Proof The Bible Is True

Pit bulls get a bad rap. They’re often viewed as violent, unpredicatble and poorly behaved, even though there is nothing to indicate they’re different from any other dog breed. Call it dog prejudice, if you will. One bad apple, and all the rest get called rotten.   But at least one pit bull can genuinely be called a hero this week.   On Monday night, Danna Smith of Huntington, West Virginia, was getting some much-needed sleep. The single mother had recently spent time in the hospital, and was responsible for raising her three children, who each have varying degrees of [More]

On a gorgeous summer day, Jeff and I were married on a pavilion overlooking a public beach. Cries of “Marco! Polo!” from families playing in the water punctuated our wedding vows. Afterwards, we posed for pictures with the ocean as our backdrop.   The perfect wedding for us beach lovers. Almost. Surrounded by our families and friends, there was one big presence missing. Jeff’s father, Gord. He should have been here, I thought. He would have loved this.   Read More: The Wedding Guest | Guideposts

According to The Enterprise Ledger, Vincenzo and his wife, Anna May, visit yard sales every Saturday morning, always leaving their home at 6:30 AM to get first pickings when the sales begin, usually at 7.   But the last week of June, Vincenzo spotted a flyer for a yard sale that began at 6:00 AM. The items listed for sale intrigued him. He told his wife that they’d have to get up even earlier than usual to go check it out.   At 5:30 AM, the Parisis stopped at a traffic light on their way to the sale. When the [More]

My pickup’s headlights pierced through the murky twilight as I sped up the country road through the woods. I needed to get home… if home was still there. Up ahead, fallen trees spilled out onto the asphalt like a pile of giant pick-up sticks. I slammed on the brakes. I would have to go on by foot, three quarters of a mile through the debris and the dark. I hadn’t been to church in 40 years, but now I prayed harder than ever. Please God, help me find my family.   Earlier that September evening, four funnel clouds had formed [More]

Talk to her, I thought. Talk to her. Normally, I don’t strike up conversations with perfect strangers but there was something about the woman waiting for the elevator with me at the medical complex. And after I pressed the buttons for our floors—six for her, seven for me—I couldn’t ignore the voice in my head any longer. “Nice day, isn’t it?” I said. “Sure is,” she replied. And that was that. A pleasant distraction from the backache that had brought me there, but not much more. At my appointment I received some injections to help ease the pain. An hour [More]

Lisa. Pray for Lisa. It was the strangest thing, this urge that suddenly came over me. It was as if an actual voice had spoken, firm and commanding.   Pray for Lisa? I prayed for my six-year-old daughter every night, just like I did for her brother and sister. But why now?   We were on the road, headed to my parents’ house for Christmas. Lisa was riding with my brother Bobby up ahead. I was following along in my car with my two other children.   Bobby was holding the speed limit, just like I had asked him to. [More]

My husband has a soft spot for strays. Driving down the highway one rainy day, we spotted a hulking mass of grayish-black fur, with paws the size of a bear’s, wandering along the roadside. “We already have two dogs and two cats,” I protested as he pulled over.   “We can’t just leave him there,” he said. “No telling what will happen to him.” He opened the door and the dog climbed in.   “Okay,” I agreed, “but we have to try hard to find his owner.” The dog seemed friendly enough, but there was a look about him that [More]

Never has a Bible passage spoken so strongly to me or to my husband, Jim, or so inexplicably. That’s the only word for it: inexplicable.   Something happened that Sunday when we heard our pastor speak on the passage, something extraordinary, and we both knew, separately, just sitting in the pew, that we needed to act on it. Now.   “‘Do we own our possessions or do they own us?’” Jim said, quoting the lesson as we were driving home. “When he said those words, it was like a light flashed on. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the stuff [More]

This is crazy, I thought. I trudged through the wet forest, ducking beneath dripping branches, trying not to slip, keeping my eyes peeled for movement among the trees. By my side, one of my two two-year-old Newfoundland dogs, Ruby, sniffed at muddy tree trunks.   “Nike!” I shouted into the wild, “Come here, girl! C’mon!” Only silence answered. No throaty bark, no snapping twigs or flurry of leaves that signaled Ruby’s best friend barreling through the underbrush. There’d been no sign of her for two days. Still, I hiked on. I was following a lead.   A crazy lead, an [More]

My home was a two-bedroom trailer, and the winter was just beginning in my area of rural western Oklahoma when I heard the weather report on television: An ice storm was coming. In preparation, I gathered blankets, and sure enough, the power went out. I said a prayer that God would get me through the night safely and made myself comfortable on the couch, huddling under the blankets. At midnight I awoke as the TV and lights came back on. Feeling all was well, I turned everything off and stumbled to bed.   Fifteen minutes later, I awakened from a [More]

Airports stress me out. So after a short flight from San Jose, California, to visit friends in Portland, Oregon, I was anxious to escape the terminal. I’d brought only a carry-on to avoid the chaos of the baggage claim.   A quick stop in the restroom and I’d head down to the lower level, where my friends were going to pick me up.   Then I saw it. A cute little stuffed dog, sitting all by itself on a bench in the main terminal area. Some poor kid was probably heartbroken at having lost it.   Okay, God, I thought, [More]

Ever since my husband, Ricardo, lost his job and we lost our home, I’d said the same prayer every day. Lord, help us find an apartment. Lots of light, warm and homey, a new kitchen, a clean, fully tiled bathroom. Outdoor space, like a balcony, would be nice, but asking way too much. A decent place would do.   Ricardo didn’t believe in prayer. But he didn’t have any other answers. We were renting part of a rundown house in Rockford, Illinois, not ideal conditions to raise our eight-year-old son.   It was dark and cramped, the floors cold and [More]

A young mother acts promptly to save her baby daughter, thanks to divine guidance.   Read More: Mysterious Ways: Televised Message

