Proof The Bible Is True

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I would have given anything to take them back. I looked at that youngster beside me in the car, pixie face eager beneath her baseball cap. Knowing just how much 10-year-old Erin missed her dad, wanting to do something special for her, I’d invited her to go with me that afternoon to watch the Giants play the Chicago Cubs at Candlestick Park. I’d never seen a kid so excited. We’d been driving across the Bay Bridge when she suddenly piped up, “Maybe we’ll catch a foul ball!” And like an [More]

In my studio on New York City’s Upper West Side, I train professional opera, cabaret and Broadway singers right alongside talented amateurs from every occupation you could imagine. When I look out of my eighth-floor window onto Broadway, I know Frank Sinatra was right: If you can make it here… Competition is fierce. But often it’s that competition that forges strong bonds between people. All different types of people. And it seems that every type of person has come through my studio. One February afternoon about three years ago, I received my most unexpected visitor ever. I was giving a [More]

My husband found me sitting in a puddle of half a dozen broken eggs on the kitchen floor. “What happened?” he asked. “I dropped them,” I said, sobbing. “Can’t you see?” Todd threw up his hands. He’d tried to understand me, but he couldn’t. Six months pregnant, I overreacted to everything, sometimes bursting into tears for no apparent reason. Todd and I had been high school sweethearts, and we were happy about our first baby, but we were only 20 years old. It was all too new and overwhelming. We both had full-time jobs, and Todd often worked late, so [More]

By Greg Stier , Christian Post Guest Columnist March 2, 2013|12:08 pm God has blessed me with the privilege of speaking to groups of teenagers for the last twenty five years or so. From small youth groups to medium sized camps to arenas full of students I have known the thrill and terror of trying to get and keep the attention of adrenalin-filled, twitchy teenagers. Here are seven lessons I’ve learned when it comes to getting and keeping their attention: 1. Hook them with humor then impact them with truth. During the first 5 to 10 minutes of my talk [More]

Fear consumes our energy. Fear leaves us empty. Fear makes us ineffective. Fear is a parasite. Fear is real. Sometimes it is so invasive that it feels tangible. And the more it controls us, the more real it starts to feel, and we gradually lose control. Do we have to be controlled by these feelings that are constantly trying to invite themselves in? Fear is always looking for an entryway. We are the ones who give it a home in our life. (Just to be clear, I’m not talking about that healthy fear that works like your conscience trying to [More]

When things look really bad, let the so-called “minor” prophets encourage your faith. It’s unfortunate that the last 12 books of the Old Testament are tagged the “minor” prophets. The term was coined because these writings are short, not because they are unimportant. God’s heart is powerfully revealed in the prophecies of Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. These 12 short books are anything but minor. If you have never seriously studied them, I challenge you to start digging now. Just as Jesus chose 12 unsophisticated disciples to preach the glorious news of [More]

The last thing I wanted to do was go out for lunch. Even with my best friends. Since my husband and I had separated three months before I didn’t really want to see anyone. “Come on,” my friend Kristin urged when she called to invite me. “It’ll do you good to get out and have a few laughs.” I couldn’t imagine ever laughing again, not the way I was feeling. But I couldn’t put my friends off any longer. I showed up at the restaurant, knowing I wouldn’t be very good company. Everyone looked so sunny and happy, I felt [More]

Banks have never been friendly places in my view. What did an institution built around money care about someone like me, who was struggling to make ends meet? That September day I went in to deposit my meager check, I got in line feeling insignificant. It wasn’t just the bank. So many things lately had conspired to make me feel unimportant. I’d struggled for months to find a steady job with no luck. I lived in constant fear of losing my house to foreclosure. Even the weather seemed to be trying to tell me how little I mattered. In August [More]

