Author: Shay Reyner

 

Dear Asher,

A very happy birthday to my incredible eight years young butterfly whisperer! Wowzers!

I want to tell you a story about something that happened to me last week. Let me begin by saying that I am glad to be alive!

It was a perfectly normal Thursday and I was out mowing the grass. I had done our back yard and half of our side yard when I felt something sting my right leg. I looked down but didn’t see any varmints flying around so even though it hurt a bit I kept on mowing. Finished the side yard then started on the front yard. Now, mind you, Nona was not home. That fact is important.

I was about half way through the front yard (perhaps 20 minutes after the sting) when I started feeling weird. Really weird. Like I was going to pass out. The feeling came on very fast. I turned off the mower so I could go sit down in a chair in our garage but I wasn’t sure that I was going to make it there – it was about 60 feet away. I managed to get there and then passed out in the chair. I woke up a while later (not sure how long) because I was vomiting all over my shirt and pants. I had absolutely ZERO energy to avoid throwing up on myself. And then I passed out again. I later learned that my blood pressure had dropped very low which caused me to pass out.

My best guess is that I was out a bit more than an hour before Nona got home. She got out of the car and said hello and thought it was kind of funny when I did not respond. It was then that she walked around the car and discerned fairly quickly that something was wrong. She helped me get out of my messed up clothes and after about 10 minutes I mustered enough energy to  walk 25 feet inside (as she held me up) and crawl in bed – where I promptly and violently threw up again. In a trash can not on the bed. I then either passed out again or fell asleep for the next few hours.

Around 5:00 pm I crawled out of bed, ate a little something and did nothing until 9:00 pm when I got back in bed and slept until morning. Woke up feeling fairly normal – to the extent that I took a 6000 step walk and played disc golf.

Here is the interesting epilogue to the story…. I was playing disc golf with my friend Tony. After we finished our round and while walking to our cars he got stung by something which he never saw. When he got home about 20 minutes later he starting having a reaction to the sting and ended up in the emergency room for 4 hours.  He was told that it was a good thing that he came in when he did. He also told the ER doctor about my story from the day before and the doctor said “tell your friend that he’s lucky and he really should have gone to the ER.”

Neither of us had ever had any history of allergic reactions to stings or bites. It was kind of crazy. I tell you all of that to tell you this: 1 Corinthians 15:56-57 says this, “The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sin is much like the stings that Tony and I experienced. It didn’t seem like a big deal when it first happened but unbeknownst to us it was effecting us in ways that we could not imagine. People die from severe allergic reactions to insect stings. In my case I was lucky. In Tony’s case, the treatment he got was perhaps life-saving.

You don’t want to ignore sin or think that it will not effect you. It most definitely will. But God has provided a cure – the perfect treatment to deal with sin. As the verse says, “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Grandkids,

Two down. Seven to go. Grayson chose San Fransisco. Bowen chose New York City. Are you already thinking about where you might want to go.

Nona and I got back from our trip  with Bowen about two weeks ago. You have no doubt already heard a little about the trip but I wanted to chronicle some of the highlights from my perspective. We flew up on Tuesday morning and came back on Saturday. That gave us 4 days to experience the city. Here are my highlights from each day.

Tuesday highlights: The Empire State Building – We were staying in the Theatre District just off Times Square at the Hotel Edison. After settling in, we went exploring. Nona had done most of the research for this trip. We wanted to get a bird’s eye view of the city on the first day just to get our bearings. There are about five different buildings that give you a 360 degree view of the city but we decided to go the traditional route and went to the top of the Empire State Building. No lines. We went straight to the top and spent about an hour going through the (very well done) museum and looking over the city.

Wednesday highlights: The Lion King – That morning we had walked the Brooklyn Bridge, seen the 911 memorial and taken the Staten Island Ferry out past the Statue of Liberty. Then in the afternoon we went to the matinee performance of The Lion King. We had incredible seats. Lower section. Dead Center. About 11 rows back. And the show did not disappoint. So much creativity on display as all the characters came to life as animals. Lions and hyaenas and warthogs and giraffes, and elephants and antelope. It was pretty amazing and kept our attention for the better part of 3 hours. We literally experienced “hakuna matata” as we got swept up into Simba’s story.

