Are you wearing Green today? Yeah, I forgot too...
Ow, don't pinch me!
Happy St. Patrick's day! Today we celebrate a man who lived an extraordinary life around the fifth century. He was kidnapped and forced into slavery at the age of 16. Pagans and Druids took him to the foreign land of Ireland to look after their flocks of animals. During that time he came to know The Lord.
Patrick slaved away for about six years until he was finally able to escape his slave masters and flee to his home country of Britain. He grew up and became a cleric, or a priest, and ended up moving back to his former slave master's country to witness to the lost.
One interesting legend involves an Ash walking stick that Patrick was said to take with him wherever he went. When he would stop to preach, it's said he would thrust his stick into the ground, until his message and witnessing were done. One town, now known as Aspatria, took so long to receive his message that the Ash stick had taken root by the time Patrick was ready to move on! Sounds like some people we all know, right?
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day today for the real reason. Jesus! St. Patrick was a man who loved his fellow man so much that he went back to his tormentor's country to try to give them a relationship with their creator. What a witness!
Ben Russell is author of "Noah Drake And The Dragon Killer". He writes Juvenile/Middle Grade Fiction Adventures. He's not a scientist or a doctor of history; he's just a guy that's interested in those subjects. He's very interested in creation. His inner child gets excited about dinosaurs and the idea that they're not millions of years old. He despises the theory of evolution, believing it's a stumbling block to the Christian faith. Ben is a family man. He and his lovely wife have four happy kids and they make their home among the roaming hills of the Missouri Ozarks.