The following is some of the story of Deacon Stephen from the bible. The references to the number 7 are amazing and although Stephen died a tragic death, he stayed true to his beliefs. This story reminds me in many ways how Stephen Reynolds lived his life.

Stephen
In Bible History, Stephen was a man of "firsts." He was one of the first seven Christian deacons, and he is generally regarded as the first Christian martyr.
The seven deacons were chosen to assist The Twelve in the service of the new church in Jerusalem. The account is found in Acts 6:1-5:

"Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, "It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word." And what they said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch."

There was no doubt as to Stephen's exceptionally good character, and the miraculous power that he had been given by God. It's interesting to note that although Stephen was "just" a deacon, he certainly had gifts and powers from God that were at least equal to that of the apostles:

"And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people" (Acts 6:8 RSV)

As had happened with Jesus Christ Himself, Stephen soon found himself in difficulty with the local religious authorities, not because he was doing anything wrong, but because he was seen as a serious and growing threat to their misguided control over the people. They just couldn't "compete" with him:

"they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke." (Acts 6:10 RSV)

They then resorted to the "low as you can go" approach; they had him falsely accused of blasphemy - and in knowingly doing so, they themselves blasphemed the Holy Spirit, which was actually the source of Stephen's wisdom:

"Then they secretly instigated men, who said, "We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God ... and set up false witnesses who said, "This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth [see Nazarene] will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us." (Acts 6:11,13-14 RSV)

Stephen was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin where more false accusations were made. While the despicable lies were being spewed at him, Stephen remained calm:

"And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel." (Acts 6:15 RSV)

Stephen was then allowed to make his "defense." By then, he probably knew full well that he was not going to get out of there alive, so he held nothing back out of concern to not offend people that he would otherwise have been gently, tactfully and systematically leading to the Truth, point by point, day by day - had time permitted. The result was one of the most direct, unpolitical, and beautifully logical historical and theological discourses in The Holy Bible. It's found in its entirety in Acts chapter 7. Every word that he spoke was the Truth, which of course only made his accusers, who were self-righteous Hypocrites, hate him all the more. His words of Truth turned them from a pack of petty liars into a raving lynch mob (Acts 7:54).
Stephen was dragged out of the city, where they began stoning him. To keep their clothes from becoming splattered with Stephen's blood during the murder, they "laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul" (Acts 7:58 RSV) - to which Saul, later known as Paul, confessed, as written in the opening paragraph.
Stephen remained strong and true to the very end, his faith never waivering:

"And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep (see What Happens When You Die?)" (Acts 7:59-60 RSV)

Stephen's last words were to ask God that his murderers be forgiven, including among them, Saul the Pharisee, who, after his later conversion, became known as the apostle Paul, and went on to become one the greatest Christians that ever lived, a man who wrote a large part of the New Testament - until he too was martyred for preaching the very same Truth for which he had Stephen martyred.

Catching up!