Thursday highlights: Central Park –  It was a drizzly morning but we walked about 25 blocks from our hotel down to the Harry Potter store and then back up to the New York Public Library and Grand Central Station. We had lunch plans to meet the Austin Tsumas family near Central Park so we trekked uptown stopping at the Lego store along the way. It was fun to catch up with Austin, Amber, Caleb, Norah, and Jovie over lunch and then headed to the park. Caleb and Bowen acted like best friends and had a great time together bonding over the New York Mets and scurrying over the park’s huge rock outcroppings.. We went to see Balto’s statue and then spent a few hours at the Central park Zoo which was very well done. We said our goodbyes, walked back toward Times Square hitting the Lego Store again, the Nintendo Store, the MLB store and then grabbing supper (with cheesecake of course) at Juniors.

Friday highlights: Mets vs. Dodgers – We spent a few hours at the Museum of Natural History in the morning, checked out of our hotel, and moved to a hotel in Queens so that we would be closer to Citi Field and Laguardia Airport. We headed to the ballpark around 5 pm. The gates opened at 5:40 and Bowen made a beeline for the “autograph station” down near the field. Caleb had told him that if you got there early then you had a chance of getting an autograph. Bowen ended up being 4th in line, waiting 90 minutes, not knowing who might be signing if anybody or even if he would get one at all. Right before game time Francisco Lindor (B’s favorite player) came over and signed about 6 autographs before disappearing into the dugout. And B was one of the lucky ones. At this point the game became secondary because we already had our highlight. But…

• We saw perhaps 6 future hall of famers play: Lindor, Soto, Ohtani, Freeman, Betts, Kershaw
• We waited through an hour and a half rain delay ( but our seats were under cover so we didn’t get wet)
• We saw the Mets erase a 5-2 Dodger lead in the bottom of the 9th
• We made it through 12 innings before we finally left (Dodgers won in 13)
• We made it back to our hotel room at 1:30 am

Awesome memories made with Bowen. Keller, you’re next. Get ready!

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Miller,

A very happy birthday #8 to you!

Last year in my birthday epistle to you I shared with you some “reflections of an older man.” One of my reflections went like this: Learn to ask great questions. I still love great questions but I have  become a big fan  in the last year of using “unfinished sentences” to start good conversations. Here’s what I mean: I might start a conversation by saying something like  “Finish the following sentence – Two things that most people don’t know about me is…” For instance, I might finish the sentence by saying, “Two things that most people don’t know about me is that I have visited 50 different countries and I saw Muhammed Ali win a World Championship boxing match in person.” You can see how those answers might lead to some great follow up questions. Which is the whole point.

Here are a few others you might try out on people…

• When I have free time I love to…
• I would describe my relationship with God as…
• Something I am really looking forward to is…
• One thing I am really good at it…

I won’t see you today but I will see you next week. Here are some unfinished sentences that I want you to finish for me. I’m giving you some time to think about them ahead of time.

• Two things that I love about King’s Church is…
• I think my Mom and Dad are awesome parents because…
• The best thing about being the youngest of 3 brothers is…

I have about 25 unfinished sentences that I like to use so far. I’d love for you to come up with a few to try out on me so that I can add to my collection.

Jesus loved to ask questions. I can easily imagine that he also loved unfinished sentences. For instance, a few that He might have asked could have been…

• So Peter, finish this sentence: When I was walking on the water I was thinking…
• So Barsabbas, finish this sentence: When I wasn’t chosen to replace Judas as an apostle I felt…
• So Mom, finish this sentence: When I thought that I’d lost you when you were 12 years old I…

Looking forward to seeing you next week and looking forward to finishing some unfinished sentences that you come up with.

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Ezra,

A very happy birthday to you!

Apparently as a six year old you are already very much a music fan. A Taylor Swift fan no less. I don’t even remember listening to music as a six year old. I didn’t really start getting into music until I was in high school.

The very first album that I ever bought was Jim Croce’s Life and Times. I was 14 years old. Probably the best known song from that album was Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown. Other favorite songs of his that I loved included Time in a Bottle, Operator, I Got a Name, You Don’t Mess Around with Jim, and I’ll Have to Say I Love You in a Song. It was this last song that I learned on the guitar in 1979 and sang to my girlfriend Linda Tucker. It was the first time that I ever told her that I love her and began a lifelong romance that is now almost 46 years old and going strong.

My favorite band was The Doobie Brothers. But I was also a a big fan of The Eagles, Chicago, Elton John, Marshall Tucker Band, Linda Ronstadt, and Gordon Lightfoot. I still have some of those early albums. Of course this was back in the day when an album was actually an album. Before cassette tapes. Before CDs. Before Spotify or Pandora.