Hearing aids cost thousands, but they sure are tiny. I didn’t even realize mine was missing until a phone conversation with my sister in California. I found myself switching the phone from one ear to the other, struggling to hear. How annoying. “Love ya, but I must go find my hearing aid, okay?” I told my sister. I hadn’t even bought insurance on it! Around the toilet, under the pillows, inside every nook and cranny, along every single cabinet. It was definitely not in the house. Read More Here

Candy canes were supposed to be everywhere at Christmas. Yet I’d gone from store to store in a fruitless search. The candy cane was for my four-year-old daughter, Carol. It was the only thing she’d asked for this Christmas. I was sure I could pick one up at the last minute. I was wrong. “No luck?” my husband asked. “Every store is sold out,” I said. Read More Here

Christmas was days away, and I couldn’t wait to spend it with my three grown children. But I woke up one morning barely able to breath. “Get me to the hospital,” I told my husband. I was put on a ventilator. Double pneumonia had caused heart failure. My husband gave me the bad news. “You’ll be in ICU for a while.” “But I’ll miss Christmas with the kids!” My children came to the hospital, but our only visiting together was done in the ICU. Each one kissed me good-bye. Oh, Lord, I feel like everyone got cheated out of Christmas [More]

Beep. Beep. Beep. The sound of heart monitors in the emergency room, a far cry from the carols I thought I’d be listening to on Christmas Day. That morning, on the ranch where I work, I found my boss, Bruce, slumped over in the front seat of his pickup truck, suffering from kidney stones. I’d driven 40 miles to the closest ER. I called Bruce’s wife and told her he would be discharged soon. “We’ll have the turkey waiting,” she said. Bruce, his wife and two kids were like family to me. I lived next door, and we always shared [More]

I sat by the front window cutting out paper dolls and watching the snow pile up across the mountaintop. The flakes had started falling the day before and hadn’t let up—an unusually early storm for November in West Virginia. If anything it was coming down harder now. “Look at the drifts!” I exclaimed. “They’ve nearly covered the fence.” Mother came in from the kitchen. “Looks like it’s just going to be us this year,” she said. I couldn’t help but notice the disappointment in her voice for our Thanksgiving 1928. “No one could get here on a day like this.” [More]

Reverent. That was the best word to describe the house when I got up before dawn. Downstairs the tree was decorated, the manger arranged underneath it. Christmas was on the horizon. It would be hours before anyone else was awake. I sat with a cup of coffee in the kitchen, just me and my thoughts about my father. He taught me what Christmas was all about. Dad shook me gently. “Time to go!” I rolled over on my pillow and squinted at the clock on the dresser: 2:00 A.M. Middle of the night for most people. For a milkman like [More]

Computers aren’t my thing, but my children insisted I get on Facebook. I was grateful for it when Mrs. Moran tracked me down and “friended” me. Back in Brooklyn, when I was a child, Mrs. Moran, a former showgirl, made every holiday in our building an extravaganza—especially Christmas. She cast all the kids in the building in her very own Christmas pageant. As I confirmed her friend request, my mind drifted back to the year I turned seven. My brother, Thomas, and I were making our way up to Mrs. Moran’s apartment for our first rehearsal. “Oh, please, let me [More]

Heavy snow fell all weekend. The weather reports said three feet, but when I glanced out the second-story window of my New Jersey apartment early that Monday morning, I couldn’t even spot my little silver car in the blanketed parking lot below. My building’s on a dead-end street. Always the last to be plowed, I thought. Finally I made out a square silver patch poking out of a snowdrift. I had to get to work somehow, so I bundled up, grabbed my shovel and headed outside. I climbed over the mounds of snow behind my car and began shoveling. My [More]

As Merle and Gloria Inniger traveled from Pakistan to America, they stopped in London for a few days, and somewhere along the way Merle managed to lock the doors of the rental cars and lose the keys. I was Saturday afternoon, and no locksmiths answered the phone. The rental car company said they didn’t have a spare key. Merle and Gloria panicked about missing their flight home. Two Christian friends came to commiserate, and the four bowed their heads and prayed for help. As they finished, they looked up as a strange man approached. He offered his keys to them. [More]

