Proof The Bible Is True

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy slammed the Northeast. And like many folks, I won’t ever forget it. More than one hundred people lost their lives. Thousands lost their homes. My Jersey Shore town was dealt a brutal blow and recovery is still a work in progress. But there’s another reason I can’t forget this storm. A moment, actually. One that irrevocably strengthened my faith. It was 5:00 am, one week after Sandy. “Morning, babe,” my husband, Chip mumbled, shutting off the alarm. “Gonna be a rough one.” Chip’s a police officer and he was gearing up for another 16-hour [More]

I walked over to our church’s craft cabinet, hoping to find some project ideas for kids. In just a few days my husband, Daniel, and I would be taking a mission trip to help the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota build a new church and we’d need some fun things to do with the families. I’d barely opened the door when a long piece of thick rope flew out, landing at my feet. The rest of it was tangled up inside the cabinet—it had to be at least 10 or 12 feet long! “Where did this come from?” I wondered aloud. [More]

What better way to celebrate the beginning of summer than by setting up my outdoor furniture on the deck? I unstacked the chairs and arranged them around the table. All I needed was my new blue-and-white-flowered patio umbrella. It’s going to look so pretty, I thought. I searched the backyard shed. I was sure I’d put it there for safekeeping. I hadn’t even taken it out of the box. I stumbled around for 20 minutes looking for that umbrella. I’ll have to settle for my old one, I thought. It was tattered and faded, but it would give me some shade. Read More

My mother’s patio was a mess. There was clutter everywhere—dead leaves under the table and chairs, bird droppings on the cement flooring, weeds encroaching in the adjacent flowerbed. Mom hadn’t been out there in ages. Maybe I should clean it up, I thought every so often. But I never got around to it. So I couldn’t explain why, one Sunday, I showed up on her doorstep, unannounced, in my gardening clothes. “Mom, I’m going to do some sprucing up out back,” I said. Read More

Dad was a rural mail carrier for 52 years, but he loved it too much to call it his job. His “office” was the natural world, and he never tired of admiring the flowers, trees and sky along his route. “God’s handiwork,” he’d say. Outdoors he could also scout the best places for mushrooms. Morel mushroom hunting was a family tradition. I remember Mom and Dad taking us kids to a special spot in the woods one May day when I was seven. “First one to find a morel wins the prize,” Dad said. He winked at me, the youngest, [More]

They got help from a mysterious mechanic who appeared right when they needed him. Watch

I had meant to leave early for work. One of the main intersections on the way was under construction. Judging from the traffic, though, I hadn’t left near early enough. My five-minute commute to the hotel where I worked was going to take 15. I shook my head, frustrated. Stop and go. Stop and go. Long minutes passed. At last! I thought, nearing the intersection. I flipped on my turn signal and pulled my trusty, green Dodge Neon to the far left, turn lane. The light switched to yellow. Have to hurry, I thought. But the car in front of me took its time [More]

Fiery ash spewed thousands of feet above Mount Pinatubo. Molten lava cascaded down the flanks of the ancient volcano on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, destroying everything in its path. It was June 15, 1991. My husband, Chuck, and I saw a news ticker about the eruption from 8,000 miles away in Niagara Falls, New York. Our daughter, Cindy, her husband, Ed, and our grandkids had been lucky to get out alive. They’d been evacuated from Clark Air Force Base, where Ed was stationed, near the capital city, Manila. Cindy had called us earlier from a naval station [More]

Monday night madness, I thought, glancing at my kitchen clock. Church orchestra practice was in less than half an hour, and I still had things to take care of—cook some chicken to take for lunch that week, feed the dogs, change out of my work clothes. I filled a pot with water and stuck it on the stove, turning the gas burner up high. Orange flames licked the metal. Hurry, hurry. I stared at the pot, then caught myself. A watched pot never boils, I thought. I set the chicken next to the stove, all ready to go. Read More

