If you enjoy this email service, I encourage you to spread the word to family and friends that we may bring inspiration to the lives of many! If you are not on the list and this has been passed along to you, join the thousands of world-wide readers by visiting: http://www.HeartTouchers.com

Be sure to check out our inspirational site just for teenagers!

http://www.Heart4Teens.com/Heart4Teens

______________________________________

Looking for a great gift?

Michael's book Heart Touchers "Life-Changing Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter," is available BarnesandNoble.com or at Amazon.com at this link: HeartTouchers Book on Amazon  Price is only $10.92 for a limited time! (regulary $14.95!) If you do order the book, would you consider giving it an honest review on Amazon when you are done reading it? 

______________________________________

Good morning world-wide HeartTouchers.com readers!

As some of you know, I get the opportunity to speak around the world on the subject of Creation/Evolution.

The DVD's from my latest Creation Seminar are finally done! If you have ever been interested in what the Bible says about Dinosaurs, the age of the earth, the different so called "races" of people, etc., we wanted to let you know that you can have over 6 hours of apologetic teaching from a recent Creation Seminar I taught at. Lots and lots of visuals for those of you who are visual learners!

Cost is just $30 for all eight sessions on DVD. (I can get them to you as computer video files too!)

We had a lot of initial orders but made an extra 50 sets for those of you who didn't pre-order. Just let me know!

Would be great to go through this material with your family, your small group, as a class at your church or for a Christmas gift to someone who might be interested in it!  Send me an email if you are interested or visit: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelTPowers/posts/10157091307197558

  The Loss of a Trusted Friend

By Michael T. Powers

It is hard to express the pain of losing one's favorite tea mug. A mug that has stood by my side for at least a decade. Always faithful, always ready to carry that precious amber liquid that brings me health and comfort on a daily basis. No matter how much pressure it was under, no matter how hot things got, it never let me down.

Yesterday, I let my mug down. I had just made a delicious batch of my special tea. (It involves three different kinds of tea, raw honey from Liz Vaenoski’s bees south of Clinton, a half a lime and half a lemon squeezed into it, a dash of turmeric and cinnamon to go along with the final ingredient: fresh ginger root.) I was heading out to my truck to go to Release Time in Clinton and I put my mug on the back of the truck while I put some stuff in the back seat.

That's when it happened. I forgot my trusty mug was sitting precariously on the edge of my truck and I started to back out of my driveway. I am sure now that it was calling to me, but in my hurry, I did not hear it's cries of fear!

I backed out, put it in drive and drove away from my house. Only a few yards down the road, I realized that my mug was not in the cup holder! In a split second I realized what I had done and I frantically looked in the rear view mirror.

In horror, I saw my mug laying on the pavement. There was now a car behind me, so I quickly pulled around the block and came back out onto my street. My nerves were on edge as a car in front me drove straight towards my mug! With a sigh of relief I saw the responsible driver straddle the mug with his car.

But my sigh of relief turned into a sob as I pulled up to my house and saw my mug's lifeblood leaking out onto the pavement. A car had callously run over it while I was circling the block...

My mug's head was crushed and so was my heart. His life force was gone...

I walked up to my trusty friend and I just stared at it. I couldn't believe what had happened. Why?! Why did this have to happen to me?!

I documented the scene of the crime, put his limp body on my porch and I went to fulfill my obligation to the students at Clinton High School.

What may have hurt almost as much as losing my trusted friend was that none of my boys would come to the curbside memorial service that I tried to have for it when I got home. I asked them nicely. I begged them to be there for their father in his hour of need.

I started with my youngest. "Chase, would you come out to the curb for just a few minutes?"

"Dad, this isn't about your mug is it?"

"It might be."

He kept saying things like, "Dad, are you serious? It is just a mug!"

Just a mug... JUST A MUG! He knows better than to say that to me. He knows that my mug and I were inseparable. How could I have failed my boys in not teaching them to have empathy for the older generation!?

Then I went to Connor. The son who wants to be a senior pastor. The one who will have to comfort people and entire families in their grief sometime in the future. I poked my head into his room.

"Connor, would you come outside with me for a few moments?"

