I Write for Jesus: Inspirational Short Stories

By Neal Mercier

These short stories of love, faith, and belief in Our Savior Jesus Christ are written for all Christians. Neal, once a month, provides a story to the congregation of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Clarendon, Texas. In Turkey, Texas, his stories have been shared in monthly Bible study groups consisting of many faiths, including Baptist, Methodist, and Church of Christ. Neal shares his readings not only in these churches but also in many out of state. Neal was born in Manhattan and lived sixty-four years in New York. In March 2009, Neal and Sarah moved to Clarendon, Texas. In April 2011, Sarah was led by angels up to Jesus. Neal still resides in Clarendon with his native New York German Shepherd and two Texan cats. Neal knows that Jesus often works in mysterious ways""not always a straight line. Neal is working on a second book of short stories and likes to hear the thoughts and feelings of his readers. He never knows where or when Jesus will give him inspiration for a story. His readers are ways Jesus will inspire him. Send him your letters at PO Box 277, Clarendon, Texas, 79226.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644584002

Book preview

He Died for Me

Why, dear Jesus, do I love you so much?

For you died for me, yes, you died for me.

Without recourse, you never changed your course.

But you embraced your destiny.

For you died for me.

From the moment we are born, we start the road to death.

But who knows when that death will come and how?

But you, dear Jesus, knew the time and manner.

But you never wavered.

Sweet Jesus, you knew the torture your human form would take.

The lashing through the skin down to the bone.

The crown of thorns embedded in your scalp.

The nailing of your body to the cross.

The piercing of your side with a lance.

But you did not waver.

Your death on the cross gave us the symbol of our faith.

But freely, you accepted it for mankind.

For you died for me.

I love you so very much.

For in your death, you became more alive.

You dwell in my heart and mind.

You never leave me.

All I must do is open myself to you.

For you are always with me.

For you died for me.

Why, dear Jesus, do I love you?

For you give me everything I need, if I have the faith.

Not everything I want.

But everything I need.

You taught me true love by dying for me.

Freely dying for me.

All I must say is, dear Jesus, I love you.

Then the warmth of your love covers me, and I fear not.

For you died for me.

I worry not about tomorrow.

For I know that the love I have for you, tomorrow will take care of itself.

If one day that tomorrow does not come, I will not worry about it.

For all the love you have taught me to have will guide my soul to you.

For you died for me.

Why, dear Jesus, do I love you?

For in your death, you saved me if I have the faith.

You taught me that no greater love can a man have than to give his life for another.

As you gave your life for me and all mankind. As your sun warms my skin, your love warms my heart.

As your stars guided sailors across the seas, your love guides my heart.

As the oxygen you put on your Earth to keep us alive, your words keep my soul alive.

Dear Jesus, I love you, for you died for me.

Life’s Corner

Being an editor of a tiny little Sunday bulletin might seem like a grain of sand on a desert. However, we pray every Sunday in our church the Penitential Act, and here is part of that prayer. I confess to God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do. It’s very easy to sit back and say nothing of what’s going on in this great nation of ours.

We have the blessing of our Lord to live in one of the greatest countries on his planet. Yes, his planet, for we are here for only a blink of time and he is eternal. But he gave us the wisdom and the love of his Son to make this the best of times, or we could make it the worst of times, for he gave us free will, and it is up to each of us how we will use that free will.

The death of Trayvon Martin, like any death, is a sin to God. This young man was doing nothing but taking a shortcut home when he was killed. The man that killed him was not a policeman but a neighborhood watchman with no formal training, and yet he killed this kid. Let’s take this shooting one more step—the gun did not kill the kid; the man did, for if he didn’t have a licensed gun, he probably would have got a gun from somewhere because he wanted to be a cop. I am not taking sides on the gun issue, but the side of a young man that never should have seen his life cut so short. The shame of this act, with no witnesses to see what happened, so the jury lets this man off. To this day, I cannot agree with this decision. Every picture I’ve seen of this kid is with a smile on his face. He had no criminal record and never got into trouble. I cannot believe in my heart that he became a hardened criminal in a split second and had to be killed.

I’ve seen pictures of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown walking arm in arm, and in truth, they are no more alike except they are black and they were killed. Mike Brown just came from robbing a store. Yes, we should not forget that he just committed a crime and no one should be killed for just stealing some items. But he was a six-foot-four tall bully, and in all the wonderful pictures I’ve seen in his family post, I did not see Trayvon Martin smile; it was always the sneering look of a bully. The mother of Mike Brown said in a television interview that she believes that Officer Wilson got up that morning and decided to put his oath aside and become an aggressor. Did she also have the insight to see that her son got up that morning to go out and steal and become a thief? How many of us get up every morning, look in the mirror, and know that going to work today could be our last day on earth? That all we love and hold precious could be wiped away in a second? That is the life of policemen. Why do they do it? Have you ever wondered what makes a policeman do that job? Think of it—it is for the love of country, the love of people, and the service to God to protect God’s flock. No matter the reason, they do it every day. Imagine where we will be without these humans risking all for us. Yes, occasionally you will get a bad one, but for every bad one, there are thousands that do a wonderful job. I see the pictures of the bruises on Officer Wilson’s face, and I truly believe that Mike Brown finally came across someone that he couldn’t bully and lost his composure. Officer Wilson was fighting for his life. So tell me again how Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown are linked together.

Mike Brown’s stepfather screamed, Burn this town down, after the grand jury gave their verdict of no criminal act. Again, Mike Brown’s mother came to her family’s defense, saying they weren’t responsible for any of the burnings. While stores were looted and buildings burned, people lost their jobs and some lost their businesses.

Words are often more powerful than any weapon man has ever made. Adolf Hitler incited a whole nation of people with words. I never read one word stating Hitler personally killed anyone.