Your dad and I used to play this game whenever we were in the car together – usually listening to the Oldies station. Either he or I would ask “Do you know who sings this song?” I was amazed at how many of the songs from my generation that he knew. I amaze myself sometimes at how many songs I can still sing even if I haven’t heard them in over 40 years. That is an indication of the power of music.

Music can touch the soul like almost nothing else. The music we listen to will lodge in our brains and stay there forever.  It can inspire us. It can calm us. It can draw us closer to God and it can draw us away from God. That’s why it’s so important to listen to the right kind of music – or perhaps better to say don’t listen to the wrong kind of music. And believe me, there is a lot of wrong kind of music out there. Now, I do not believe that Christians should only listen to Christian music. But I do believe that we need to be careful what we allow to infiltrate our minds.

I say this to you as you begin your musical journey so that you will be discerning. Your mom and dad will help you with this over the next few years but eventually you will have to make your own decisions. Choose wisely. And remember that if you are ever at a loss for what you should listen to, you can always start singing a Pop Pop song and remind yourself that “Its a great day to be alive.”

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Haddon,

Five years old. Wow. Just wow and Happy Birthday. You will probably hear that a lot today. And you may get tired of hearing it but consider yourself blessed if both of your ears are working like they are supposed to.

I unfortunately am not hearing too well these days. Now Nona might make a case that this is not a recent problem and she may be right. But I really truly am not hearing well these days. I woke up a little over a month ago and the hearing in my right ear had turned off. Like a switch had been flipped and all of a sudden I just couldn’t hear out of that ear. It was weird. And even after several doctor visits the only thing that I am hearing out of that ear is just a loud ringing – which is a medical condition called tinnitus and is very annoying.

If you read the gospels and some of the conversations that Jesus had with his disciples, you might conclude that they also had a hearing problem. They did not. But they did have a listening problem. Especially when it came to the things Jesus said about His role as Messiah. They heard what they wanted to hear but did not hear what Jesus was saying.

Case in point: In Matthew 16, Jesus tells His disciples that He will suffer and then be killed… and then be raised from the dead. But it’s as if they stopped listening when He said the words  “be killed” because Peter is outraged and, get this, he REBUKES the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So what does Jesus do? He drops the proverbial hammer: 1) He calls Peter (which is a nickname) another nickname – Satan, and 2) He tells the disciples that not only is He going to take up a cross but that if they want to be His disciples that they will also have to take up a cross. If they had not been listening before – well, now He has their attention.

Between the Gospels and the Book of Revelation Jesus used the phrase “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” about 10x. What exactly did Jesus mean by this? Just because you hear someone talking doesn’t mean you hear what they are saying. This is a lesson that it took a while for Peter and the other disciples to learn. This is a lesson that I am still trying to learn. And this is a lesson that I hope you learn early on in life.

It has been said that “most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” I have found this to be true and have come across very few really good listeners. Good listeners don’t just listen with their ears they listen with their eyes and their hearts and their emotions, Good listeners ask questions. Good listeners are not afraid of silence. Good listeners are attentive. Good listeners indeed seek to understand.

One of my prayers for you is that you will become a man who is not just a good listener but a great listener. It is a skill that the Lord will use to bring blessing not just to your own life but especially to the lives of others. And it is a skill that will help you develop a deep abiding walk with God.

Now that I only have one good ear I am having to focus a lot more on my listening skills. So perhaps my loss of hearing will actually make me a better listener too.

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Bowen,

I have no doubt that this will be another year of adventures for you. I already know about some of the excitement on the horizon (India and Thailand)  and hope to be a part of making other adventures happen. You of course know what I am talking about since you saw what happened when Grayson turned 10. Nona and I are very much looking forward to your trip with us – wherever that ends up being.

Here is a little bit of personal reflection about the year that I turned 10 years old. It was a crazy year.

The year was 1968.

• Two national figures had just been assassinated: Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
• The Vietnam War was going on.
• Richard Nixon was elected president – which would later lead to Watergate and political turmoil.
• I moved from 633 Aldrich St in Aiken to 848 Oleander Dr.
• I changed schools from North Aiken Elementary to Aiken Elementary.
• I moved next door to the England family which would be significant in my spiritual pilgrimage.
• I had an operation to remove a swollen lymph node from the side of my head.
• I was runner up in the school spelling bee as a 5th grader.
• I was playing Little League baseball and had become a New York Mets fan.
• I lived with my mom and my brother (Bett and Gus)
• My dad was still alive and lived 60 miles away in Columbia SC
• I was beginning to learn and love the game of golf – and to become a Master’s Tournament addict.
• I was still 11 years away from meeting Nona.