Twelve hundred miles to go, I thought, pulling onto the highway here in Indiana, my 75-year-old mother-in-law in the passenger seat. My oldest daughter was getting married in San Antonio, Texas, in a few days, and we were anxious to get down there.   It was a beautiful, sunny March day, light jacket weather, and barely any traffic. We’d get to Texas in no time at all, I figured.   Wrong. The lamblike weather quickly turned into a lion. Flurries began to fall before we even hit the Illinois state line. By the time we got to Joplin, Missouri, we [More]

The telephone jolted me awake. It took me a few seconds to gather my wits. I’d been sitting at my computer, watching an episode of my favorite show, CSI, but I must’ve dozed off.   I glanced at the clock. Midnight. Who would be calling me at this hour? I wondered.   I grabbed the phone. “Hello?” I said. Too late. The caller had hung up.   According to the caller ID, it was a Pennsylvania cell phone, one I didn’t recognize. Probably a misdial.   I sat back down in my chair to shut off my computer, but I [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 [More]

I almost didn’t see her. I was heading into Pittsburgh, across the bridge over the Allegheny River, late for work, and she was little more than a shadow by the seven-foot fence that lined the edge. But I got a feeling that I’d missed something.   I tapped the brake, adjusted my rearview mirror. Then I saw what I had missed—a young woman climbing over.   I knew the stories about desperate souls who came to the bridge to take a fatal leap. Sometimes the police talked them out of it. Sometimes. I felt my throat clutch.   I was [More]

When she found out the meaning of her cat’s name, she knew it was meant to be.   Watch Video: Mysterious Ways: Theodora

A teacher’s supposed to have the answers. I can teach my fourth graders the state capitals and how to write cursive; I can list all the books in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.   But I can’t explain why some children died in the tornado that hit our school last May and the ones with me survived. All I can tell you is that the tragedy doesn’t mean God was absent.   My colleagues and I went back three weeks later to see the devastation where Plaza Towers Elementary once stood. Most of the debris had been hauled [More]

Out of nowhere the butterfly flitted across the path, lingered on a flower, darted up into the sky, then came back down to us. Iridescent wings catching the sunshine, dazzling with color. Ally followed it and we followed Ally.   We were in the Botanical Gardens in Quito, Ecuador, 9,350 feet above sea level, the snow-dusted Andes encircling us. Clouds hung over the mountains and a brilliant rainbow pierced the canopy.   I should have been happy, here on vacation with my wife, Carol. We had flown in to visit our oldest son, Sam, and his friend Ally, but an [More]

Most Christmas trees are tall and green with pine needles. Not my mom’s.   Ever since she and Dad had retired to their remote farm, she’d been working in ceramics. One of her proudest pieces was an 18-inch Christmas tree, adorned with lights. “It looks great,” she told me on the phone. “Can’t wait to show you.”   My husband, Jim, and I lived about a 2 ½-hour drive away, in Omaha, and that day we were coming to visit. She was concerned about our drive. “Be sure to pack an emergency kit,” Mom said. “The forecast calls for snow. [More]

“Administering the power of love through kangaroo care. I’m sure this type of care can be used in many different situations.”  Admin   I ran down the hospital corridor, the doctor’s words echoing in my mind–“You’d better come quick. We’re losing her.” My husband, Bert, and I burst through the doors of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and stopped short.   All those weeks of hoping, praying, I imagined the day that we’d bring our newborn girls home with us–all three of them. Never this. Two of my babies clung to life, and the third was slipping away.   The [More]

November 11, 2012, is a day Belinda Leal will never forget: the day her mother, Evangelina Garza, died. What happened next has left the doctors and nurses at McAllen Medical Center in south Texas baffled. But to Belinda and Evangelina—now very much alive—the explanation for the events that unfolded is quite clear…   Read More: Resurrected by a Hallelujah | Guideposts

Something bad had gone down. That was clear. Police and emergency vehicles jammed the parking lot outside the Fort Worth, Texas, McDonald’s. Officers took statements from traumatized witnesses. People huddled together. Parents held their children, weeping.   Detectives searched for evidence. Shell casings. How many shots had been fired? An APB was blasted out to every unit in the area. Man in a white shirt and black jeans. On foot. A crazed gunman. Still on the loose.   The scene was all too familiar. A reminder of how fragile life can be. One moment everything’s fine, boring, even, the next, [More]

I thanked God that morning for the water-stained ceiling tiles. They were as much a miracle to me as a clear blue sky. When I opened my eyes after a fitful night’s sleep and saw them above my hospital bed, I knew I was still alive. I was pretty sure there were no ceiling tiles in heaven.   I was 39 years old, and wasn’t likely to live out the week, much less see 40. As the morning dragged on, my family and the parishioners of my church came in and out of my room, praying for my recovery.   [More]

“Help! Please, somebody, help!” I looked out the window at the orchard, dark and shadowy in the pale moonlight. It was a woman’s voice. Close. But where? My son was at a friend’s house. It couldn’t be him watching a scary show on TV.   I lived in Milton-Freewater, Oregon, at the time, renting a garage apartment set back from our landlord’s house. The orchard and a small creek were behind us, not much else. Maybe someone fell in the water. Or was lost.   “Somebody, please, help me!” There it was again! A woman, desperate and very near. I [More]

Our car’s highbeams cut through the darkness of Maryland’s rural Route 50, heading westbound toward home. It was only 9 PM, but no other cars were around. Trees lining both sides of the road blocked out the moonlight, and the area was so sparsely populated, not even a streetlamp could be seen.   What a spooky stretch this route could be this late in the year, when the crowds no longer flocked to the beach. We should have left earlier, I thought. We would have had time to visit our friend in the nursing home and could have taken the [More]