The recent death of my 9-year-old granddaughter Hannah is one of the most trying situations I have ever faced. I was blessed to preach this eulogy at her funeral Jan. 28. Below is an excerpt.

If anyone would have suggested that a grandfather would be giving the eulogy for one of his grandchildren, I would not have believed it. No great-grandparent, grandparent, mother, father, older brothers or sisters would ever think of having to bury a child, but such is our occasion today. My good friend, the Rev. Dr. Hector Grant of San Antonio, reminded me that "the deepest sorrow is not death, but the unnatural ordering of death." In our minds, we usually think: great-grandparents die, grandparents die, parents die and then their children. That is our hoped-for ordering of life and death.

However, we all know that this is not always the way in which our human experience is lived out. And when that hoped-for ordering is broken, there is true mourning. So the question for us is, "Where is God in the process?" Dr. Grant had to remind a bishop of the church, and I remind us all that God cries with us.

The name Hannah in Hebrew means beauty and passion, and that she was. Not only was she a beautiful child from the inside out, but one who had a passion for life. Hannah was precocious.

She had a special insight that enabled her to get along with everyone and to show the love of God in very special ways. Hannah at an early age developed a love for technology and used it quite well. When her mom gave her a cell phone for emergency purposes, Hannah would call all those in the family needing an encouraging word. The only problem is that the calls were often made late at night.

Hannah's dream was to go to college, study veterinarian medicine and become a veterinarian. She loved people and she loved animals.

We may not be able to see Hannah complete her dream, but we can enable Hannah's dream to be lived out in the lives of others. An endowment/scholarship fund has been established at the Texas Methodist Foundation in Austin to enable Hannah's dream to become a reality in the life of another.

What can we say during a difficult time such as this? I have learned that our words, though many, are just not adequate for such an occasion. The prayers, visits, cards, flowers, gifts and expressions of love enable us to know that we are not alone in our grief, that others have walked this path and empathize with our loss. I've walked this path with many families and uttered words of hope and comfort, but it is so different when it is your own family that grieves the loss.

The only sense of peace that I have experienced is from the word of God. That word begins in the Book of Samuel with the name Hannah and her devotion to God, crying out to God for a son and making a vow to God that when the child was weaned, she would give him over to the Lord for service. God heard Hannah's prayer and blessed her with a child. She named him Samuel and gave him over to the temple for upbringing.

The second word comes from the Book of Psalms and reminds us "that weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."

We all have done our share of weeping. If I could take away the pain of a loving daughter weeping for her baby child, as a father I would. However, that is not possible – we all have to weep and cry for our children. Weeping is a part of the natural process of grieving, and everyone grieves in his or her own way. Hannah would remind us that it's OK to cry. The tears for the loss of a child are ways in which we experience catharsis and get our hurts out. For some, it may be for a short time; for others, the hurt and pain may be there for a long time. No matter how long, each of us must grieve in our own way.

There will be a time when we come to know the love and care of the true and living God that enables us to experience what those first believers experienced when they discovered that Christ was not dead, but alive for ever more.

We will see Hannah again because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Until that time, we have all these signs and reminders of the gift that God gave us in the life of Hannah. When we see her pictures, her smile and her unique way of expressing the joy of life, we will rejoice in the Lord for such a great gift.

The Apostle Paul reminds us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." So weep on . . . joy comes in the morning!

Have you ever seen glimpses of God's grace in life?

Normally, I try to respect the privacy of individuals and what they do for others in life, but I witnessed an act of love that is too good to not share.

Nearly a year ago, you may have read in The Dallas Morning News about a woman who was hit by a car on Central Expressway.

She was listed as "Jane Doe" because there was no identification.

Well, Jane Doe turned out to be the mother of my college-age daughter's boyfriend, Brandon.

As you can imagine, it was an emotional and trying time as we visited the family and prayed for the mother. She died in the hospital without ever regaining consciousness.

A year has passed since then.

This past week, we celebrated Leslie's 65th birthday.

I arrived home and found Brandon cooking a meal of smothered pork chops, green beans and corn on the cob.

On the anniversary of his mom's death, Brandon chose to spend the day with Leslie and provide our family with a wonderful meal. What an act of grace and love!

When we can live out our grief in caring and sharing with others, I believe we are experiencing God's grace at its best.

Where have you seen glimpses of God's grace in life?

As we begin another year, I want to focus more on the spiritual side of episcopal leadership.

We as a conference have been going full steam with metrics and measures of fruitfulness and accountability.

But we should not forget where the motivation and inspiration for fruitfulness really comes from: our relationship with God and one another.