However, six million Jews died under his leadership, and another six million of various nationalities died. Only the Lord knows how many millions of soldiers from both sides died. Many towns were destroyed, and the water was so polluted by dead bodies that people had no drinking water for years to come. Yet Hitler personally didn’t commit any of these acts, so maybe we should give him a good guy award?

Some laws are a little unjust, and you must use good judgment when enforcing these laws. No one should be killed selling a few loose cigarettes. Give them a warning and let them walk away. With all the crime going on, spending more than a couple of minutes on this is a waste. Yes, I know that someone probably passed this law to keep cigarettes out of the hands of minors, but they’re going to get them one way or another, and to die for that is a sin.

I worked with mentally disabled kids for nine years. Some of them were much bigger and stronger than me, and I am six feet two and weigh about 270 pounds. For nine years, I took courses on how to handle these kids and what physical force I could use for protection. At one point, I usually could take down any person to the floor and hold them until they calmed down. You must remember, these kids were mentally disabled—you couldn’t talk to them like normal people because they weren’t able to understand or communicate. Never, and I say never, did I use a chokehold. In fact, if I restrained a student on his or her stomach, I would have to release them and start over so I wouldn’t kill them. Someone passed a law stating that if you hold a kid’s hand, you are restraining him. I was reprimanded once because a colleague saw me crossing the parking lot holding on to this child’s hand. This child was a runner and had no idea what a car would do to him. If I didn’t hold his hand and he ran into the lot and was killed by a car, I could have been arrested for neglecting that child. Either way, I would have been in trouble no matter what I did. Remember, these laws are passed by lawyers that have never worked with disabled children. But it’s the law, and I told the school to call the police, have me arrested, and we would settle this in a court of law. Three years earlier, a child was killed running onto the highway. Children have no idea how dangerous it is. I was not reprimanded, and I continued doing what I thought was best for the child.

The officer restraining Eric Garner surely knew that chokeholds were not allowed, and even outlawed, by the police in New York in the 1990s. It should have never been used. How the grand jury could not indict him on involuntary manslaughter is insane. He broke the law that he pledged to protect and made every other policeman look bad because of his actions. I hope the police department fires him because he is not fit to be one of our finest, and Mr. Garner should not be dead today.

Have you ever had a gun pointed at you? I was walking down an alley in New York City when two armored guards backed out of a doorway carrying money bags. One guard turned around and bumped into me. When I looked down, I had a gun in my stomach, and let me tell you, I was so scared because that gun could have gone off very easily and killed me. Remember the policeman who killed a twelve-year-old pointing a gun at him? He was never told by the 911 operator that it might be a fake gun. The orange tag that was supposed to be on the gun to show it was a toy was missing, and if you looked at it at any kind of distance, it looked like a real gun. I am positive that this officer did not get up that morning saying he wanted to die or kill a child, and now he must live with that the rest of his life. The child’s parents want to sue him because he was cleared by the grand jury of any wrongdoing. My question is, where were these parents who gave this child a gun to take out and play with? Kids all over the country are taking guns to school and killing other kids. And if you think a twelve-year-old cannot kill you, please think again. The days of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans are over, and the days of kids playing with toy pistols are also at an end. Too many shootings occur to let your kids play with guns. If you do, at least teach them at home that it’s a toy and a game for indoors only but that if they take it out of the house, it is no longer a game.

These are all very tragic instances, but don’t lump them together, for they are not all the same thing. Changes must be made. Yet those changes must be made all over, not simply by the police and lawmakers but also by parents. Parents should be teaching their kids not to be bullies and about the danger of toy guns. Imagine how this great country would be if we had no law enforcement. How many of you would sit at home with a shotgun in your lap? Remember, for every bad one, we have thousands that are good; for everyone that makes an error in judgment, we have thousands that don’t. Remember, every officer of the law is a human being that has a family and loved ones that they want to come home to at the end of his or her shift. They are not super beings but human beings doing a tough job. I am very proud of my cousin, Alan Friedman, who spent twenty-five years on the West Haven police force. He is the fairest man I’ve ever met. He never saw color, religion, or anything but only saw people, which is how it should be.

We can have marches for change, which is a right of the people, but let that change be for the right things. No looting or burning and hurting other people. Don’t let all that President Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mohammed Gandhi lived and died for be in vain. Don’t let it be like the minister in Arizona who said on the pulpit he has a cure for HIV—to kill all the gays. I have no respect for this minister and would not want to be around when his soul tries to get into heaven to meet our Lord Jesus. My Lord Jesus says to love. I will try to love and pray for this minister, but I can’t respect him right now. Maybe in the future I will pray to my Lord Jesus that he does not hold this against me.

Love-Peace-Grace-Forgiveness-Honor

Love

Love is the cement that paves the way from our Savior, Jesus, to his father in Heaven. That same love is what paves the way for us to our Savior, Jesus. God gave us six great gifts: Himself, his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, life, love, and a brain to use life and love to their fullest advantage. Love is a universal thing; a mother bear will defend her cub until death, as will many animals, because they love their offspring. Some animals and birds form lifetime bonds in which there must be some form of love present. Some animals form bonds with other animals, as I’ve witnessed with my own dog and two cats. A feeling of love exists there. My dog and two cats ask for nothing from me but food and water, which every living creature needs. In return, they give me nothing but love. God gave us a brain, however, to take that love to higher levels than animals. We can reach out to others less fortunate than us to help and love them. We can decide to put aside the hurt people have caused us to pray for them and give them love. Remember, even at the Last Supper, Jesus gave Judas the bread of his body and the wine of his blood, knowing that Judas had betrayed him and what was about happen to him. How great is it that he still loved him?

We may have hardship and pain and the cement might crack and chip away over the years, but you are capable of