If you had to think about that for more than a few seconds, you’ve got a problem! And I’m not just preaching to you. For the past generation, researchers have been studying happiness and they have found that marital contentment is more important than any other human factor in determining our overall level of happiness. If you have a happy marriage you can endure all kinds of setbacks and be reasonably happy. If you’ve got a miserable marriage it doesn’t matter how well the rest of your life goes.

While the relationship between money and contentment is complicated, that between relationships and contentment is not. The sad fact is that most people focus on the wrong things. Most people vastly overestimate the extent to which money would improve our lives. This is true in our individual lives and our politics. Today everything is about economics. Only the numbers matter. But, as Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.” Jesus put it this way, “You cannot serve God and money.”

Are we focused on building a better world?..a world where people matter? That is our Christian vision: to love God and your neighbor. We are even commanded to love our enemies. That is how important people are. People are worth dying for.

People will come and go; ministers will come and go; families will move, and people will continue to pass away from this earthly life, but God alone remains the same. He never changes. He never leaves us for a new job. He will never pass away. He is present. He is sustaining. He is God. His love transcends our small picture lives, and invites us into His eternal big picture life!

As we miss those who leave us to embark on new adventures, may we honor them by glorifying the Lord with our lives. We will miss you, Dan Cooke. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord shine His beautiful face upon you, and may the Lord give you, our community of faith, and your new community of believers, peace.

1. Click on the link below. It will ask you for your username and password. Enter your teen’s First letter of First name, then last name. For the password add 01 to the username. Example John Doe wouild be Jdoe and Jdoe01. IF YOU ARE REGEISTERING FOR AN INCOMING 7TH GRADE STUDENT, CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT.

2. Click Register for this event.

3. Click Pay event fee now. You can imput any amount of money that you want to pay. You could pay $50 now then another $50 by march 1st for your deposit and then $50 amonth there after. Or you can make one big payment, or break it up however you can afford.

4. NOTE: You will see the full registration price, but I will discount the cost if you register by the above dates. Each month you can return to this page and click on Register, pay event fee, then enter the amount you want to pay. Each time you log in it will show the remainder of the cost you have to pay.

5. You can always pay via check or cash at the church.

A couple of weeks ago, a young man came in needing a place to stay while he awaited word on a possible job in the Denton area. He had been jobless for quite some time and had a glimmer of hope for work – not a promise of work, just an opportunity to follow up on a good lead. Due to this hopeful job situation, I put the young man up for a week in a local motel. We gave him some food and wished him success in this job search opportunity.

An older man who was staying in the same motel came in looking for assistance. He asked me if I knew that the young man we put up in a motel last week had been found dead in his room. He had committed suicide. In fact this man assisted with the body when he was found by motel employees.

This has really haunted me since learning of this tragedy. The first thing I thought of was, “Did I do enough to address this young man’s needs?” Why didn’t I better recognize his depressed state?

The major cause of suicide is depression. Over 30,000 people take their own lives in the U.S. each year. It is the 8th leading cause of male deaths and 16th cause of female deaths annually in the U.S. Men 20 -24 years of age commit suicide 10 times more than women their same age. The rate of suicide has gradually increased each year using the year 2000 as a benchmark.

Few of us are trained to spot problems with people who are suicide prone. Depression is probably the easiest thing to observe among people we know – especially family members and close friends.

We have a real challenge in how to deal with the people who come to us for help. No one is happy that is seeking assistance. Most likely, they have been without a job for quite some time. Usually they have no support groups (like family) who may help them though the tough times they are experiencing. Most are hoping we are able to answer their every need for assistance. Obviously, we have monetary limitations and have chosen ways we can offer benevolence and the amount of assistance we are able to offer. The late brother George Dulaney told me, “Don, folks will come in expecting you to solve all their problems. There is no way you can do this. If you can just make the person who needed help feel better when they leave compared to when they came in, then you’ve done your job.” I think about this advice quite often and wonder if I did my best?

I just wish I had recognized the 30+ year-old young man’s depression. Perhaps something could have been said that would have encouraged him to keep on trying. Most of the people who come to us need a place to unload the story that has built up within them. Taking time to listen is the major thing needed when people come in for help.

Pray for me that I’ll grow in wisdom and be able to do a better job of offering a hopeful and an encouraging spirit to people who are just barely hanging on. There has been a group of men recruited to help with client interviews when the food pantry is opened from 3:00-5:00 pm. This should be a big help and improve the quality of personal time we are able to spend with each person.