It was two weeks into what would be a six-week forced sick leave from work for my husband. He had hurt his back and had lifting restrictions of no more than 10-15 pounds. His employer barred him from working until all restrictions had been removed by his physician. During this […]
Karen Baldonado-Hensley had loved Ronnie for
fifteen years, although he had emophilia
and life was difficult. “His life had been racked with illness and
operations,” Karen says, “and he was HIV positive too. In 2000 he got
extremely ill and we knew that the end was not far away.”
In January of 2001, Ronnie entered
in
would be the last time. Family members gathered, taking turns visiting Ronnie
in the Intensive Care Unit. At one point Karen left his side, walked down to
the waiting room and said goodbye to his brother and sister-in-law, who left on
a brief break. There was only one other person in the waiting room, Karen says,
an African-American man dressed as a minister. Their eyes met, Karen’s worried,
the minister’s serene. “I see that you are a very religious person,”
the minister said to her.
Karen had always tried to be religious. Now, of
course, she felt abandoned, but that didn’t mean that God had forgotten her.
“Yes,” she told the minister, wondering how he knew, “I am
religious.”
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” he went on,
“but I heard you say that your loved one is dying. Would you allow me to
come into his room and pray for him?”
“Oh, yes,” Karen answered. “I would
very much like you to do that.”
Gloria Shepherd’s friend Ed had promised to send her a particular cd via UPS. “Be sure you’re home on Tuesday when it comes,” he told her. “I’m not going to be home on Tuesday,” Gloria told him. “But don’t worry—UPS always leaves packages if I’m gone. It’ll get here safely.”
This is something to think about when negative people are doing their best to rain on your parade. So remember this the next time someone who knows nothing and cares less makes your life miserable. A New York woman was at her hairdresser’s on Park Avenue getting her hair styled
Don’t Let it Rain On Your Parade Read More »
Back in the 50’s there was a well known radio host/comedian/song writer in Hollywood named Stuart Hamblin who was noted for his drinking, womanizing, partying, etc. One of his bigger hits at the time was “I won’t go hunting with you Jake, but I’ll go chasing women”. And along came
I
recently came across a true story about a woman in
whose mother was dying. It is my hope that this story may touch you in the same
way it touched my heart. The story, some of which is in the exact words of this
woman is as follows:
I was fortunate to be able to sit
at my mother’s bedside and have lots of talks with her during her last weeks on
earth. Most of her last month was spent in a hospital until we went to Hospice
House. I knew Hospice helped people die but I didn’t know they had a 16 room
home in
where people could come and die in peace. We had many conversations as she drew
closer and closer to death and spoke many times about death and heaven.
In one such conversation about
heaven I said: “Mom, well… could we have a secret, something just
between us? I know it’s going to sound crazy. But if you die and when you get
to heaven, if it’s more than you ever dreamed it would be, if you are all right
and see God and Jesus, would you send me one red rose?”
This was a very special moment
between me and my mother an eternal moment. She said, “Yes, I’ll do
that.”
A week later I said, “Look
mom about our secret, I’ll be on earth and you’ll be in heaven. How are you
going to get a rose to me?” She said to me without reservation
“Honey, God can do anything!”
I was watching television today and saw the Ford
Taurus commercial. It was about a young boy that is involved in a car accident
and calls home to tell his parents he was sorry about the damage to the car.
The father told the boy not to worry about the car, as long as the boy was okay.
That commercial reminded me of my brother Eli. Eli
was a drug addict back in 1980, and because he used the drugs in front of my
kids (he wasn’t even supposed to have them in the house) I kicked him out and
did not speak to him for 10 years. In 1990, he ended up in jail for most of the
year. When he got out, he was clean and drug-free and returned to
leery of him coming back, especially around my children, but he was family and
my mom asked me to at least be civil towards him. So I was.
What would you have replied I heard a story on the radio the other day that made me think. Apparently a young boy in India had a particular blessing on his life. Wherever he went from village to village, people were healed from their ails. The healing the boy claimed
At first glance, Ronny looked
like every other kid in the first-grade classroom where I volunteered as the
Reading Mom. Wind-blown hair, scuffed shoes, a little bit of dirt behind his
ears, some kind of sandwich smear around his mouth.
On closer inspection, though,
the layer of dirt on Ronny’s face, the crusty nose and the packed grime under
his fingernails told me he didn’t get dirty at school. He arrived that way.
His clothes were ragged and
mismatched, his sneakers had string for laces and his backpack was no more than
a plastic shopping bag.
Along with his outward
appearance, Ronny stood apart from his classmates in other ways, too. He had a
speech impediment, wasn’t reading or writing at grade-level and had already
been held back a year, making him eight-years-old in the first grade. His home
life was a shambles with transient parents who uprooted him at their whim. He
had yet to live a full year in any one place.
When Robert Moffat, Scottish missionary to Africa, came back to recruit helpers in his homeland, he was greeted by the fury of a very cold British winter. Arriving at the church where he was to speak, he noted that only a small group had braved the elements to hear his
A challenge that thrilled a young boy Read More »
