Wednesday Hero

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Mary Ann

Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine
Company C, 1st Battalion, 77th Armor

“How can I say to my sons, stand up for something, fight for what you think is right, if I don’t do anything myself?”

The Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you speak to today is a complete 180 from the Jeffrey Jamaleldine that you would have spoke to in the past. In 1991, Jamaleldin was living in Germany when joined in anti-American protests on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm boulevard during Operation Desert Storm. “That was the way it was back then,” he says. He was 15 and “America was simply the enemy.” And today, Jeffery Jamaleldine is a wounded veteran of the U.S. Army. On June 6, 2005, after the terror bombing in Madrid, Spain, in the middle of the Iraq war, he showed up at the U.S. Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist. His father, Bashir, told him at the time: “Son, this won’t be a picnic.”

On June 30, Jamaleldine was on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. The patrol ahead of him had been ambushed by at least 70 combatants and were now under fire. During the fight, Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine was hit in the face by a bullet. In the end, the battle lasted into the next morning and the soldiers were able to stop the enemy from returning to Ramadi.

The article on Spc. Jeffrey Jamaleldine is five pages long, and I simply can not condense it down to only a few paragraphs. You can read the entire story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

Fruitful Vine & Olive Shoots

Psalm 128:3
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

A Fruitful Vine, how many women today are seen as being a fruitful vine? How many women today would want to see themselves that way? How many women today find themselves within their house? Many are out earning a monetary check. It is a blessing of the Lord when a man has his wife within his home and if she is a fruitful vine. This fruitful vine refers to childbearing, having children spring forth and growing to maturity.

The olive tree reproduces by sending up shoots from its roots. If not trimmed they surround the trunk, just like the psalmist’s blessing of many children around your table. Olive trees were a symbol of blessing to the Israelites. When they saw the new olive shoots coming up around their olive trees, they knew they were blessed. (Deuteronomy 6:11; 8:8).

If allowed to grow, these shoots become new trees that also bear fruit. It is not unusual for an olive tree to live for hundreds of years. And if healthy, the olive tree will continue to produce fruit for hundreds of years. This is generational thinking, are we raising our children to impact only their lives or are we raising them with the generations to come in mind? Our children are eternal souls who will live forever. Mothering is an eternal career. It is not a waste of time. It lasts into eternity.

Mothering is a career and not an easy one at that. We must depend upon the wisdom of the Most High God to teach, train, and discipline them. Olive plants have to be cultivated or they will deteriorate and grow wild. Our children also have to be cultivated if they are going to grow up in wisdom and stature bearing the image of Christ.

Also, olive oil was used to fuel the Temple lamp stand(Menorah) and for anointing. The Olive tree tends to be used as a picture of Israel, in its function of giving light to the world; as in the two olive trees giving golden oil to the Menorah in the vision of Zechariah. We are to let our light shine before men that they may see our Father in heaven.

Psalm 128:4 Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD.

(this is an older post, re-written a bit and re-published)

SSgt. Matt Maupin Found

In April of last year, Wednesday Hero profiled SSgt. Keith “Matt” Maupin who had went missing in Iraq in April of 2004. Sad news. SSg. Maupin’s remains have been found.

“My heart sinks, but I know they can’t hurt him anymore,” Keith Maupin said after receiving word about the remains of his son, who went by Matt.

The Army didn’t say how or where in Iraq his son’s remains were discovered, only that the identification was made with DNA testing, Maupin said. A shirt similar to the one his son was wearing at the time of his disappearance was also found.

Thanks to Lt. Schneider

New Life

Springtime is a time when we are reminded of new life. We have just celebrated Resurrection Sunday, another reminder of new life, life eternal. Each of us has a soul that will endure forever whether that be in eternal life or in eternal death. Much is at stake. Will those of us who have eternal life take the message of the saving gospel to those who are as of yet eternally dead? As parents are we raising our children up in the training and admonition of the Lord? Are our lives a reflection of Christ and the new life he has bestowed upon us? Are we a pleasing aroma before the throne of grace? As we see the beginnings of spring and all of the new life that is budding and sprouting forth may it be a reminder to us to share the new life given us by Precious Lamb of God!

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

John 3: 16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

Acts 16:31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Photo Hunt – High

This week’s photo theme is high so I am posting a photo my daughter took out the airplane window! They were up very high! Click here for more Photo Hunt.

Blessed Assurance

John 20:31
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Blessèd assurance, Jesus is mine! O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight, Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Perfect submission, all is at rest I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above, Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Savior, all the day long.

Words: Fanny Crosby (1873)