Proof The Bible Is True

The wind gently combing through the rust-colored weeds, calm waves lapping at the hull of my yellow kay­ak. Peaceful, right? Wrong. I didn’t want to spend one more minute on this stinkin’ river out in the middle of nowhere.   I swatted another mos­quito. I was tired of muttering to the empty air, sick of complaining, sick of being alone. Sick of myself.   Ever since my wife, Mary, died, seven years earlier, I’d been search­ing for something I couldn’t quite de­scribe. I’d quit my job as a restaurant manager to hike the Appalachian Trail, more than 2,000 miles. Then I’d [More]

Shrieks of joy, the sounds of happy children, reverberated across Rhode Island’s Napatree Beach. Two little girls playing in the sand. But I was barely aware of any of it. I plodded along, oblivious of the crashing waves at high tide. Late afternoon.   I ran my fingers through my wind-tangled hair, as if to clear my head. I’d come to this isolated spit of land on my sailboat, a place to escape. My wife and I had recently separated, our marriage in shambles. I worried about the toll on our boys, just six and eight.   It seemed like [More]

The other parents in the hospital waiting room were glued to an episode of The Jerry Springer Show blasting from the TV. But I had no interest. All I could think about was my 14-year-old son, David, who was in the middle of open-heart surgery. In fact, a nurse had informed me that, at that very moment, he was undergoing the riskiest part of the procedure.   “Luise!” a voice suddenly boomed.   I looked to my left, then my right. Who was calling me? Most people didn’t even know my maiden name, Luise. Maybe it was the nurse again. She said [More]

October 30, 2012. high tide. Calm offshore winds. Clean six-foot waves. A beautiful morning to surf. I stood on the north jetty at the entrance to Humboldt Bay and gazed out at the ocean. Shore birds flew in formation, almost shimmering in the sunlight.   I loved being out here in nature, in touch with something greater than myself.   There were maybe 20 guys already in the water at Bunkers, where waves break on a sandbar just north of the jetty. I watched them for a while, gauging the temperament of the ocean before zooming in on the perfect [More]

Many years have passed, but I’ll never forget that day in 1976, when I pulled two ivory envelopes from my mailbox. One, the phone bill. The other, a letter from my old friend Buz, who was due to visit me and my husband Clint the following week. Bad news first, I thought, walking into the house.   I tore the phone bill open. The amount made me cringe. $138.37–about $600 in today’s dollars. Back then, we simply couldn’t afford that.   Read More: Miracle in the Mailbox – Guideposts

The ivory face of the gold watch stared up at me from my dresser. A vintage Omega Seamaster, the bracelet scratched and crystal scuffed with age. My grandparents had given it to Dad back in the sixties, before he joined the Navy.   I’d never seen him without it on his wrist, until the day the mainspring seized up and it stopped ticking. He never got around to repairing it. I wished he could see me wearing it tomorrow on my wedding day. But like the watch, he’d run out of time.   Buttoning up my shirt sleeves for the [More]

I turned the corner onto our street and braced myself. I had to talk rebuilding plans with our contractor, but just the thought of seeing that empty lot–where my family’s house had burned to the ground seven months earlier–made me feel sick.   That night still haunted me. Waking up to the blaring of smoke alarms. Bolting out of bed with my husband, Keith, and grabbing our two young daughters from their rooms. Huddling outside in our pajamas, shivering, before seeking refuge with a neighbor.   We lost everything but the clothes on our backs and a jumble of items [More]

Wayne George knows he had a close call, but says his survival had nothing to do with luck.   On Tuesday, George and his wife had spent the afternoon watching their granddaughter’s swim meet. Afterwards, he dropped off his wife at their home and he went out to run a quick errand.   He made it to Jefferson Road, less than a mile from his home, “I see a tree falling, a huge tree falling off to my right and it’s in a wooded area. I realize I can’t avoid it,” explains George.   Read More: Man thankful to be [More]

Darrell Ellwood wasn’t just any firefighter. He served with my department for 11 years and the City of Windsor for another 18, and had a reputation for being “the man with the plan,” always looking out for his brothers. He was the provincial firefighters association’s best advocate as a member of the provincial labor department’s firefighter health and safety committee.   He was a husband, and a father to three children. He was also one of my best friends. His death at age 50 from multiple myeloma, a cancer, shocked me. How could someone with such a profound influence be [More]

