Proof The Bible Is True

”You’re not getting any younger, you know,” Grammy said. “You’re 30 years old! For goodness’ sake, why aren’t you married yet?”   I winced. I’d come to this restaurant to have lunch with my grandmother, not to be interrogated about my love life—or lack thereof. I was painfully aware of my age. And my relationship status. Most of my friends were already married, some with children. I could feel my own biological clock ticking.   But the typical dating scene wasn’t me. I hated going to bars and trying to meet people. Really, I hated dating. The way things were going, I [More]

I hugged my husband’s picture to my chest one day while I wandered from room to room, alone in our big house. “Bruce, I miss you so much.”   Missing him was nearly unbearable, but it only accounted for one layer of my grief. Bruce and I had rarely been apart during his long and valiant battle with cancer. We’d fought the disease side by side for years. But when my husband passed from this world, I had been sound asleep. Less than two feet away from him, I was oblivious in his last moments on earth. That wasn’t the way [More]

My family moves a lot. We’ve lived in 10 different houses in the last 19 years. My husband Mike’s career had taken us from Puerto Rico to Pennsylvania, and to our newest home near San Antonio, Texas, to name only a few of our stops. I have relocating down to a science, with garage sales before and after each move, letting go of anything that isn’t practical. Even so, with each house, there’s an adjustment period, a time for settling in and hoping the place will feel like home. Reality can be cause for second-guessing.   That was the case two moves ago, [More]

I sat in the car, tapping the steering wheel as I waited for my wife and our daughter, Raegan. We had a lot of miles to cover, and we needed to get going.   It was the summer before Raegan’s senior year of high school. Time for her to pick a college. She knew she wanted to study social work and stay in the state—much to my wife’s and my relief—but that was about it. So we’d planned a three-day road trip to visit Raegan’s top choices: the University of Illinois Chicago, Northern Illinois University and Illinois State University.   College [More]

I’m the kind of person who likes to be prepared for anything that might go wrong. Even on vacation, it can be hard for me to relax. One weekend, we rented a condo in the mountains, a getaway for my husband, our two daughters and me. As soon as we arrived, I made sure to walk through the place and pray for protection over every room.   That still didn’t stop me from waking with a jolt during our first night there. I opened my eyes.   Where am I?   I looked around the dark room, trying to get my bearings. Oh, [More]

One summer evening when I was a little girl, I sat with my grandmother on her big front porch, listening to her stories about long-ago cotillions and balls. I could hear lively music coming from the apple orchard nearby. “Is someone having that kind of party now?” I asked.   “Not exactly,” Grandmother said. She explained that the man who owned the orchard employed migrant workers to gather the apples and care for the trees. “The days are long and hard,” she said, “but the workers are enjoying some free time before they get their rest.” She believed the workers deserved more [More]

Getting home from Eastern Europe was an arduous journey, but my traveling companions and I would make the most of our two-hour layover in Paris. We didn’t have time to venture out into the city to sightsee, so Mark, John and I found a charming airport restaurant that might as well have been a bistro on the Champs Élysées. I decided to take a picture of the menu as a memento.   I reached into my backpack for my camera. I rummaged around for it, expecting my fingers to brush against the familiar shape of my passport. I’d kept it close [More]

Everything was quiet when I blinked awake in the darkness. My husband, Bob, was fast asleep beside me. But I’d heard someone call, “Mom!” I was sure of it. One of the kids, I thought, dragging myself out of bed. Probably just a nightmare.   I checked the rooms where my two younger daughters slept. Eight-year-old Elizabeth was fast asleep in her bed. So was 10-year-old Sarah. Cosmo, our Jack Russell, lifted his head from the living room sofa as I went up the stairs. “Shh, it’s okay,” I whispered. And it was. Fourteen-year-old Amy was in her upstairs bedroom, sleeping as peacefully as [More]

Rattlesnakes were common in the Smoky Mountains, where I grew up, and I knew to avoid them at all cost. But the timber rattler I came up against one sorry day when I was nine had been hiding under the roots of an old tree stump. I didn’t notice until it was coiled like a tight spring, its forked tongue flicking, tasting the air—searching for me. I tried not to move a muscle. If I was standing up, my boots might help protect my legs from a strike, I thought. But I wasn’t standing. I was crouched down on my haunches, eye [More]