I sighed. I’d been job hunting for nearly a month without any luck at all. Now a homeless man had sat down next to me at the bus stop. I studied the classified ads, purposely ignoring him. “Finding a job is hard,” the man said. “Sometimes life ain’t fair. I looked at him. His clothes were worn, but he had a kind face. He was just down on his luck, like me. Suddenly I found myself telling him all about my job search. The man handed me a newspaper. Read More  A Mysterious Stranger Held the Key to Her Job [More]

Bouts of pneumonia and severe asthma had dogged our child since birth—but never like this. Sitting in the hospital waiting room, my husband and I didn’t know if he’d survive the night. We’d been at Grandma’s house when his lungs suddenly seized up. Epinephrine injections didn’t help. Now he was on a ventilator. The nurse checked in on us from time to time to see if we needed anything. Otherwise, we were alone with our worries. Until a chaplain entered the room. I expected him to say the obligatory prayers, wish us well, and move on to others in need. [More]

People often ask me to tell them my story. Maybe that’s because they see the difference between where I am now and where I used to be. Today I’m a professional artist, a father of four and a substance abuse counselor at a gang intervention program. Growing up? I was a gang member myself, a drug addict, a prison inmate. You might think it’s miraculous how I got here from there. I prefer to think of my story as evidence that there really are angels watching over us. Looking back, I see God guiding me every step of my way. [More]

Mom and I always relied on one another. I worked at fast food, but before and after my shifts she served me the best home-cooked breakfast and dinner a girl could want. Plus she gave expert foot rubs, which came in handy. But most of all I looked forward to our evening walks. One evening we walked down the road to the first major intersection. “Look both ways before you cross,” Mom said. “Always the mother hen,” I said. Always trying to take care of me. Just like I’m always trying to take care of her. Lord, I wish we [More]

Trapped in her car with her vital signs failing after a head-on collision in a rural location, a young Missouri women is saved by a guardian angel. Read More  Miracle on the Highway – Guideposts.

Bears were common in the Smoky Mountains come fall. But when one of them started raiding our family’s beehives, I grabbed my rifle and cow horn and headed up Chestnut Mountain with my hunting dogs to track him down. The dogs picked up a scent in the huckleberry bushes. I ran after them, determined to keep up. Soon we were a mile deeper into the mountains than I’d wanted to venture that morning. I sat down on a log to catch my breath. I could hear the dogs barking as they trailed the bear along the far ridge line. Then [More]

As an artist, I’m a keen observer—I always note the details that make each individual unique. But there’s one portrait I’ll never be able to paint. Twenty-five years ago, my husband and I were hauling our trailer down from Omaha to Holiday Island, Arkansas, for vacation when the transmission blew on our ’87 Chevrolet Suburban. We pulled to the side of the interstate. “Let’s flag down a car,” my husband said. Read More  Rescued by a Roadside Angel – Guideposts.

Marriage is tough. It’s a given. This list covers most of the common troubles, but your situation is unique, and the key point here is to face the hardship—whatever kind of struggle it is—together with your wife. OK, if you haven’t watched the “Ian and Larissa” video, then stop reading right now, watch the video, then come back to this list. Seriously, you have to watch it. Do you remember your marriage vows? “For better, for worse … ” “In sickness and in health … ” “For richer, for poorer … ” These promises presuppose tough times. We went into [More]

You don’t have to take your style cues from the world or legalistic saints. Here’s how to make fashion sense. Read More  The Dos and Don’ts of Fashion as a Christian.

Most of us were taught as young as children the proper manners and simple phrases we could use to be polite. But somewhere along the line, it seems we’ve lost the simple art of using these words, and then we wonder why our relationships aren’t going the way we want them to go. Consider this: If you aren’t getting what you want out of your relationships, maybe it is because you aren’t putting the right things in. Here are four simple phrases you learned in elementary school that may be the currency you need to improve your relationships as an [More]