I received this by e-mail. It's worth reading.

You may have followed the on-air tributes to the NBC reporter, David
Bloom, who evidently touched his colleagues deeply. I thought at first it was
simply somewhat mindless gushing on, but the length to which he was praised
made me wonder about Bloom, whom I never knew too much about, though I did
admire his reporting abilities and his zest for his job. Well, here
is the rest of the story about David Bloom. First, this from the last e-mail
he sent to his wife, Mel.

"I hope and pray all my guys get out of this in one piece," said
David's message, read by his brother John to thousands of mourners who jammed
St. Patrick's Cathedral yesterday. "But I'll tell you, Mel, I am at
peace. Here I am, supposedly at the peak of professional success, but I could,
frankly, care less. It's nothing compared to my relationship with you and the
girls and Jesus."

Stories on his funeral reported only half of the comment he made.
They quote his comment that he could "care less" about his professional
career, but then didn't quote the reason!

Now the rest of the story . . .

I caught a hint of this Christian witness on MSNBC the other night
when they played portions of his funeral. The on-air reporters were
stammering and stuttering around about his Christianity and what was said during
his funeral. Funny how tongue-tied folks like this become when confronted
with Christ and one of his disciples. Otherwise, they are able to talk
incessantly about not much of anything.

April 17, 2003

Into the Very Presence of God
(Remembering David Bloom)
By Charles Colson

It was early morning, Iraqi time. Crouched in a modified tank, NBC
News correspondent David Bloom picked up his phone and played back his
messages.

One was from Jim Lane, a New York financier and Wilberforce
Forum advisory board member. The two were sharing a daily,
long-distance devotional time using Oswald Chambers's classic, My Utmost for
His Highest. Lane read the message for April 5, based on Matthew 25:
"Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being can
now get through into the very presence of God."

Moments later, Bloom climbed out of the tank, took a few steps, and
collapsed. Soon after, he was ushered into the presence of God.

David's death from a pulmonary embolism devastated his family,
friends, colleagues, and millions of TV viewers. At age thirty-nine, David was
a rising star at NBC. Viewers looked forward to watching Bloom file his
reports while bouncing across the desert on his "Bloom-mobile," his
face streaked with dirt, his hair snapping in the wind. He loved his job,
and everyone knew it.

But what most viewers did not know was that David was a committed
Christian. David had grown up in a Methodist home. And while he had a
strong understanding of the Gospel growing up, it wasn't until two
years ago, according to Lane, that Bloom "effectively came to a saving
knowledge of Jesus and started a real faith journey."

Bloom joined the New Canaan Society, a weekly men's fellowship group
founded by Lane and my former colleague Eric Metaxas. I met Bloom
several times as a guest of that fellowship, and we became friends. I
was struck by the sincerity of his Christian faith. He was hungry for
knowledge of God and how his faith ought to play out in his life.

On the day he died, Lane says, "David was in a very good place, at
peace with himself, his faith, and his family." That peace was reflected in
the last message he would ever send to his wife, Melanie-one that
reveals that, in the middle of a desert battlefield, his own
mortality was very much on his mind.

Bloom wrote: "When the moment comes in my
life when you are talking about my last day, I am determined that you
and others will say, 'He was devoted to his wife and children; he was
admired; he gave every ounce of his being for those whom he cared
most about-not himself, but God and his family.'"

Yesterday Lane spoke at a memorial service at St. Patrick's Cathedral
in New York. Speaking before America's most powerful media figures, Lane
told a simple story about a man who loved and served Jesus Christ. It
was a side of their colleague that many of them had never really
known-a side scarcely mentioned in the voluminous media coverage of his
death.

At the end of his April 5 devotional reading, Oswald Chambers writes:

"The cross of Christ was a . . . sign that our Lord had triumphed . .

to save the human race." I thank God for that triumph in the short
life of this ebullient, gifted man, and I pray that his posthumous witness
will inspire others to seek out the God he served.

C. S. Lewis once said that Christians never have to say good-bye. So,
to my dear brother David, I say simply, au revoir.

The wonderful thing, here, even more than the great example of Mr. Bloom's faith, is the expression of God's grace. He gave Mr. Bloom the perfect message for his last day on earth through his morning devotion, reminding him that he would pass into the presence of God at the moment of death.

Welcome to my blog. I have been reading blogs for some time. Some of my favorites have stopped blogging. I miss them. This is my therapy.