I received a letter yesterday from a dear friend and co-worker at American Airlines. I have referred to him or his actions several times in past letters. Jeff was one of the first ‘real’ Christians that I met as an adult and I didn’t even realize it at the time. I thought I would share parts of his letter with you because it blessed me, and I hope you will find a blessing in it as well. – Roscoe (Christian in Training)
Roscoe (Tip),
When I saw on Facebook that you had written a book, I ordered it right away and began reading it as soon as I unwrapped it. I could not stop reading it – every page spoke to me in big and different ways. I laughed and I cried, but mostly came away convicted and challenged. . .
. . . Letters from Roscoe is such an encouragement. Your experiences and the words our Father is giving you to write paint such a vivid picture of the journey of faith he wants us all to be on. The questions you ask on pages 43 and 44 are the convict and challenge me the most. “Why am I writing this? For whose glory is it anyway? How do you spread the Good News?”
Contrasting these questions against the guy you referred to in your third chapter, “A Little Bit More About Me”, corresponds with the feedback I’ve received the most consistently throughout my lifetime, and that is to be a lot more direct, assertive, decisive, to not hold back and to take action much more quickly.
After the “opportunity” to leave American Airlines, I learned many things about myself. The last 6 years at American, and primarily the last 3 in Sim Support, were a real growth period for me. I’ve attached some letters I wrote to various folks after I was let go. I mailed/emailed some and some I did not. The ones I did not were part of the therapy we were encouraged to complete during a 12 part career transition workshop I attended.
After I became employed again, I vowed to help others in the situations that I had gone through and to put into practice many of the lessons learned primarily from you. Letters from Roscoe encourages me to do so much more!
One of your last chapters struck a chord with me. Many times I have felt very much the same ways you described in “The Hollow Man”. You are more real than you know – especially to your children. Here is a perspective from The Velveteen Rabbit that might help:
“Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
When I begin feeling untested, incomplete, inadequate or having doubts, I go back to God’s words to fill me up. I want to leave you with this from Ephesians 1 from the Message.
The God of Glory
3-6 How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.
7-10 Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people—free of penalties and punishments chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.
11-12 It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
13-14 It’s in Christ that you, once you heard the truth and believed it (this Message of your salvation), found yourselves home free—signed, sealed, and delivered by the Holy Spirit. This signet from God is the first installment on what’s coming, a reminder that we’ll get everything God has planned for us, a praising and glorious life.
15-19 That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn’t stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!
20-23 All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.
My son-in-law was an adopted child. I love him as my own as you do yours. So much so, I don’t think I can differentiate any more or less love for him and one of my own biological children. It is the same with God. He chose us before he laid the foundations of earth and loves us as much as his very own son Jesus Christ. It blows my mind every time I read it – it fills up this hollow man.
Jim, you’ve always built into others so well and so much. I’m thankful to be one of many. May those blessings return to you a thousand fold. Oh, and your garden will be a “Victory” garden. Mine too. It’s been fun watching you soar!
Thank you for writing Letters from Roscoe.
Blessings!
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Jeff