Proof The Bible Is True

Aunt Jean led my sister Audrey and me through the quiet, rural New Jersey town, pointing out the places from our mother’s childhood, telling stories. We reached the place where her family’s dairy farm once stood, where Mom and her six sisters had grown up. “We’d take turns milking the cows in the morning before school,” Aunt Jean said. “Shared the chores and everything else, even stevens.”   Even-stevens. Mom had taught Audrey and me how important it was to share. But now, a year after her death, we were confronted with how difficult that could be. We debated how [More]

I turned down a row of end tables, peering around every corner. There were hundreds of cabinets, dressers, nightstands, but nothing like what I was searching for. This is ridiculous, I thought. Maybe it’s time to let go of the sewing chest.   My sister-in-law, Debi, and I had decided to stop by the antiques mall on our drive home from Christmas shopping in Kansas City. Antiquing was our favorite hobby. We strolled through the mall, navigating the aisles of lamps, armoires and ottomans. Debi fell in love with an ornate secretary’s desk. But I could think of only one [More]

I typed my desired destination into the online maps program: “Carroll Southlake High School Stadium,” and hit the Enter key. A message popped up: “No results.” Well, that was frustrating. I’d heard the stadium was new, but you’d think there’d be some information on how to get there. Other than driving around in circles, how could I locate it? So much for finding the perfect cheering spot.   A few weeks earlier, a dear friend and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority sister told me she was participating in a 3-day Avon Walk through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It was about 200 [More]

Wow, I thought, as a crack of thunder roared above my house. We hadn’t had a storm this bad in forever. The news reports said trees were down all over and there was flash flooding. Good thing I was safe and sound inside. I’d always felt protected at my address, No. 91, the same number as my favorite psalm.   Suddenly, I heard sirens. Looking out my window, I could see a fire truck, lights flashing, speeding up my street. Where’s the emergency? The truck slowed in front of my house, pulled to the curb and stopped. Three firemen jumped [More]

For years my daughter, Candi, and I had talked about canoeing the Yellow River in the Florida panhandle. Finally, during one of her college breaks, we decided to go for it.   We were only half an hour into our trip when the sky turned dark and thunder rumbled in the distance. The current picked up, and I grew uneasy about the rising water.   The rain came down quickly in wind-whipped sheets and the river tossed us wildly over submerged logs and rocks. “We’ve got to dock!” I shouted. Candi bailed water furiously while I searched for a clearing [More]

My undergrad buddy and her college sweetheart posed for their post-wedding photos, exchanging flirty glances, fingers interlocked, leaning on each other between takes. I watched them with a twinge of jealousy while I chatted with my old college roommate, Chelsea, also happily married. Was I the only single person here? Felt like it. Chelsea leaned in, gave me a sympathetic smile. “What kind of guy are you looking for?” she asked.   “A guy who drives a truck with a bale of hay in the back,” I answered. Chelsea laughed. Maybe I was being too picky, but I wanted a [More]

I took a long drag on a cigarette one morning as I walked the wooded path toward my tiny cabin deep in the forest of the Bruce Peninsula, about two and a half hours north of Toronto, Ontario. I know, I know. Smoking is bad for you, dangerous and unhealthy.   I had tried to kick the habit, prayed about it too, but I couldn’t. Not even when my beloved Aunt Bernie got lung cancer. How many times had she begged me to quit? After she died, I vowed to stop, and did briefly, but inevitably I had started up [More]

My husband Randy knelt at his grandmother’s grave and set down a vase of flowers, carefully arranging the stems so each blossom faced the sun. He was still as broken up as he had six months ago, when he’d held his grandmother’s hand just before she passed away. They’d always been close. He lit up whenever he recalled the days he spent with her as a child, helping feed the chickens she raised, and her prized Rhode Island Red Rooster. I wished I could comfort him, but I wasn’t sure how.   That night a massive summer storm swept through [More]

It’s time, my mom thought. I need to visit him. But it’s so hard.   My father, Vern, had passed away a year ago, but his presence in our lives had always been so big, it still felt as if he should be dropping by any minute. A preacher, he had long been our family’s spiritual compass. Mom called him her “bear,” and it described Dad perfectly. He was a big, beefy man—and once he made up his mind to do something, he couldn’t be stopped. When his health started failing, he was determined above all else to live long [More]

