Proof The Bible Is True

I sat at my home computer, scrolling through Facebook posts. A photo of a friend’s grinning granddaughter, a video of someone else’s new puppy, an announcement about another friend’s new job. Usually I take pleasure from other people’s joy, but that day it stung. I’d been laid off after 14 years as an office manager for a company I loved. At 43, I’d need to start all over. I should have been looking at jobs instead of Facebook, but I was down in the dumps.   Read More: My Mentor’s Gift – Guideposts

I eased my aching body onto the top step of the back porch and took a deep breath. Five months pregnant, I rarely left the house. I’d come outside for some fresh air—and some company. I felt lonely and scared. I half-hoped a neighbor would see me and ask if I was okay, show me someone cared. My husband, Bill, a Navy airman, usually did that. But today, like too many days, he’d been called away to the base.   I had no clue life as a military wife would be like this. I’d left family and friends behind to [More]

I walked into my kitchen early one Saturday morning, greeted by the aroma of cinnamon and sugar. That could only mean one thing–my bowknots were almost ready!   My “bowknot” recipe was kind of famous. A scrumptious pastry ring that had delighted family and friends ever since I’d dreamed up the dish back in my 20s, a sweet twist on my mother’s biscuit recipe.   The dessert was so popular that everyone at my church knew about it too. In fact, I’d been asked to prepare two trays of bowknots for a bridal shower taking place at church later that [More]

Residents of a quiet block in Fresno could hardly believe their eyes when a house near the intersection of Cedar and Dakota Avenues went up in flames. “My daddy’s in there!” a woman outside shouted, clutching her baby close.   Read More: Wonderful World: Rescued from a Raging Inferno – Guideposts

“Your shoe?” my husband Michael asked. He kept his eyes on the road but shook his head. “How did you manage to lose one shoe?”   I wondered the same thing. We were on vacation, driving from Montana to Erie, Pennsylvania, and I’d taken off my favorite pair of black clogs to be more comfortable in the car. We hadn’t made a stop since lunch, hours earlier. But I’d looked under every seat, combed through the empty wrappers and maps littering the floor—all I could find was the right clog.  Somehow, the left was missing. Could it have fallen out before I’d [More]

“Mom, can I bring two chicken legs for lunch?” my 6-year-old son AJ asked, smiling sweetly at me. I sighed. My son always made me proud—he’d recently been selected as one of two first graders to compete against two second grade students in the school’s spelling bee—but I wished he wasn’t such a picky eater. After all the delicious, healthy lunches I made for him came back to me uneaten, I’d finally given in and packed one of his favorite foods—a fried chicken leg. I was hoping he’d tire of it quickly—now he wanted two?   “Are you really going to eat [More]

When you have to bury your children, it doesn’t matter how long they’ve been gone, you never stop missing them. My husband, Myles, and I lost both our daughters. Linda’s alcoholism brought her life to a tragic end at age 45. Renee passed away at 48 after a long fight with breast cancer.   It’s been more than eight years since our girls died, but some days grief still hits me so hard, it’s as if I just kissed them goodbye for the last time.   Like the other day. When Myles saw me staring at our girls’ pictures on [More]

My friend, Loretta, was dying of stomach cancer. She had undergone a debilitating round of chemo that hadn’t worked. But she was so brave, even in the face of death. That didn’t surprise me. She was the friend who’d comforted me two years earlier, after my 21-year-old daughter, Nancy, was killed by a drunk driver.   I’d never gotten over the pain of being unable to say goodbye to my daughter. As I thought of Loretta going to heaven, I wondered if she could give Nancy a message. But what would I say? Nancy knew we loved her. To say how much [More]

“A troubled marriage.” That’s what our working relationship had become, my company’s CEO told me, the morning he fired me.   It didn’t make any sense. Sure, we’d had some strategic differences over the way our technology consulting firm operated, but I’d spent nearly every waking minute of the past ten years helping to build the company from its infancy.   I’d worked 50-hour weeks, putting vacation time and family time on hold to manage one of its branch offices to profitability. My husband and I didn’t have children–I often called the office my extended family.   “You’re no longer [More]

