Proof The Bible Is True

The sun was just beginning to set as I drove along the highway. I had only about 50 miles left to go before I arrived at my friend Eleanor’s beach house in Panama City, Florida.   This was my first vacation since my divorce. It was exactly what I needed. The problem was that I lived over 800 miles away in Texas. Money was tight, and driving was cheaper than a plane ticket, so I chose to drive myself there. I’d never taken that long of a road trip alone before, and I’d been somewhat anxious about the 12-hour drive. But things [More]

“We’re all finished,” said the doctor. “But you’ll have to lie there another twenty minutes or so before you can go.”   I felt my body relax. The hard part was over, now I just had to wait. I was used to waiting. After all, infertility itself was a waiting game.   Beside me sat my husband, Eli. He’d been there throughout the procedure, his comforting presence giving me strength. Once the doctor had left the room, Eli took my hand. “How do you feel?” he asked.   “Okay,” I said. “It didn’t hurt at all.” I’d read as much when [More]

I had breast cancer and needed an MRI. In the waiting room of the doctor’s office, I was filled with dread. I’d always struggled with claustrophobia, and the idea of being in a tiny space with no room to move, bombarded with the loud noise of the MRI machine, sent me into a panic. When the nurse called my name, I stood shakily. Dear Lord, please help me. I’m not sure I have the strength to get through this.   The MRI technician helped me onto the stretcher that went into the machine, all the while explaining what was going to happen. “I’ll [More]

It was past midnight. I’d been lying in the dark for half an hour, unable to sleep. My mind was on my late husband, Hardy. I squeezed my eyes shut. God, please give me some kind of sign that Hardy is okay.   Hardy’s passing had been so traumatic that, six months after he passed, I still wondered if he was at peace. The weekend Hardy had died of a heart attack, I was in Michigan doing a gig with my singing group. When I got home on Sunday, I found him on our bedroom floor. It was too late. He was already gone. [More]

I sat at our small kitchen table, working on a list of the things we’d need for the adoption of four children from the Philippines. Our family was about to double in size. Prioritize! I told myself.   A larger kitchen table was definitely a priority. Unless we were planning to eat in shifts, we’d need to find seating for eight. I penciled that in, under my note for the extra freezer we’d need to store the massive amounts of food we somehow had to buy. We needed bunk beds, a minivan so we could fit the whole family in one car. The list [More]

Six years after becoming a widow, I decided it was time to leave the home in Wisconsin where I’d lived with my husband for 22 years and move back to Illinois to be closer to my daughter, Laura, and my son, Steve. It was a hard decision, and I sometimes second-guessed myself. At least Steve would be helping me search for just the right place. He remodeled houses in Illinois and knew what to look for.   The night I put my house on the market, I said a quick prayer. God, I trust that you are able to guide me to the [More]

My wife, Jennette, had dropped me off at the Atlanta airport that day to catch a flight to Jacksonville, Florida. I had my guitar with me and my gig bag. I’m a composer and singer, and I had a show that night. Back then, just eight years ago—it seems like eons—there wasn’t any Wi-Fi on the plane, so I would be out of touch en route. No problem. Jennette was used to being in charge at home. We had three boys. The youngest, Micah, was at summer camp, and the older two, Josiah and Ricardo, were swimming at a friend’s [More]

I checked my ski boots and took a wary look at the gray, wintry sky. Dime-size snowflakes had been coming down for two days now to the tune of about three feet of fresh powder at Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park. Great for recreational skiers, but those of us on the park’s volunteer ski patrol had to be on alert. Weather like this could mean search-and-rescue operations—everything from lost skiers to trapped avalanche victims. The challenge, as always, was to reach people while they were still alive.   I felt at home in the park. I’d hiked here for 30 [More]

On the plains of northwest Oklahoma, you can see for miles: nothing but prairie grass, clumps of cedar trees and rugged red-rock canyons. But even with my binoculars, I could barely make out the helicopters, one after the other, dumping water on a wildfire at the horizon. I wasn’t concerned by the small plume of smoke snaking skyward. It had to be at least 50 miles away, across the South Canadian River even.   That afternoon, my uncle Larry and cousin Tony and I had driven to this 4,000-acre ranch for a planned three days of turkey hunting. Larry had [More]

