http://copstoriesgodstories.blogspot.com/2010/04/common-ground.html

The news wasn’t good. Mom was sick. She had an incurable cancer. For the next two years I prayed passionately for her healing. Toward the end I bargained and pleaded with God. Nothing worked. All I could do was watch as the cancer did it’s deadly work. I was not happy with God to say the least. How could He let this happen. She had been a faithful Christian, why would He let her suffer like this?
Two weeks before Christmas in 1979 she went into the hospital for the last time. The cancer had spread to her brain. She was now emaciated and blind. I went to visit her to give her my Christmas present. I wanted her to open it right away because I knew she probably wouldn’t make it to Christmas day. It was a little silver and gold crucifix. I’m not sure why I bought it. I knew she didn’t care for such things. She tried to pretend as though she liked it, but I could tell she was faking. I thought maybe she needed something tangible to focus her faith on when she was alone. She didn’t. She made me promise not to visit her grave after she passed. She said, “Don’t waste your time cause I’m not going to be there. I’ll be in heaven. Promise me you won’t go there.” “Yes mom, I promise. I know you won’t be there.” I said. “I don’t know why we have to talk about it?” I didn’t stay long after that.
The next time I went to see her was December 22nd, late in the evening. She was in a coma now, and I had purposely waited for everyone else to go home before going up to her room. For the next several hours I pleaded with God to take her as I watched her labored breathing. Exhausted, I went home just before dawn. I no sooner got to bed when the call came. She was gone.
For the next seventeen years I never set foot in a church. I was so mad at God. I just couldn’t abide church folk. They always seemed to say exactly the wrong thing. One day my son invited me to a Promise Keepers event in St. Louis. Fifty thousand men thronged the stadium that day. They started singing “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, early in the morning, my song shall rise to thee.” This was the same song the church of my youth began every service with from the time I was a boy till I became a teen. It was loud and it was powerful, like I’ve never heard it sung before. Just then, I heard a voice whisper in my ear, “You’re wasting it.” I turned around to see who it was but oddly, the seats behind me were empty. Then I heard it again. “You’re wasting your life.” It was amazing to me that I could hear a whisper over such loud singing, but I did. It had to be God.
I went back to my motel room that evening and found the Gideon Bible in the night stand. The book fell open in my hands to a passage in I Kings 19:

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

The change that happened in my life that day was nothing short of a miracle. My faith was restored and eventually my health. God had answered a mothers prayers from beyond the grave. There are many things in this life we may never understand, but one thing I know for sure, He truly cares for us.
This year we celebrated the second birthday of my little grand daughter, a Chinese orphan. Mya Grace was left on a doorstep in China on Christmas day two years ago. Doctors estimated that she had been born on December 23rd, the anniversary of my mom’s passing. The other day I was helping my son load something in the back of his Suburban and I couldn’t see the tiny figure sitting in the front seat. Just then I heard a soft voice say, “I love you papa.” It was Mya, but I swear it sounded just like God.

Bear in mind that this is a hard thing for me to confess to anyone, but it is the truth. When I arrived at Promisekeepers, I was a Sunday Christian, limiting my time with God to about two hours a week in the confines of Journey. Often, Joel and Clay would spur my interest with their sermons and maybe get an extra hour out of me during the week where I would research and read the Bible. So technically, maybe I was a .01785 Christian for the 3 hours a week I spent with God (and even that should be accredited to my wife). But after Promisekeeers, that changed.

What was it about this event that spurred a change in my life? When I walked into the HP Coliseum I could really feel the power of God. When the speakers started speaking and the music started playing, I felt a closeness with God that I never had felt before. The words spoken were a charge to each Christian male in the audience to lead their families and serve God as they should through the Lord’s guidance. To not only be men of God, but to be strong men of God, not passive in our beliefs but outward in our serving of the Lord. Maybe it was my time in the Middle East, or maybe it was my personal experiences with certain individuals but somewhere along the lines, I had disassociated strength and spirituality. Although it does seem conflicting, I do tell the story often about how when in Iraq, I never felt any danger, I felt like God had a blanket of protection over me. Unfortunately at that time, I was not close to Him at all.

The most memorable part of the whole event was that when the words of the Promise Keepers key speakers stopped, those of God did not. Let me put it this way, have you ever felt like God took a seat next to you and asked the question, ”What’s on your mind?” Well, that is where I was. This became a personal spiritual awakening for me. More often than not I tend to be a mover and a doer, always lining up what I need to do to secure my family’s future. This all came about due to our difficulties when I finished up in the military and came into the civilian world. I set several goals for myself and would tirelessly work toward achieving those goals. So I was spending a majority of my time living in the future and not in the present. God and I had a long talk about that and several other things. I did not realize the burdens that I was carrying around with me. The feelings of regret for leaving my family for a year, the moral implications for the actions I had to take in Iraq, the sorrow I felt for not being in a position spiritually to be a mentor to others, but also being in a position in business to mentor to others. Where were my priorities?

As God sat next to me and we talked His overwhelming response to my questions was, “It only matters what you do with today.” My burden of the past and my striving toward the future were in vain if I wasn’t living every day the way it should be lived to serve God. The path that was set for me led me to this exact point and place in time, but I should not carry the burden of the past or the direction of the future on my shoulders, God already set that up. The thing I needed to be doing was building my foundation in Christ so that I could focus on what was important: God, my family, my church and my fellow man.

Cut to 6 years later and I’m now an fully committed disciple of Christ serving as a pastor, writing about our Lord and blessed beyond imagination! Thanks Promisekeepers for your incredible outreach.

- Joe Luna

I wasn’t aware that the Winter Solstice became a season? I thought it was just one day. But, I bet if I asked most people what “season” we were in, you would at least hear “winter”, but I assure you more people would say “Christmas” then the “Winter Solstice”. I won’t touch the other ridiculous premises about god, heaven and hell.

The Henderson County commissioner Joe Hall was shocked to receive the letter and was quoted in the article as saying when the nativity scene will come down “after Christmas, or when hell freezes over.” I agree and applaud him. The bible says in John 12:48 ”
“He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.”