The house was quiet. Clinking silverware was about the only sound my wife, Elaine, and I made at dinner anymore, and sitting outside on the patio afterward, it seemed like even the crickets spoke in hushed tones.   I longed to hear rock music boom­ing from upstairs, or the rattle of skateboard wheels on our driveway. Elaine glanced up at the dark bal­cony overlooking the patio and I followed her gaze.   Stop it, I thought. It had been six months since the motorcycle accident that killed our 16-year-old son, Austin, and it was time to stop looking for ghosts. The silence [More]

So this is what the end feels like. I stared out the window of my parents’ living room. The sun shone brightly, but I couldn’t feel its warmth. The light felt harsh and unforgiving.   Winter’s typical days—cold, gray, overcast—had been slow to arrive that December in southern Missouri, but I was in a kind of darkness, lost in my own personal blizzard. I could barely find the will to get out of bed. I didn’t see the point.   I’d been here a month, mostly staying in my room, blinds closed, or wandering the house like a ghost. Daddy had [More]

The answer must be in the Bible, Joel Haler’s father told him. Of course, the minister’s son was used to that response—he’d heard it often in his 20 years, though what he read didn’t always make sense to him.   Still, Joel rolled his wheelchair up to the kitchen table and flipped the pages of his Bible to the Book of Job. Chapter 23: “Then Job answered: ‘Today also my complaint is bitter, his hand is heavy in spite of my groaning….’”   Joel read the chapter through twice, considering every word. A bitter complaint? He knew all about that. [More]

Even in Texas, December gets cold, but we needed to keep our heating bill low. With my husband, James, at work, why keep the house warm just for me? I turned down the thermostat until the display read 66 degrees, then hit the “Hold” button. With a click, the furnace shut off. I started sweeping the floors as the winter chill slowly began to seep into the house. I could practically hear my dad admonishing me—“Turn up the heat!”   It was December 6th, exactly one year since Dad had passed away. The memories were too painful to revisit, yet [More]

’Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring—except for me and my cat, Mittens. It was just the two of us this year. I wasn’t sure what was worse—having a broken heart or becoming a lonely old cat lady.   My soon-to-be ex-husband had just picked up our 9 and 12-year-old sons, Patrick and Michael, to spend Christmas Eve at his new condo, as we had agreed.   “Mom, seriously, what’re you gonna do?” Michael asked as his father beeped the car horn from the driveway. “You gonna be okay?”   “Who, me?” [More]

“Hold it right there!” I froze mid-step, pinned by a blinding beam of light. The voice behind the flashlight echoed in the hospital stairwell. “What are you doing here?”   I tugged nervously at my hat. How would I get out of this jam? I knew I looked ridiculous—or worse, suspicious—in my Santa suit, complete with curly white beard, heavy black boots and ample padding to hide my decidedly un-Kris Kringle-like 21-year-old frame.   It was Christmas morning, just after midnight. I wasn’t looking for attention. The whole point of this get-up was to sneak into the hospital. It had [More]

“I don’t want to have Christmas!” my 10-year-old son Jacob yelled. He threw a box of decorations on the ground and ran out of the room, followed by his twin brother, Jarom. I’d just told them that their dad wouldn’t be with them on Christmas Day, the first since our divorce. Another unhappy surprise.   I cleaned up the mess. As I bent down to sweep the last broken pieces, I couldn’t help but notice the meager presents under the tree. There was no money for the bikes they’d both asked for.   The boys didn’t need piles of toys, [More]

My last-minute Christmas shopping couldn’t wait another minute—even though it meant driving in the snow. Now all I had to do was find my way home.   There’d been big changes in my life recently. I’d moved back to my old hometown after a 40-year absence—and married my high school sweetheart. The town had grown in leaps and bounds since I’d last lived here, and driving was an adventure, snow or no snow.   I threw my packages in the trunk and brushed off my windshield. As I got behind the wheel, my friend Pam called. “I was out shopping,” [More]

