroke of genius.

I said, Lee, you know, in all the years I've worked for you, I've never lied to you.

I said I have been drunk for five days

and I let him speak

and I had this great feeling of power. You know

what a discovery. You hit a guy with the truth, you don't know what to do with it.

And he didn't. He fumble around a bit, he said. I think you've been working too hard

now, I said I appreciate you sharing this with me and and I don't want you to say a thing about it in Tennessee and I'm not going to say anything about it here in New York. We're just going to take this week out of your vacation and nobody's ever going to know.

I thought what a marvelous thing

and I was ready to say goodbye and he said just a minute.

He said, have you ever heard of alcoholic? Phenomenal.

And I had to admit, I had.

You see, Gay had papered our house with the reprint of the Jack Alexander.

So I said, yes, I've heard of that. I even remembered the day I finally read the the article because she, she desperately, this woman already knew what was just going

and, and anything and she, she put them everywhere. It didn't matter where I went in the house. There was a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and and I had finally read it and I kind of sense of self-defense and and she waited with rather bated breath while I raced. What do you think of that comment? I said that's, you know, that's the time that we know anybody that needs this.

And I said yes to my boss. I I'd heard of A and he said then your wife and I have been talking about this at times during the past week and we have decided you need to go.

And then he destroyed my power, just found.

He said if you want to be working for me Monday morning, there is a meeting in Chattanooga tonight, Friday night. And your wife will call the people we have already talked with, and they're going to take you.

And I hung up the phone and gave that big boss, you want me here to send you to work Monday morning, you'll go into the meeting.

And I went to my first day aid meeting.

How we met up over the Singer sewing machine stored in downtown Chattanooga. I wouldn't even drive my car downtown that night. They weren't going to see me down in town. If you were meeting on Friday night

and I got nothing because it's I didn't want anything. I thought you were Bible compass and drum beaters and you weren't about to get me on any carnation kick. And I only have anything to do with this. But if it would save my wife, my child, my job, I'd play along. I wanted these.

And I went to a meeting in Chattanooga when I had to. Now I began stretching the trip to two and three weeks so I didn't have to go off them.

I did learn one little thing there, and I'm grateful. Perverting good things.

I learned why I was having trouble.

Not now. Honey, this is not a real revelation. I don't know today why I'm an alcoholic, unlike some of my friends who say they know why.

I've found in upstate New York that that he didn't really know why I drink and neither did I. He he, he talked about the time he went into college and joined the fraternity and he said every weekend they all got drunk and he wasn't very good at it before they got started. Good. He'd either be in the men's room Outback being sick, and one day he stopped the fraternity brother and he said, look, I know this is a splendid thing we're doing every weekend, but why are we doing it?

My present sponsor

said he found out why he was alcoholic. He lives in Luray, VA, too. And incidentally, I want you to know that Luay happens to be one. I'm going to say one because I could get argument of the garden spots of the world. It's in the northern Shenandoah Valley, and at our house we look out the front windows at the Blue Ridge Mountains and we look out the back at the Massanutten Mountains. My sponsor lives there in this little place, and he grew up in this little town. This is one of the reasons we're living there today.

And he said he found out why he became a drunk very early. He'd lay out on his front porch over in the holler trying to sober up, and across the Ridge he could hear the railroad trains running on the main line. He said every day they ran three trains S and 2 N and he became a drunk word and without what they did with the third train.

And my my sponsor happens to be Julian, who was mentioned here last night. And I'm going to tell you something you miss one of the greatest days that God ever

put into this program that you don't have in here someday and he won't appreciate me promoting me then like to go much.

I did learn a thing that that that saw the solves a lot of problems for me. I I learned that I drank because I was sick

and I enjoyed it. I stayed drunk three more years being sick.

I could come home and stop Gay right in the track.

I could come in a day or two late, drunk and and and and and she would meet men. I think I just just a minute,

it seems to me, I'd say to her, you're just never going to quite grasp what they've been trying to tell you. Down at a A now she didn't even belong.

I say. Don't you realize that I can't help this? I'm sick,

all of the killer, you know? And don't get me upset. They say that's the worst thing you can do

dumb years later, Gay came home from one of her periodic examinations. The doctor and she was old smile. She she calls her then four sons and me together said I have some words for you. The doctor said to me to tell you all for you. I'll never to get me upset again. That's the worst thing you could do

now. I didn't make it in aid, of course,

but we flew my employer and and I, I finally was moved to the city of New Orleans, a supervising engineer that whole area and was the youngest supervising engineer were appointed by the National Bureau of Insurance Underwriters. And this in spite of being in the worst stages of my drinking.

