I thought I wrote to you once about my friend Don. I can’t find anything, though that doesn’t mean I didn’t write about him.

Don used to read 300wordsaday. And occasionally, he’d send me a note.

The first one I find in my inbox is from 2013:

Thanks Jon, for allowing me to read your daily comments on God’s Word in so many different modern day contexts.  It is a big boost to me in seeing how the Scriptures so powerfully apply to all kinds of situations.  You both challenge and encourage me to walk closer to the Lord and to look for places where we can put shoe leather on the wonderful principles that the Lord has inspired.  Your words are a great help to me.  I like to look at them each morning.   In Jesus,       Don S.

Don was 84 at the time. He and Janet had lived in Thailand for 52 years. He’d translated the Bible into a language that never had a Bible. In other words, he’d lived INSIDE the Bible.

And yet, he was writing to me about learning.

Because we went to the same church at the time, we’d talk a bit, too. And we’d offer mutual encouragement.

It’s a way for older generations to be helpful to younger generations, by the way. Rather than telling all the time, we older people have the opportunity to talk about what we are learning from the people who are younger than us who are writing and teaching and talking and living. It’s what’s called “blessing” them. And it matters. It mattered to me, at least.

Don died last week.

I had the opportunity to see him in the hospital. It was good. Don was good. God is good.

And for a bunch of people, this is hard.

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Here’s his obituary: Donald Schlatter Obituary – Fort Wayne, IN (dignitymemorial.com)

And I wrote last week in my Finding Words in Hard Times newsletter “About old people dying.” It’s a helpful set of thoughts. And soon, I’ll write about grief after those deaths.