Zach Short: Harvest time. That’s when it gets crazy busy for farmers. We work from first light until dark, not stopping for anything. All that matters is getting the crop in. My family’s been farming for four generations here in Kansas, and I can tell you, it’s not just a job. It’s a life. It’s in your blood, your soul.   We raise milo, corn, soybeans, wheat and hay. We also run a shop where we rebuild combines, and we use our equipment to harvest crops for other farmers. On that day, October 25, 2014, we’d been hired to cut soybeans. [More]

A thousand feet. Just over three football fields lined up end to end. But at 28,000 feet above sea level—an altitude climbers call the “death zone”—a single step can require an exhausting effort, even when breathing supplemental oxygen, which I was.   I prayed nothing would go wrong with my equipment on this final, solo push to the summit. Without gas the climb would be almost impossible.   There are very few places on earth where a man can stand at 28,000 feet. Mount Everest is one. It was where I stood that May night last year under the brilliance [More]

At 4 p.m. last June 14, my brother Jack Sullivan was just crawling down into a ten-foot-deep trench, which ran down the center of Washington Street, a main thoroughfare in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.   It was near quitting time. Jack is a welder, and he wanted to finish one particular part of his job before he left. Jack said goodbye to the other men as they quit, took his welding lead in his right hand, lowered himself and his electric power cable into the trench. His head was well below the street surface.   Traffic up above was heavy. Jack [More]

This late in December, the cow path near our house in Tennessee was still covered with leaves, but I knew snow would be falling soon enough. My younger brother, Buddy Earl, and I were on an important mission: Go to Uncle Tommie’s place and get a goose. The trek over Little Mountain and back to get there would be worth it. Uncle Tommie raised the best geese around, and he’d offered to give us one for Christmas dinner.   Dark clouds were gathering in the sky above and a cold wind came in from the north. As usual, Buddy Earl lagged [More]

I tossed and turned, sweaty and in a panic, gripped by my dream. My barn cat, Two Socks, was fleeing some four-legged predator, running for his life. I chased after them, out of breath and helpless. The dream cut abruptly to a different scene. I was in the yard working in my flower garden on my acre on Blue Mountain in northwest Colorado. It was a bright, sunny afternoon. I looked up from the flower bed when a huge bird cast a shadow over me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Two Socks nonchalantly strolling out of the barn. [More]

Eight o’clock on a May morning, and Micah, my 17-year-old daughter, had already retreated to our bonus room upstairs. It had been her makeshift eleventh-grade classroom ever since schools had moved to remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic.   From the kitchen, I listened for the sound of her tapping on her laptop or her and her classmates talking in their Google Meet sessions with their teachers. Nothing. I resisted the urge to check on her. Way too often for my liking, Micah was texting friends and commenting on their Snapchat and Instagram posts about the fun they were having together. [More]

“Tiki!” I yelled frantically.   Our little white poodle mix, Tiki, had slipped out the door earlier that evening while I was carrying groceries into the house. Now I was scouring the neighborhood trying to find him. My seven-year-old son, Jordan, and my three-year-old daughter, Julia, were in tow.   Please, God, I prayed. Bring Tiki home. The kids have lost so much already.   The last few months had been difficult. After getting divorced, I could no longer afford our house in Indianapolis. The kids and I moved in with my parents in northern Indiana, 150 miles away from the city. Change [More]

I awoke, startled. Who were these people crowded in my bedroom? What were they doing there?   “Lois.” It was my mother, hovering anxiously near my bed. “It’s a flash flood,” she said. “The kitchen has already flooded.” She was holding a box of soda crackers—what I’d later learn was the only thing she’d managed to grab in her rush to escape the rising water.   June 4, 1940. I was 12 years old. It had started raining earlier that day, a sudden and unrelenting downpour on our little town of Homer, Nebraska. By that afternoon, our basement had flooded, [More]

