I spent last Sunday and Monday with my father down in Perry County, Mississippi. He’s 90 years old. It was not a planned visit. His left leg went dead on him -- that’s the way he put it -- his leg went dead on him. The doctors said it was a blood clot. The arteries were too hardened to deal with the clot through surgery and they were afraid they would have to amputate the leg.

Thankfully, that has not been the case and we are grateful. Being there with him brought back powerful memories of my mother. She died on Valentine’s Day, two years ago, at 89, and I miss her desperately. During the last two or three years of her life, Jerry and I would visit her down in Perry County about every six weeks. Without fail on all of those visits, we would always get around to talking about faith -- her …