Proof The Bible Is True

Heaven-Scent Diane Stark from Brazil, Indiana   The stink hit me as soon as I opened my parents’ front door. I stopped in my tracks and struggled not to cry. Obviously, I needed to investigate and then clean up whatever was causing the odor, but just the thought was overwhelming.   I’d been struggling with depression for months, ever since my husband had left and I’d had to take my kids and move back home. Even with Mom and Dad’s support, the adjustment to being a single mother wasn’t an easy one. A bad smell felt like more than I [More]

“Marion, why don’t you get another cat?” a friend suggested one day last spring. “You loved Minnie.”   “That’s exactly why I don’t want another one now,” I said. “That cat broke my heart. I’m not ready to go through something like that again.”   Two years had passed since we put down Minnie at age seventeen. I still missed her every day. I missed her spying out our living room curtains at the bird feeder, running to rub against my legs every time she heard the false promise of the electric can opener.   There were those luminous yellow [More]

“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]

Visits from a Hummingbird from Jackie Waters in Williamsburg, Ohio   I woke up early and headed to the front porch. My family was still asleep, and I needed a moment to myself. My sister, Tracy, had been battling brain cancer for years, and now there was nothing more the doctors could do. I hope Tracy will be at peace soon, I thought.   Just then, a hummingbird flew up to the porch. It hovered in front of me, looking directly at me before flying away. Short as it was, the visit felt important. This property has been in my [More]

Delivering boats is a regular job of mine as a professional yacht captain. I bring them from Florida and the Caribbean, up the Eastern Seaboard to New England in the spring. Come fall, the process is reversed.   The boat I was taking to St. Thomas that day was an old wooden sailing yacht. It was supposed to be a straightforward job: Sail the boat from Newport, Rhode Island, to the U.S. Virgin Islands. I would follow the coast, then jump off from Ft. Lauderdale or Miami for the offshore run to St. Thomas.   That was the plan, but [More]

It was Mother’s Day, and I was especially worried about Mom. This year, for the first time, she would be all alone on the holiday. I kept thinking, If only Gary were with her.   My big brother Gary had been a quiet, caring man who loved helping others. Seven years earlier when my father died, Gary moved in with Mom and was a great comfort to her. They loved to play games together, watch TV and read books. Gary took a job at a convenience store close by.   Then one November evening the store was robbed; Gary was [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

This wasn’t the first surgery I’d undergone since my cancer diagnosis, but I worried it wouldn’t be my last.   Back in July, I had gone to the doctor to ask about a strange, painful rash on my chest. Like a sunburn that wouldn’t heal. It turned out to be breast cancer. I was shocked.   I had a lumpectomy at the end of August. I woke up post-op, my chest tightly bandaged. I thought the operation would be the end of it. But cancer cells had been discovered in the margins. That meant I needed an additional surgery, called [More]

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]

“I hope your dad’s going to be happy here,” Mom said. We were settling my father into his room at a new nursing home. If only we knew what he was feeling. But Dad couldn’t tell us. Parkinson’s disease had robbed him of the ability to speak.   It hadn’t been easy finding the right place for him. At first, we’d cared for Dad at home. When that became too much for my sisters, mother and me on our own, we moved him into a care facility, but it wasn’t a good fit. There was only one really positive thing [More]

When my son James died of a drug overdose at 43 years old, my world collapsed. He was my firstborn of six children, a gentle and sensitive soul who saw the good in everyone. At 19, he’d enlisted in the U.S. Army and quickly climbed the ranks to become a sergeant and medical specialist. While he was stationed in Alabama, a fellow soldier was fatally injured in a parachuting accident, and James—the responding medic—blamed himself for not being able to save him. After James was discharged, he struggled with PTSD and turned to drugs to block out the scenes that [More]

I couldn’t focus. I was packing for a camping trip later that day with my friend Ceil. But my mind was elsewhere. I’d had a bizarre dream the night before that felt so urgent, so powerful, that I just couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t make sense of it either. I went over it again and again in my mind…   In the dream, I’d been fast asleep when I felt a presence.   I opened my eyes. Shimmering lines undulated above me until they materialized into a woman. She was about 70 years old, with white hair, smile lines and [More]

I stared at the unpacked suitcase. I’d gone to the same summer camp in Wisconsin since I was little, and I was set to return for my first year as an actual counselor. Counting down the last days of school before summer break, I was bursting with excitement. Now we were officially free from our studies, but after what had just happened I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to leave the safety of my house and my family in Indiana.   I went downstairs to the kitchen, where my mom was making dinner. “Mom, something happened today. Something really bad.” [More]

“Your mother’s breast cancer has returned, and it’s metastasized to her bones,” said my mother’s doctor. “It’s…everywhere. I’m so sorry, Roberta.”   I clutched the phone, tears in my eyes. Mother’s diagnosis had no cure. Worse, as a nurse of more than 20 years who’d cared for many end-of-life patients, I knew what her future held.   Even as a health-care professional, I had never really been able to do anything for my mother. Fiercely independent, she’d always been the caretaker, one with a hugely charitable spirit. Especially when I was a teen, battling my own incurable illness. She’d arranged [More]

