2018 Charlie Daniels
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Hazel and me dedicate this book to the center of our lives, our son Charles William Daniels. We thought we had our lives figured out until you came along and kicked it all up another notch. What a joy, what a pleasure, what a blessing you have been, and our love for you knows no bounds.
C HARLIE D ANIELS
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O L ORD , my strength, and my redeemer.
P SALM 19:14 KJV
C ONTENTS
F or the last five years or so I have posted a daily morning feature on my social media I call Lets All Make the Day Count.
Its a line or so of personal philosophy, advice, encouragement, or humor that I feel can be a good thought to start the day. Though I occasionally dredge up some old folk saying that Ive heard somewhere along the way, most of them are original, and by the grace of God, I come up with them on the spur of the moment.
This book is a collection of one hundred such morning thoughtseach expanded with personal experience or some discovery Ive made or lesson Ive learned by observing the actions of other people and other situations.
I am a storyteller by nature and profession, as I have spent the last sixty years of my life writing songs about fictional characters and having my way with their actions and outcomes. But this undertaking is different, as it deals mostly with real people and real experiences, so the points Im trying to make and the lessons imparted are much more important and profound.
I have leaned heavily on my personal journey and the times Ive knocked my head against various walls through the years while learning lifes lessons.
Ive excerpted segments of my highest and lowest times, my most devastating defeats and most rewarding victories, and how Ive come to truly value making the day count, every single day.
It is my desire for this collection of my thoughts to be uplifting and encouraging, instilling confidence in an if I can do it anybody can and its not how many times we stumble but how many times we get back up sort of way.
At any rate I sincerely hope you will enjoy this little book and that you will be encouraged to make the day count.
N EW B EGINNINGS
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
I SAIAH 43:19
I n 2011, our barn at Twin Pines Ranch burned to the ground. We lost both of our tractors, both ranch pickups, and seven of our best horses, including a stallion that carried a bloodline we had been working with for almost twenty years.
When we first built our house in 1979, I met with the builder and told him what I wanted: a big barn with several stalls, a hay loft, and an oversized, lighted stallwhere we could keep watch of our mares when they gave birth to their foalsalong with a shop and an office. When it was finished, we had it all under one roof with an adjacent lighted roping arena. But within just a few hours, it disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
Our ranch manager, Thurman Mullins, was devastated. He had worked for many years building the reputation of Twin Pines and the purity of our breeding stock. Now it was all gone. But the main loss, of course, was the horses and the Twin Pines bloodline. Most of the other things could be replaced, but it looked as if our bloodline was gone forever.