Below is an excerpt from Band of Brothers.

It is an amazing story about an amazing group of men.

This story stuck out to me because it shows how difficult battle and war can be for a person, but that hope and love can always win out.

Let’s be thankful for the service of others and spread hope and love wherever we can.

Make it a great day.

Jake

From Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose –

Sgt. Skinny Sisk also had a hard time shaking his war memories. In July 1991, he wrote Winters to explain. "My career after the war was trying to drink away the truckload of Krauts that I had stopped in Holland and the die-hard Nazi that I went up into the Bavarian Alps and killed. Old Moe Alley made a statement that all the killings that I did was going to jump into the bed with me one of these days and they surely did. I had a lot of flash backs after the war and started drinking. Ha! Ha!

Then my sister’s little daughter, four-years old, came into my bedroom (I was too unbearable to the rest of the family, either hung over or drunk) and she told me that Jesus loved me and she loved me and if I would repent God would forgive me for all the men I kept trying to kill all over again.

That little girl got to me. I put her out of my room, told her to go to her mommy. There and then I bowed my head on my mother’s old feather bed and repented and God forgave me for the war and all the other bad things I had done down through the years. I was ordained in the latter part of 1949 into the ministry and believe me, Dick, I haven’t whipped but one man since and he needed it. I have four children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The Lord willing and Jesus tarrys and I hope to see you all at the next reunion. If not I’ll see you on the last jump. I know you won’t freeze in the door.

Trust is to human relationships what faith is to gospel living. It is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built. Where trust is, love can flourish.

Barbara Smith

Trust as the foundation for love.

I think that hits the mark pretty well.

Trust is foundational to good relationships.

The Bible talks of building our spiritual houses on stone and not on sand.

We must do the same in our relationships.

Do you have a relationship in your life that needs some work on the foundation?

Make it a great day.

Jake

https://youtu.be/oODllqrxrLQ

“The house don’t fall when the bones are good.”

This song is a good reminder to get the important stuff in life right.

Take the time to build a good foundation, to do things right and to make it a priority when it comes to the “bones” of your life.

And be thankful for all the great relationships in your life that are built well.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different…” – “Prince Caspian” (1951) – CS Lewis

Something I’ve read over and over is the idea that we underestimate how much we can do in the long run while overestimating what we can do in the short run.

Small, incremental changes in a consistent direction lead to extraordinary results.

Over booking ourselves while trying to do everything leads to stress and mediocre results.

We must make room for the important stuff and let go of the trivial.

I’m sure you already know all of this.

I’m sure something popped into your head as you thought about it.

Take a small action towards that something, today.

Don’t wait until tomorrow.

Get started.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

In particular lately, I’ve been thinking about how this quote applies to our work.

At Mavidea and Maxlider, we are in the service business. We work for our customers.

And they break our hearts all the time.

By not taking the good advice.

By cancelling and switching to another provider.

The same with our coworkers and teammates.

But these relationships are what make our work so worthwhile.

Only when we make ourselves vulnerable and open to the relationships around us do we get to experience the joy of our work.

At the risk of being a little sappy and corny, I’m going to ask you all to do something.

Open your hearts. Step into the scary situations and be yourself.

Lean in to the special place reserved for you in this world.

With our customers, with your teammates, with your loved ones.

Make it a great day.

Jake

To make us feel small in the right way is a function of art; men can only make us feel small in the wrong way. E. M. Forster

That feeling of smallness compared to the stars or the oceans or an understanding of the nature of God is good.

To feel that we are a part of or at least observers of this kind of greatness allows us to humble ourselves in a way that feels right.

We fall into the trap of comparing cars, houses, bank accounts, waist lines, etc.

When we should be contemplating our role in God’s great plan, we get stuck on what kind of dishwasher to buy or the latest tech to help us get more insight into our previously ignored super important daily number to watch.

We allow ourselves to feel small compared to others.

When we should be embracing our smallness compared to God.

I’m sure I haven’t done this idea justice, but I hope I sparked you to consider your smallness.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Yesterday, Kris and Colleen had their baby. It reminded me of this email I sent out when another baby was born.

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. – C. S. Lewis

My brother in law and sister in law had their baby yesterday.

Each time someone close to me has a baby I am reminded of this quote from CS Lewis about miracles.

Each baby born is a miracle.

It is a retelling in small letters of the larger stories across the world.

Stories of love.

Stories of self-sacrifice and service.

Stories of change.

Stories of family.

Each day is a miracle in that we are living our part in the larger stories of the world. Each day is an opportunity to participate in the grander miracles.

Make it a great day.

Jake

https://youtu.be/DL7-CKirWZE

You get what you give.

In each relationship in our life, we can choose to give.

We can choose to serve and to put the other person first.

And we do, magic happens.

Choose giving.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.” CS Lewis “Mere Christianity”

One of my favorite things about CS Lewis is ability to capture the ordinary struggle faced by all of us.

Writing these emails every day for so long has been an exercise in exactly this.

Each day is an exercise is illuminating one more thing that I could improve on.

Each day is a realization that I still have a long way to go.

But each day is also a reminder that it is worth it.

It’s worth it to work towards something meaningful.

It’s worth it to “try very hard to be good” (even when it seems a long way off).

We will all fall short of perfection in the end, but moving closer each day is the only way.

Make it a great day.

Jake

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This is one of my favorite ideas from Mere Christianity.

This quote reminded me a lot of the ideas sent out in these daily attitude emails every day.

A big part of changing for the better is letting go of what we are currently.

At some point we must be willing to tear down our current habits and idiosyncrasies.

It’s hard. It’s painful. It isn’t much fun.

We want to change, but maybe aren’t quite ready to let go of ourselves and our ego in the process.

But it has to happen in order to really change.

We are capable of much more than we ever dreamed.

We are capable of greatness.

If we are willing to be torn down in the process.

Make it a great day.

Jake