Proof The Bible Is True

A surprise scrap of love, found in a thrift-store bargain bin.   Aunt June was always there for me growing up. She wasn’t really my aunt—she was one of my mother’s best friends. But she was more like family. She saw me through dance recitals, first dates, and made sure I was well-polished in table manners and full of southern charm. I loved to watch her knit, her hands deftly gliding the needle in and out, turning mere yarn into beautiful things.   When I was pregnant with my first child, Aunt June told me she wanted to knit a [More]

It was a strange Christmas package: a large plastic mailbox.   A present from Susan, a woman I’d worked with. “I didn’t have a box or a gift bag, so I packed your gift in that,” Susan explained, giving it to me outside my office that morning. I tried to laugh. I could definitely use some cheering up, especially after the night that I’d had.   It was supposed to be the big night for our Christmas tree trimming, and I was determined to make it extra-special this year. My husband had walked out on my three kids and me [More]

Mom grew up with two deaf parents. A lot of people might be frustrated by that situation, but Mom embraced it. She devoted her life to helping the deaf as a sign-language interpreter. From the time we were little, my sister and I picked up all the signs, especially the one for “I love you”—the two middle fingers bent inward, the index finger, pinkie and thumb extended. That’s how we always said goodbye.   When she was in her forties, Mom got sick. Cancer. Even so, she cared more about me and my sister than she did about herself, always [More]

The woman at the airline ticket counter in Munich, Germany, just shook her head. “I’m sorry, but there’s no more availability on this flight,” she said. Great, I thought. My husband, Bob, and I had enjoyed every moment of our dream vacation, two weeks in Europe, but I was ready to go home to Shreveport, Louisiana, and sleep in my own bed. Bob could see how frustrated I was. “We’ll just have to try to get on the flight tomorrow,” he said. “Let’s enjoy the extra day.”   Bob’s right, I thought. There were more important things to be worried about—my son [More]

I wasn’t looking forward to substituting at the preschool that morning. Five months had passed since my two-year-old daughter, Hannah, had died, and I knew it would be hard for me to be around kids her age. I only said yes after the preschool director promised to assign me to the class of older kids. But I couldn’t help feeling the emptiness around me as I drove to the school without Hannah. I longed to feel one of her big hugs, letting me know that everything would be okay.   Somehow, I managed to make it through the morning session. [More]

Ten o’clock and I’m still at the office, I thought. I’d been putting in a lot of extra hours lately. I barely had a moment to think, pray, talk to my friends—just to relax. Everyone else had left hours ago. I’d promised myself I would get home early tonight. So why was I still at work? Just one more fax, I told myself. Then I’ll leave.   I put the papers on the machine and punched in the number of a client in Los Angeles. Then I pressed the “send” button. An error message flashed on the display beside the [More]

Zach, our 12-year-old, woke up the day after Thanksgiving last year and let out a loud whoop. It had snowed. Not just a dusting either, but a thick blanket. He bugged his older brothers, Jake and Mike, until they finally agreed to take him sledding.   Later that afternoon the phone rang. It was Mike. His voice was tense. “Dad, you need to get here right away. Jake’s hurt. He can’t talk. He can’t move. Hurry!”   But Mike didn’t know where they were. Jake had driven and Mike hadn’t paid much attention to where they went. The only landmark [More]

I’d once been an active man, a man who knew how to walk in the woods. Even in the dark I could find my way to the wild brook, where I’d be fishing by dawn, able to see deer come down from the mountain to drink.   By 1980 those woodland days were over. For more than 15 years I’d been confined to a wheelchair, a victim of crippling rheumatoid arthritis. I did my best to live a full life, and I still felt loved by God. Just the same, when November’s sporting season came ’round, I tended to be [More]

In the winter of 1944 during World War II, I was in France, a platoon sergeant in the Yankee Division under General Patton. About mid-December I received a letter from my mother back in the States.   “Can you remember,” she asked, “where you were on Thanksgiving Day?”   Could I remember? How could I forget the odd thing that happened that day. At dawn I was sent to check out a crossroads where an enemy strongpoint was suspected. Normally I would have had my men fan out so that they could move with the cover of the trees. But just [More]