“Can you perform a hymn for us next week?” my pastor asked me after Sunday service.   “Of course!” I said. The idea, though, made me anxious. I hadn’t performed at church in a long while.   Music had always brought me peace and made me feel closer to God. Until six months ago. After a switch in thyroid medications, I could no longer find joy in anything. The shift in my meds sent me spiraling into a deep depression. I lost my energy and appetite. Cried often. My piano sat untouched. I tried to go through the motions for [More]

I was ready for bed. As I reached to turn off the lamp on my bedside table, my eyes fell on the card my brother Isaac had given each of us siblings on what would have been Dad’s sixty-eighth birthday. It was a musical card with a photo of Dad smiling inside. When you opened it, a recording of Dad’s baritone singing one of his silly, signature songs would play. The card stood beside my bed, propped open just enough so the recording wouldn’t go off.   It had been a year and a half since Dad had died of [More]

I stepped on the gas and shifted into drive, then reverse, then back into drive again. Gunned the engine. It was no use. My truck was hopelessly stuck.   It had been snowing when I left for work but nothing like this. I’d never seen snow accumulate so fast, and we get some pretty serious snowstorms in Oklahoma. Visibility had dropped to nearly zero. That’s when the truck had fishtailed off the road.   I need to get home to call Stephanie, I suddenly thought. My 11-year old had spent the night at a friend’s house. She was supposed to [More]

I closed my eyes, as I always did, so I could concentrate on my morning devotions before I got ready for work. Concentrating on anything could be extra hard during the busy holiday season, but it always calmed me to start my day by praying for others or simply giving thanks for my blessings. Today was unusual in that I had a specific request: God, is Mom looking down on me from heaven this Christmas?   It had been more than 20 years since my mother had passed, but the question suddenly seemed important to me. The day before, a [More]

Mom and I pulled our artificial Christmas tree out of the box together, the silver pine branches bending into shape—a popular look back in 1970. “I hope the lights all work,” Mom said. As if the tree itself wasn’t shiny enough.   I shrugged. The truth was I didn’t care if we even had a tree when I woke up tomorrow. It was our first Christmas without my father. My heart was too heavy to enjoy anything.   “Hang some of those icicles,” Mom said, pointing to the open box.   I hooked a glittering ornament and reached for a [More]

I pressed down on the gas pedal, accelerating as I merged onto Highway 395. The drive to the crafts store in Norwich was a familiar one, because I was often in need of more fabric or yarn for my knitting. The midday traffic was light for my run to replenish supplies for the hats I planned to make as gifts.   As I settled into a comfortable cruising speed, my thoughts drifted to my brothers, Vic and Joseph, both of them never far from my mind. It had only been seven months since Joseph had passed away—from a genetic heart [More]

Three-year-old Jonah was all tucked in, ready for a bedtime story. Tonight’s, I decided, would come from the Bible. I told Jonah about Samuel, a little boy like himself, who lived in the temple with the priest Eli. One night after Eli lay down to sleep, Samuel heard someone call his name. He ran over to Eli and said, “Here I am!”   “But it wasn’t Eli who had called Samuel’s name,” I explained to Jonah. “It was the Lord.”   When the story was over, we spoke about Samuel, and how God speaks even to little boys. I thought [More]

Our big, scraggly mutt, Ralph, had joined the family when his original owner couldn’t keep him. In the few months he’d been with us, we had come to love him, and all signs were he loved us too. But he’d developed one habit in his former life that no amount of coaxing could break. We couldn’t get him to come into the house.   “Some dogs prefer to stay outside,” I explained to the kids when Ralph settled to sleep in our yard on summer nights. Now, looking at him out there this fall day, I worried what would happen [More]

Hours before dawn, I awoke to a magical sound: the crunching metallic clatter of rolling tires outfitted with snow chains. It’s snowing! I thought. I leaped out of bed and ran to the window. Beneath the glow of the streetlamp, our road and yard in Raleigh, North Carolina, were blanketed with pristine white snow. School would be closed today—no question—and I was going to make it the best day ever.   My friend Peggy called when it was daylight. “Bring your sled,” she ordered. “A bunch of us are meeting in the woods above Cedar Creek.”   The woods were [More]

Our temporary chapel was nothing fancy, just a plain room with a makeshift altar and candles, but kneeling in it late that Friday night, I felt myself in a very holy place.   I was at my church’s annual women’s retreat. This year, for the first time, I’d been assigned to the prayer team. In some ways the job was perfect for me. I’d been praying my whole life. When I was a little girl getting ready for bed, my mother and I always said the same prayer together:   Angel of God, my guardian dear,   to whom God’s [More]