Wow I cannot believe it has been almost 2 months since my last post so I apologize in advance but much has changed and it has been a busy time for the Reynolds family. As I mentioned we got through Mothers Day and headed for the end of the school year. It was very emotional for Darla and me as we gave out the first Stephen Reynolds Memorial Scholarships to two very deserving students at the Willmar High School. Cameron Swenson and Samantha Williams each received $500 to further their college education.
On June 9th we had the first Stephen Reynolds Memorial Disc Golf event at Robbins Island in Willmar and it was a great success. We had almost 70 people there between the disc golfers and gallery members. We want to thank all of you who participated, helped, or sponsored the event we do appreciate your kindness. We have already planned the event for next year for June 8, 2013 and we will be announcing even more fun events for everyone. It will be bigger and better!!!
We attended the Compassionate Friends Angel of Hope ceremony on June 30th where Stephen's name was read along with many others who passed way to soon. It was nice to be surrounded by many who have walked our journey.
There was a softball game between the fireman and policeman called "Guns and Hoses" in Spicer and the proceeds are going to the Stephen Reynolds Foundation. Again the compassion of people continues to amaze us, this event was held and Darla and I had to read about it in the paper. It is just another example of the kindness of others.
We have an upcoming event on the 21st of July sponsored by Sam and Nate Esboldt. It is a "small ball" basketball tournament. There will be a silent auction as well as a lot of activities for all. That event will be held at the Esboldt house. There is information on the Stephen Reynolds Foundation Facebook page.
Our life has been blessed with many friends and family as well as strangers who have lifted us up in prayer over these past 7 months and it has meant the world to us. We could not have done any of this without your love and support as well as prayers. I returned to work as the Director of Business Development for Source One Solutions and I feel so lucky to be able to work with such wonderful people right here in Willmar. We work in the telephone industry, not wireless but still many familiar faces for  me. I already feel right at home.
Our journey continues without Stephen and there is not a day that goes by that I am not reminded of him and cannot still think of what it is going to be like living the rest of my days without him. I continue to wonder what he would think of the Minnesota Wild signing Parise and Suter and how the St. Louis Blues stack up against the wild. I think of what Stephen would think of college football going to a playoff system in 2014. I feel cheated that I will not get to have those discussions with him, but we will meet again and eternity is a long time to get caught up.
Thanks for all your love and support and I promise to do a better job at blogging!
God bless,

Mike

Six Months

 I wrote this in letter form to Stephen.

It has been 6 months to day since you left us Stephen. It does not seem like six months have past but the calendar does not lie. Many things have happened in these past six months. We celebrated Christmas and New Years. We have had birthday parties for Anthony and Alex, plus yours. We had a wonderful celebration for you Stephen on your 21st birthday. We spent much time at the cemetery over Memorial Day. Your mother and I gave out 2 $500 scholarships in your memory to Cam Swenson and Sam Williams. They were both very grateful and appreciative. We will continue this for years to come.
Your Disc Golf event is coming together quite well, we have almost 100 people planning on coming and we are putting all the details together. Many businesses have stepped up to help sponsor your event. You touched many lives Stephen and the are showing their love back to you. Play it Again Sports will be putting together an event for June to help raise money to support your Foundation. Hopefully we will raise awareness of this awful disease that took your life and find answers as why you were taken so away from us so quickly. I have been in contact with Dr. Cooper at the Mayo Clinic who is the leading expert on Myocarditis and I may even go out and speak  to help raise awareness.
We will never forget you Stephen and neither will many others. Not a day has gone by that you have not been in our thoughts. We miss you every day and are preparing for the day we are reunited. In the meantime Stephen we are keeping the candle of your memory  lit and it will never fade.
We know the next 6 months will be filled with ups and downs but our love for you will not fade.

Love,
Mom and Dad

In honor of Mothers Day I wanted to post what Stephen wrote about his mother in his Senior Portfolio.

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there, it was a tough one at our house today but we celebrated the day with our mothers and spent some time at the cemetery with Stephen.

 

My Mom

 My Mom is Darla Reynolds and she was born in Willmar on August 2 to Norman and Carol Schueler. She is 5’ 3” with blonde hair. She has an older sister Cindy (Schueler) Cordes, who is 18 months older than her. She also has a younger brother Daniel Schueler who is seven years younger than her. If you ask her, she’ll say that she suffered from middle child syndrome.

My Mom grew up on east side of Willmar and she attended Lincoln elementary school. She’s always saying,” I was a Stinkin’ Lincoln Kid, before there were Thinkin’ Lincoln Kids!” She even started a group named that on Face Book. She graduated from Willmar High School in 1983. When she was in high school, she was on the Cardette dance line and was even President her senior year.