I moved in on Mardi Gras eve

on the 4th of July.

I I was sitting on a bench in a little park called Jacksons Plan and it's the Bucaray.

My wife and child were gone.

My job was John.

I even been told not to come back in that office building

and two men came in the park on this holiday

that could have gone somewhere else.

They could have spent the morning with this family

but I was fortunate I was only about a block and a half away from the LA club on Cardiff St.

and they came in and sat out one on either side

after the moment was just rum. Dumb enough not to know whether they were police or who. Didn't matter

because I never lose the man more than I loathe me that day.

So often in clergy workshops and other places, churchmen will say to me, well, if if you knew this was going to happen or could you tell it was going? Yes, I could tell. I could have almost told you the day it was going to happen.

I knew it was going to lose Gay and and the Sun

I knew was going to lose the job.

I knew I was gonna lose a home.

I knew it was going to lose everything.

Oh God I didn't know how to stop it.

And with two sinking cloud side

and these two fellows said to me, Tom, have you had enough? And you then who they were.

You see, back in Virginia there was this woman got gifts to me

who had not stopped praying

and who had not stopped calling IA's and you all ends and saying please see if he's Ola.

And up in Chattanooga there was a little man now dead, and I break no anonymity.

Little Bob Islands was one of seven men who stayed sober in the whole city of Chattanooga my first year around the egg.

Little Bob was calling a A in New Orleans

and Bogan HomeGoods and saying come, look, I know it's not the way you do it, but just go see if you'll have a cup of coffee with you.

And on this holiday. These two men met at the club room for a quick cup of coffee before they went that day for the holiday. They said let's see if we can find her.

Well, in a little while I was back in Virginia.

Our home was restored

to the newfound friends of AAI, had a better engineering job than I had been, believed out in a monetary way,

and I had everything going for me except one thing.

And this is the dark curtain of refusal.

And my life over the next 2 1/2 years, a little more than two years, became the darkest it's ever been. I never had a slip. And I ate on that day on the park bench in New Orleans. I was drunk five times. I don't know anything about slip. I have been very grateful. I don't think I've heard the word here this weekend. I just don't think you can slip off something you ain't got.

I went to my newfound friends in Virginia immediately in a A and I said them, look, I don't want to drink. I it's destroying me. I I don't want to be what I've been

and I want to do this program and they said fine, but I said there's a little thing in it that bonus

why upon I was told the biggest lie that have been told in my life. I don't think they meant to lie to me. I guess they hadn't grown much either,

The guy said to me, look, this is one of those programs, Tom. Well, you don't take that unless you want it.

I mean, what you don't like in this program, throw out the window. You just take what you like.

Well, it's a good deal.

I went home that night and I got a set of the 12 steps and I was sitting on the bed reading them and step one, no problem, I'm here now. I was admitting to anybody that would listen that I was an alcoholic. Not accepting it was another thing.

Step 2. I got into the business about God and this is the thing I didn't like.

They should throw it out the window

through the next 11 steps out the window. They all about gone

if you have random Catholic ghouls. But do before you end this day,

This is one step about alcoholism.

The rest of it's about gone

and his relationship to Tom over.

Well, you know what happened. I got drunk

I don't know where to go back like how is that except I ate. I'm running out of drying out places and and and and quick cures

back to a

I got Mr. new sponsors. I had five sets.

If they didn't agree with me, I didn't keep them.

Well, let's wind it up.

The news that were the neo therapist,

you know the groups don't do it for you.

Just sit down in the group and get immersed in the therapy of this untrained bunch of idiots like me. If they were so smart, they wouldn't be here.

And I was therapy ties as few people have been therapies, and I might have made it, but my therapist got drunk and I got drunk with them

five times.

But the small, silent, too often unseen hand of God that is the full off of this whole fellowship was quiet at work all five times.

At the end of the fifth time,

I didn't like me anymore

and I took my first inventory three years after.