Easter Sunday arrived a week after I moved to Phoenix, and I was looking forward to spending it with a friend visiting from my former home, Colorado Springs, Colorado. I thumbed through the Yellow Pages, searching for a church we could attend close to my new apartment. Yes, the Yellow Pages, mostly used as a doorstop these days. In this case, I was grateful that the big, fat book had been delivered to my door. I was under doctors’ orders to avoid using the computer, as the monitor could trigger my seizures—seizures that had taken me away from the community [More]

Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I prepared to stand before my audience at a weekend religious retreat. Fifty ladies waiting to hear me speak on the importance of studying God’s word. I gathered my notes and picked up my Bible as I entered the room. Of all of the Bibles I owned, this was my favorite. I opened the book and a familiar name written inside the front cover caught my eye: Karen Baker. Read More

My office at the college was filled with Easter baskets that Good Friday morning. I’m a professor at the Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne campus, and every year I do a volunteer project with my students—they put together Easter baskets for the homeless children and their moms at our local shelters. Each basket is unique, specially created and personalized for a woman or a child, and each bears the name of the person receiving it. Proud of the work my students had done, I carefully checked the baskets against my list. Then my husband, Tom, and I loaded them into [More]

The evening devotional at church was due to start in just 10 minutes. It was only a few blocks away, but if my best friend, Molly, didn’t meet me at my house soon, we’d miss the choir’s opening hymn.   “C’mon,” I said, grabbing Molly’s hand when she finally arrived. “We have to run!”   Read More: Delivered on Time by a Divine Breeze – Guideposts

Spring in Texas inevitably means storms. So when my wife, Dolly, heard bad weather was coming I hurried to finish the yard work.   Truth is, I was grateful for the chance to do something physical. It got my mind off things I had no control over—like unexpected illness and prescription costs. God, I know you’ve always provided for us in the past, I thought as I got the mower out of the garage, but the older I get the more vulnerable I feel.   I pushed the mower around the yard. Gray clouds rolled in. I turned the mower back around. When [More]

It happened on a trip to Italy a few years ago, an experience so extraordinary I’ve hesitated to write about it—but so full of encouragement that I have to try. Consulting the map that came in the smart gray Peugeot we’d rented, my husband, John, noticed a large lake halfway between Venice and Milan.   “Lago di Garda,” he read. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a place to spend the night there!”   Read More: Divine Guidance in the Italian Countryside – Guideposts

When your wife is pregnant, you try to take every precaution possible. Which is why I drove my wife Katherine’s Toyota to drop her off at work one rainy February morning, instead of my pickup truck. San Diego doesn’t get many chilly days, but this was one of them. “My truck has no heat,” I reminded her, as I pulled out the driveway, “and besides, the roof leaks. The last thing you need is to get sopping wet.”   I dropped Katherine off downtown, found the freeway and headed toward home. Man, there were a lot of accidents. Every few [More]

Everything was big in Alaska—the mountains, the glaciers…even the raindrops! My husband, Gary, and I ran through the streets of Ketchikan, where our cruise ship had docked, trying to find shelter from the deluge.   We had so much to see on the eight-day cruise we’d booked for our fortieth wedding anniversary: calving glaciers, fjords, whales, historic churches and, today, a lumberjack show. But how were we supposed to enjoy anything in this weather? The rain was coming down so hard we could barely see.   “There!” Gary pointed. The open doors of the Nazarene church. We ducked inside. Sunday [More]

Normally my favorite local thrift store was packed with treasures, but today it was practically bare. The only thing I’d found was a children’s winter coat. It looked brand-new and was a beautiful shade of sky blue. The problem was the size—a 10/12. Much too small for my oldest child and too big for my youngest two. It wouldn’t even fit my nieces or nephews. Too bad, I thought, and started to walk away when the pastor in charge came over.   “Just so you know,” he said. “We’re moving to another location soon. All remaining items are fifty cents and what doesn’t [More]