To that end, I'll be working with our communications team to put together The Bishop's Prayer Team.

Join the Bishop's Prayer Team

Anyone can sign up to be on the team.

Essentially, you agree to pray for the bishops and leaders of the church, our churches' mission and ask God's help in guiding our work together.

I hope you will join me in one of the greatest opportunities we have: to pray for one another.

May God bless!

Happy New Year, again! During my daily devotions, I decided to look up the word new in the Bible.

To my surprise, practically every book in the Old and New Testaments contains the word new.

It's as if every moment God's people who wrote about their encounters with the holy spirit were confronted with something new.

This year, 2012, will be challenging for us in The United Methodist Church.

The question for those of us in the mainline church will be whether we will embrace change and trust in the power of God to lead us to become a movement reaching the next generation or whether we will shrink back in fear of change, holding on to what is comfortable and familiar.

I, for one, am excited about God's future for the church.

It amazes me what God can accomplish through individuals with open hearts and willing spirits to seek and discern the will of God for their lives.

I've discovered that no matter what our circumstances, life never stays the same.

I've also discovered that it is my attitude toward change that determines my outcome.

The good news is that God has equipped us with the ability to choose our attitude.

Although there are many uncertainties in 2012, I choose to rejoice in the true and living God who will do a great work in us and through us during the coming year.

I like the pastor and scholar Eugene Petersen's interpretation of Isaiah 42:5-9 in The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language: "God's message, the God who created the cosmos, stretched out the skies, laid out the earth and all that grows from it, who breathes life into earth’s people, makes them alive with his own life: 'I am God. I have called you to live right and well. I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe. I have set you among my people to bind them to me and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations, to make a start at bringing people into the open, into light: opening blind eyes, releasing prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prisons. I am God. That's my name. I don't franchise my glory, don't endorse the no-god idols. Take note: The earlier predictions of judgment have been fulfilled. I'm announcing the new salvation work. Before it bursts on the scene, I'm telling you all about it.' "

Happy and blessed New Year!

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. Isaiah 9:6

God cared enough to send us the very best gift possible, which was Jesus Christ. God's generosity to us is what makes the Christmas season so special. The remarkable giving spirit of our Lord is what prompts us to make the Christmas season a time to give and share from our hearts.

In that spirit of remarkable giving, I want to let the almost 200 churches that have paid their 2011 apportionments in full know that their giving means so much to me as the Bishop of the North Texas Annual Conference. I understand that it is not always easy to do this. The tremendous effort that has gone into making the payments can never be minimized. The sacrifices that large and small churches have made are commendable. I want to personally express my appreciation and joy at your accomplishments.

As noted in an accompanying article, our UMR editor omitted the names of most of those churches in the Dec 9 edition. This error caused a great uproar, and I understand why. The hard work and dedication required to pay apportionments seemed undervalued and overlooked by the article. It appeared that only the large church gifts were valued. That is not the case!

Many of those who expressed concern were from small congregations, and they felt that their contributions did not matter. This could not be further from the truth. The contributions of every church are needed and valued.

One of my favorite TV game shows is Wheel of Fortune, where contestants solve a puzzle by selecting the missing letters. Let's look at the word "ch_ _ ch" in the North Texas Conference. What two letters are missing? Obviously, U R (you are). We can't be all that God has destined us to be without one another.

I pray that the newspaper error won't cause us to lose our Christmas joy. This season comes but once a year, and I trust that nothing will get in the way of the reason for the season. God bless!

Once again, the season of Christmas is upon us. I don't know about you, but it came rather quickly for me. It's as if we did not have time to prepare, and yet that is exactly what the season of Advent is all about – preparation.

While serving as a pastor of a local congregation, I was reminded over and over again of the importance of experiencing and living into the seasons of preparation prior to our holiest of holy days, Christmas and Easter.

Advent gives us an opportunity to get ready, anticipate and prepare for the coming of the Christ child in our midst. This may mean we need to make some changes in our personal and spiritual lives to get ready for this important event. There is no celebration without preparation and anticipation.

Before our daughter Letitia was born on Dec. 30, 1989, Leslie and I had to make some changes to prepare for her coming. The room that we used as a catch-all had to be cleared to make room for the new addition in our lives. You need to know that we had already raised five children, and we believed our season for child-rearing was over. In fact, we had just celebrated the birth of a grandson a few months earlier. We were older and had become settled in our ways. All of a sudden, we got the news that a baby was coming, and our entire life changed.

At first, all we thought about was returning to sleepless nights, changing diapers, Parent-Teacher Association meetings, etc. But then an amazing revelation occurred. We began to thank God for this wonderful gift. We prayed for good health and growth. And we started making changes once again in preparation for a new life in our midst.

