Proud Great Grand Dad

I look out into the world today and I see a much different world for my great granddaughter than what I grew up in. The world is a more complex place than I knew as a child safety is a major concern for everyone today.

It seems that so many things have gone wrong with our society. I have always been one who looks at the glass as being half full and not half empty. She might find a world that is cold and distant compared to my world when I was a child. I don't think that is truly what she may necessarily find. When you look hard enough you find the warmth and friendliness of family and friends you can still find it today. The Christian Church is still as strong as it ever was and good people are as abundant as they were when I was a child; you just have to seek them out. People seem to be so much more withdrawn from the community the church schools and their surroundings. Even though there still is so much more magic in the world today with computers, movies, music and entertainment. There are toys that not only speak but have conversations with you. It has always been wonderful world for a child to engage in imaginary play with all of the toys and computers it seems that that imagination is so vivid that it almost comes to life today. We're almost at a threshold for virtual reality to give us our imagination firsthand. I used to think that I was born too late to enjoy the things that I enjoy such as old radio programs and music, but I have changed my mind without the technology that I have at my fingertips today all of it might have been lost to me when I can enjoy it the most. A small little child being born always gives parents, grandparents and great grandparents a new perspective on what we are leaving future generations.

It also gives us a reason to pause and look back at our own childhood. To take a look at the magic and ministry of growing up in the future. To look at all the mistakes we made in our past and hope that that small baby is smarter than we were and doesn't go through those mistakes. Even if that were so I always tell people my age and older the reason that a small child can learn a computer, tablet or smart phone faster than we can is because they have no fear and they enjoy learning from mistakes just as much as they enjoy learning from their accomplishments that they did right. I know not to get frustrated with the mistake or something that I've done wrong because I've learned how not to do whatever it is I'm trying to do, but that is awful easy to say rather than to put in practice. So I know just as my grandparents or great-grandparents said when I was born I am concerned about the world that my namesake will grow up in. It is no longer a world that I recognize or influence; it is up to my children and my grandchildren to produce a better way of life for my great grandchild. I pray that she has a smart mind that will guide her through the many and wonderful adventures that I know she will have. I pray that she has the health to give her a long happy and healthy life. I also pray that she would have the joy of knowing someone special in her life to give her the joy and love that I have received from my gift from God my wife Ursula. I pray that she also comes to know God is I have come to know Him, for God to comfort and heal her in the good and the bad times of her life as he has done for me. I also pray that she knows a group of people as complex and as diverse as the friends that I grew up with and went to school with to travel along with her on her many adventures. God bless everyone, God bless our country and God bless you my little Layne.