I didn’t see her, but my friend sure did. God’s grace stepped in.   On a gloomy day years ago, my sister and I were driving back home on the old Columbia River Highway. As we went past the beautiful Multnomah Falls near Larch Mountain, Elva said suddenly, “How odd. Why is that woman sitting there with an umbrella? It isn’t raining.”   “What woman?” I said. I had seen no one. I thought Elva must have dozed off and dreamed it.   “She was sitting on the ground beside the road, her feet out in front of her, looking [More]

We were sitting at the table in our Florida home and talking to our next-door neighbors. This young couple had helped us a lot in the past year and a half, after my stroke and my husband’s leg injury.   Unexpectedly, the husband began telling us the story of his troubled past. At 16 he’d fallen in with the wrong crowd in his hometown of Greenwood, South Carolina, and had spent a year in a reformatory. When he was released he’d had good intentions but, because of his record, he couldn’t find a job.   He became desperate and decided [More]

It was the night before Christmas Eve, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even my golden retriever mix, Lucky. She was sleeping peacefully, curled up on the floor. My small artificial Christmas tree was set up on a table in the corner of the room. Its lights twinkled merrily.   The rain was coming down hard outside, creating a soothing melody. I decided to take a cue from Lucky and turn in early. As I drifted off to sleep, visions of sugar plums should’ve been dancing through my head. Instead, I woke to a strange hissing sound.   [More]

“3 mysterious ways stories.” Admin   I was at my mother’s house, sorting I through her things. It was my birthday, but I was too sad to celebrate. Plus, there was so much to do. Mom had passed just two days earlier.   I felt the loss deeply, even though Mom and I had had a complicated relationship. I was the youngest of nine. She’d told me she thought she was done having children when she got pregnant with me, and she’d hoped for a boy. Sometimes I wondered if I’d been a disappointment.   Read More: 3 Miraculous Birthday Gifts from [More]

“Goodnight, baby girl,” I whispered, tucking my two-month-old daughter, Alex, into her crib. I was careful not to shake her noisy new “busy box” hanging at the far end. The busy box, a brightly colored cube, was covered with bells, buttons and knobs that made every ring, squeak, rattle and ding you could think of. Alex was still too young to play with all the gadgets but sometimes her three-year-old sister, Kelly, happily reached up and gave it a whirl for her.   I wasn’t tired yet and my husband, Mike, was reading in bed so I grabbed a home-decorating magazine [More]

On my way out the door the other morning I reached into my purse and came up empty-handed. “I just had it,” I said, digging around in my bag for my iPod. If there’s one piece of modern technology I can’t live without, it’s my iPod. Every day I found new songs to load on it. They made my long train commute enjoyable.   “Oh brother,” my daughter said. “It’s a level ten meltdown alert. Mom can’t find her iPod.”   I nudged her with my elbow. “Very funny.” Everyone in my family knew how much I loved that gadget. [More]

“I Saw the Swift Swallow Flying” has always been a favorite soprano solo of mine, so I was excited when my daughter, Jan, said she wanted to learn it herself. “I have so many memories of hearing you sing it while I was growing up,” she said one day on the phone. “It always lifts my spirits.”   Jan had been having trouble with her confidence lately. The song lyrics described taking flight, like a bird. That’s just what I wanted for my daughter: to soar through this life feeling strong and free. Jan planned to drive over in a [More]

Niki was the apple of her great-grandpa’s eye. He loved to spoil her even more than I did, and I was her grandmother! If Niki’s mother said no candy, her great-grandpa slipped her a piece. When Niki wanted a toy, her great-grandpa bought it. Niki was one lucky girl!   While I was visiting one day, Niki said that she wanted a turtle.   “Those things carry disease,” her mother said, wrinkling her nose.   “How about a fish instead,” I suggested. But Niki was adamant. She wanted a turtle. I was glad Great-grandpa wasn’t there.   Read More: Great [More]

When we were kids, my sister, Jane, and I often went to visit our grandparents Tom and Nellie Newsome in Talladega, Alabama, a four-hour drive from our home in Columbus, Mississippi. We’d hang out in Grandpa Tom’s country store, playing I Spy; my sister would spot something in the store and I’d have to guess what it was. There was a lot to choose from—baskets of apples, jars of pickles, or the cute little boy in a cowboy hat pictured in the huge advertisement hanging in the corner.   Then Mama New (she said the word grandmother sounded older than [More]