"Dad, I am not going outside with you to have a memorial service for your tea mug."

"But Connor, you don't understand..."

"Dad, you are a child."

No Connor, you are my child and you should be there for your elderly parent in his time of need."

He just kept laughing and shaking his head. I tried to say something else but he pointed at the door and said, “GET OOOOOUUTTTTT” I knew he wasn’t being disrespectful… he was just quoting from one of his favorite social media videos.

I then went to my first-born son. The one who has my name sake. Caleb Michael Powers. I asked him if he would be willing to come outside and have a few moments of silence with me around my make-shift memorial.

“You have got to be kidding Dad! I love you but I am not going to go to the memorial service for your tea mug.”

“Please Caleb? You know how much this means to me.”

My son then grabs his phone and starts to record me all the while narrating to his friends about what his dad was trying to get him to do.

I think he shared it on his snap face or chat book. I couldn’t believe that the fruit of my loins was mocking his dad on social media.

I hung my head in sorrow and slowly walked up stairs. I had gathered some sticks from my backyard and made a cross memorial that I tied together with string. I made the solemn walk out to the curb and tried to stick the cross in the ground as near to the spot of the accident as I could.

The ground was frozen. I had to go back in and get a knife to cut through the frozen tundra to allow my memorial marker to stand tall and strong. I planted it into the cold, unfeeling ground and I just stood there…all alone. I paid my respects and then went back into the house.

At my darkest hour, two young ladies who are like daughters to me came through for me. Maddie Ginter responded to Caleb’s mockery of me on snap face. She said, “Caleb you have to understand how hard this is for your dad. Let him go through the grieving process. It is OK for him to have a memorial. Tell him I stand with him in solidarity, but that I will not be attending, mostly because I am home right now and I want to STAY home. But please just let your father grieve.”

Then about an hour later, there was a knock at my door. It was Miki Ginter. When Caleb’s video was making the rounds on snap book, she was in the library at her college studying. It is finals week. She has a ton of exams to study for, but she left the library immediately to help her aging youth pastor in his time of sorrow. She slowly walked downstairs to where I was expressing my grief by writing this true account on my computer. She had genuine concern in her eyes. She gave me a very big hug and two very thoughtful and caring things for my memorial. (You can see them in the last photos.)

Here was someone who understood. She has probably consumed more of this special tea than anyone not named Michael T. Powers!

Finally I had children who cared. Two precious “daughters” who earned the right to be in our family because there is some kind of squatter’s law that says they eventually can own our house if they spend thousands of hours in it during a calendar year.

When I informed my family that I was thinking of taking his remains up north and burying it at my favorite camp site the next time we went camping, my wife said, “There is no way we are keeping that broken mug until the summer. It has to be so full of germs after all these years. You need to get rid of that thing!”

Sigh…

You may think this is all way over the top. You would be wrong. My tea mug was like family to me. For at least ten years of my life this mug has stood by me and fit perfectly in my hand. Who knows, those germs may have even kept me healthy by building up my immune system all those years!

And so here ends my time of trial. I knew this day was coming. I knew he wouldn’t last forever. I have tried to find another tea mug just like it over the years, but to no avail. The brand name has been worn off for so long there is no hope for me to be able to find the exact mug again.

Thank you Tea Mug. Thank you for the amazing beverages you brought to my mouth over the years. You will be sorely missed.

Michael “Tea” Powers

To see the photos I took, that go along with this story visit:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/MichaelTPowersPhotography/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1603089693170090

Michael T. Powers
HeartTouchers@aol.com

Write Michael and let him know your thoughts on this story!

Michael T. Powers, the youth minister at Faith Community Church in Janesville, Wisconsin is also the founder of HeartTouchers.com, a popular website with over 8.7 million visitors in the last seven years. He is happily married to his high school sweetheart, Kristi, and the proud father of three young boys.

He is also an author with stories in 32 inspirational books including many in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and his own entitled: Heart Touchers "Life-Changing Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter." To preview his book or to join the thousands of world-wide readers on his inspirational e-mail list, visit: http://www.HeartTouchers.com

Follow his Nature Photography page at: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelTPowersPhotography/

______________________________________

______________________________________