Proof The Bible Is True

The Boston Red Sox and our grandson, Justin. Two of my husband’s greatest pleasures. Justin spent countless hours with Grandpa Gabe, laughing and talking while they worked in the yard and around the house. Gabe taught him how to use tools and even to repair our riding lawn mower.   Their happiest times together were in baseball season, cheering for the Red Sox on television, munching handfuls of peanuts, Gabe’s favorite snack. “He’s my best friend,” Justin always said.   My husband battled gastrointestinal cancer for most of Justin’s young life. He never gave in to the disease, and our [More]

We were still living in the city when our family became the proud owners of a 6-week-old puppy. She was blonde, with the nose and tail of a chow, and the eyes, fur and build of a cocker spaniel. Our teenaged sons named her Pilgrim after John Wayne’s sidekick. But it was our 10-year-old daughter, Juli, whom Pilgrim followed everywhere and slept beside every night.   After our move to the country Pilgrim thought it was her responsibility to patrol the fence around our 160 acres. We put up a No Trespassing sign, but sometimes hunters came onto our property [More]

Early one July morning I arrived by train in Salt Lake City eagerly anticipating a week’s camping trip with my son, Dan. We planned to explore the Oregon Trail. My great-great-grandfather had trudged West along that trail beside a covered wagon. Dan wouldn’t arrive for a while, so I stowed my gear in a station locker and walked into town. When I returned, the station doors were locked. A sign announced it wouldn’t reopen until ten o’clock that night. I peered in the window, but no one was inside.   Read More: The Key to Praying – Guideposts

Before my husband, Omar, and I got married, we had the “kid” conversation. This wasn’t our first marriage, and we each had children from previous relationships. Our blended family got along wonderfully. Why add a new baby to the mix?   Besides, I was 39 and Omar was 42. In a few years, our kids would be out of the house. Neither one of us wanted to start over, to go back to sleepless nights and changing diapers, right?   Then my period was late. I’d left Omar and the kids back in Texas to spend a week with family in Massachusetts. [More]

05/03/24 Guide posts has removed some of the stories linked to in the Angels On Earth category. Why this was done I don’t know. I noticed that this occurs with the older stories starting at page 35, not all the stories but quite a few. When you click on the link in a post to read the rest of the story you are taken to a “We Are Sorry this page is no longer available” page. I can’t tell you all the posts that are this way. Just something to be aware of.

I sighed and leaned back in my glider, content to sit by the Ohio River with my husband beside me. Music buzzed lazily from the radio in our camper. Brian had driven us to our favorite getaway spot for some rest and relaxation. He knew I needed it.   My little sister, Tracy, had died of brain cancer a few months earlier. Throughout her battle she had maintained what we called a “Don’t Stop Believin’” attitude because that song kept her going. I wanted to keep alive my happy memories of her.   “I heard that Journey is touring,” I [More]

When we Americans were first taken hostage in Iran, we were terrified. We didn’t know who our captors were, or what their demands would be. What were they going to do with us? Outside the embassy compound, the rage of the crowd added to the ugly atmosphere. Their screaming would go on until two in the morning, then start up again at six a.m.—mobs of people yelling their hatred, their triumph, their anger.   One time after I’d fallen asleep, I was awakened by the distinct impression that someone had sat down on my bed. I turned over quickly, expecting [More]

This dog! She insisted on following me every time I hiked this trail. Why couldn’t she see that I wanted to be alone?   It was a crisp November day. I was halfway up to Rocca Angitola, a breathtaking hilltop in the Calabria region of southern Italy. I’d lived in Calabria part-time for years, and this was the place I’d always come to find peace and renewal, the place I felt closest to God. But now I could barely take a step without this darn dog getting underfoot.   I whirled around, then picked up a clod of dirt and tossed [More]

“The miracle we need can at times come in a “non-miraculous” way.” Admin When God gives you a miracle, why would it be taken away?   I had really felt like that: God’s walking miracle. I traveled all over the United States, talking to different groups, telling my story and giving witness to my dramatic turnaround. I wrote a novel, got it published, did book signings. Everywhere I went, people were fascinated by how God had healed me of a mysterious illness. What an amazing thing! A miracle.   Why would that all suddenly come to an end?   Read More: How [More]