So it is with the season of Christmas. Although commercialization and consumer ads have cluttered our airways and lives, we are reminded of the real reason for the season of Christmas — the recognition and celebration of the Christ child coming into our lives to offer hope, peace, love and joy.

May the spirit of Christmas that brought forth the messiah and savior of the world bless and reinvigorate your hearts and minds to go forth and make a difference.

Merry Christmas!

As I write this column, Leslie and I are traveling with a large group of pilgrims from North Texas on the Lands of the Bible cruise.

We are having a great experience visiting the places where Paul and Barnabas preached and the places where Jesus walked and taught.

Today, we are traveling east from the port of Haifa headed to the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus spent 2 1/2 years of his short public ministry. As an avid fisherman and outdoors-man, I can see why Jesus called fishermen to become his disciples and why he spent so much time in this beautiful area. Not much has changed in the landscape for over 2,000 years. On the way, we are passing by Nazareth, where Jesus grew up helping Joseph in his carpentry shop.

As I reflect on these experiences, I cannot help but be thankful for the great blessing of God. The season of Thanksgiving is here, and many of us will celebrate with family and friends. One of the traditions in the Bledsoe family is to join together for the family prayer prior to the meal. Usually, the head of the household or the eldest family member will offer the prayer. Before the family prayer, we join hands in a big circle and, one by one, share with each other a short phrase about what we are thankful to God for.

Although there are many things spoken, the No. 1 response will be "family!" Family and community are important blessings in our lives. I am thankful for our North Texas Conference family! We are very diverse, but we are united by our common belief in Jesus Christ, our mission and our love for one another. This Thanksgiving season, let us focus on the things that unite us and enable us to become one in Christ.

The Apostle Paul reminds us, "If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care, then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends." (Philippians 2:1,2 MSG)

May you experience the joy of Thanksgiving as you join together for prayer and a meal.

From the Bishop's Office

At the 2011 Annual Conference, a question of law was raised by Mr. William Herrscher, and Bishop W. Earl Bledsoe rendered a decision of law regarding the restructuring of the Annual Conference. The Bishop's decision was challenged by Mr. Herrscher at the Judicial Council, which is the denomination's court of law. The Judicial Council's decision was handed down on Tuesday, November 1, 2011, reversing the Bishop's decision and ruled that the North Texas Annual Conference would need to do more work on its structure to reflect the inclusion of mandated committees with size, membership, diversity and tenure. The decision will require modifying changes in the Conference Standing Rules and revising the newly created nominations process to reflect the changes needed. All changes will be voted upon at the 2012 Annual Conference, and revised copies will be sent to the Judicial Council within 30 days of adjournment. "This decision does not deter us from our mission. It will require us to make the necessary adjustments to address the concerns raised by the Judicial Council," explained Bishop Bledsoe.

From the Lay Leader, Richard Hearne

One of my favorite quotes is attributed to Mother Teresa – "God does not call us to be successful but to be faithful." This keeps coming to mind when I reflect on the recent UM Judicial Council ruling regarding some portions of the recent NTC Strategic Plan. Over the past three and a half years that I have served as the Conference Lay Leader, I have witnessed the thousands of hours that went into our plan with the goal of re-organizing ourselves into a more effective and fruitful annual conference that would help us achieve our mission statement to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. In spite of our best intentions and extensive communication of new focus, the Judicial Council has handed down the ruling that we must revert to some of our previous organizations. To me, the "back to Egypt" folks who support the status quo are making our mission more difficult. Although I strongly disagree with the ruling, I am, as a faithful United Methodist layperson, committed to adhering to the ruling and following their directives. While we have not been totally successful with our plan, we, the leadership of the annual conference, will be faithful, and we will continue to strive to transform our church and the world.

I just got back from prison. No, I have not been arrested by law enforcement officials. I was arrested by the Holy Ghost to return to Kairos prison ministry. You see, 11 years ago I took part in the Kairos prison ministry at the Darrington maximum security prison in Rosharon, Texas. Since then, something always came up and prevented me from returning, but prison ministry is so vital that I had to get back.

The overall theme of Kairos is "listen, listen, love, love." And that was my experience serving as the spiritual advisor for Kairos #48 last week.

Kairos operates with two teams, one outside and one inside. About 40 persons were on the outside team of volunteers, and they did the praying, cooking and preparing agape, such as cookies, handwritten letters of encouragement and even birthday cake — some inmates have never had a birthday cake or party before. I was part of a 50-member inside team, and we ministered directly to and with the inmates.

