Names

"The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through it."

-Michael Bradbury

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.  Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only the high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."

-Ernest Hemingway, By-Line

"The world lies right beyond the handlebars of any bicycle."

-Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles

When I got out of the United States Air Force in 19 January 1966 I took off my dog tags and said I would never wear a necklace again.  Nothing against the Air Force, I just don't like things around my neck!

Well, now I've got another dog tag for around my neck!  There is only one but it does hang around my neck.  I could have chosen a wrist ID, a shoe ID, an ankle ID, or the neck ID.  I went with the neck ID.  Maybe it was because it reminded me of the good years I invested in the Air Force. Most likely, it was because I think the first place an EMT or doctor would look for an identity would be on my neck.  The dog tags I will wear on the bike ride are called RoadID and are available from www.RoadID.com.  The cost is twenty-five bucks.  For another ten dollars a year I chose to buy the interactive RoadID.  The first year is free so it was an offer I could not refuse.

Interactive RoadID, as you can see on the photo, includes my name, address, and Margaret's phone number.  It also includes an 800 number and www.MyRoadID.com, both of which will connect emergency medical personnel to all of my medical records.  If, for some reason I could not speak for myself, the 800 number activates an audible response with all the necessary emergency medical information needed.  The online connection even includes a photograph of me along with information on medications, doses, records, doctors, specialties, addresses, phone numbers, and personal information.  I have even included information about my route, who I'm riding with, and all information about our car that Margaret will be driving. All of this information is accessed by using the serial number and PIN (personal identification number) on the tag.

It's good to know I'm covered as far as medical information goes.  Should it be needed, I've got it!  Don't even have to tell anybody my name.

As far as eternity goes, I'm covered too.  He knows my name and it's written in the Book of Life mentioned in Revelation 3 where Jesus in a revelation to the apostle John says,  "All who are victorious will be clothed in white.  I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before the Father and his angels that they are mine" (v 5).  All of that brings into the equation the only name that makes eternal security possible . . . Jesus. 

Philippians 2:5-11,  "Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had.  Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.  He made himself nothing;  he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.  And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal's death on a cross.  Because of this, God raised him up and gave him a name that is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

My name has been written down because his name has been lifted up!  I trust him.