I say all that to let you know being 10 does not seem like that long ago. And yet here I am 56 years later. So as King Solomon would say in Ecclesiastes 11:9, “Rejoice, O young man in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.” And even though I am 66 years old I am still trying to do that same thing – since in my mind I am a lot younger than my body sometimes leads me to believe.

I’m looking forward to our adventure together and the stories we will tell – not only this year but in the years to come.

Never forget that you are very loved!

Pop Pop

 

Dear Grandkids,

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025! I am already anticipating that this is going to be a memorable year and we will look back on 2025 with lots of stories to tell – hopefully lots of God-inspired stories! And perhaps the only thing needed for that to happen is a God-inspired prayer full of intentionality, inspiration, and imagination.

Let me share such a prayer with you. It is a prayer I will be praying every day this year. But it is not original to me. It actually comes from a song called “Let it Start With Me” written back in 2011 by a group called No Other Name. It is the only song I am familiar with by them but it is a song that has gripped my heart ever since I heard it. It is the first song on my primary Spotify play list. You can watch a video of the entire song below but here is the prayer that I think is so powerful.

Let it start with me
Open up my eyes
Fill my heart with your compassion
Free my mind from all distractions
Use my hands, to set the captive free
Move my feet to follow after you
Lord change the world and let it start with me.

Let it start with me – I need to be willing to be a part of  the answer to the prayer that I am praying.

Open up my eyes – I readily admit that I am more often than not blind to the needs that exist right around me. It’s amazing how callous I can be when there is so much hurt and helplessness staring me in the face.

Fill my heart with your compassion – I’m reminded of the Scripture that says: “When (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36) I need for God to fill me and fuel me with the kind of compassion that moved Jesus to action. 

Free my mind from all distractions – Distractions are everywhere. And I am very easily distracted. I’m not talking about sinful distractions. I am often distracted by good things. I think this is one of the devil’s schemes – to distract us from a God-assignment by introducing good and worthwhile opportunities that busy our mind and create detours that move us away from the purposes of God.

Use my hands, to set the captive free. Move my feet to follow after you. Lord change the world and let it start with me – Like I said, I need to be willing to be a part of the answer to the prayers that I am praying. My hope is that as 2026 dawns that I will have lots of stories to tell about how the Lord used my hands to set captives free in 2025 – people all around me who are captive to regrets, or to worry, or to unforgiveness, or failed relationships. And stories to tell about how the Lord used my feet to follow Him to  places I would generally not go – because of fear or lack of compassion or just plain disinterest.

I often share one of my favorite quotes with new team members at CFARox. It is by Bob Pierce, founder of World Vision and goes like this: “You may not be able to change the world but you can change the world for one person.”

Lord, let it start with me!

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Audrey,

Happy birthday #7.

Perhaps you already know this about me but… I love leftovers!

This year your birthday falls really close to Thanksgiving. And as you know, we have really yummy Thanksgiving food. And lots of leftovers – which I am still enjoying.

Turkey… yum!
Mac and cheese… yum!
Deviled eggs… yum!
Stuffing… yum!
Sweet potato casserole… double yum!
Mocha cheesecake… triple yum!

My philosophy has always been that if it tastes good once then it tastes good twice. Or three or four times. It has never bothered me to eat the same meal several nights in a row.

Did you know that there are several stories about leftovers in the Bible. In the Gospel of Mark chapters 6 & 8, we read about the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000. In both cases there were lots and lots of leftovers.

Jesus used leftovers to make a specific point. Note what He said in Mark 8:19-21…

When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.”  “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.”  And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

What didn’t they understand?

They didn’t understand that Jesus could supply all their needs. Paul reminded the Philippians of this when he wrote: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19)

This is an important lesson to learn early in your life. Say, when you turn 7 years old.

Why you might ask? Because there will be MANY times in the years to come when you will feel like your needs are not being met. I will say a few things about this:

• Don’t confuse your needs with your wants.
• Sometimes God’s provision doesn’t come according to YOUR timetable.
• More often than not, God’s delay is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your faith in Him.
• And often God’s delay is a tough test that He wants to turn into a tremendous testimony.