We were an ecumenical group — some were Catholics, Baptists or Church of Christ. Some were from Bible churches, and some were from nondenominational churches. Many were laity, six were clergy, and most were retired, but not all. The days were long, beginning at 5 a.m. and finishing our work around 9:30 each night. We began on Thursday afternoon and finished around 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

Not surprisingly, a lot is the same since I was there last. The only difference I noticed was that the faces of the inmates seem to be a lot younger, and there seem to be many more of them. I was happy to reunite with many of the same inside team volunteers whom I met 11 years ago. They were still there, faithfully living out their calling to reach out and share God's love with those behind prison walls.

There are two questions we are not allowed to ask: What are you in prison for? And how much time are you serving? The warden advised us that after three days of sharing and being with them, they will most likely tell everything.

Once the inmates got over the shock of having a United Methodist bishop sitting in their midst, they relished the moment.

I met several inmates whose parents and grandparents were members of United Methodist churches in the area. There was no animosity toward the church, only grateful appreciation of our willingness to reach outside the walls of the church to share God's love. Many inmates of the Catholic tradition spent time with me confessing their faults and sins. Being a Protestant, this was different for me; however, I understood the need for them to tell me things they had kept deep inside for a long time in fear of reprisals or punishment.

Much of my time was spent listening and praying for the inmates. We sang together, laughed together, studied together, prayed together and cried together, letting the 42 chosen inmates for the week know that God loved them and showing them in tangible ways the love of the church.

What a wonderful testimony to Christian unity! My hope and prayer is that we will not forget people behind prison walls, remembering that Jesus himself was a prisoner. I believe God is at work in prisons and calls us to join in the work of redemption and reconciliation.

To learn more, see www.kairosprisonministry.org.

When was the last time you went to the movies?

I have to confess that when there no longer existed a dollar movie, I've rarely taken the time to go.

But recently, a man shared a testimony with us about a movie that really caught our attention. We had to go and see it for ourselves. The movie? Courageous!

The movie is about fatherhood and the effect, or lack thereof, fathers can have on their children and families.

It's a Kendrick Brothers production. Some of you may have seen their earlier movies, such as Fireproof and Flywheel.

These are faith-based movies about religion and life. I don't know about you, but many movies shown in public rarely depict people praying as they grapple with life-and-death issues. I recommend the movie. It changed the way I relate to my daughters and sons.

I'm headed to prison later this month to work on a Kairos team.

I know from previous experience that many issues faced by the men in white have to do with family systems and lack of effective role models.

I solicit your prayers and support as we share the love of Christ with those behind prison walls.

The schedule this fall has been hectic, but I have witnessed signs of God's presence in our midst through churches being launched, facilities being transformed, men and women studying the scriptures, members of a small struggling church getting together to discern their future, and a brand-new building and sanctuary being built for the poor through Christ's Foundry Mission.

These are exciting times to be alive in ministry.

I am aware that these are also times of great stress and need. I pray that we will reach out and be generous with our lives.

The gospel reminds us, "We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, this endless knowing and understanding — all this came through Jesus, the Messiah." (John 1:16, 17 MSG).

I just finished reading Gil Rendle’s latest book, Back to Zero: The Search to Rediscover the Methodist Movement. You won’t find it in the bookstores – at least not yet. The release date for the hardback should be around the first of the year. However, you can get it electronically at Cokesbury stores or online booksellers.

This book is about The United Methodist Church becoming a movement again. I would commend it to any clergy or lay leader as excellent reading. I particularly liked the first and the fifth chapters in the book.

The first chapter reminds us that “we all got skin in the game,” that we all have a vested interest in the outcome. Whatever your perspective on where the United Methodist denomination is as a whole, we all are part of the same story and have a responsibility to help lead the church through deep change.

The fifth chapter is also my favorite because Rendle describes what it means to be a “citizen of the (new) movement.” I believe we all love The United Methodist Church and want the best for it, but many times our concerns are focused on protecting the status quo and maintaining the institution. To be a citizen of the movement means learning how to vote against our self-interests. You might ask, “Well, Bishop, if I don’t vote for my self-interests, whose interest should I vote for?”

We need to focus on the mission and purpose of the church and set aside selfish interests in order for the church to become a movement again. A movement is flexible and nimble. It adjusts and adapts to the current needs and trends in the mission field.

This is nothing new. The scriptures remind us that change is a part of life, and those who have gone before us shared their stories and experiences of how they dealt with change through faith in God. The good news is that the God we serve promises to be with us as we go through change.

I look forward to what God is doing as The United Methodist Church becomes a movement again. May it be so!