A little boy was spending his Saturday morning playing in his sandbox. He had with him his box of cars and trucks, his plastic pail, and a shiny, red plastic shovel. In the process of creating roads and tunnels in the soft sand, he discovered a large rock in the […]
All Your Strength Read More »
A missionary on furlough told this true story while visiting his home church in Michigan… “While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a journey of two days and required camping
The Power of Prayer Read More »
A trucker relates that he was traveling through rural North Carolina on I-95 when a brown sedan merged onto the highway. It weaved back and forth between lanes, causing the driver of the truck to shift into a lower gear. At first he thought the driver was drunk, but when
A life that makes a difference Read More »
His name is Bill. He has wild hair, wears a T-shirt with holes in it, jeans and no shoes. This was literally is wardrobe for his entire four years of college. He is brilliant. Kind of esoteric and very, very bright. He became a Christian recently while attending college. Across
An Unspoken Bible Read More »
Alan Loy McGinnis cites an interesting study in his book THE FRIENDSHIP FACTOR (Augsburg, 1979). A second-grade teacher complained that her children were spending too much time standing up and roaming around the room rather than working. Two psychologists spent several days at the back of the room with stopwatches
Compliment More; Reprimand Less Read More »
When her old uncle died, his four year old neice, Alicia, wanted to attend the funeral. The family talked it over and decided to try explaining to her that Uncle Albert hadn’t actually died — only his body was now lifeless — and that Albert would live forever, in Infinity.
It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The creeks and streams were long gone back into the earth. It was a dry season that would bankrupt several farmers before it was through. Every day, my husband and his brothers would go about the arduous process of trying to get water to the fields. Lately this process had involved taking a truck to the local water rendering plant and filling it up with water. But severe rationing had cut everyone off. If we didn’t see some rain soon… we would lose everything.
It was on this day that I learned the true lesson of sharing and witnessed the only miracle I have seen with my own eyes. I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six-year old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He wasn’t walking with the usual carefree abandon of a youth but with a serious purpose. I could only see his back. He was obviously walking with a great effort…trying to be as still as possible.
Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house. I went back to making sandwiches, thinking that whatever task he had been doing was completed. Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful stride toward the woods. This activity went on for an hour. He would walk carefully to the woods, run back to the house. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer and I crept out of the house and followed him on his journey (being very careful not to be seen…as he was obviously doing important work and didn’t need his Mommy checking up on him).
He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, being very careful not to spill the water he held in them…maybe two or three tablespoons were held in his tiny hands. I sneaked close as he went into the woods. Branches and thorns slapped his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much higher purpose. As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site. Several large deer loomed in front of him. Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. A huge buck with elaborate antlers was dangerously close. But the buck did not threaten him…he didn’t even move as Billy knelt down. And I saw a tiny fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, lift its head with great effort to lap up the water cupped in my beautiful boy’s hand.
My job is in patio home sales, and quite often I encounter some unpleasant people. Usually I can contain my contempt and put on a happy face. Other times it can be more difficult to be civil in the face of nastiness and outright rudeness. I find that if someone comes
A man’s daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been
Daddy’s empty chair Read More »
In 1997 my new husband and I, and my two daughters from a previous marriage found a house in Alabama. We loved it — but it was for sale, not for rent. We couldn’t buy a house at the time because we lacked the up-front funds, and we had a