What I found was

I couldn't live with that,

but another beautiful thing had been happening from the NAA too. I had begun to notice people and, and all around that there were folks who were a little different. They had made a great impression. But these little sites and memories that become little precious tidbits that you stick away and someday God finds a way for you to use them. I, I, I came now at this point to the realization that there were a as and there were a as. That's basically,

and that was a group in within my group who had something kind of special.

I've heard my dear friend Walter say the look in the rock.

I've heard Chuck call it the piece of glass.

I've heard men call it all man of things. We commonly call it serenity

and you never mistake it.

When it's there, it shows.

And I think that

it might have been in the fellow who was making leads all over the place trying to help in this way. It might have been in the quiet little guy who comes in early and sets out the ashtrays and stays after. Everybody's going to pick them up, never says a word.

You got one in your group

someday. If you want to shop, find out how many people are sitting there now because of that quiet little guy.

It might be in a one of the lovely women alcoholic.

It might be in a youngster,

one of the elders who came earlier, late. They would I,

and there was one in particular

where I use names. Rest assured, these men have already passed from this earthly life and are now enjoying fellowship in the celestial group.

There was one named Jack White who was the 1st A in the state of Virginia. Never have I seen such peace in the twinkle of a man's eyes. And I finally called him and I went to him and sat down with him and I said, Jack, I've I've made a horrible mess of this whole thing and, and I need help.

Would you sponsor me?

I'll never forget that St. little man, he said. I've been watching you, boy, and I was kind of hoping you'd come around someday

and he said I'll help you. My blackness got some little tint of white.

Now, now now. That little bit of light didn't come all brilliant at one time. It it, it takes away a few shadows here and there. It it's

can we get very bright for moments and, and and and then we'll say a bit. But this is the way it ought to be for me.

I I am not equipped to have the billions of a spotlight so quickly out of the darkness from which I came

and it's the light began to stay longer though because I was one who was agnostic. I believe there was a God but believed I forfeited all my life to go

now. I didn't like it and I didn't want to be reminded on it

this, the old man said to me in sponsorship. I know, but one way until I think you know as much about this program as I do, you're going to do it my way or get out.

We began his way.

I recognize right away that this wild saintly was propane old man and he cussed me out,

but he began to make me aware that there was a God who cared about me and that I just been looking in the wrong places. God had been hidden in a maze of theology and religion for me.

I come out of a very good church home. I know where they shop few years ago or several. You in here who know this mutual friend of ours, Isaac, down north of Virginia.

Isaac is one of the dearest Jews I know on the face of the earth. And I remember earlier his first experience in a. He said he he's not around in his early A meetings and he'd hear one speaker after another get up and say, I came out of a Christian home and Isaac said, I thought about this and I thought, I don't really believe I belong in here.

I I just was afraid of God and I had found my fear in not being able to find him in any sense. And I, I can assure you an honesty today. In the darkest hours of my life, there were times when I looked for God.

I just didn't look in the right places.

This arrow sponsor began to open the whole way for me to look and let me let me Justin I don't have so much more time, but let me just share with you a few places I found God in these years then

becomes unexpectedly.

They don't. They want to go with those

you don't kicking the doors down to get in.

You just have to crack it though.

I remember the night that I played myself into the ministry of the church.

I gone back to church playing golf with the minister

and I was going through that. Why don't other do this and that stage that we a AIDS go through?

I was bugging this man. Good.

Why don't the church do this? Why don't the church do that? The church failed. They never failed us, you realize. They kept in trust the truth with which we live for 2000 years till we got ready to use them.

Well, he got tired of me and he said why don't you come into ministry and do it?

And for the next week, I couldn't sleep, eat, work.

This was the most absurd thing I had ever heard of.

I tried to get some

deliberately

four days and couldn't.

And a man will tell me there's no God.

He's foolish.

And I called my minister and I told him the shape I was in. I just come to my house. I got to talk to you

and he came and I told him what would happen. I said I'm torn up. You know, I don't belong there. I, I can't do a thing like this.

And inside I was thinking, is it possible?

And he was very happy. He's happy and I'm dying,

he said. I don't know the one way for you to do this. Now, Tom, you, you've been giving me this bit about AA and your dependence on God. I mean, don't you think he talked to you about this too?

Because I didn't know. But one way for you to do it, you go off by yourself and whatever way you pray play. And I have not yet learned to play much.

And I just went and got on my knees and told him in my own room. God, I

I don't know what you're doing to me,

but I am willing.