“When I die, I want to come back as a cat,” my wife, Sue, always joked. “And if I could choose, I’d come here!” True, there was no better place to be a cat than our house. We had spoiled all of ours rotten.   Boomie, our old Maine Coon, was the current king of the castle. Sue doted on him. It was a love he returned, especially on the days Sue wasn’t feeling her best.   For the past decade, Sue had been battling cancer. Through chemo, radiation and surgeries, Boomie was there. He joined Sue on the sofa while she [More]

“We’re starting a fundraising campaign to help with the cost of the new Family Life Center. And to make some renovations to the church,” my pastor announced after his Sunday sermon. “Please consider donating—no amount is too small. Anything would be a help.”   I didn’t have a lot of extra cash to burn, but I was dropping more than $30 a week on cigarettes. If I quit smoking, I could donate that money. After church ended, I left with that thought still on my mind.   At that point, I’d been a smoker for most of my life. I had picked up the habit when I [More]

Every family has a favorite story. The one they tell over and over. In my family the story begins in Springfield, Ohio, where Paw-Paw lived in the 1940s. Growing up, spending summers with my grandparents, I never tired of hearing it. I can still see myself sitting out on the porch, listening to Paw-Paw intently, though I already knew every word by heart. Paw-Paw was a tough man. Men of color weren’t given a lot of opportunities back then, but he started several successful businesses, including a company that provided windows for commercial buildings, and a popular neighborhood grocery. He [More]

The sun was just beginning to set as I drove along the highway. I had only about 50 miles left to go before I arrived at my friend Eleanor’s beach house in Panama City, Florida.   This was my first vacation since my divorce. It was exactly what I needed. The problem was that I lived over 800 miles away in Texas. Money was tight, and driving was cheaper than a plane ticket, so I chose to drive myself there. I’d never taken that long of a road trip alone before, and I’d been somewhat anxious about the 12-hour drive. But things [More]

I drove north on California’s Pacific Coast Highway after attending a work conference in Santa Cruz. It was roughly three hours away from where I lived in Pismo Beach, and I’d decided to make the most of the trip by hitting a new beach to surf. I was an avid surfer, and I was excited to try out a different spot.   It was a miserably gray day with intermittent rain showers, but the waves looked fun. I pulled into the parking lot to search the stretch of cliff-lined coast. My truck was the only vehicle. The beach was empty.   Surfboard [More]

I’ve seen a lot of miracles in my life. After all, I’ve been talking to God since I was a little girl! But there is one event in my life that I keep going back to. Many times. An occurrence that even now still leaves me amazed. A moment back in the summer of 1964…   At the time, I was a young wife and mother. I’d met my husband, Perry, a few years prior. Those twinkling eyes and Marine physique were hard to resist. After he proposed several times, I accepted, and we were married. We spent a year on the Marine [More]

I was sitting by my mother’s hospital bed, comforting her in her last moments. It was bittersweet. I was glad to be by her side—a chance I hadn’t had when my father died three years earlier—but I was heartbroken at the same time. I looked in my purse for my cell phone to find some soothing music to play—a request she’d made while she was still lucid. It took me a minute to find the device. I dug it out of my bag and opened the music app.   When I had the music playing softly, I took Mom’s hand. “I’ll always [More]

Our dream vacation in Maui almost turned into a nightmare. One brochure was all it took for my wife, Judy, and me to fall in love with Hawaii. Maui at Christmastime! We were there with our two kids on our dream vacation. Waves crashed right outside our hotel room. The ocean called to me on the balcony. The sky was cloudless, a brilliant blue. This really was paradise. “Don’t even unpack,” I said to the family. “Let’s hit the beach before the sun goes down.” Judy grabbed some towels, and we were off. I led the way to an ancient [More]

The turbulent tide was pulling her farther and farther from shore. Would she survive?   Uncle Peter and I headed down the wooden walkway toward the ocean with our beach towels in hand.   “Too bad no one else wanted to join us!” he said. We’d left the rest of the family back at the picnic tables, but there was no way I was going to miss the chance for a swim.   My feet sank into the warm sand. I wiggled my toes. I was feeling good. Energized. Healthy. Able to take care of myself. That was certainly a [More]