A few weeks ago, three children in Moreno Valley, California, released a trio of colorful, helium-filled Mylar balloons into the sky. Attached to each was a handwritten, heartbreaking letter.   “Hi Mom, I miss you,” one letter read. “I hope you come and visit me soon because I have questions to ask, like why you had to leave…”   Each of the letters carried a small expression of the children’s grief. Their mother, 42-year-old Renee Finney, had recently lost a two-year battle with cancer. She’d passed away five days before Mother’s Day.   The children, ages 16, 18 and 25, [More]

Hurricane Gloria was wreaking havoc on our neighborhood. Looking out my kitchen window, I could see the force of the violent winds rattling the windows of the ranch houses in our development and hurling branches and other debris down the street.   Just moments before, a massive tree had fallen from our neighbor’s property into our backyard. What other damage had been done? Had the cover on our pool torn away? Had the metal shed with all my gardening supplies been bowled over? I was anxious to get outside and see for myself.   Read Moree: Mysterious Ways: The Howl [More]

“Gary! We need you here right now!” The dispatcher’s voice on the phone jarred me awake. Rain and wind rattled the windows something fierce.   My bedroom seemed darker than normal. I searched for the clock on my nightstand, but couldn’t find it. The heck with it. I had to get to work. They wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t an emergency.   “I’m on my way,” I said, swinging my legs out of bed. “Be there in ten.”   I found my closet, grabbed a pair of work jeans, a shirt and my tool belt. I pushed my arm through a [More]

I walk leisurely up the steep, narrow, rugged path high above a roaring river. I’ve been here before. I feel sure of it. The stately evergreen trees and the water are familiar. J, my 60-pound Border collie, lopes along beside me, my trusted companion.   I stop to take a picture of the river, looking down over a sheer rock face. The water is a brilliant turquoise blue, except for the white of the rapids, crashing violently over jagged rocks.   J goes on ahead of me. I’m not worried. She’s well trained. Smart and obedient. I hear a scampering [More]

He was trapped under his tractor. Only God and Shannon knew where to find him.   Ted: Twenty-five years of tending our 80-acre farm. It didn’t seem possible. But I still got excited every morning to go out in the fields.   One fine June morning in 2004 I planned to mow a lot of hay. I dressed quickly, snapped my sheath knife onto my belt and tucked my ring rosary into my watch pocket.   Peggy: Breakfast was ready when Ted came into the kitchen. Pancakes with lots of butter and syrup. His favorite. Shannon crawled out from under the table [More]

Can a miracle come in the form of an old cookbook?   Doctors didn’t have much faith that 100-year-old Ruth Levy would get better. Complications from pneumonia made it unlikely she’d ever return home from the hospital.   That all changed when one of her relatives, David Vos, decided to pay her a visit. Before he left, he pulled a first-edition book off his mother’s shelf: Clémentine in the Kitchen, by Samuel Chamberlain. Something to read to Ruth in the hospital.   “I didn’t know the book,” David told The New York Times, “but it was about cooking, it looked old and [More]

Four hours on the road, crammed into an old Chevrolet with two antsy boys, a fussy two-year-old girl and one very pregnant cat named Midnight–I could use a break to stretch my legs. We all could. But try telling that to my husband, Ernie, behind the wheel.   “Midnight’s acting funny,” my son, Ken, yawned from the backseat. His brother, Jerry, stroked Midnight’s fur, trying to calm her down.   “She’s probably getting ready to have her kittens,” I said, glancing meaningfully at Ernie.   “No stops,” he said. “We’re almost there.”   Read More: Mysterious Ways: The Lifesaving Craving [More]

The gorgeous grassy field stretched for miles. Golden rays of sunshine warmed my skin, the sky a vivid blue. I sat alone. Relaxed. Serene. A man suddenly appeared from behind a tree. He was balding and a little paunchy, wearing a chestnut-colored robe.   “I want you to get started,” he said sharply, without so much as a hello. “Get started writing a book on multiple sclerosis.”   I’d had MS for three years, but I was no expert. I was a music teacher–putting a book together never entered my mind. “No way,” I said. “I work full time.”   [More]

“These are ruined,” I sighed, tossing a pile of water-damaged cassette tapes in the trash. I’d found them in a box of Dad’s stuff that I’d brought home after he died. I hated to throw them away, but a flood had waterlogged all of the flimsy cardboard boxes in my storage room.   Most of the items inside had been wrecked, and I worried about mold getting to whatever was left. What else could I do?   It had been almost 13 years since I’d lost Dad. He had passed so suddenly that I never got to say goodbye. I [More]