My room at University Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, was crowded. I gazed up at the faces of my pastor, William Cox, and deacons from our church, including my husband, Brooks, who were gathered around my bed.   For more than a year, I had been fighting a losing battle against a strange liver ailment and had recently lingered in a hepatic coma for three days before coming around. It seemed I had been on the critical list more often than not. But that day I felt relatively good, if weak, and my mind, thankfully, was clear. I caught Brooks’s eye [More]

I looked over my holiday shopping list. Two weeks until Christmas and I had everyone in the family covered—except for my daughter, Christel. I was a little stuck on her present. The one thing she wanted, I had no power to give.   Christel and her husband, Mike, had been trying to have a baby ever since they got married, 10 years earlier. Now, at age 33, after countless treatments and consultations, she didn’t know if she could take one more failed pregnancy test.   I looked back at my Christmas list and Christel’s name with nothing beside it. God, [More]

“After the article is an audio interview with her.” Admin   Blood was everywhere. The drunk driver collided with the family when they were on their way back from church service. Angela’s 15-year-old body laid lifeless in the car. Nevertheless, the family refused to accept death, and they prayed.   Suddenly, a gust of wind blew over the car, and her lifeless body gasped for air as she miraculously regained consciousness. This was the beginning of a long list of miracles God performed as He showed Himself faithful to His Word as prayer went forth with steadfast faith!   Steadfast [More]

“There are many wonders to see if we just look for them.” Admin   The gray sky outside my kitchen window matched how I felt inside. Hopeless. I sighed and turned away. Life had lost all meaning.   Nearly a year earlier, on a sunny Fourth of July day, I drove to a nearby lake to celebrate with friends and family. It was my birthday. After a long workweek, I was looking forward to our picnic. And I couldn’t wait to get in the water. I loved to swim.   “Here I go,” I shouted, laughing, as I dove headfirst [More]

”I’ll be back in a couple hours,” Dad said as the screen door slammed shut that late afternoon.   Two hours, I told myself. You can do this. I took a long, deep breath and turned to face Mom. Through her cataracts, at least, she couldn’t see the worry in my face. Keeping Mom’s anxiety at bay while she struggled with Alzheimer’s could be next to impossible. If she had an episode, I didn’t know if I could handle it alone, especially at the end of the day.   Read More: She Feared Being Alone with Her Mom with Alzheimer’s [More]

I live near Omaha, in southeastern Nebraska. If I ran to the basement every time I heard a tornado siren go off, I’d never get anything done. So when a siren wailed one Friday in June, just two days before Father’s Day, I didn’t pay it much mind. I wanted to get my dusting done before settling down for the day. Besides, it wasn’t even raining, with barely a cloud in the early-evening sky. Maybe they’re testing the system, I thought. They do that a lot around here.   Asher, our 12-year-old grandson who lived with us, winced at the [More]

Before heading to camp that summer I double-checked that I had everything I needed. Toothbrush. Check. Socks. Check. I touched my neck to make sure I was wearing my great grandmother’s necklace, a simple rose pendant on a gold chain. Check. I grabbed my bag and headed out the door.   I arrived at camp and quickly found my friends. “Come play capture the flag with us!” they said. The game was messier than we anticipated because the grounds were muddy from rain the week before. When we went to the bathroom to clean up I looked in the mirror [More]

My very first assignment as a minister was to an inner-city parish in Camden, New Jersey. There was drug dealing and violent crime within sight of our home, and rough characters knocked on our door at all hours of the day and night.   Not long after we arrived, I had to attend a week-long church conference out of town. I dreaded leaving my wife and three children alone in our new neighborhood. God, I prayed, take care of them.   My first spare moment at the conference, I called home to make sure all was well. My wife assured [More]

Here in the Midwest, we’re used to frigid winters, but that morning seemed colder than usual.   Maybe it was because my husband wasn’t sleeping next to me. He had gone out of town on a long trip. It was just me looking after our three daughters. We lived out in the country—no neighbors within shouting distance, and I felt vulnerable. At night I made sure to lock the doors and I prayed God would watch over us.   I’d woken up shivering, with a pounding headache. It was really cold, even for our 170-year-old house. Did our furnace break [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]