This week

at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, we received a call from my

wife's sister Nikki, with the news that Joe Rainey, their

father, was possibly in the last throws of his heroic

fight with cancer.

They live in Plymouth

Meeting, Pa., where much of our early democracy roots

were born.

If you have been there and

witnessed the phone calls and the sorrow that this

dreaded disease has caused, you know what I am talking

about. It is a time when family and church and prayer

warriors all drop what they are doing and focus on Joe

and Mary and all the family members and the moments left

in this life.

It is a time when all the

love and the memories race through your mind as far back

as you can remember as a child and you smile and cry at

the same time. Joe and Mary were the people that Tom

Brokaw in his best seller book entitled "The

Greatest Generation" wrote about. They survived the

Great Depression and then marched off to WWII and fought

on foreign battle fields and literally saved the world

for democracy.

Joe Rainey joined the Army

Air Corp at 17 years of age with the signing permission

of his parents, and climbed into the cockpit of many

different bombers of WWII and flew numerous combat

missions over European battlefields. Joe and his five

brothers were born in Denver, Colo.

While Joe was attending

Georgia Tech, my wife, Dee, was born. Joe graduated from

Georgia Tech in 1952 and moved his family to Plymouth

Meeting, where he is living there at home with the

24-hour hospice care for these last days of his life.

I remember Dee telling me

the stories of how the family would rise each Sunday

morning and Joe would take charge and march all three of

his girls to the Lutheran Church there in Plymouth

Meeting and also sent them to the Christian day school

for their elementary years. Joe also donated his

architectural professional skills in helping refurbish

churches in the inner city Philadelphia area.

At times like these we turn

to the scriptures and our faith to sustain us. If you

have been through these times, you know exactly what the

scripture talks about when it speaks of the "peace

that passes all understanding."

In our own strength we

could not even begin to be able to say farewell to

someone we love so much but in this "peace"

that the scripture speaks of, it is another dimension of

comfort and understanding of life. I have always been

comforted with the idea of being in the "shadow of

the Almighty." Psalm 57:1 reads: "Be merciful

unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth

in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my

refuge, until these calamities be over past."

America, take off your hats

and pause for a moment and think of Joe and Mary Rainey

and Dee and Kathy and Nikki, for a true American hero, a

father, a husband, a brother is passing our way.

The Rev. Dr. Knox Herndon

is pastor of His House Community Church (SBC) and a

substitute school teacher in the Fayette County school

system, and a former Army chaplain. The church is

currently meeting in the American Legion Log Cabin across

from the fountain on the Square in Fayetteville. Prayer

line 770-719-2365; e-mail [email protected]