A Dime For Your Thoughts

Legend has it that Frank Sinatra was buried in a blue suit with a roll of ten dimes – a gift from his daughter, Tina. Why the dimes? The ten dimes signified a bizarre incident in the life of Sinatra and his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr.
At the age of 19, Frank Sinatra, Jr. was kidnapped on December 8, 1963. The kidnappers demanded payment of a large ransom from his father. They also demanded that Sinatra contact them only by pay phone. Thus Sinatra carried a roll of dimes with him throughout the ordeal. Carrying a roll of dimes became a lifelong habit for him.
In order to secure his son’s freedom, Sinatra paid the kidnappers' $240,000 ransom demand. His son was released unharmed, two days after he had been kidnapped, on December 10. The kidnappers were later captured, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms. *
There are several lessons we could get from this story, but one that I want us to consider. Remembering our past can be a good thing. It can help us in not making the same mistakes twice. But many times the “dimes” add up and they become baggage. We never get beyond our baggage. We are restricted by the reminder of what we have done and what others may think of us. We hid who we are and the dimes add up.
May we be like King David:
Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD "— and you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)
Sure the dimes help us remember. But don’t let your memory stifle who you should be and keep you from confessing what you should confess. God is good even if we aren’t.
* Information gleaned from Answers.com and Wikipedia.com

Sid

Taking Your Place

Dwight L. Moody told of the young man who did not want to serve in Napoleon Bonaparte's army. When he was drafted, a friend volunteered to go in his place. The substitution was made, and some time later the surrogate was killed in battle.
The same young man was, through a clerical error, drafted again. “You can't take me," he told the startled officers. "I'm dead. I died on the battlefield."
They argued that they could see him standing right in front of them, but he insisted they look on the roll to find the record of his death. Sure enough, there on the roll was the man's name, with another name written beside it – the name of the friend who had died in his place.
The case finally went to the emperor himself. After examining the evidence, Napoleon said, "Through a surrogate, this man has not only fought, but has died in his country's service. No man can die more than once, therefore the law has no claim on him." *
Jesus took your place. This concept is easy to say, but is hard to apply, remember and even comprehend. We get so caught up in ourselves we just can’t seem to focus on the fact that Jesus died in our place. That heaven is our home if we just give ourselves to him.
May God help us to receive this gift of grace and live so as to show the world that Jesus’ death was for them too.
* Story received from David Sargent, “Living Word” February 2, 2008

Jury Fraud

This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). I wanted to share this with you. It is sad that people will stoop to this level to get something for nothing. Read:

It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously. A new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen. The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system. The FBI and the Federal Court System have issued nationwide alerts on their websites, warning consumers about the fraud. See also:

Snopes site: says this is realfraud. http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
FBI site: warns about the fraud. http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

What happened to the days when you could trust people? We throw those words around like flap jacks at a pancake breakfast. We need to get back to being able to trust each other. When we don't trust others it may say more about us than we want to admit.

May God endow us with His Spirit so as we can be trustworthy people and be able to trust others.

Sid