When we were younger, we were lucky enough to have our Mom at home.  For many years, she was a “stay-at-home-mom”.  She did that until my youngest brother went to school all day. She currently works at the Willmar Middle School as an In-School Suspension supervisor and has worked there for four years.  Even though she works with some pretty tough kids, she real likes her job.  The one part of her job she enjoys is when she can actually get through and help some of the kids that she works with.

My Mom really enjoys spending time with friends. She also likes traveling and being an amateur photographer. She also likes dancing, which probably comes from her years she was in Cardettes. During her spare time, you can usually find her at the YMCA working out.

                Sometimes my Dad and Mom like to get away on their own for vacations. They have been many more places that I have been to. They went to New Zealand and Australia to see my brother in 2005. They have also been to Mexico and New York twice.         

My mom and I will always be close. She is usually attends all my sporting events from soccer, football, hockey, baseball, and tennis. She hardly misses a game and I really appreciate all the support she has given me throughout the years. I know my mom has taken probably thousands of pictures of me and all of my activities that I have participated in. Each year she has made photo memory books for me for each sport.  Those will be wonderful keepsakes for me as I get older and help me remember all the fun times I had while playing sports.

I really think she is just a great mother because of all the things she does. She is a very organized and likes to likes to have everything perfect at home. This is hard to do with three sons. Throughout the years, she has chauffeured us boys to all of our activities. All of us have a certain dry marker color and she fills out three months in advance all of our activities. Everything around the house is great just because of her. I really just appreciate everything that she has done for me and love her very much.

               

This is from Stephens Senior Portfolio, I thought today would be a great day to share this with you.

The Day I was Born

In everyone’s life there are always very stressful times. Like a job change, moving, a death in the family and a child being born. When I was born these are the four things my parents were going through. My Dad lost his Father exactly one month before I was born. Before he passed away my parents were in the process of buying Grandparents’ house.  Then before I was born my Dad made a change in his employment. So, when I asked my Dad about the day I was born, he could not remember a lot about it, except that the weather was nice and it was a scheduled cesarean section.

When I asked my Mom, she knew a few more details. She also remembered that the weather was beautiful. She also said that she had bought all pink things for herself to wear at the hospital, because she was certain she was having a girl. She had a pink nightgown, robe and slippers. Her pregnancy she experienced with me was completely opposite from when she was pregnant with my older brother Anthony. My Mom had lots of heartburn with me and everyone kept telling her that it would be a girl with lots of hair. They were definitely wrong!

My due date was May 5^th, but since my Mom had an earlier cesarean section, they said they would wait until after the due date and schedule the delivery for May 7^th, 1991. My Mom said they prepped her in her room and then wheeled her down to the operating room. She said that she talked to all the other people who were waiting to have surgery that day. She didn’t know what kind of surgery they were having, however they were all excited to hear that my Mom was there to have a baby. My Dad joined my Mom in the operating room. Mom was looking forward to being awake for my birth; she was asleep when she had Anthony and was disappointed that my Dad already named him and all the relatives saw him before she did.

After the epidural kicked in they started the c-section. When I came out they said I was a boy, Mom said that she thought she heard wrong, because she thought for sure it was a girl. But, no it was an almost bald baby boy weighing 9 pounds and 1 ounce and I was 20 ½ inches long. My Mom and Dad were very happy to have another son. Mom said that it really didn’t matter if I was a boy or girl, as long as I was healthy.

When my parents were deciding on what to name me, they had a few names that they liked. However, they found out after talking to each other that when my Dad was born his name was either going to be Michael or Steven. Then when my Mom was born if she was going to be a boy, her name was also going to be Steven. So, that pretty much settled what they were going to name me. My Mom wanted the Biblical spelling. My middle name James is also my Dad’s and Grandfather’s middle name. That’s how I came to be Stephen James Reynolds.

What is Normal?

