Proof The Bible Is True

“After the article is an audio interview with her.” Admin   Blood was everywhere. The drunk driver collided with the family when they were on their way back from church service. Angela’s 15-year-old body laid lifeless in the car. Nevertheless, the family refused to accept death, and they prayed.   Suddenly, a gust of wind blew over the car, and her lifeless body gasped for air as she miraculously regained consciousness. This was the beginning of a long list of miracles God performed as He showed Himself faithful to His Word as prayer went forth with steadfast faith!   Steadfast [More]

“There are many wonders to see if we just look for them.” Admin   The gray sky outside my kitchen window matched how I felt inside. Hopeless. I sighed and turned away. Life had lost all meaning.   Nearly a year earlier, on a sunny Fourth of July day, I drove to a nearby lake to celebrate with friends and family. It was my birthday. After a long workweek, I was looking forward to our picnic. And I couldn’t wait to get in the water. I loved to swim.   “Here I go,” I shouted, laughing, as I dove headfirst [More]

”I’ll be back in a couple hours,” Dad said as the screen door slammed shut that late afternoon.   Two hours, I told myself. You can do this. I took a long, deep breath and turned to face Mom. Through her cataracts, at least, she couldn’t see the worry in my face. Keeping Mom’s anxiety at bay while she struggled with Alzheimer’s could be next to impossible. If she had an episode, I didn’t know if I could handle it alone, especially at the end of the day.   Read More: She Feared Being Alone with Her Mom with Alzheimer’s [More]

I live near Omaha, in southeastern Nebraska. If I ran to the basement every time I heard a tornado siren go off, I’d never get anything done. So when a siren wailed one Friday in June, just two days before Father’s Day, I didn’t pay it much mind. I wanted to get my dusting done before settling down for the day. Besides, it wasn’t even raining, with barely a cloud in the early-evening sky. Maybe they’re testing the system, I thought. They do that a lot around here.   Asher, our 12-year-old grandson who lived with us, winced at the [More]

04/16/21 I recently updated my post “Miracle On The Howard Frankland Bridge” with some pictures of the vehicle taken after the accident at the garage where it was towed. Check it out, I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.  Admin

Before heading to camp that summer I double-checked that I had everything I needed. Toothbrush. Check. Socks. Check. I touched my neck to make sure I was wearing my great grandmother’s necklace, a simple rose pendant on a gold chain. Check. I grabbed my bag and headed out the door.   I arrived at camp and quickly found my friends. “Come play capture the flag with us!” they said. The game was messier than we anticipated because the grounds were muddy from rain the week before. When we went to the bathroom to clean up I looked in the mirror [More]

My very first assignment as a minister was to an inner-city parish in Camden, New Jersey. There was drug dealing and violent crime within sight of our home, and rough characters knocked on our door at all hours of the day and night.   Not long after we arrived, I had to attend a week-long church conference out of town. I dreaded leaving my wife and three children alone in our new neighborhood. God, I prayed, take care of them.   My first spare moment at the conference, I called home to make sure all was well. My wife assured [More]

Here in the Midwest, we’re used to frigid winters, but that morning seemed colder than usual.   Maybe it was because my husband wasn’t sleeping next to me. He had gone out of town on a long trip. It was just me looking after our three daughters. We lived out in the country—no neighbors within shouting distance, and I felt vulnerable. At night I made sure to lock the doors and I prayed God would watch over us.   I’d woken up shivering, with a pounding headache. It was really cold, even for our 170-year-old house. Did our furnace break [More]

My pickup’s headlights pierced through the murky twilight as I sped up the country road through the woods. I needed to get home… if home was still there. Up ahead, fallen trees spilled out onto the asphalt like a pile of giant pick-up sticks. I slammed on the brakes. I would have to go on by foot, three quarters of a mile through the debris and the dark. I hadn’t been to church in 40 years, but now I prayed harder than ever. Please God, help me find my family.   Earlier that September evening, four funnel clouds had formed [More]