But never doubt that our God will ALWAYS supply all your needs.

The next time that you have leftovers for supper might be a good time for you to say a prayer of thanksgiving – letting Him know that you have confidence that He will indeed always “supply every need of yours according to His riches in Christ Jesus.”

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop

 

 

 

Dear Grayson,

Happy Birthday my 12 year old grandson.

I feel like I have done something right as a grandfather. I have passed on my love for the New York Mets to one of my grandkids. With that in mind, I wanted to chronicle why 2024 was a great year to be a Mets fan and perhaps learn some life lessons from this past season.

The Mets lost their first 5 games of the season and by the end of May they were dead in the water. They were 11 games under .500 and on a downward spiral.  Both their won-loss record and their attitude reflected this. Most Met’s fans had already given up on the season. And with good reason. They were going nowhere fast.

On May 29th, Francisco Lindor called a team meeting that changed the attitude in the clubhouse. A little over 24 hours after that meeting, he powered the Mets to a 3-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks going 4-for-4 with two RBI. He was backing up his bravado with his bat. By the end of the year he was being talked about in MVP conversations.

On June 12, Grimace, the McDonald’s mascot you associate with Happy Meals, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The Mets won their next 7 games. Baseball players are perhaps the most superstitious  of all athletes… so Grimace became their unofficial mascot and the Mets had  the best record in baseball from that point onward.

What do Alex Cohen (wife of Mets owner Steve Cohen), Jose’ Iglesias, Candelita, and Jerome McCroy all have in common? OMG! It was not only a chart topping song by Iglesias (aka Candelita) at the end of June, but also a Met’s battlecry which they used every time they hit a home run. The Mets were having FUN.

The Philadelphia Phillies had a great season and locked up the division pretty early. Four teams battled for three wild card spots to the very end of the season. But because of a rain-out, the Mets and the Braves had to play a double header on the Monday AFTER the season ended. The Mets had to win one of the two to advance. In the first game the Mets were up by 3 going into the bottom of the 8th but gave up 4 runs to fall behind 7-6. Lindor then hit a dramatic 2 run homer in the top of the 9th to give the Mets the victory they needed. OMG!

In the wild card series versus Milwaukee, Pete Alonso blasted a go-ahead, three-run home run in the ninth inning of the winner-take-all game 3 to power the Mets to a 4-2 victory. OMG! On to Philadelphia.

It was Lindor again who played the hero in the best of 5 divisional series against the Phillies, In the 6th inning of game 4, Lindor hit a grand slam to give the Mets a lead they would not relinquish. OMG! On to Los Angeles to face the team with the best record in baseball this year and the  Hall of Fame trio of Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman.

And alas, the Mets finally got beat. The Dodgers won the series 4 games to 2. The Mets walked too many, left too many on base, and did not get the clutch hits that had gotten them to the championship series. But it was fun fun ride and if I am being honest they were beaten by a better team. The Dodgers would go on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.

So even though the Mets lost it was a fun season to be a Mets fan. And even though the Mets lost there is a lot to look forward to. And even though the Mets lost there are some great lessons to be learned from their season.

Never give up! – It would have been easy for the Mets to give up lots of times along the way. This in true in life too. But it might be that when you most feel like giving up that a great story is just beginning to be written. In case you’ve never heard me say it, “Live a life worth telling stories about.”

Leadership Matters! – Great teams have great leaders. You are only 12 but already I see some great leadership qualities surfacing in your life. One key quality for great leadership is great character – and you are a young man of exceptional character.

Expect the unexpected! (You never know how or when God might flip the script) – God has a habit of doing the unexpected. You just never know when the Lord might show up. One aspect of faith is the “expectation of things hoped for.” So even when circumstances are bleak keep expecting God to show up – but get used to the idea that He might do it in an unexpected way.

Have Fun! – Another way to say that for those of us who are believers is to “live life joyfully!” Winning is great and I love to win. But losing doesn’t make me a loser. As long as my identity is founded in Christ I can always find joy no matter what the circumstances of life happen to be. Might as well have fun in this journey the Lord has me on.

I know that you are beginning a fun adventure today. I’m looking forward to hearing about the details. So happy birthday and bon voyage and get ready for the 2025 New York Mets!

Never forget that you are very loved,

Pop Pop