{"id":347,"date":"2015-12-09T01:45:36","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T01:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/?p=347"},"modified":"2015-12-09T01:45:36","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T01:45:36","slug":"how-can-i-say-thanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/?p=347","title":{"rendered":"How can I say thanks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">I am<em> melancholy\u00a0<\/em> this evening in the fact that a dear dear\u00a0 friend went to be with Christ this week.\u00a0 I met Don Beard in\u00a0 1971.\u00a0 Don was a member of the Cal<a href=\"http:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/The-Beard-Family.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-343\" src=\"http:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/The-Beard-Family-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"The Beard Family\" width=\"228\" height=\"171\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/The-Beard-Family-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/The-Beard-Family-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/The-Beard-Family.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><\/a>vary Baptist Church in St. Louis where I was called to serve as music man.\u00a0 I learned quickly that Don was one of those very rare men who was a true friend of\u00a0 preachers and even ministerial staff members.\u00a0 He poured himself in to ministry and literally came along side me to hold me up. \u00a0 Don became a confidant, a mentor, an encourager, a dad, a supporter, a teacher, chauffeur, an example, a shelter, and a dear dear friend.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">His wife, Helen, his partner for sixty-eight years, was equally a joy and together they took me, and my family as well, and love us.\u00a0 We stayed in their home countless times and when I was on the road, the Beard home was my home away from home.\u00a0 No one would have the time to read all the things I\u00a0 could write on how the Beards helped us, but the fact is they kept us above water physically and spiritually during those early days of ministry.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Their children were equally family, they were&#8230;<em>siblings<\/em>.\u00a0 Karen and I were in college together, Donna played the piano for me at Calvary. Charlie was just&#8230;there and was especially kind to our children.\u00a0 Denny was always hot-rodding around and my boys sure looked up to\u00a0 him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What is most amazing about Don Beard is that my story is the story of many men in ministry.\u00a0 If there is a line in heaven, Don will be so far ahead of me and probably all the men he came along side, that we won&#8217;t be able to see him.\u00a0 I know that\u00a0 Wednesday morning, WELL DONE, MY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT rang throughout GLORY.\u00a0 Thanks, Don, <em>how can I say thanks?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am melancholy\u00a0 this evening in the fact that a dear dear\u00a0 friend went to be with Christ this week.\u00a0 I met Don Beard in\u00a0 1971.\u00a0 Don was a member of the Calvary Baptist Church in St. Louis where I was called to serve as music man.\u00a0 I learned quickly that Don was one of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billcoenmusic.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}