Lisa. Pray for Lisa. It was the strangest thing, this urge that suddenly came over me. It was as if an actual voice had spoken, firm and commanding.   Pray for Lisa? I prayed for my six-year-old daughter every night, just like I did for her brother and sister. But why now?   We were on the road, headed to my parents’ house for Christmas. Lisa was riding with my brother Bobby up ahead. I was following along in my car with my two other children.   Bobby was holding the speed limit, just like I had asked him to. [More]

My husband has a soft spot for strays. Driving down the highway one rainy day, we spotted a hulking mass of grayish-black fur, with paws the size of a bear’s, wandering along the roadside. “We already have two dogs and two cats,” I protested as he pulled over.   “We can’t just leave him there,” he said. “No telling what will happen to him.” He opened the door and the dog climbed in.   “Okay,” I agreed, “but we have to try hard to find his owner.” The dog seemed friendly enough, but there was a look about him that [More]

Ever since my husband, Ricardo, lost his job and we lost our home, I’d said the same prayer every day. Lord, help us find an apartment. Lots of light, warm and homey, a new kitchen, a clean, fully tiled bathroom. Outdoor space, like a balcony, would be nice, but asking way too much. A decent place would do.   Ricardo didn’t believe in prayer. But he didn’t have any other answers. We were renting part of a rundown house in Rockford, Illinois, not ideal conditions to raise our eight-year-old son.   It was dark and cramped, the floors cold and [More]

A teacher’s supposed to have the answers. I can teach my fourth graders the state capitals and how to write cursive; I can list all the books in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.   But I can’t explain why some children died in the tornado that hit our school last May and the ones with me survived. All I can tell you is that the tragedy doesn’t mean God was absent.   My colleagues and I went back three weeks later to see the devastation where Plaza Towers Elementary once stood. Most of the debris had been hauled [More]

I thanked God that morning for the water-stained ceiling tiles. They were as much a miracle to me as a clear blue sky. When I opened my eyes after a fitful night’s sleep and saw them above my hospital bed, I knew I was still alive. I was pretty sure there were no ceiling tiles in heaven.   I was 39 years old, and wasn’t likely to live out the week, much less see 40. As the morning dragged on, my family and the parishioners of my church came in and out of my room, praying for my recovery.   [More]

On Mother’s Day we celebrate all the miracles of motherhood.   But back in 1959, Peggy Rasmussen didn’t feel at all like celebrating. For Peggy, it was a reminder that she might never be a mother. She’d been praying and praying for a child, but it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen.   Then Peggy received a Mother’s Day message that spoke straight to her heart. Something that told her she was meant to be a mother after all.   My husband, Milton, and I were at church. So many happy families filled the pews, moms doting [More]

I tapped my pen against the kitchen table and stared at my to-do list. Plan side dishes, get the turkey, tidy up the house—Thanksgiving was two days away, and there was so much to get done.   But that wasn’t why I was anxious. My son, Bill, was driving home from school for Thanksgiving break. His first visit since he’d gone off to college. And he was late.   The phone rang. My husband, William, answered it. As he paced around the kitchen with the receiver to his ear, I heard snippets of his conversation: Car trouble. Transmission. Tow truck. [More]

I stopped by my mother’s house to water the plants while she was in the nursing home. Mom wasn’t doing well, and the doctors had told me to prepare for the worst. But in her house, surrounded by her familiar possessions—the photographs on the dresser, the vase on the dining room table, the throw on the sofa—everything seemed reassuringly unchanged, as if Mom could just walk through the door at any minute, her old self again.   I stepped into the living room. My eyes fell on an old wooden jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a puppy. It sat [More]

Every year, thousands flock to San Francisco to walk across that fabled vermilion span, the Golden Gate Bridge. They come for the sweeping views of the city, the fog-wreathed hillsides abutting cold gray waters. The bridge rises 220 feet above the bay. Below, sharks and sea lions swim and dangerous currents churn. Tourists crowd the walkway, braced against the wind, snapping photos.   On a cool, foggy September afternoon, I boarded a bus to the Golden Gate Bridge. I wasn’t a tourist. I didn’t care about the view. I was going to jump.   I sat at the back of [More]

