Page 311 – Guideposts Articles

The Joys of Summer

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Edward Grinnan

I have said before that fall is my favorite season. I like the crisp weather and the feeling that the world is on the move again.

I feel most energetic in the fall, most creative and productive and inspired. I fall in love in the fall. Not every fall, of course, but always in the fall. Now that it’s Labor Day, I say bring it on!

But there are certainly things that I will miss about summer (not that it’s totally over yet): fireflies; bullfrogs and toads; hamburgers on the grill, and Millie napping in the tall grass nearby while I cook them; long, lovely sunsets; shorts.

I don’t want to keep any of us from getting on with this last long weekend of summer. So just tell me: What joys will you miss about summer? Post below. Have a great Labor Day and not too much rain on the Gulf Coast.

The Joys of Jury Duty

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Edward Grinnan

Jury duty.

The words strike dread in the bravest heart, right along with root canal and tax audit. Some people simply ignore the summons and risk facing the consequences (which include…what? Have you ever known anyone arrested for not appearing? Really?). Most of us show up hoping and even trying not to get picked. We hope and pray and have faith that we won’t be assigned to a trial. That would mean days down here.

By now you’ve correctly surmised that I am at jury duty, called to civil court in downtown Manhattan, where I sit and sit…and sit. No inspirational or uplifting stories here. Just people complaining about how much work they have to do and how mad their bosses are at them. Some just hate the whole idea of serving even if they have nothing else going on. Now there’s a positive attitude. I mean, this wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t so busy.

Okay, so it’s really not as awful as all that. First we got to watch a nice informative video with Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer (a three-time Guideposts cover, I might add) that actually is a pretty inspiring video, with interesting and even uplifting stories about the history of the jury system (I particularly liked the scenes where the archaic punishment of dunking was reenacted). Moreover the clerks and court officials are exceedingly diffident since they know how much people hate coming here…a positive attitude I appreciate.

Last time I was called I remember feeling dissed because I WASN’T put on a jury. Why bother going through all this for nothing? In fact working for an inspirational magazine like Guideposts can apparently get you disqualified. My colleague and positive thinking blogger Amy Wong says she was once rejected from a jury when the lawyer defending a large corporation learned who her employer was. “Oh, you work for that magazine that publishes all those real life David and Goliath stories, all those inspiring articles about people beating the odds and achieving their dreams. I don’t want you on my jury!”

Apparently that is not going to happen for me today because it looks like I’ve been—gulp—chosen, and I am sworn not to say anything about the case so I won’t. I have no reason now to complain about being rejected. Well, maybe the parties will come to their senses and settle before this goes any further.

The fact is, though, once I’m down here—and it’s only every seven years in New York—I become fascinated with the workings of the justice system, especially the human workings. What is more basic to human society than our search for justice? It is an amazing albeit confusing and imperfect system, and when I stop and force myself to think about it, contributing to the process can be a very inspiring experience. Because the system is made up of people, with all their strengths and frailties, trying to do the right thing. If ever you want to experience real life and real life stories, come to the courthouse.

Last time when I complained about not being picked for a jury, I said to a lawyer friend, “What’s the point?” He told me the point was that I showed up, and that alone helped make the system work, even if I didn’t get put on a jury. “Just show up when called,” he said.

It’s either that or go back to dunking.

The Inspiring True Story Behind “Silent Night”

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Elizabeth Sherrill

My husband and I were staying in the little village of Oberndorf, Austria, when the letter reached us that December.

“You picked the right Christmas to be away!” our friend began.

Our church back home—St. Mark’s in Mt. Kisco, New York—he went on, was having the asbestos insulation removed from the heating pipes in its basement. Since the air intake for the organ was also in the basement, this meant that as long as asbestos dust was being created, the instrument could not be played. If the job wasn’t finished by Christmas Eve, our friend continued, he and his wife would have to go to church elsewhere.

“Can you imagine the midnight service without the organ?” he wrote.

I put the letter on the windowsill and looked across the swirling gray water of the Salzach River to the distant Alps. The Salzach takes a horseshoe loop at Oberndorf, and where the river curves, a church used to stand. High water had eaten away its foundations, and eventually the building was torn down. But I wanted to tell our friend about that vanished church. Because there too, one Christmas Eve, the organ had been silent.…

Dampness from the river had corroded the pipes until by Christmas Eve of 1818, the organ in Oberndorf was emitting only a wheezy whisper—and the itinerant organ mender was not due in the village until the following week.

The bad news especially affected two young men. One was the 31-year-old church organist, Franz Gruber. As a boy, Franz had often been beaten for sneaking away from his linen loom to take music lessons. Now he had worked hard rehearsing the village choir for the midnight service. But to ask them to sing the elaborate Christmas chorales unaccompanied was out of the question, and Franz was in despair.

Equally distressed was the 25-year-old pastor, Joseph Mohr. A child born out of wedlock, educated for the priesthood on the charity of the church, Joseph had only recently been ordained. He’d dreamed of making this Christmas celebration an especially glorious one, but here it was December 24, and no organ!

