All My Heroes

Maybe it’s just me but for most of my life I never really stopped to think about heroes. I mean I had all kinds of sports heroes I guess, but I certainly didn’t think of these people, athletes, or whomever as heroes. When I was young I enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons and the Super Friends, but that wasn’t realistic to me. There were cowboys from TV shows and black and white movies that I wished I could be. And there were my favorites, the Indians, the Native Americans, the people that were already on this continent that I really wanted to be. I fell in love with the images and stories of these people. I respected their abilities to survive in nature and how they revered the earth and all things living. I guess that is why I have read so many books on Native American history, and wish for all of us, that America’s interactions with these people that were already here had gone much different than it did.

As life marched along I realized more and more that many of the people I knew throughout my life, my every day life, turned out to be my real heroes. If you read below, I have included a couple of definitions that truly exemplify what a hero means to me. Oh man, I have to be honest, noble qualities are the real deal. I cannot thank God enough for surrounding me, throughout my life, with people of this magnitude, my real heroes.

I have touched on this in the past, but I am the first born in my family. A family started by my Dad and Mom, both of whom hailed from Bible believing, God fearing, Christian families. So for my entire life, literally, I have been surrounded by people of the highest character and integrity. I didn’t think of these things all that often while growing up, and some times I even challenged the strict upbringing on a road that was straight and narrow. I am forever a pastor’s kid.

 

All my heroes you see, they're not exactly like you or like me
They live each day whether we watch or not, like the person we want to be.

They've done a thousand times, the things that we dream of in our best days
And while we'd linger in the moment, they moved on giving God the praise.

They gather in the dark, in back rooms away from the noise and the fray
On their knees by some bedside they give time and thought, to humbly pray.

By some old couch that we mock, they sit to ponder all the rest
While we wonder from our thrones why is it we hold them, the best.

They look back at moments in life, and I hear the humblest of regrets
They wished they had given more of themselves even when others forget.

While we worry about the do's and the don'ts, they simply get it done
On any given day, like a season passing through, this hero is my favorite one.

I don’t have pictures of everyone, and my family is full of the best examples one could ever learn from. I am a fortunate man. When I pray early in the mornings, I take time to humbly thank God for the blessing that is, the blessing that has been, the family I have been so fortunate to be a part of. God knew that this was the best combination, certainly, the best one for me. I am eternally grateful. Living life surrounded by all my heroes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems that I can’t go an entire day without a stark reminder somewhere along the way that all my heroes are growing old, or that they have gone home.