“Some seniors from church are going to the Holy Land, and I’ve decided to join them,” my mother announced one evening. My brothers and sisters and I were relieved. We’d been worried Mom might never get over losing Dad. Her joy in life had gone out of her since he died. Even though she went to church daily, she seemed lonely and lost, as if her sorrow were too deep for anyone or anything to touch.   For years, my parents had talked about visiting the places they’d read about in the Bible, so I hoped this trip would help [More]

I was never going to get better. In fact, I was going to get worse. A vein attached to my retina had hemorrhaged. An occlusion, the doctor called it. The pressure from the blood slowly building up behind my right eye was nearly unbearable.   Laser surgery would relieve the pain but not stem the loss of vision in my eye. In time, macular degeneration would cause my left eye to go blind as well. It was already starting. Darkness was taking over. Just when I thought a new life was beginning.   My wife, Shirley, and I had retired [More]

My son Dillon hoisted his duffle bag on his shoulder and gave me a hug. I wasn’t one for making scenes at the airport, but I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. He was only 21, about to deploy to Afghanistan for the second time.   “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll be home soon,” he said. I wished I could believe him. But how could I? Two years earlier, Dillon’s older brother, Tanner, had been killed in action. Keep Dillon safe, Lord, I prayed. Have mercy on this mama.   I kept on praying those words, even after I got home. [More]

Lost: One irreplaceable ring given to me by my mother.   Suspect: An untrustworthy college roommate.   Problem: How to tell Mom the ring was missing while I was home on summer break.   I was a wreck. Dad gave Mom the ring way back when they were dating, a delicate white-gold band with a gorgeous emerald-cut ruby and a small diamond in the center. Mom entrusted it to me when I went off to college in Des Moines. I didn’t wear it much because the ruby was loose in its setting and I didn’t want anything to happen to [More]

“We should have come home earlier. I would have loved to see one last snowfall,” Doris, my mother-in-law, said. We sat in her living room in front of the big picture window that looked out on the yard. It was a beautiful, sunny June day, and hummingbirds darted around the feeder outside.   Only a few months had passed since Doris had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She and my father-in-law had been in Florida for the winter. They’d returned to Michigan for her surgery. It didn’t help. Now in their home on Lake Huron, she only had weeks to [More]

One cold early evening many years ago, my wife, Bartie, and I set out in our cabin cruiser for a picnic dinner on southern San Francisco Bay. We waved to a college crew team heading out for a practice row, then proceeded down the channel toward the San Mateo Bridge. The choppy water soon turned into huge waves.   At the drawbridge, I signaled to the bridge tender to let us through. He shook his head, pointing to the whitecaps on the water ahead. We were about to take our pitching craft home, when in the distance, near some mud [More]

The old Case 310 Dozer fired right up even after being idle for a few months. I had been on bed rest after gall bladder surgery, unable to do my farm chores, and was tired of being cooped up in the house. Even though I was still recovering, it was time to get a few things done. First thing—test the hydraulic functions on the dozer, make sure it was still in working order.   I backed the machine out of the tractor shed and into the dirt road. So far so good. I moved the crawler forward. All of the [More]

It was the day before Thanksgiving. But I wasn’t feeling very thankful.   I threw some clothes into an overnight bag, tried to keep my hands from shaking. I’d just gotten off the phone with my sister Toni. She’d given birth to a baby boy, Bradley, a week earlier, but he’d been born with a congenital heart defect. The doctors didn’t think he was going to make it.   My mom and I would be driving up to Kansas City to spend Thanksgiving with Toni and her husband at the hospital. I wished there was something I could do for [More]

Yet another cheery holiday tune was playing over the radio at the thrift store. I cringed. “Santa’s on His Way,” by George Strait: “Christmas is always my favorite time of year!” Not mine. Not now. I gripped my empty shopping basket’s red plastic handle in one hand and my gift list in the other and stared at the cracked snow globes and chipped mugs among other castoffs cluttering the shelves. What did I expect to find? This wasn’t Toys “R” Us. It wasn’t even Walmart. This was my last resort.   God, I’d prayed on the drive here, give us [More]