Joseph did own a guitar. But a guitar could hardly substitute for the organ on a night like this, with its tradition of elaborate fugues and cantatas. If only there were some melody simple enough for a guitar to carry by itself, with homely words to capture the holiness of this special night.

Even as the wish formed itself, words began to come, words based on a poem he’d written two years before. The priest seized a scrap of paper and began to write, his quill pen racing across the page.

It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve when Joseph showed the little poem to the organist. Could Franz set the words to a melody for the guitar? Franz Gruber said he would try.

The choir was assembling by the time he finished. It was too late to teach them the whole piece, so Joseph and Franz decided to sing the song as a duet, with the choir repeating just the last line of each verse.

And so it was that the disgruntled church congregation, muttering over their mute and useless organ, heard instead the new pastor’s tenor voice and the bass voice of their organist, singing a song to the plucking of a guitar, the choir echoing the final words.

The words stuck in the worshippers’ minds, and so did the tune; many were humming it as they left that night.

They were still humming it when the organ mender arrived in Oberndorf a few days later. He liked the song so much he committed both the words and music to memory and played it as he journeyed from town to town. In the Tyrol, a group of traveling singers added it to their repertoire.

Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber never knew the end of the story. Neither man guessed that the song they had created the night the organ failed was to become the world’s most popular Christmas carol.

But it was about that original organless service back in 1818 that I wanted to write our friend. There must have been many in that congregation who’d been tempted to go somewhere else that night. And that would have been too bad. They would have missed a chance to see what God can do with bad news. They would not have been in Oberndorf to hear the very first singing of “Silent Night.”

The Inspiring Moment Josh Speidel Scored in a College Basketball Game

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Kimberly Elkins

With 19:40 on the clock in the first half of the University of Vermont’s match-up against Albany in March, Josh Speidel caught a pass and scored. The crowd went wild, and the coaches and players of both teams hugged the 6’7”senior. According to ABC News, Josh announced, “I did it! I’m a college basketball player!”

Making a single lay-up would be no big deal for the average player. But five years ago, Josh suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, only months after signing with the UVM Catamounts. The star forward of his Columbia, Indiana high school team, Josh had offers from 15 universities, but playing for UVM had always been his dream.

After the accident, he went into a coma and the doctors told his parents, David and Lisa Speidel, that he might remain in a vegetative state or need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. But his parents never lost faith that their son would wake up, and agreed they wouldn’t tell Josh his terrible prognosis when he did. Not if, but when. “We knew God had us,” Lisa said.

Four weeks later, Josh proved them right. Not only did he learn to walk and talk again, soon he was even working out. But as much as the goal of playing basketball was a driving force in Josh’s recovery, the most important thing was his unwavering faith in God to see him through.

Photo by Brian Jenkins

“Faith has always been instrumental in my well-being and having that relationship with God has always been first in my life,” Josh told the Burlington Free Press. “Sticking with that through the ups and downs, my parents never wavered in their faith, they never took a step back and questioned God.

Just a year and a half after the accident, he headed off to Burlington, Vermont to start college. With periodic arm tremors and short-term memory loss, Josh knew he would never play for UVM, but he watched every practice from the sidelines and became an integral part of the team. UVM associate head coach Kyle Cieplicki, who’d been Josh’s lead recruiter, said, “He’s shown me and the whole team how to handle adversity.”

Now 24, Josh will graduate from UVM in May with a 3.4 GPA. He’s majoring in education and social services, and plans to work with kids. “Wherever God takes me,” he said, “I’m keeping my options open.” Josh tells people who are struggling with their own challenges, “Always have a goal in your head and chase after it as hard as you can. And whenever you need help, ask.”

But in the end, Josh told an Indiana news station, “It’s a God thing.”

The House That Helped Him Find Love

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by John Brown

I first noticed the house in the summer of 1958. It was on East Sixteenth Street in the suburb of San Diego where I lived. A new through street had been completed that spring, and I now passed by the house occasionally on my way home.

The house was unremarkable. Pale green and on the north side of the street. A compact, one-story home, no different from the others on the block. So why couldn’t I keep my eyes off it when I passed by? I felt drawn to it.

Summer turned to fall. I started studying photography at San Diego Junior College. The house and its peculiar pull faded from my mind as something else caught my attention—a pretty, red-haired classmate named Ruth. Halfway through the semester, I finally got the courage to ask her out.

“Les Brown and his orchestra are playing at the Balboa Park Club,” I said to her one day after class. “Would you like to go with me?”

“That sounds like fun,” she said.

Neither Ruth nor I could drive, so I convinced my younger brother to bring his own date to the dance. That way, he could give us a lift. On Friday night, we drove to the address Ruth had given me. “Should be coming up on the next block,” I said.

I counted the numbers as we went: 2215, 2217, 22… “There it is!” I said. My brother pulled into the driveway. “This is your home?” I said when Ruth answered the door.

“Yes, my father lives here,” she said. “I’m staying with him while I go to college.”

Now I knew what was so special about that ordinary, pale green house on the north side of East Sixteenth Street. It was the young lady inside. She’s now been my wife for 60 years.

