Jeff Hampton – Page 82 – Jeff Hampton, Writer

August 17, 2021

Refreshment for Thirsty Souls

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Last Wednesday morning I walked the labyrinth at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Richardson on what would have been my first wife Debra’s 62nd birthday. Because of cancer, she’ll forever be 48. That church and the labyrinth were a place of peace for Debra in life but also during illness. After she passed, her friends had her name engraved on one of the stones that borders the labyrinth, which makes it a place of remembrance for me.

August 10, 2021

Appreciation

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Sometime after LeAnn and I were married, our youngest nephew Ethan was staying with us and he discovered a sock puppet app on our iPad. He started creating short puppet shows, and the one we remember most was a sock puppet wedding where the two characters faced each other and repeated these vows, dictated by Ethan:

“Do you appreciate this woman?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And do you appreciate this man?”

“Yes, I do.”

August 3, 2021

Good Finish

For Wilshire Baptist Church

Watching the Olympics over the weekend, I saw several false starts in the heats and final for the men’s 100-meter run. In every case the runner knew immediately what had happened: In a split second — quite literally 0.1 second — years of training and dreaming were lost. There was no complaining or negotiating with technology that measures foot pressure on starting blocks. The runner was escorted away from the track and off the world stage.