“Wow, it’s cold out there,” my husband said, shutting the back door behind him, blowing on his red hands and shaking snow from his boots. It was another bitterly cold Sunday night here in the Adirondacks in upstate New York.   “How’s the fuel in the tank?” I asked, my stomach knotting. He’d gone out to check on the level for our furnace. And I knew we hadn’t replenished it for a while.   “I put the dipstick in and measured. We’ve got just four inches of fuel left,” my husband said.   “Four inches!” I exclaimed. “That will never [More]

I got into the car and pulled the door shut behind me, letting out a deep breath. Another name off my checklist.   I was visiting each member of my late husband John’s medical team. They had all worked so hard to keep him as healthy as possible as he battled lung cancer over the past five years. They deserved to hear straight from me that he’d passed away. The process was helping me too. Each time I thanked one of them for all they had done, I felt myself gaining closure.   I put my hands on the steering [More]

Where did the Christmas basket sitting on our front porch come from?   I’d just returned from the bank, where I’d withdrawn just enough cash to get us through the holidays. Life was a struggle, raising two teenagers as a single mom while working two part-time jobs and taking college courses at night. I was exhausted. The light at the end of the tunnel sometimes seemed very dim, indeed.   I looked for a card or a note with the basket, filled to the brim with all sorts of holiday foodstuffs. There was none. Had someone entered my name into [More]

I made it to my friend Jessie’s Christmas party minutes before midnight… just as everyone was leaving her house. Just my luck. Too late. I’d spent my entire night stuck at the hospital where I worked as a nurse. All thanks to a little voice inside me. “Take Candy’s shift,” it had said. Over and over again.   Candy was a new nurse on staff, a single mom. She’d asked me to cover for her on Christmas Eve so she could spend the time with her little girl. I felt bad for Candy, I really did. But every Christmas Eve, [More]

“You swallowed a what?”   Illinois mom Julie Van Rossum thought her four-year-old, Ellie, was old enough to know better than to put something small in her mouth. Ellie sat in front of her toy cash register, looking mortified.   “A penny, Mommy!”   Ellie wasn’t choking, and didn’t look sick. “Did you really swallow it?” Julie asked. “Why would you do that?”   “I didn’t mean to!” Ellie said. “It just went down!” Now Julie was concerned. Her daughter didn’t seem to be in pain, but Julie dialed her pediatrician, who advised her to keep an eye out to [More]

Just stay in the middle lane and you’ll be all right, I told myself, driving on the Los Angeles freeway one sunny afternoon. I was headed back home from my job as an office manager at my husband’s company, and as many times as I’d made the commute, I still got nervous. I didn’t learn to drive until my twenties, and it had been tough getting accustomed to southern California’s busy, congested freeways and fast-moving traffic.   “I hate driving on the freeway,” I often told my husband. “It would be so easy to get into an accident with all [More]

Our school bus skidded, the tires losing their grip on the slippery river road. My heart raced. All I could think was, I’m too young to die!   I clutched the edge of my seat. The narrow road wound along a steep slope, dicey even under normal conditions, but this morning it was coated with a slick layer of ice. I could see the river below—a 30-foot drop. I pictured the bus somersaulting into its freezing waters, the headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Michigan Teen Dies in Icy Plunge—Never Even Made It to Prom. My devastated parents. Our whole community in [More]

The quilt on Lenice Hansen’s guest bed really brought the room together. Something about the cheerful floral pattern, the fine hand-sewn stitches, and that deep ruby-red border felt homey and welcoming. It invited you to curl up and get cozy with a book and a hot cup of tea or simply take a catnap.   But the quilt didn’t belong to Lenice. It had ended up at her home in the oddest way–it had flown there.   On February 5, 2008, an F4-category tornado cut a 122-mile-long swath of destruction from Atkins, Arkansas, to just past Highland, where Lenice lived. [More]

Orange Beach, Alabama, was the site of so many happy memories for my family. For 20 years my parents rented a condo on the beach for one week in August. But this year was different. It was our first trip without Mom.   “I’m glad we came,” my sister said as we unloaded the car. “Mom would have wanted us to all be here.”   There was no doubt about that. Last summer, when Mom was in the hospital with leukemia, she still insisted we get to the beach. She even surprised us by getting strong enough to come along! [More]