It was one of the first stories I ever worked on as an editor at Guideposts. A waitress walking home late at night hears someone following her. Thieves? Troublemakers? No matter how fast she went, she couldn’t outrun them. It was then she heard a voice: “Eat the chicken!”   What? Why? She had a bag of leftover chicken from that night’s serving. But why eat it now? She was running for her life. Still, she opened the sack and the smell of the meat attracted a pair of dogs who safely accompanied her home. Eat the chicken? It was just [More]

If someone told you they sometimes hear voices, you might think he or she was nuts. And yet, how many of us have heard a voice that came out of the blue, seemingly outside ourselves, that we chose to either listen to or ignore?   It’s a phenomenon we’ve observed in the stories told to us by the readers and contributors of Mysterious Ways, and we were curious to find out just how common it is.   To do so, we commissioned the first survey of its kind to determine how many believe that these mysterious thoughts, urges, and sounds represent [More]

My daughter, Bekah, called me from soccer practice. “Mom, I think I did it again!” she said, sobbing. “My knee snapped just like last time, and I collapsed on the field. This can’t be happening!”   Bekah was a senior in high school. Her dream was to play in college. She had suffered a severe knee injury—a complete tear of her right anterior cruciate ligament—one year earlier and battled back from surgery.   Her doctors had called her a model patient and declared her ready to play. Getting back on the field had been a gift from God in the midst of the [More]

My husband, Russ, and I drove through our neighborhood, the place we’d called home for 28 years. The Sierra Nevada foothills, once thick with towering pines, were unrecognizable. The ground was covered with a heavy layer of ash. The trees that remained were charred stumps.   Two weeks earlier, we’d gotten an early-morning call telling us to evacuate immediately. The wildfire tearing through Northern California had spread and was headed our way.   Read More: Mysterious Ways: Rising from the Ashes – Guideposts

On Easter morning, I will celebrate the glory of the Resurrection—but not in­side a church.   I’ll be standing by a cross on a hill­side, surrounded by sagebrush and ce­dar trees, miles from civilization in the foothills of northwest Colorado. With a handful of other early risers, I will brave the cold as the sun ascends over the distant snow-capped mountains.   After a Scripture is read, I will join in the singing of a hymn and feel a spe­cial closeness to the Creator as I em­brace the familiar comfort of this Eas­ter sunrise service. This is the church I have [More]

It was a sunny October day. My husband, Anthony, and I sat with our three kids—Ella, seven; Luca, five; and Zoe, two—as they drew with sidewalk chalk in the driveway. The whole family was enjoying the last bit of nice weather before the winter. Everything felt warm and peaceful.   “Look, Mama! I’m drawing Mario!” said Luca, scribbling with red chalk.   Of course. Luca was obsessed with the Nintendo video game character. “Very cool,” I said.   Luca clutched the red chalk in his little hand. “Red is a nice, hot color,” he went on. “Fire is red. Mama, do you [More]

I pulled a piece of curly maple from a stack at the specialty wood shop. I checked its color, its grain, its sturdiness. This would be the neck of the banjo I was building. It needed to be exactly right. To feel right in my hands, right from the start.   I’d built dozens of banjos over the years, but this one was different. You could say my life’s story would be in this banjo. A lifetime of mistakes, self-destruction and redemption. I wanted this banjo to tell that story, to share my truth, every time it was played.   At [More]

The first thing I did when I woke up in our hotel room in Albuquerque was check the weather in Austin. My daughter, Ellen, lived there. I’d dreamed about her the night before—two dreams, one of her as a little girl and another of her today, a grown young lady. Austin was suffering torrential downpours. Major flooding. “I hope Ellen’s okay,” I told my husband.   It had been so long since I’d seen her. Except in my dream. Ellen was a blessing in my life—the only other girl in my house full of boys. She was always so creative [More]

 The C-141 Starlifter had just returned from a cargo run. My husband, Jeff, an airman 1st class, checked the life support equipment—the oxygen masks, the parachutes. All in working order, nothing out of place. Except for something odd left behind on one of the seats. A crocheted white cross, three inches long. It didn’t belong to any of the crew. No one knew how it got there.   Jeff brought it home for me. He thought it would provide some comfort. I’d been five months pregnant with our first child, Aurora, when we left our home in West Virginia and moved [More]

