Mom Gave Me Birth, Gave Back My Birthday

by Kevin Burton    Today we talk birthdays on what would have been my mother’s 92nd. She died May 4, leaving an unfillable hole in my heart and life.    She is gone from this life but far, far from forgotten. There were many special days while mom was with us. Birthdays were among the …

You Were Born To Love Jesus, Other People

by Kevin Burton    My wife Jeannette sent me a devotional from the Bible app that leads with “Love is the beginning of everything.”    It’s written under the title, “The Great Love of Jesus.”    The closer I can stay to that theme and awareness, in what I do and say and pursue in …

Missing My Mom And Defining “Carry On”

by Kevin Burton “And when one of us is gone, and one of us is left to carry on, then remembering will have to do..” “You and Me Against The World” Helen Reddy    The first song I played after learning of my mother’s death on May 4, was “First Morning In Heaven,” by The …

The Road, The Race And The Finish Line

by Kevin Burton    Most of the words I share today come from Truth For Life, the Cleveland ministry founded by Alistair Begg. But I also imagine them coming also from my late mother.    They are words she might well have spoken in her final days.    Mom died May 4. She had close …

Words To Live By, Words To Die By, Words

by Kevin Burton    I bury my mother today. Can you imagine such a thing?    Life is a coin flip, with love on one side and pain on the other. Pain, in some measure, is the residue of love.    Live. Love. Toss the coin. Do it.    “There’s a sad day coming, and …

My Friend, “Prepaid” Is The Only Way To Go

by Kevin Burton    I called the cemetery where my mother will be buried next week and told the clerk that the time had come.    The clerk was actually en route to work. She said she would look up our family’s records once she got there, and call me back.    “Everything is paid …

Make Time For Mom, You’ll Be Glad You Did

by Kevin Burton    One day my mother received a letter. The people who owned the house she was renting were going to sell it, and she had 30 days to get out.    It was ridiculous to expect her to move that quickly, and my brother successfully negotiated an additional six weeks. But we …

Bye For Now, Evelyn Marie, Bye For Now

by Kevin Burton    Mom started it. I followed suit right away. We both understood though we never discussed it.    Somewhere, maybe six or seven years ago, we began ending a phone conversation or one of my visits to her at assisted living or in the nursing home with “bye for now!”    We’ll …

Dave Mason And A Place That’s Far Away

by Kevin Burton    There was just one song that brought Dave Mason into my top-40-based musical awareness in the 70s, but that was enough to keep him there.    Mason died April 19, and tributes began to pour in from people who knew him as I didn’t,  as a co-founder of the British rock …

He Is Risen! There Is Hope For The Hopeless

by Kevin Burton    Your tombstone and mine will land with the thud of finality. Jesus’ tombstone was pushed aside in very short order.    This was God’s plan, and we rejoice in it today on Easter, as we serve a risen Savior, who conquered death to make a way for us to be saved. …