Dolly Parton: Character Lessons from the Life of an American Original

Approximately 165,000 people die every day around the world.  That’s 60 million people a year, 7000 per hour, 117 a minute, and two per second. 
 
If Saint Peter meets believers in Jesus at the Pearly Gates, then when Dolly Parton passed into eternity on August 25, 2026, his words of welcome might have included:
 
Hello, Dolly! Well done good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:21).
 
Humor aside, Dolly Parton was a believer in Jesus who is now in God’s presence (2 Corinthians 5:8). She lived a larger-than-life existence that only could have happened in the United States of America. 
 
What can we learn from her life?

The Permanent Victory of the Cross and Resurrection

Easter time is one of the most memorable weeks of year for me, from sun-rise services, to Easter 1974 in the Holy Land, to cross walks through my hometown for the past 33 years. 

A ministry friend recently asked me if he could send my 2018 Easter blog to his list of 10,000 young pastors in America. I said I’d be honored–and decided to also share it again with you.

Easter is special, world-changing, cosmos altering.

It celebrates the permanent victory of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

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God’s Cocoon and Life’s Greatest Lesson

Happy New Year everyone. May God richly bless you in 2026.

The older I get the more friends I see pass into eternity. I also pray for more people with life-threatening conditions. You may be aware that well-known political pundit Victor Davis Hanson had major surgery this past weekend. We are asking God to give him more years of “imparting wisdom.”

I, too, am facing a new physical challenge (related to my autoimmune system). These physical “tests” in the last chapters of earthly life remind me of “Life’s Greatest Lesson.” 

Here’s what I mean. 

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