Proof The Bible Is True

It was them. I was sure. I caught my breath.   My husband and I were out to dinner, and when I looked up from my menu I saw them, intensely familiar and yet different. They were older now, the strain of years showing, but those faces had burned themselves into my memory. “That’s them,” I said. “The happy couple.”   My husband looked at me, nonplussed. For about half a year I’d stared at pieces of this couple’s life, photos in an old album. We’d found it in the gutter on a street by our house. A handsome young [More]

When my husband’s father and his wife were visiting us over the summer they got into a spat that dragged me in too. One remark led to another, and I found myself saying things I wished I hadn’t. By the time my in-laws returned to Florida, they had patched things up, but I was on the outs with them.   I wanted to apologize, but instead of picking up the phone I invariably put it off. They probably don’t want to talk to me anyway, I rationalized. But the truth was I couldn’t work up the courage to dial their [More]

Aunt Jean led my sister Audrey and me through the quiet, rural New Jersey town, pointing out the places from our mother’s childhood, telling stories. We reached the place where her family’s dairy farm once stood, where Mom and her six sisters had grown up. “We’d take turns milking the cows in the morning before school,” Aunt Jean said. “Shared the chores and everything else, even stevens.”   Even-stevens. Mom had taught Audrey and me how important it was to share. But now, a year after her death, we were confronted with how difficult that could be. We debated how [More]

I turned down a row of end tables, peering around every corner. There were hundreds of cabinets, dressers, nightstands, but nothing like what I was searching for. This is ridiculous, I thought. Maybe it’s time to let go of the sewing chest.   My sister-in-law, Debi, and I had decided to stop by the antiques mall on our drive home from Christmas shopping in Kansas City. Antiquing was our favorite hobby. We strolled through the mall, navigating the aisles of lamps, armoires and ottomans. Debi fell in love with an ornate secretary’s desk. But I could think of only one [More]

Lost: One irreplaceable ring given to me by my mother.   Suspect: An untrustworthy college roommate.   Problem: How to tell Mom the ring was missing while I was home on summer break.   I was a wreck. Dad gave Mom the ring way back when they were dating, a delicate white-gold band with a gorgeous emerald-cut ruby and a small diamond in the center. Mom entrusted it to me when I went off to college in Des Moines. I didn’t wear it much because the ruby was loose in its setting and I didn’t want anything to happen to [More]

I typed my desired destination into the online maps program: “Carroll Southlake High School Stadium,” and hit the Enter key. A message popped up: “No results.” Well, that was frustrating. I’d heard the stadium was new, but you’d think there’d be some information on how to get there. Other than driving around in circles, how could I locate it? So much for finding the perfect cheering spot.   A few weeks earlier, a dear friend and Zeta Tau Alpha sorority sister told me she was participating in a 3-day Avon Walk through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It was about 200 [More]

“We should have come home earlier. I would have loved to see one last snowfall,” Doris, my mother-in-law, said. We sat in her living room in front of the big picture window that looked out on the yard. It was a beautiful, sunny June day, and hummingbirds darted around the feeder outside.   Only a few months had passed since Doris had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She and my father-in-law had been in Florida for the winter. They’d returned to Michigan for her surgery. It didn’t help. Now in their home on Lake Huron, she only had weeks to [More]

One cold early evening many years ago, my wife, Bartie, and I set out in our cabin cruiser for a picnic dinner on southern San Francisco Bay. We waved to a college crew team heading out for a practice row, then proceeded down the channel toward the San Mateo Bridge. The choppy water soon turned into huge waves.   At the drawbridge, I signaled to the bridge tender to let us through. He shook his head, pointing to the whitecaps on the water ahead. We were about to take our pitching craft home, when in the distance, near some mud [More]

Wow, I thought, as a crack of thunder roared above my house. We hadn’t had a storm this bad in forever. The news reports said trees were down all over and there was flash flooding. Good thing I was safe and sound inside. I’d always felt protected at my address, No. 91, the same number as my favorite psalm.   Suddenly, I heard sirens. Looking out my window, I could see a fire truck, lights flashing, speeding up my street. Where’s the emergency? The truck slowed in front of my house, pulled to the curb and stopped. Three firemen jumped [More]

