Welcome

Hello E-readers!

     Welcome to "Daily Bread, Daily Strength"!  Now, if you are not familiar with me or my family, you may be wondering what the deal is with "daily bread" and "daily strength".  I'm going to assume that you are new to my life and my blog (I know...very presumptuous.  If I get two people to read this blog, it will be amazing!) and explain the title.

     My youngest brother is Jevin.  He was not just my relative, but also my best friend.  Our lives seemed like they were always inter-twining with one another, even though we lived far apart.  We both married, we both had children around the same time (totally unplanned that it happened that way), and both had our share of struggles and joys in life.  Many moons ago (what is 11 years in "moons"?), I was an unsaved sinner and Jevin was a follower of Christ Jesus.  He spoke with me about the life that can only be found from the Bread of Life, and I gave my all to Jesus.  He supported me and encouraged me in my spiritual walk and we found that we would lean on each other many times on our life journeys.

     In October of 2009, my mother called me and asked if I had talked to Jevin recently.  I told her I hadn't and she replied only with, "I think you should give him a call."  I knew that this would be a special occasion because if it had been something as simple as "Jevin got a new car", or "Jevin got a new hammer", or "Jevin dropped his cell phone in the toilet....again!", Mom would have told me.  But Jevin and I always made sure that we would find out major news in each other's life right from the horse's mouth.  So I hung up the phone with my mother after chatting a little bit and called my bro.  We chatted a few minutes and then I told him that Mom wanted me to call him to get some news.  I was hoping to hear something along the lines of "Hey, Jared, I'm having another child!"  And I did hear those very words.....but not on this day (he told me about a month later that he and his wife were expecting another child).  This day, Jevin told me his doctor found a softball sized mass on his liver (Jevin's liver, not the doctor's).  They knew it was a tumor, but not whether it was malignant or not.  I was shocked, but knew that Jevin would be OK, because he always was there and was always OK.

     Soon, our worst fears were confirmed when they found the tumor to be malignant.  My family was devastated.  He was in a fight for his life with Ewing's Sarcoma.  He started chemotherapy, and a short time later announced that he and his wife were having twins!  As joyful as this news was, Jevin slowly kept going down hill.  The chemotherapy worked at first, but then the cancer came accustomed to it.  The months passed quickly and they gave birth to two wonderful little girls.  Jevin was able to hold his children and help care for them for a short period of time before the war that was waged against his body took it's toll.  One week before his 33rd birthday, my brother went to be with the Lord.  I was devastated.

     During the months that Jevin battled cancer, his family lived by the motto "Daily bread, daily strength".  They knew that God would provide both to them regardless of the outcome.  This is the motto that my sister in-law continues to live by everyday as she continues on her journey.  I wanted to use this as the name for my blog as a way to honor my brother and continue to support my sister in-law and three nieces.  I am going to use this blog to glorify our Savior, Jesus Christ, and reach out with the Word, hoping God will use it to show His love for us and His abundant grace.  So what should you expect?  Well.....I would say about everything.  It will be a little bit of "this" and a little bit of "that".

     Thank you for taking this part of the journey that is life.  And as my brother would have said, "Thank you for reading to the bottom, and God bless"