Richard Wayne “Dick” Van Dyke is best known for his groundbreaking 1960s TV sitcom, his roles in Mary Poppins, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and Bye Bye Birdie, and as star of Diagnosis Murder.   In January, he received the Screen Actors Guild’s highest honor, the Life Achievement Award. He couldn’t help but remember the day his life was almost cut short.   Dick was an avid surfer when he was young. The way he tells it, one summer day he paddled out into the Atlantic to catch some waves on his 10-foot longboard. But the ocean was too calm. Lying flat on his board, the [More]

At the end of my first semester of college, my dad and two of my high school friends drove from our hometown in Ashtabula, Ohio, to my school in Richmond, Indiana, to pick me up and drive me back home for winter break.   When I saw Dad’s car pull into the dorm’s parking lot, I felt a flicker of fear. Don’t worry about the dream, I told myself. Dad will be driving for sure. The car was Dad’s pride and joy. It was the first new car he’d ever bought and only three years old. I grabbed my bags and walked down to meet [More]

Just a little further. Just a little further…   I reached up to push the plastic box just one more centimeter to the left to reach something in my crafts closet. One centimeter too far, it turned out. Avalanche! Everything came crashing down—scrapbook paper, glue sticks, beads, unfinished projects, markers, yarn, all scattered across the hardwood floor.   My husband, Alan, came running in. “What happened?”   “I was getting something out of the crafts closet,” I said. “I thought I needed a project to give me a lift.”   Alan looked at the mess. “I guess you found one,” [More]

I relaxed in our backyard under the shade of a big tree, while my five-year-old daughter, Paula, splashed and laughed in the pool. After a while, she hoisted herself up onto the edge for a quiet break. The sun shone bright overhead, our dog asleep in the grass. It was a perfect moment, everything hushed. A peacefulness hung over the entire yard.   I soaked in the stillness until something caused me to look over at the garage.   Read More: 5 Comforting Stories of Angel Encounters with Children | Guideposts

Spanish moss whispered in the breeze as I sat cross-legged on our dock in Sarasota, Florida. I was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and had come outside to the bayou to find some peace of mind. I didn’t know what would come next for me. The ongoing uncertainty had sapped any hope that things would get better.   Above me, the sky turned from pale blue to gray. I tried to draw strength from the beauty around me: the rounded sea grape leaves, pointy cabbage palm fronds and Australian pines. I scanned the water for herons. The surface was still, [More]

I was already on my way to be with Dad when I realized I hadn’t even bothered to change out of my work clothes. It was a four-hour drive from my home outside of Atlanta to Asheville, North Carolina, where Dad was in the hospital having surgery to repair a patch for an aneurysm he’d suffered years earlier.   My brother, Joe, had called me at work to tell me the operation wasn’t going well. “They can’t stop the bleeding,” he said. “Dad’s arteries are too calcified. Can you come?” I finished my shift at the med-surg unit in the [More]

Retirement was a little quieter than I’d planned for, since Covid restrictions kept me at home. One afternoon, finishing up the breakfast dishes, I found myself thinking back on my busy working life as a professor. I’d had a long career and was amazed that my visual memory was so clear. Students I’d taught, colleagues I’d befriended at different schools, the administrators—dozens of faces came to mind. Swimming among them, one came to the forefront, a face I remembered way back from my childhood. I turned off the tap.   My family lived in a tenement apartment over a store in Holyoke, [More]

Hiking and camping weren’t new to me that summer of 2010. I’d been enjoying the great outdoors since my teen years. But now I was leading eight junior high kids through the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. That was a lot of responsibility.   When I was a teenager, time in the woods meant freedom from my difficult home life. The sights and sounds of nature quieted the condemning voices I’d grown up hearing at home. But I could never completely escape them, especially when others were counting on me.   So far, this camping trip was going great. I used [More]

Whether it’s a squirrel inspiring hope or an injured dove bringing heaven-sent comfort, these critter tales will encourage and entertain you.   Read More: 5 Heartwarming Stories of Animal Angels | Guideposts