ACH Study Groups
Ben & Fran Gilmore – Cofounders
7659 Gingerblossom Drive
Citrus Heights, CA 95621
916-722-2501 histbuff@garlic.com
www.ACHStudyGroups.com
March 4, 2015
This is a letter to our friends –
General MacArthur’s prayer
Dear reader – If you have not already logged onto the free mailing list for Bill Federer’s “American Minute” – I enthusiastically encourage you to do so. Every day you will receive a short history essay related to that date.
Much more significantly! You will spend one minute each day learning sound history lessons and how they relate to today’s events. Bill Federer has done more in my opinion, to make “history” relevant than most of our best history authorities.
God is interested in history. “Erect an alter (historical marker), remember to celebrate this event each year, teach your children, … …” Why? I believe it is “His-Story”. If one knows true history one can relate past events to current situations.
Save these Federer vignettes and soon you will have a searchable reference file of your own. Here is an example: Mr. Federer published a vignette on General Douglas MacArthur. In it, he excerpted a prayer the general composed about his son. That prompted me to find the whole prayer. It is a prayer to stir the heart of every father!
Douglas MacArthur
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak; and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, "I have not lived in vain!"