For years my daughter, Candi, and I had talked about canoeing the Yellow River in the Florida panhandle. Finally, during one of her college breaks, we decided to go for it.   We were only half an hour into our trip when the sky turned dark and thunder rumbled in the distance. The current picked up, and I grew uneasy about the rising water.   The rain came down quickly in wind-whipped sheets and the river tossed us wildly over submerged logs and rocks. “We’ve got to dock!” I shouted. Candi bailed water furiously while I searched for a clearing [More]

My undergrad buddy and her college sweetheart posed for their post-wedding photos, exchanging flirty glances, fingers interlocked, leaning on each other between takes. I watched them with a twinge of jealousy while I chatted with my old college roommate, Chelsea, also happily married. Was I the only single person here? Felt like it. Chelsea leaned in, gave me a sympathetic smile. “What kind of guy are you looking for?” she asked.   “A guy who drives a truck with a bale of hay in the back,” I answered. Chelsea laughed. Maybe I was being too picky, but I wanted a [More]

The old Case 310 Dozer fired right up even after being idle for a few months. I had been on bed rest after gall bladder surgery, unable to do my farm chores, and was tired of being cooped up in the house. Even though I was still recovering, it was time to get a few things done. First thing—test the hydraulic functions on the dozer, make sure it was still in working order.   I backed the machine out of the tractor shed and into the dirt road. So far so good. I moved the crawler forward. All of the [More]

I took a long drag on a cigarette one morning as I walked the wooded path toward my tiny cabin deep in the forest of the Bruce Peninsula, about two and a half hours north of Toronto, Ontario. I know, I know. Smoking is bad for you, dangerous and unhealthy.   I had tried to kick the habit, prayed about it too, but I couldn’t. Not even when my beloved Aunt Bernie got lung cancer. How many times had she begged me to quit? After she died, I vowed to stop, and did briefly, but inevitably I had started up [More]

My husband Randy knelt at his grandmother’s grave and set down a vase of flowers, carefully arranging the stems so each blossom faced the sun. He was still as broken up as he had six months ago, when he’d held his grandmother’s hand just before she passed away. They’d always been close. He lit up whenever he recalled the days he spent with her as a child, helping feed the chickens she raised, and her prized Rhode Island Red Rooster. I wished I could comfort him, but I wasn’t sure how.   That night a massive summer storm swept through [More]

It’s time, my mom thought. I need to visit him. But it’s so hard.   My father, Vern, had passed away a year ago, but his presence in our lives had always been so big, it still felt as if he should be dropping by any minute. A preacher, he had long been our family’s spiritual compass. Mom called him her “bear,” and it described Dad perfectly. He was a big, beefy man—and once he made up his mind to do something, he couldn’t be stopped. When his health started failing, he was determined above all else to live long [More]

It was the day before Thanksgiving. But I wasn’t feeling very thankful.   I threw some clothes into an overnight bag, tried to keep my hands from shaking. I’d just gotten off the phone with my sister Toni. She’d given birth to a baby boy, Bradley, a week earlier, but he’d been born with a congenital heart defect. The doctors didn’t think he was going to make it.   My mom and I would be driving up to Kansas City to spend Thanksgiving with Toni and her husband at the hospital. I wished there was something I could do for [More]

Yet another cheery holiday tune was playing over the radio at the thrift store. I cringed. “Santa’s on His Way,” by George Strait: “Christmas is always my favorite time of year!” Not mine. Not now. I gripped my empty shopping basket’s red plastic handle in one hand and my gift list in the other and stared at the cracked snow globes and chipped mugs among other castoffs cluttering the shelves. What did I expect to find? This wasn’t Toys “R” Us. It wasn’t even Walmart. This was my last resort.   God, I’d prayed on the drive here, give us [More]

“Wow, it’s cold out there,” my husband said, shutting the back door behind him, blowing on his red hands and shaking snow from his boots. It was another bitterly cold Sunday night here in the Adirondacks in upstate New York.   “How’s the fuel in the tank?” I asked, my stomach knotting. He’d gone out to check on the level for our furnace. And I knew we hadn’t replenished it for a while.   “I put the dipstick in and measured. We’ve got just four inches of fuel left,” my husband said.   “Four inches!” I exclaimed. “That will never [More]

