Months after suffering a miscarriage Valerie decided to have a garage sale Gerald a neighbor craftsman a few miles away eagerly bought the baby crib she was selling While there his wife talked with Valerie and learned about her loss After hearing of her situation on the way home Gerald decided to use the crib to craft a keepsake for Valerie A week later he tearfully presented her with a beautiful bench ldquo There rsquo s good people out there and here rsquo s proof rdquo Valerie said Like Valerie Ruth and Naomi suffered great loss Naomi rsquo s husband [... more]

In the sixties-era program The Andy Griffith Show a man tells Andy he should let his son Opie decide how he wants to live Andy disagrees ldquo You can rsquo t let a young rsquo un decide for himself He rsquo ll grab at the first flashy thing with shiny ribbons on it Then when he finds out there rsquo s a hook in it it rsquo s too late Wrong ideas come packaged with so much glitter that it rsquo s hard to convince them that other things might be better in the long run rdquo He concludes that [... more]

Who do people believe Jesus is Some say He was a good teacher but just a man Author C S Lewis wrote ldquo Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a nbsp madman nbsp or something worse You can shut him up for a fool you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher rdquo These now-famous words from Mere Christianity propound that Jesus [... more]

An accomplished acrobat and aerialist Jen was born without legs and abandoned at the hospital Yet she says being put up for adoption was a blessing ldquo I am here because of the people who poured into me rdquo Her adoptive family helped her to see she was ldquo born like this for a reason rdquo They raised her to ldquo never say lsquo can rsquo t rsquo rdquo and encouraged her in all her pursuits She meets challenges with an attitude of ldquo How can I tackle this rdquo and motivates others to do the same The Bible tells [... more]

Diet Eman was an ordinary shy young woman in the Netherlands mdash in love working and enjoying time with family and friends mdash when the Germans invaded in As Diet pronounced Deet later wrote ldquo When there is danger on your doorstep you want to act almost like an ostrich burying its head in the sand rdquo Yet Diet felt God calling her to resist the German oppressors which included risking her life to find hiding places for Jews and other pursued people This unassuming young woman became a warrior for God nbsp We find many stories in the Bible [... more]

During Scottish missionary Alexander Duff rsquo s first voyage to India in he was shipwrecked in a storm off the coast of South Africa He and his fellow passengers made it to a small desolate island and a short time later one of the crew found a copy of a Bible belonging to Duff washed ashore on the beach When the book dried Duff read Psalm to his fellow survivors and they took courage Finally after a rescue and yet another shipwreck Duff arrived in India Psalm lists some of the ways God delivered the Israelites Duff and his shipmates [... more]

The English preacher Charles H Spurgeon ndash lived life ldquo full throttle rdquo He became a pastor at age mdash and soon was preaching to large crowds He personally edited all of his sermons which eventually filled sixty-three volumes and wrote many commentaries books on prayer and other works And he typically read six books a week In one of his sermons Spurgeon said ldquo The sin of doing nothing is about the biggest of all sins for it involves most of the others Horrible idleness God save us from it rdquo Spurgeon lived with diligence which meant he ldquo [... more]

ldquo Watch my fairy princess dance Grandma rdquo my three-year-old granddaughter gleefully called as she raced around the yard of our cabin a big grin on her face Her ldquo dancing rdquo brought a smile and her big brother rsquo s glum ldquo She rsquo s not dancing just running rdquo didn rsquo t staunch her joy at being on vacation with family The first Palm Sunday was a day of highs and lows When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey the crowds enthusiastically shouted ldquo Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord rdquo [... more]

David rsquo s first beating came at the hands of his father on his seventh nbsp birthday after he accidentally broke a window ldquo He kicked me and punched me David said Afterward he apologized He was an abusive alcoholic and it rsquo s a cycle I rsquo m doing my best to end now rdquo nbsp But it took a long time for David to get to this point Most of his teen years and twenties were spent in jail or on probation and in and out of addiction treatment centers When it felt like his dreams were entirely [... more]

When my husband and I were exploring a small rugged corner of the state of Wyoming I spied a sunflower in a rocky dry place where sagebrush nettles prickly cactus and other scraggly plants grew It wasn rsquo t as tall as the domestic sunflower but it was just as bright mdash and I felt cheered This unexpected bright spot in rough terrain reminded me of how life even for the Christian can seem barren and cheerless Troubles can seem insurmountable and like the cries of the psalmist David our prayers sometimes seem to go unheeded ldquo Hear me Lord [... more]