Winters are long and unforgiving in North Dakota. The winter of 1996 was especially brutal. It was a difficult time in my own life too. A neck injury had kept me flat in bed for nearly a year. I was finally allowed up for short periods in March. “Just in time for Easter,” my husband, Dick, said.   But I dreaded it. How could I sing “bloom in every meadow” when the snow was four feet deep? How could I summon up the joy of the season knowing I had months of excruciating physical therapy ahead?   I stood stiffly [More]

“A misfire of the number two cylinder,” the mechanic at the auto shop off California’s Highway 15 read from my truck’s diagnostic computer. So that’s what the “check engine” light meant. “You just had this vehicle serviced at our shop in San Diego?” he asked.   I nodded toward the camper trailer hitched to the back. “I always do before one of these excursions,” I told him. I was on my way to the northern Sierras for a solo camping trip far off the beaten path.   Read More: Mysterious Ways: A Not-So-False Alarm – Guideposts

Today the cross sits inside a display case in Vienna, Austria. But for many years it had a much humbler home. Sewn carefully underneath the silk lining of my dad’s wool blazer, below the left pocket.   Back in 1962, he was a teenager in southeastern Turkey about to embark on his first real journey away from home, to attend high school six hours away, in the city of Diyarbakir.   It was no ordinary cross. For centuries, the Aydins had been known as “the family of priests” in their small town. The cross was a cherished heirloom; the top [More]

Ouch! After two and a half hours on the road–a never-ending trip back home to Sarasota after visiting Mom in Savannah–my neck was killing me. With 200 miles to go, I needed a break. I stopped at the nearest rest area and massaged my shoulders.   A car pulled into the spot next to me. I glanced at the driver. Is that…Josephine? I knew her from a Christian fellowship group I participated in back home. Well into her eighties but still sharp as a pin, she possessed a bright spirit and a big, warm smile that comforted everyone in the group.   Read [More]

How often do you snap a picture with your cell phone? Every day? It’s become so easy to document our lives, we often take it for granted that these pictures are safely stored on our memory cards or in “the cloud.” But what happens if these precious records disappear?   A few months ago, I set out to backup my digital photos from over the years. Not just the ones from my current phone; I wanted to archive all my previous phones and memory cards, too. I meant business. How hard could it be?   Revisiting the past was a [More]

Dense fog shrouded the water. Beyond the dock, where a small skiff was tied up, all I could see was a milky mist. It looked like it was a day better for holing up inside the lighthouse where my wife and I were staying than going out on the water.   There was a reason, after all, why the Little River Lighthouse was here, perched on a tiny speck of land off the coast of Maine, opposite the town of Cutler. The shoreline was rugged, littered with jagged, treacherous rocks.   But I didn’t have a choice. Marilyn and I [More]

How do you know when you’ve met the love of your life? I couldn’t stop thinking about Esther. I laughed whenever we were together. My spirit soared at the sight of her. But we’d only been on a few dates! Was I really going to take her to dinner that weekend and ask her to be my girlfriend?   I knew she liked me but I was still nervous.   On my lunch break, I ran into a deli for a sandwich, pulling some bills that I had received as change earlier in the day from my wallet to pay [More]

Check engine! The warning light on the dashboard flashed at me once I started my car. I don’t have time for this, I thought, turning the car off. My youngest daughter was a teacher and I was on my way to do some volunteer work at her school in Vilonia 20 miles away. I didn’t want to be late.   I climbed out of the car and bent over to check for any liquids leaking out. Nothing. Then I looked under the hood and checked the oil. Everything looked normal. I’d just brought the car to the garage a couple days ago. What could [More]

How many times have we heard ourselves say it: What a coincidence! And sometimes that’s all it is, an outcome against which the odds were stacked. Then there are things not even coincidence can explain. Case in point–Bill and Gloria Jamieson.   After a painful divorce, Gloria Jean Slinkard felt so strongly about wanting to remain single for the rest of her life that she vowed to never even consider getting married again. Then she met Bill Jamieson.   Four days later, on Valentine’s Day, Bill proposed and Gloria said yes. Immediately. Why? Because what occurred in that brief interlude [More]