Thwack! The 5 x 7 wooden picture frame fell from my desk onto the growing pile of garbage on the floor of my home office. One of the slats popped off. Just as well. There was no photo inside—the old box frame had belonged to my grandmother, Bom Bom, and it had started falling apart years ago. I should have tossed it earlier, but I couldn’t. It reminded me of her.   It was May 10th, Bom Bom’s birthday, the first since she’d passed away the previous summer. I wanted nothing more than to call her and tell her how much [More]

I heard cheers from the not-so-distant finish line. Brushed elbows with the runners clustered around me. But I couldn’t see a thing. Not really. All I saw were multicolored, human-sized blurs bobbing up and down on the gray streak of road, funneling into a pitch-black void ahead—the long tunnel into Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and, for me, the final lap of the 13-mile Tom King Classic Half Marathon in Nashville. I’d made it this far, no easy task when you’re legally blind. I squinted for any sign of my running partner, my guide up until now. [More]

I’m sure we’ve all found random numbers and letters scribbled on the money in our wallets. The kind of thing you ignore when dishing out a few bucks for coffee. Maybe, though, we should be paying closer attention.   This week I came across an ABC News story about 86-year-old Peter Bilello and his wife, Grace. The Connecticut couple was married for 50 years and had two children and four grandkids. When Grace was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, Peter never left her side.   One day, in 2009, an idea popped into Peter’s head. He pulled out two dollar bills.   [More]

I gripped the ship’s wooden railing and breathed in the salty ocean air. My husband Jeremy and I were on a week-long cruise of the St. Lawrence Seaway with several stops in Nova Scotia. Next up: Sydney, a bustling port city. Maybe Ian still lives in the area, I thought. Maybe I’ll finally see him again.   Wishful thinking. I pulled out a folded paper printout from my pocket. There was only one “Ian Vance” in Nova Scotia, according to Canada’s national directory. But was it my cousin? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t seen him in more than 45 years.   Read More: [More]

I listened to the ocean breeze rattling the windows of our duplex while I sorted files in our home office. I was on task number seven of the day’s to-do list.   Late spring was a busy time for the employment recruiting business my husband, Richard, and I ran, and I needed to keep up with the work. I still had to schedule interviews, respond to a few e-mails and cook dinner by the time Richard got back from doing his work. It was already 7:00 p.m.   I liked this time of year on the Outer Banks. There were [More]

The Pride of Galveston was docked in the Gulfport, Mississippi, harbor, the cruise ship’s blue smokestack rising like a dolphin’s fin from its gleaming white decks. My husband, Willem, helped me up the gangway, a porter behind us carrying our bags.   Read More: A Miraculous Bit of Déjà Vu – Guideposts

I’m not an impulsive person. But three months after my husband, Lew, and I got married, I was struck by the strangest urge: to learn sign language. I couldn’t understand it.   I kept the urge to myself. It seemed so off the wall. Yet the harder I tried to push the idea out of my mind, the harder it pushed back. Finally I went to a bookstore.   I kept the urge to myself. It seemed so off the wall. Yet the harder I tried to push the idea out of my mind, the harder it pushed back. Finally [More]

Sunday evening, 7:30 p.m. That’s when I would do it.   I sat on the edge of my bed and twisted the cap off my prescription pain medication. Normally one tiny white pill would help ease the pain. Not this time. I emptied the entire bottle into my palm and counted. Thirty-two pills. If I took them all at once, I’d stop breathing, go into cardiac arrest.   I wouldn’t need to write a note for those I left behind. Everyone would know why.   It was a cruel irony, being a registered nurse with an incurable disease. Tonight I [More]

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and lathered up my full head of hair with shaving cream. With intense concentration and a few bold strokes, I shaved my scalp clean. Just like the man in the photograph I’d taped to the mirror—slick-passing (and slick-headed) NBA point guard Mike Bibby of the Sacramento Kings. That was the part where the editors inserted the voiceover: “Serious sports fans need serious sports coverage…”   The things I did for my acting career! I’d had second thoughts about sacrificing my vanity to film a commercial for the Sacramento Bee sports section. My friends [More]