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Chad Bird @birdchadlouis - Today, our son, Luke, would have celebrated his 25th birthday. He was with us for twenty-one years in this world. We will soon visit his grave at the United States Naval Academy.
Luke was a 110% kind of guy. If I may borrow a saying of Jesus, if you asked Luke to go one mile with you, he would say, “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s run ten miles. Uphill. With a pack on.”
On his eighteenth birthday, he got up in the middle of the night and completed an eighteen-mile walk. For fun. He was the president of his senior class and the recipient of national awards in JROTC. When a wrestling injury kept him from starting at the Naval Academy right after his senior year, he just buckled down, worked hard, and started a year later.
After his hiking accident, my family and I began receiving messages from his friends and fellow midshipmen. They told us things Luke never would have mentioned himself: all the times he volunteered, stayed after class to help struggling students, and offered words of encouragement to those who were down.
I don’t think I will ever be able to write words like that without tears of gratitude for the kind of man he was.
But “was” is not the right verb. That is the kind of man Luke is.
For a Christian, like Luke, there truly is no “was.” Luke has never stopped living. He lived here for twenty-one years, then stepped from the front porch of his Father’s house, through the door of physical death, into the heavenly habitation of Christ.
We miss him. Every day my heart hurts because I miss him. But I also know that one day, one glorious day, he and I, along with all believers in Christ, will stand together before our Lord.
Until that day, my mission is simple: to try to be at least half the man my son became in only twenty-one years; to live in Christ; and to share the Gospel, that many others may hear, believe, and join me and Luke and all Christians on that glorious day of resurrection joy.
https://x.com/birdchadlouis/status/1980214432241221895

Chairwoman Lisa McClain @RepLisaMcClain - Video: 20 DAYS into the Democrat Shutdown, and Democrats have voted 12 times to shut down the government.
They even voted NO on a separate bill to pay our troops.
Plain and simple, they’re obstructionists.
https://x.com/RepLisaMcClain/status/1980401732535329209