And you never saw a brighter sunshine in your life.

And I came down

and told my wife I had made my decision and there was never a question in her mind.

We ended. I went over and told my minister that day and talked to him.

He said, are you going to do, I don't know, you have to guide me, but whatever we have to do when we check my educational requirements. And I didn't have enough

and I had to go back to college and take courses that had ever been prescribed in my engineering degree and had to go to seminary. They went back to work and I went up to a little College in Virginia and I sat in the president's office and I some few weeks had passed and I told him of my intentions and I needed his classes. And he said, how are you going to finance this? And I said, I don't have an idea how I'm going to finance this. I said, in fact, I still got $5000 worth of bad chicks floating all over the Southeast.

Well, I was doing something about him. I'd gone to the domestic relations court in Richmond at the urging of my new sponsor, and I placed myself in a voluntary receivership. And every dime I made went to the courts to pay off these debt.

And this man sat at his desk and he said, you know, I'd already heard you were coming here to talk to me. And this was a surprise. I thought, man, the whole world knows Tom Loving going. He said there were two friends of yours here.

And they said if you came here on your own and made application to study for the ministry, that you and your family would have everything you needed as long as you were here

and standing it closer to God than that.

I said, who are? They said I can't tell you.

Later, years

from our own parish, I was called back to Richmond twice to Bear Man,

and I stood in the presence.

The body of my sponsor, Jack and his sister told me one was Jack

and assignment told me of another Turner,

who felt a sense of pride and what God had done with me.

You, you, you don't ever find God any better than this.

I sit in the hospital room one afternoon

and Gay had gone through a painful surgery

and the doctor just come in and I was great excitement in the room and they ran out and I followed him out. I knew something was wrong. She had hemorrhage hardly for two days. And and he, he, he, I got them in the hall and I couldn't catch him, but I got a nurse and I said, what's wrong? And here she said Mrs. Logan has a blood clot up behind her eyes and we're afraid it's about to get loose. And if it does, it could kill her

on the hill behind the hospital

almost automatically.

I was drizzling Lane and I still have met some pine trees. And I said, God, again, I've asked you an awful lot for other people.

We've used up most of our requests, but I got one more.

I don't have to claim your promise.

This woman can't stand anymore of this.

And I went back to a room and I held her in my hands and we prayed a little bit together like you told us to pray.

I put on a second, took it aside during, brought it back 20 minutes later with a doctor fallen. And he walked around the room and he'd pick up a book and lay it down and look at her and look at me. And he said, Reverend Loving, I don't make that kind of mistake.

No blood clot.

You don't stand any closer to God, did they?

My oldest son, of whom I have spoken

with, the one boy who remembered my drinking.

Thank God. The twins, No Mike, my youngest ever saw me.

The twins were too young to remember,

though I was a part of the ministry, and I know there was a certain amount of time in the life of this young man, my oldest son. Somehow we'd never reached a total communication as father and son and I, I desperately wanted death.

We had respect for one another and we had love for one another. And, and I know he was rather proud of me or his family and but what I wanted wasn't quite saying.

And I thought too many years had passed and maybe it was never coming.

We're living in Florida at the time and I took him away to school up in Ohio. And I spent a day or two with him and got up before daylight one morning to start my trip home. And we sit in the darkness of his room and I am reminded so often how I can stand so many times in darkness and find light.

And as I started to tell him goodbye, I wanted to go and put moms around this boy and maybe kiss his cheek and, and tell him how sorry I was for for that little bit of his life that I ruined and, and, and I could please forgive me.

I hesitated, maybe a bit embarrassed because he's bigger than me,

and as I hesitated, suddenly that big fellow walked across the room and put his arms around me and kissed my cheek and told me how proud he was of me.

You won't ever stand any closer to God than this.

Just crack the door.

Maybe this is egotistical, but it's a part of our family,

our son Mike, who was the youngest. And I guess because I've seen him, Mike, all the wrong thoughts that I've had has become a little bit the apple of my eye. Oh, no more love than for the other boys

the age of seven or eight. Mike developed Leg Cruz's disease of the hip, and he was in a wheelchair on crutches for about 15 months. We were told first that he might never walk again and probably would be crippled the rest of his life.

Well, it was not because all over the world as Gay and I continued our journey in this way of life, there were hundreds like you who helped us tear our luggage.