I got into the car and pulled the door shut behind me, letting out a deep breath. Another name off my checklist.   I was visiting each member of my late husband John’s medical team. They had all worked so hard to keep him as healthy as possible as he battled lung cancer over the past five years. They deserved to hear straight from me that he’d passed away. The process was helping me too. Each time I thanked one of them for all they had done, I felt myself gaining closure.   I put my hands on the steering [More]

Where did the Christmas basket sitting on our front porch come from?   I’d just returned from the bank, where I’d withdrawn just enough cash to get us through the holidays. Life was a struggle, raising two teenagers as a single mom while working two part-time jobs and taking college courses at night. I was exhausted. The light at the end of the tunnel sometimes seemed very dim, indeed.   I looked for a card or a note with the basket, filled to the brim with all sorts of holiday foodstuffs. There was none. Had someone entered my name into [More]

I made it to my friend Jessie’s Christmas party minutes before midnight… just as everyone was leaving her house. Just my luck. Too late. I’d spent my entire night stuck at the hospital where I worked as a nurse. All thanks to a little voice inside me. “Take Candy’s shift,” it had said. Over and over again.   Candy was a new nurse on staff, a single mom. She’d asked me to cover for her on Christmas Eve so she could spend the time with her little girl. I felt bad for Candy, I really did. But every Christmas Eve, [More]

“You swallowed a what?”   Illinois mom Julie Van Rossum thought her four-year-old, Ellie, was old enough to know better than to put something small in her mouth. Ellie sat in front of her toy cash register, looking mortified.   “A penny, Mommy!”   Ellie wasn’t choking, and didn’t look sick. “Did you really swallow it?” Julie asked. “Why would you do that?”   “I didn’t mean to!” Ellie said. “It just went down!” Now Julie was concerned. Her daughter didn’t seem to be in pain, but Julie dialed her pediatrician, who advised her to keep an eye out to [More]

Just stay in the middle lane and you’ll be all right, I told myself, driving on the Los Angeles freeway one sunny afternoon. I was headed back home from my job as an office manager at my husband’s company, and as many times as I’d made the commute, I still got nervous. I didn’t learn to drive until my twenties, and it had been tough getting accustomed to southern California’s busy, congested freeways and fast-moving traffic.   “I hate driving on the freeway,” I often told my husband. “It would be so easy to get into an accident with all [More]

Our school bus skidded, the tires losing their grip on the slippery river road. My heart raced. All I could think was, I’m too young to die!   I clutched the edge of my seat. The narrow road wound along a steep slope, dicey even under normal conditions, but this morning it was coated with a slick layer of ice. I could see the river below—a 30-foot drop. I pictured the bus somersaulting into its freezing waters, the headlines in tomorrow’s paper. Michigan Teen Dies in Icy Plunge—Never Even Made It to Prom. My devastated parents. Our whole community in [More]

The quilt on Lenice Hansen’s guest bed really brought the room together. Something about the cheerful floral pattern, the fine hand-sewn stitches, and that deep ruby-red border felt homey and welcoming. It invited you to curl up and get cozy with a book and a hot cup of tea or simply take a catnap.   But the quilt didn’t belong to Lenice. It had ended up at her home in the oddest way–it had flown there.   On February 5, 2008, an F4-category tornado cut a 122-mile-long swath of destruction from Atkins, Arkansas, to just past Highland, where Lenice lived. [More]

I was 21 years old, spend­ing my second Christmas in Korea after being drafted into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I was alone, walking back to my barracks after a night out with the guys. It was cold and dark, Christmas Eve. I wrapped my arms around myself and trudged onward.   Everyone had talked about what they missed back home. The holiday festivities. Their families. All my comrades had some­thing they’d return to. But not me. I didn’t even mind being far away for the holidays.   I’d had a rootless childhood, landing with my grandparents when I [More]

If my experience in motion pictures has taught me anything, it is this: No mere man is clever enough to control all the forces which must work together for all-around success in life. I do not believe in luck, nor can I take personal credit for the piloting of my own career.   While attending Hollywood High School, my fellow students said I lacked “get-up-and-go.” Though ambitious, I seemed to lack drive. But my dreams were of the wide spaces, open sky and a cattle ranch.   Hollywood was a smaller town then, and my newspaper route was star-studded. As [More]