Today’s gift… I’m getting ahead of myself, so I better back up a bit, since you are not aware of this yet. All of this came about after… after a nice breakfast with nice friends, after my morning workout and after rainy drive home. Here’s what happened.
There was a message for me from Shari when I got home. She needed my help. It wasn’t a desperate kind of need, like can you fix my car or the roof is leaking. Nothing like that. Her need emerged from an idea. It came out of a brainstorm for a little something she wanted to do with and for her kids.
You see, tragically, about three years ago, Shari’s husband Kevin lost his life in an automobile accident. One day a husband, a father, a friend, a teacher and the next in heaven with Jesus. So, for the last three years on or about Kevin’s birthday (next Friday) Shari comes up with something that will help the kids, Katelyn, Jared and Lucas, remember something special about their dad. It has become an annual event.
That’s where the need comes into the story. Perhaps you didn’t know this, but Kevin’ was a geocacher! Without going into a lot of details, in geocaching, people hide a box of cheap trinkets, perhaps in the woods or in a park. They note the latitude and longitude on their GPS then post the coordinates on the Geocaching website. Other people get the coordinates from the website, enter them into their GPS and go out and try to find it. They can log their find at the website, but mostly it’s just fun to be out looking for tacky trinket treasure.
Yes, Kevin was a cacher. His caching handle was ‘kev12kev!’ Like most things in which Kevin was involved – family, church, teaching – Kevin was passionate about geocaching. That’s why Shari called. She wondered if I could help her and the kids set up a geocache of their own, a kind of memorial to a much missed husband and father. I was honored to be asked.
So, tomorrow afternoon I’ll load up the geo-gear and head to some wooded park and help Shari and Kate and Jared and Lucas hide a box. It will be a box full of memories of Kevin, hidden perhaps under a log, but more importantly good memories hidden in their hearts. A gift indeed. The gift of remembering… Today’s gift.
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Walk as Children of Light 