We were only 48 hours into our family’s three-week road trip when the car broke down.   White smoke billowed from the engine. The dashboard warning lights went on. “Where did all this come from?” my husband, Gareth, said. He pulled off at the next exit. I glanced at our sons in the back seat. Colin, seven, and Aidan, five, looked disappointed. We were in Michigan, in the middle of nowhere, on our way to Mackinaw Island. From there we planned to visit the Badlands of South Dakota and Mount Rushmore, then Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks. It [More]

There were so many boxes of medication to sort through! Tablets and capsules of all shapes, sizes and colors, covered in plastic and foil, plus creams and ointments. One by one I pulled the “fast movers,” prescriptions we filled daily. A medication card with six bright blue capsules baffled me. Doxycycline? I hadn’t seen that antibiotic around here. At the time, there was a worldwide shortage and it had multiplied in price by nearly 100. Not the type of medication that gets donated to a county pharmacy like ours that serves the underprivileged.   Most of our clients were welfare [More]

I woke up at eight o’clock sharp on a mission: finding a job. I put on my best dress, practiced my most business-like smile in the mirror, prayed. But even I couldn’t convince myself I’d be a good employee. I’d never had a real job, aside from a few part-time gigs. I hadn’t even finished college. Who on earth would want to hire someone like me?   I was 21, newly married. I always thought I’d be a full-time mom, and my husband supported that. But right before our wedding, we’d been in a minor car accident. I had a [More]

My little dog, Teddy, tugged on his leash, interrupting my thoughts as we walked through my condo complex. The mornings were our time together and Teddy, a Lhasa Apo, got impatient if he didn’t have my full, undivided attention.   “Sorry, Teddy,” I said with a small smile. My thoughts were all over the place this morning. The public school where I worked as a special education teacher was on break. I was thankful for the time off, but I felt completely stressed about the prospect of returning to work. My job was challenging. Too challenging sometimes. Resources were limited. [More]

We needed to find a nurse to help care for my mother, Mary Pittman. And not just any nurse. Mother had been an RN herself. The world’s best, people said. She worked for Dr. Zdanis until she was almost 80 years old. She practically ran that office. She was the best caregiver I’d ever known. She could soothe a crying child or calm a worried parent. Everyone felt better after she was done with them. And that was even before they saw the doctor.   But then she got Parkinson’s disease and had to retire. Now she was the one [More]

Daylight was just spreading across the horizon. My best friend, Jennifer, and I stood on the beach, gazing out at the ocean. It was our last day on Maui—we had a plane to catch in a few hours. But I was glad we’d gotten up early for one last breathtaking view, a visit to a mysterious spot I’d heard about from our hotel’s cultural advisor, Clifford, the night before. A place called Makalua-puna Point.   “I don’t want to leave,” Jennifer said. I didn’t either. Hawaii felt like heaven. Even more than I’d imagined it would when Maui’s tourism board [More]

Should I open it? Should I wait? Should I…?   I sat in my Nissan in the hospital parking lot, holding the envelope with my MRI results, frozen with indecision. My appointment with the neurologist wasn’t until the following afternoon. Should I wait for him to open the envelope? Then again, I’d been a nurse for more than 40 years. I didn’t exactly need a doctor to understand what the radiologist had found. And whether or not my worst fears had come true.   Since I was 15, I’d suffered from neurofibromatosis, a neurological condition that causes painful, but usually [More]

“Stop the car!” Deb King said to her husband, Jim, that Thursday afternoon. She didn’t mean to shout, but it came out that way so she squeezed Jim’s arm to reassure him.   “Honey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gone this way. I should have taken a different route.”   “No, it’s okay, Jim. Just stop the car. Now. Please. It’s important.”   Jim pressed down on the brake and pulled the car over to the shoulder of the interstate. It was the exact spot where he and Deb had had the accident.   Jim is a pastor, [More]

“A lost cell phone on a cold, rainy day in the woods turns out to be blessing in disguise.”   Cell phones can be a pain in the neck. Whenever I seem to need mine, I can never find it. And this was one of those times, standing by my SUV shivering and wet.   It was whitetail hunting season—a day my three buddies and I had been anticipating for months.   We parked our SUVs on a private, rural lot just after dawn and hiked two miles—lugging rifles and backpacks filled with food, water, flashlights, extra clothing, twoway radios [More]