“You’ve been approved!” There were no sweeter words our adoption case worker could have said to us that cold March day. For nearly a year, my husband, Femi, and I had been subject to interviews, training weekends, home studies, criminal checks and a whole lot of waiting in order to pass through the intensive process required by the Canadian government to adopt a child. The case worker wasn’t done talking, though. “The average wait for a baby could be two or three years, even more,” she said. “You might as well begin your biological family first.”   Read More: A [More]

When this letter from reader Valeria Olson arrived for us in the mail, we couldn’t wait to share it. With holiday shopping season just around the corner, it’s a perfect reminder that angels aren’t just with us on Christmas Day.   Valeria decided to spent the day at the mall with her daughter and granddaughters for a holiday shopping marathon. Eventually, they separated to pick out gifts for each other, planning to meet up later for lunch.   “Happy and satisfied with my arms full of gifts, I was idly window shopping when my cell rang,” Valeria wrote. “Spying a vacant bench [More]

A writer attending an out-of-town seminar is given reason to be thankful her luggage was lost.   Watch: Mysterious Ways: Close Call – Guideposts

Early on a Sunday morning, I was startled awake by vivid, disturbing images, settling into my consciousness as if I had seen them in reality. In my dream, I had seen inside the office of a U.S. Army first lieutenant—walls adorned with matted certificates and a few framed army medals, a wooden desk and an American flag standing at attention in the corner. What frightened me were the pages of reports that sat front and center on the desk, with the word “suicide” written prominently across them.   I immediately thought of my brother, Mike, a first lieutenant Green Beret [More]

The story wouldn’t leave my mind. I pulled my jacket tighter against the late-October breeze, hurrying from my office to the drugstore, where I intended to buy a card. Occasionally I glanced up into the clear blue sky for those shimmering wings.   It’s just a story, I thought. A parable about heaven in a book that a friend had put in my hands after my daughter’s funeral, four months earlier.   Kari was only 27 years old when she died in an ATV accident. She occupied my every waking thought. All it took was a simple “How are you?” [More]

The snow was coming down hard when I pulled into the carport beside our double-wide and took out my groceries. I couldn’t wait to get inside and warm up.   But just as I started for the front door, my arms full, the stray cat I’d found several months earlier jumped down out of nowhere and planted herself on the steps right in front of me. “Move, Kitty, these bags are heavy,” I said. “Scat!” But Kitty refused to budge.   Read More: A Heaven-Sent Watchkitty – Guideposts

My husband, Jerry, drove us to church Sunday morning. I stared out the window of our minivan, looking for a sign. Not a street sign—a sign from heaven.   I’d always believed that when God has a plan for you, he makes it known. But if that was true, all the signs pointed toward something I didn’t want to accept. I couldn’t even bring myself to glance at the backseat. Empty. No car seat. No baby.   Read More: Mysterious Ways: A Blessed Event – Guideposts

The small country cemetery was deserted that breezy fall day. I walked along the pine tree-lined perimeter, lost in thought. After my husband, Wally, died a year earlier, I didn’t know how I’d go on. I read every grief book, tended to the animals on my farm, went to mass three times a week, but I still glanced out the window every evening, expecting to see Wally’s pickup truck coming round the bend. I couldn’t imagine life without him. I certainly couldn’t imagine falling in love again.   Then I met George. I was in a grief counseling group, sitting [More]

“Have you asked God as she did to use you in a Mysterious Way, if not try it.” Admin   I had a busy day ahead—drive 40 minutes to the airport to pick up my youngest sister and my brother-in-law, flying in from Kansas City, and give them a grand tour of the new town my husband and I had moved to in Florida. Before I did anything, though, I picked up my copy of Mysterious Ways. Every morning I sit at the breakfast table with the magazine and read a few stories. It helps me focus on what’s important in [More]

The cozy two-bedroom apartment seemed to have my daughter’s name written all over it. It felt like home. Sunlight poured in through the large windows, the building was well-maintained, and there was a bus stop right on the corner so her girls could easily get to school. And the landlady, Benita, was so friendly.   “I love it,” Julie whispered to me. “Too bad I’ll never be approved.” Read More: Mysterious Ways: A Place for Julie – Guideposts