I have a favorite wedding card which I buy as often as I can when I can find it. The card is all- white with an embossed picture of Cinderella stepping into her magic chariot. On the inside is the comment: Dreams Really Do Come True.
Dreams seem, often, to come true around Christmastime. A long-awaited toy becomes a bird in our hand; a visit from a friend or a dream trip seem to resolve themselves into magical moments. My thoughts have been on dreams coming true.
When our son, Tom, was a teenager,
to our chagrin, he lived only to hang-out in the local parks with his friends and ride skateboards. There wasn't really a decent skate park or safe place for them to ply their craft, and they were often a menace to local drivers, merchants, and law enforcement. For most of his high school years, Tom tried to get a nice skatepark built at the park. He wrote petitions and requests, went to local town meetings, etc. Then he grew up and left home, but he never gave up on skateboarding and takes time to skate almost every day. A few days ago, in town for a few days, he remarked with pride, "Eighteen years after I started the ball rolling, there's a fantastic skatepark down in Bingen. Dreams do come true."
Steve, our Coast Guardsman, helped a young man with MS fulfill a dream when he helped him drive a Coast Guard boat and visit the Bodega Bay Station where Steve is assigned.
Recently, I was helping Vale with an assignment in his Pacific Northwest history class. He is doing a project on the Oregon Trail, which is living one's history, since we live in the area of the Trail and because Vale's great-great grandfather, Peter Franklin Clark, came to the Salem, Oregon area on the Oregon Trail. Frank Clark was an exceptional man--a man for all s
easons. He worked the family farm in Missouri as a young boy, searched for and found gold during the gold rush, fought in the Civil War, commanding a local unit, Company A, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry, traveled the Oregon Trail and became a successful farmer in Zena, Oregon, served as justice of the peace, postmaster, veteran representative, and a deacon in the Baptist Church in there, and produced several journals and diaries. Only some of his journalistic efforts still exist. As I searched through Clark's journals, I found this gem in Clark's diary: "Here I must relate how old Uncle Ellis trapped me. We were talking about California and the demoralizing effect it had on young men, when I remarked that it was my firm belief that no one could stay in the California mines for a year without swearing, drinking, or gambling or even cosorting with prostitutes. 'Ha, ha, ha, now I have you, my boy,' he said. 'Did you not tell us a short while ago that you had done none of these things? So you had better own up.' But I would not.
So things went on, and I prayed in secret and persuaded myself that I could be a Christian out of the church as well as in it. When the war broke out, I went into it with all my energy, sometimes almost forgetting that there was a God. But I never wholly relapsed. I always came back when I got in a tight place, that is until August 21, 1864. In the hottest of the fight, I always asked God to protect me. But on this day, while the bullets were flying thick, it occurred to me: why should God protect me when I refused to know Him and by confessing, I then and there promised Him that if He spared me until I got home, that then I would do my duty. Very shortly afterward I received a letter from my wife, informing me that she had withdrawn from the Protestant church. Soon after, on the third Sunday in November 1864, I was baptized by the pastor of Pisgah, Reverend Henry C. Sollan, into the Baptist church. The following fall my two daughters were converted and baptized. About this time I was made church clerk, and so remained until 1874, when we all took letters before leaving for Oregon.
I have always regretted that I did not make public profession in 1846, for I believe today, February 15, 1905, that God, for Christ's sake, at the mourner's bench in Illinois, pardoned my sins. Since then, my sorrows have been many, my joys and blessings more than I deserve. But verily I believe that if I had come out on the Lord's side boldly, my sorrow would have been less and my joys many more. I therefore counsel you, my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who read this after I am gone, to at all times, and in all places, be ready to profess your faith and to acknowledge He who has saved you. But alas, if you're not saved, seek it now, never give over until you can say, "Jesus is mine."
I wonder if we, his many descendants, have made Frank Clark's dreams come true?
Dreams seem, often, to come true around Christmastime. A long-awaited toy becomes a bird in our hand; a visit from a friend or a dream trip seem to resolve themselves into magical moments. My thoughts have been on dreams coming true.
When our son, Tom, was a teenager,
to our chagrin, he lived only to hang-out in the local parks with his friends and ride skateboards. There wasn't really a decent skate park or safe place for them to ply their craft, and they were often a menace to local drivers, merchants, and law enforcement. For most of his high school years, Tom tried to get a nice skatepark built at the park. He wrote petitions and requests, went to local town meetings, etc. Then he grew up and left home, but he never gave up on skateboarding and takes time to skate almost every day. A few days ago, in town for a few days, he remarked with pride, "Eighteen years after I started the ball rolling, there's a fantastic skatepark down in Bingen. Dreams do come true."Steve, our Coast Guardsman, helped a young man with MS fulfill a dream when he helped him drive a Coast Guard boat and visit the Bodega Bay Station where Steve is assigned.
Recently, I was helping Vale with an assignment in his Pacific Northwest history class. He is doing a project on the Oregon Trail, which is living one's history, since we live in the area of the Trail and because Vale's great-great grandfather, Peter Franklin Clark, came to the Salem, Oregon area on the Oregon Trail. Frank Clark was an exceptional man--a man for all s
easons. He worked the family farm in Missouri as a young boy, searched for and found gold during the gold rush, fought in the Civil War, commanding a local unit, Company A, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry, traveled the Oregon Trail and became a successful farmer in Zena, Oregon, served as justice of the peace, postmaster, veteran representative, and a deacon in the Baptist Church in there, and produced several journals and diaries. Only some of his journalistic efforts still exist. As I searched through Clark's journals, I found this gem in Clark's diary: "Here I must relate how old Uncle Ellis trapped me. We were talking about California and the demoralizing effect it had on young men, when I remarked that it was my firm belief that no one could stay in the California mines for a year without swearing, drinking, or gambling or even cosorting with prostitutes. 'Ha, ha, ha, now I have you, my boy,' he said. 'Did you not tell us a short while ago that you had done none of these things? So you had better own up.' But I would not.So things went on, and I prayed in secret and persuaded myself that I could be a Christian out of the church as well as in it. When the war broke out, I went into it with all my energy, sometimes almost forgetting that there was a God. But I never wholly relapsed. I always came back when I got in a tight place, that is until August 21, 1864. In the hottest of the fight, I always asked God to protect me. But on this day, while the bullets were flying thick, it occurred to me: why should God protect me when I refused to know Him and by confessing, I then and there promised Him that if He spared me until I got home, that then I would do my duty. Very shortly afterward I received a letter from my wife, informing me that she had withdrawn from the Protestant church. Soon after, on the third Sunday in November 1864, I was baptized by the pastor of Pisgah, Reverend Henry C. Sollan, into the Baptist church. The following fall my two daughters were converted and baptized. About this time I was made church clerk, and so remained until 1874, when we all took letters before leaving for Oregon.
I have always regretted that I did not make public profession in 1846, for I believe today, February 15, 1905, that God, for Christ's sake, at the mourner's bench in Illinois, pardoned my sins. Since then, my sorrows have been many, my joys and blessings more than I deserve. But verily I believe that if I had come out on the Lord's side boldly, my sorrow would have been less and my joys many more. I therefore counsel you, my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who read this after I am gone, to at all times, and in all places, be ready to profess your faith and to acknowledge He who has saved you. But alas, if you're not saved, seek it now, never give over until you can say, "Jesus is mine."
I wonder if we, his many descendants, have made Frank Clark's dreams come true?
1 comment:
Way cool! Glad his thoughts and dreams lived on in his written words
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