Proof The Bible Is True

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   I’d just returned from the bank, where I’d withdrawn just enough cash to get us through the holidays.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]

Orange Beach, Alabama, was the site of so many happy memories for my family. For 20 years my parents rented a condo on the beach for one week in August. But this year was different. It was our first trip without Mom.   “I’m glad we came,” my sister said as we unloaded the car. “Mom would have wanted us to all be here.”   There was no doubt about that. Last summer, when Mom was in the hospital with leukemia, she still insisted we get to the beach. She even surprised us by getting strong enough to come along! [More]

We were only 48 hours into our family’s three-week road trip when the car broke down.   White smoke billowed from the engine. The dashboard warning lights went on. “Where did all this come from?” my husband, Gareth, said. He pulled off at the next exit. I glanced at our sons in the back seat. Colin, seven, and Aidan, five, looked disappointed. We were in Michigan, in the middle of nowhere, on our way to Mackinaw Island. From there we planned to visit the Badlands of South Dakota and Mount Rushmore, then Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks. It [More]

My husband, Max, had fallen asleep beside me. I was still awake. Staring up at the ceiling of our trailer, listening to the night sounds of Texas Hill Country, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened that afternoon.   I hadn’t told anyone, not even Max. I didn’t think I could. I’d been mowing the lawn, riding a tractor with a mower attached, carefully making my way around the old mesquite trees in low gear. Max was inside the house, working on a shower in the bathroom. A couple of months earlier we had bought the old nineteenth-century house. [More]

With my husband away on a business trip, I planned to spend a quiet weekend at home. But when my friend Chickie and her husband, Dom, invited me to join them for an afternoon at the beach, I was tempted. “I had an asthma attack yesterday, and it really tired me out,” I warned them. “So I’ll probably just lie out on the sand. It’s too humid for me to do much.”   A few hours later, relaxing under a sun umbrella after a picnic lunch, I was glad I’d come. Chickie and Dom went for a dip. They liked [More]

There were so many boxes of medication to sort through! Tablets and capsules of all shapes, sizes and colors, covered in plastic and foil, plus creams and ointments. One by one I pulled the “fast movers,” prescriptions we filled daily. A medication card with six bright blue capsules baffled me. Doxycycline? I hadn’t seen that antibiotic around here. At the time, there was a worldwide shortage and it had multiplied in price by nearly 100. Not the type of medication that gets donated to a county pharmacy like ours that serves the underprivileged.   Most of our clients were welfare [More]

I woke up at eight o’clock sharp on a mission: finding a job. I put on my best dress, practiced my most business-like smile in the mirror, prayed. But even I couldn’t convince myself I’d be a good employee. I’d never had a real job, aside from a few part-time gigs. I hadn’t even finished college. Who on earth would want to hire someone like me?   I was 21, newly married. I always thought I’d be a full-time mom, and my husband supported that. But right before our wedding, we’d been in a minor car accident. I had a [More]

My little dog, Teddy, tugged on his leash, interrupting my thoughts as we walked through my condo complex. The mornings were our time together and Teddy, a Lhasa Apo, got impatient if he didn’t have my full, undivided attention.   “Sorry, Teddy,” I said with a small smile. My thoughts were all over the place this morning. The public school where I worked as a special education teacher was on break. I was thankful for the time off, but I felt completely stressed about the prospect of returning to work. My job was challenging. Too challenging sometimes. Resources were limited. [More]

We needed to find a nurse to help care for my mother, Mary Pittman. And not just any nurse. Mother had been an RN herself. The world’s best, people said. She worked for Dr. Zdanis until she was almost 80 years old. She practically ran that office. She was the best caregiver I’d ever known. She could soothe a crying child or calm a worried parent. Everyone felt better after she was done with them. And that was even before they saw the doctor.   But then she got Parkinson’s disease and had to retire. Now she was the one [More]

My 70-year-old father-in-law jumped in the water first. But he couldn’t get to my daughter. His arms flailed, tangled in the camera strap around his neck.   “Mommy!” three-year-old Jinny cried, her eyes wide with panic. She’d started swim lessons at 18 months and did fine in shallow water, but she’d drifted into the deep end of the motel pool.   Jinny reached frantically for me. She was in the middle of the pool, too far for me to pull her to safety from the deck. Before I could do a thing, she went under.   Read More: Lifted Out [More]

I write a biweekly column called ‘Life is Mysterious’ for The Greenville Sun. It’s all about the miracles, big and small, that I encounter in everyday life. Sometimes people ask me, “Ella, how can I attract more miracles?”   I don’t have a foolproof method for producing miracles (I wish!). But there are some things you can do to be more open to the miracles all around you.   Here are my five steps for seeking out the wondrous in life.   Read More: 5 Ways to Discover More Miracles Around You | Guideposts

Daylight was just spreading across the horizon. My best friend, Jennifer, and I stood on the beach, gazing out at the ocean. It was our last day on Maui—we had a plane to catch in a few hours. But I was glad we’d gotten up early for one last breathtaking view, a visit to a mysterious spot I’d heard about from our hotel’s cultural advisor, Clifford, the night before. A place called Makalua-puna Point.   “I don’t want to leave,” Jennifer said. I didn’t either. Hawaii felt like heaven. Even more than I’d imagined it would when Maui’s tourism board [More]

Should I open it? Should I wait? Should I…?   I sat in my Nissan in the hospital parking lot, holding the envelope with my MRI results, frozen with indecision. My appointment with the neurologist wasn’t until the following afternoon. Should I wait for him to open the envelope? Then again, I’d been a nurse for more than 40 years. I didn’t exactly need a doctor to understand what the radiologist had found. And whether or not my worst fears had come true.   Since I was 15, I’d suffered from neurofibromatosis, a neurological condition that causes painful, but usually [More]

“Stop the car!” Deb King said to her husband, Jim, that Thursday afternoon. She didn’t mean to shout, but it came out that way so she squeezed Jim’s arm to reassure him.   “Honey, I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gone this way. I should have taken a different route.”   “No, it’s okay, Jim. Just stop the car. Now. Please. It’s important.”   Jim pressed down on the brake and pulled the car over to the shoulder of the interstate. It was the exact spot where he and Deb had had the accident.   Jim is a pastor, [More]

“A lost cell phone on a cold, rainy day in the woods turns out to be blessing in disguise.”   Cell phones can be a pain in the neck. Whenever I seem to need mine, I can never find it. And this was one of those times, standing by my SUV shivering and wet.   It was whitetail hunting season—a day my three buddies and I had been anticipating for months.   We parked our SUVs on a private, rural lot just after dawn and hiked two miles—lugging rifles and backpacks filled with food, water, flashlights, extra clothing, twoway radios [More]

I already had four dogs. But I couldn’t resist the adorable furry face in my Facebook feed. A chocolate teacup poodle who’d been liberated from a puppy mill down South. I contacted the Maine-based rescue agency that had posted her photo, said I was interested in giving her a loving home. I was honest about my concerns, though. Would she and my other dogs get along? What if the puppy mill had left her so traumatized that she needed an owner’s undivided attention?   The rescue coordinator told me not to worry. The poodle would be among a group of [More]