Brrr, it was cold. So cold it took an act of supreme will for me to crawl out of bed. I shivered as I made my way down to the basement, though why I was bothering to try and get the furnace going again I couldn’t tell you. I already knew it was hopeless.   My wife and I had finally bought our first home, a 1905 farmhouse just outside of Mansfield, Illinois. It needed work, for sure, but it beat the shoebox we’d been renting from a relative. We moved in the summer of 1970 and started fixing the [More]

Oh, no, I thought, massaging the back of my neck. The tingling sensation I felt was the all-too-familiar sign of an impending migraine, my nemesis for two decades. It robbed me of several days each month, causing pain and nausea severe enough I often had to head to bed. But there’d be no going to bed right now. I was all alone on a Sunday afternoon at the offices of a local council on alcoholism where I worked as a public relations coordinator. Today I was also cleaning the offices, something I did once a month to augment my meager income [More]

Sherrod Vaughn. Had there ever been a more melodious name? Not to my ears! I was reading the Newport News Daily Press over breakfast when I came across an article about a graduating senior at Ohio State University—a senior named Sherrod Vaughn. I had to know more!   According to the article, Sherrod was coming back home to Virginia for the summer to teach a life-saving course at one of our country clubs. A lifeguard! How brave!   I was a graduating senior too, but in high school. Sitting at my desk in math class that morning, I barely heard a word [More]

I was out running Saturday-morning errands when I saw it: a metal sign at the end of the road. “Trinity Church,” it read, with a long black arrow pointing to the left. Sure, I was looking for a new church, but part of me just wanted to keep on driving. What was the point?   Ten churches. That’s how many I’d visited since I’d moved here to Orange, Connecticut, two years earlier. And none of them seemed quite right. Either the congregation was too large, too small, or I didn’t feel welcomed. Why couldn’t I find a church like the one I’d [More]

The pendant watch was the most beautiful thing I’d ever owned. Silver, attached to a silver chain, with an intricately designed cover, it was a Sweet 16 gift from my mother. I wore it every day, as a constant reminder of her. The watch fit her to a T–stylish, yet practical.   For eighteen years the watch kept ticking, through marriage to my beloved Larry, children, a magical life. Not once did it need a repair. Then, abruptly, it stopped–on the day my mother died.   Read More: A Timely Present – Guideposts

I was desperate. My washing machine had quit right in the middle of a load of clothes I was planning to pack up and take on vacation, and I couldn’t get anyone to repair it before we left.   “Come out today?” asked the sixth repairman I called. “You’ve got to be kidding!”   If only Dad were here now. He could fix anything. But my father had passed away recently. Lord, help me get along without him, I prayed. I then tried one last number. “I’ll be right over,” the repairman said once I explained to him how dire my predicament [More]

I jerked awake, my body wracked by coughs. I peered at the clock. Only 4:00 a.m., I thought. What is going on? I wasn’t sick. Didn’t have a cold or anything. Just this weird cough.   I coughed and coughed unable to get the tickle out of my throat. Paul woke up beside me. “Honey, you okay?” he said, sitting up.   “I think so,” I managed to say. “I feel fine. I just can’t quit coughing.”   Read More: Mysterious Ways: 4 AM Alarm – Guideposts

The bank I frequent has a drive-through ATM, which is convenient because it saves me from having to get out and wait in a long teller line inside.   For years, I’ve followed the same routine: I pull up to the machine, make my deposits or withdrawals, then drive over and park in a spot about 50 feet away, underneath a big old stately shade tree, while I tuck my money in my wallet and put away my receipts. Quick and easy.   One windy summer morning I had a lot of errands to run and was low on cash. [More]

My younger sister, Jennifer, and I were born only 13 months apart. We shared everything growing up—clothes, toys, friends. We got married and moved into our own houses, but that didn’t keep our connection from growing even stronger. Our daughters were born two days apart. Jennifer is the first person I call whenever I need help. And she knows that she can always count on me.   One day last July, Jennifer and I were at our aunt’s house for a birthday party. No one noticed Jennifer’s two-year-old, Reagan, playing dangerously close to the swimming pool. Not until it was [More]