Tuesday, February 17, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Sweet surrender, sweet dreams
Blessed is he who perseveres in temptation,
for when he has been proven he will receive the crown of life
that he promised to those who love him.
Lying on a very comfortable bed. Persistent woodpecker pounding away outside. February fog, North Carolina dawn. I closed my eyes and eight hours later they opened. Â Such easy falling into sleep. White pillows, blankets, sheets, Â I just relax.
Ron and Connie, our friends forever, invite me to make it easy. I think of Pastor Matt’s trio of verbs derived from Romans  8 … rest, brace, thrive.  And I think of prison weddings last month, and Kogudus retreats in the previous century, and in Leverich home I remember Jack, Connie’s dad. Back then, a year before Dad died, I wrote about Jack:
My friend Jack Ludwig died twenty-five years ago, at 1:50 pm on Christmas Day, 2001 with, as Pastor Meyer said at his funeral, his family “praying him out.” Sometimes death at Christmas leaves a nightmare memory for the ones left behind; that happened to me as a child when my best friend’s dad died suddenly before Christmas.
But Jack’s family had time with him, and they said he kept sparkle in his eyes for them, kept on winking his own special wink, still smiled when they whispered their hellos … and goodbyes.
Jack wanted his friends and family to have sweet dreams. On Christmas Eve, visions of sugarplums, and then the next day, pictures of being “Home for Christmas,” which is just what his memorial card read. Inside he wrote, “The most important decision in the life of any human is the choice they must make in regard to their personal faith in Jesus Christ.”
Together we spent countless Sunday nights and weekends at prisons all over Illinois. Jack’s heart was huge. But he didn’t just ache for hurting people; he helped them. He told jokes that opened their hearts, and stories that touched and sometimes broke them. A few years ago he told me a story that broke my heart, of when he held his mother as she died. The retreats he organized were filled with Jack-touches, but mostly I remember his smile, his sparkle, and his song.
Jack sang. Barbershop quartet, church choir, mixed quartets, solos … Jack always sang. His funeral today was full of song, tight gospel harmonies echoing over his casket, “There is a Fountain,” Search Me O God,” “The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference.”
Behind the banks of flowers, behind the casket, the nativity scene remained in place, full of Jesus. God’s angel Gabriel blew his golden trumpet below the star. Pastor Meyer relit the advent candles, the Christmas candle.
The Martin Luther Men’s Chorus sang the benediction, “May the Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand till we meet again.”
And Jack’s daughter Laura sang,
The trump shall resound
And the Lord shall descend
It is well, it is well with my soul.
She held the last note as long as she could, singing it for her dad. When Laura herself passed away in October 2022, I am certain Jack was singing too, smiling, calling her after Laura too had “rested, braced herself and thrived” … come ye thankful daughter come.
How could he not?
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters:
all good giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.
(James 1, Psalm 94, John 14, Mark 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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