I got thinking today about what exactly is normal. Well Webster describes normal as: conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern. 
That is true for most of us everyday and we get accustomed to routine and we are patterned to think that our behaviors and patterns will continue forever. We make our future plans based on what we perceive to normal.
But what happens when that is suddenly changed? My  mind drifted back to November 29, 2011 it was a Tuesday like any other Tuesday. There was nothing that would make me believe otherwise. We all went on our day as normal. I did a talk show on KWLM that morning before going to our Litchfield store getting ready for the first hockey broadcast of the year. Darla went to work as normal. Anthony went to work as normal, and Alex went to school as NORMAL. The only indication up to this point that things were going to change and that what we thought is normal was not was my  mother calling me a couple of times saying she could not get a hold of Stephen. I thought nothing of it thinking that like normal Stephen was sleeping in and maybe he was at work so he would get back to her. As I drove up in the driveway everything looked normal! That would soon change, as I walked towards Stephens closed bedroom door I did not know when I turned the handle our lives would change FOREVER.!!!
Not just our families, but hundreds of others lives are forever changed! We have come in contact with many others with stories just as ours and I think what were their last moments of normal. As we proceed in our journey to find what our "New Normal" will look like we constantly find ourselves struggling and yearning for the old normal. We know that just is not possible and we continue to forge ahead. We know our new normal does not include Stephen being with us physically but spiritually. We know he will guide us and be with us right up to the point that we meet again. Since none of us are aware of the day that we leave this earth our family will continue to hold on to his memory and relish the days that we spent with him on this earth. We will think of Stephen fondly and we will remember him through a Foundation that we are working on to keep his memory alive and to tell his story to others that may not have had the chance to meet him. This we know will contiunue until we leave this earth and are reunited. 
In the mean time we will be sad, happy, and any one of a hundred different emotions. Even if you see us and we look ok that does not mean that we are over it by any means, we will never be over it, it just means we are having a good day! We will continue to get out in public and we do like talking about Stephen and if we cry don't worry that is a good thing. We can cry at a drop of a hat so don't worry we will be ok. If we seem hard to make plans with keep trying one never knows when we might need a shoulder to lean on so be patient with us as we travel on the road to a new normal. 

Mike 

March 11, 2012

It is funny how you are more connected with people on this earth than you really know.Today Darla and I had brunch with our friends Scott and Amanda with their daughter Reagan at the Green Mill. I first met Amanda when I went to pharmaceutical training in New Jersey as we were in the same class. After that we ended up working in the same region while at Johnson and Johnson. Well I moved on and Amanda moved on but we always still stayed in contact. 
Unfortunately we now have another thing in common, you see Scott and Amanda lost a child almost a year ago, Reagan's twin sister passed away waiting for a lung transplant in Houston. Amanda was one of the first people I reached out to when Stephen passed away and she knows first hand the hurt of losing a child. The one thing that we know is that each loss is personal and different. Even though we experience a lot of the same emotions we also experience different ones too. We experience highs and lows and at different times, but we keep pushing forward. Our hearts pour out to Scott and Amanda as they are coming to the first anniversary of the loss of Eden. They  have gone through their "Year of Firsts" as we are just beginning ours. However the loss of a twin especially so young will be difficult as they are starting swimming lessons, pre school, Kindergarten, etc. They will need strength to face these milestones knowing that Eden should be experiencing these too. Please pray for them as their journey continues. This was a tough weekend as the I mentioned in my Year of Firsts post with the MSHSL Hockey Tournament finishing up and that being so important to Stephen as well as the brackets for the NCAA basketball tournament coming out tonight. I can close my eyes and picture Stephen down in his room already starting to put his bracket together and remembering how wrinkled the paper would be by the time we got to the final four. He would have been excited that South Dakota State made the field for the first time. It is weekends like this that I miss him so much. Tuesday starts NFL free agency and he would have been speculating where Peyton Manning is going and who the Vikings will be looking at for free agents before the upcoming draft. We would spend hours talking back and forth about our theory's. 
We will continue to miss him but we are constantly reminded that his spirit surrounds us each and every day..