Dad was every inch the soldier and proud of it. “He was a big, clumsy boy when he went into the Army,” my mother once told me. “When he came out he was a confident, good-looking man.” Even after he left the service Dad still talked about how he liked marching in military parades.   “There’s just something about the strong and steady rhythm that makes me feel good,” he always said.   When Dad got cancer, the memory of his military marches lifted his spirits. But in the end stage of Dad’s disease, I wished some miracle could make [More]

Come on, Arlan. Get up. Get dressed. Go through the everyday routine, I told myself when I woke a few days after my wife’s funeral.   Dolly and I had been a devoted couple for 43 years. I’d always had her right by my side, or to come home to at the end of a long day. Who was by my side now?   I got dressed, had some breakfast and headed to the cemetery in my truck. My hobby was restoring and caring for abandoned pioneer grave sites, many of them made of sandstone.   They’re very fragile. The [More]

Bapa wouldn’t want us to be sad on Christmas. That’s what I kept telling my children after my father, their “Bapa,” died.   But this was our first Christmas without our Irish “da,” who loved any reason to celebrate—especially the holidays.   “Maybe we should do something to honor his memory,” I suggested to my daughter Catie. But what?   “Bapa was so proud of being Irish,” Catie said. “We could wrap a green ribbon around every present this year! He’d love making Christmas more Irish.”   Read More: Dreaming of a Green Christmas – Guideposts

I browsed the garage sale, hunting for my usual treasures—postcards, rocks and travel books. But what caught my eye wasn’t something I’d ever collected: two pulpit-sized Bibles.   They were remarkable: 130 years old, in mint condition with opulent, bronze-embellished covers. One was written in English, the other in German.   I flipped through their large full-color pages. In the German Bible there was a family history. It seemed sad that cherished information had been left behind. I bought both Bibles, even though I didn’t speak a word of German.   Years later, my wife, Mary, and I downsized. I [More]

Peach-picking was a tradition for my dad and me. We drove to the orchard all the time, especially during the summer months. We never tired of walking the rows of lush trees and filling our woven baskets with the juiciest peaches we could get our hands on.   One day it was very hot and the air was very still. My basket was almost full. As I reached for a peach a wave of dizziness washed over me. I felt flushed. “I’m going to get the jug from the car,” I told my dad. “I need a sip of water.” [More]

Mother wasn’t well enough to handle a trip to California from her home in Austria. So my husband and I brought her new granddaughter to see her. “We’re hoping to give her a brother some day,” I told Mother as she rocked our daughter in her arms.   “I’ll start praying for a boy at once!” Mother said. “After I pass, I’ll ask the Lord to let me fly over your house and take a look at him.”   Read More: A Grandma’s Loving Light – Guideposts

As a child in the 1950s, my mom was fascinated with the Sisters of the Poor Clares who lived in the area. At Christmastime my Grandma Mimi gave her two crisp dollar bills to buy presents for them. The tradition continued after Mom grew up. In fact, after I was grown, Grandma Mimi still gave Mom two dollars for the sisters.   While I was visiting one fall, my grandmother grabbed my hand. “Don’t let me forget to give your mother two dollars for the nuns.” Just days later Grandma Mimi passed away.   Read More: Grandma’s Parting Gift – [More]

The lawn was long overdue for a trim. Better get it done before it rains again, I told myself. I plugged my earbuds into my mp3 player. The tractor mower engine could get pretty loud. Those earbuds really helped me to block out the noise.   I got in one ride up and down the lawn when a huge gust of wind kicked up. I watched as it sent a curtain of maple tree seedling pods twirling down around me like an army of tiny angels. When the last one hit the ground I turned back to the grass.   Read More: [More]

Spring was never going to come. That’s what it felt like when I looked out the window of my new house at another gray and gloomy morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the sun.   Rain pattered the windows as I made breakfast. My children finished eating and went back upstairs. I grabbed an umbrella and stepped out to look for signs of life in the garden. But the ground was soggy and cold. Not a bud anywhere, and they were way past due. It’s not a garden with no flowers, I thought. That about summed up my life [More]