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The Great Outdoors Is Her Sanctuary

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Lou Dean

On Easter morning, I will celebrate the glory of the Resurrection—but not inside a church.

I’ll be standing by a cross on a hillside, surrounded by sagebrush and cedar trees, miles from civilization in the foothills of northwest Colorado. With a handful of other early risers, I will brave the cold as the sun ascends over the distant snow-capped mountains.

After a Scripture is read, I will join in the singing of a hymn and feel a special closeness to the Creator as I embrace the familiar comfort of this Easter sunrise service. This is the church I have called home for many years. My church of the great outdoors.

Looking at the high desert foothills, you might think, “There’s nothing here.” I’ve had visitors ask, “Why do you live in the middle of nowhere?”

I could tell the long story of how I left the place where I grew up and drove hundreds of miles to this lonesome hillside, surrounded by thousands of acres of unpopulated public land. I could talk about my lifelong search for love, healing and belonging. Mostly I just say, “This is my church.”

Mama said the first word out of my mouth was “outside.” That’s where I went—outside—when I was seven years old and Mama walked out on our family, leaving my three siblings and me in the care of my dad.

I ran to the creek and hid amid the blackjack trees. I found something there I would keep chasing for many years.

Except for a brief stint in Vacation Bible School and a summertime visit to my grandmother’s church, I had no real concept of God.

What I did know is that, whenever I was outside, playing by the creek or sitting on the schoolhouse steps, listening to the wind in the grass, I did not feel alone.

I grew up, married young, divorced and found myself raising a five-year-old son named Scott who suffered from asthma.

One night, I was desperate enough to attempt something I’d seen other people do. “Lord, how do I help my son?” I whispered.

Scott took a dozen medications daily. I’d lost my job as an orthodontic assistant because no day care would accept a boy with severe asthma. I cleaned houses, propping Scott in front of a TV while I worked.

A strange idea came to me in response to my novice prayer: “Go see Dr. Bob.” He was the family doctor who’d made house calls at our farm when I was growing up.

“I’d get him out of Oklahoma,” Dr. Bob told me. “Take him out west to a high, dry climate.”

So much for prayer. What was I supposed to do with that advice? It had taken me a year just to scrape together enough for the old pickup truck I drove. No way could I afford to move to a different state and start over.

Another unexpected thought came to mind. I remembered an aunt and uncle in Rangely, Colorado, near the Utah border about 90 miles north of Grand Junction. I had spent a summer with Alma and Slim after high school.

I called Aunt Alma. “We have two empty bedrooms,” she said. “You can stay with us until you get a place of your own. Bring that boy and come.”

The prospect of moving terrified me. And yet, as Scott and I drove through Kansas wheat fields and into the Colorado mountains, a comfortably familiar feeling took the place of fear.

Outside, in the big sky and big landscape, I was not alone.

If you’re imagining Rangely as some Colorado ski town, think again. It’s high desert, mostly sagebrush, cedar trees and oil derricks. I was homesick and regretted moving.

Three months after we arrived, I awoke one morning and realized I hadn’t gotten up in the night in response to Scott’s wheezing. I ran to his room. He slept peacefully. Dr. Bob—and the Presence who had directed me to him—was right.

I wanted to get to know that Presence. I began attending a small community church in Rangely. Everything I heard made sense to me, and I decided I was a Christian.

Four years later, Scott was a happy and healthy elementary school student. I found work in construction, training as a welder’s helper. I got remarried. Everything seemed to be coming together.

One day, Aunt Alma called. “Your dad’s gone,” she said.

I sought solace at church. To my bewilderment, instead of comfort, I received questions and judgment. “What church did your dad attend?” everyone asked. “Was he saved?”

Dad believed in a divine power, but he did not attend church. Plenty of ornery farmers are like that. The congregation grew chilly toward me. The pastor quoted Bible verses suggesting my dad was now in hell.

I fled that church and cast aside my newfound faith. I started going to bars. My second marriage unraveled, and my drinking escalated.

One night at a bar in Rangely, I commented bitterly to someone about the judgment cast on my dad. A stranger beside me turned and said, “No man can determine that.”

“Who are you?” I demanded.

I was shocked to learn the man was an Episcopal priest. “The state of your dad’s soul is known to God alone,” he said. “Don’t let anyone tell you they know more than God.”

Right there in that bar, I broke down. The priest and I talked for a long time about God’s mercy and all-knowing ways.

The next Sunday morning, and for many Sundays afterward, Scott and I were at the Episcopal church in town.

I recommitted myself to God. I cut back on my drinking, read Scripture and, for the first time in my life, felt truly welcome in a Christian community. I even allowed myself to forgive that other church.

A few years later, an oil bust sent Rangely’s population and finances plummeting. Like so many other places of worship in struggling rural towns, our little church had to close, and the priest took a position in another community.

I joined an informal Bible study with women in town. We met to discuss Scripture and agreed not to argue over differing interpretations.

Life moved on. Scott graduated from high school, went to college, married and moved to Boise, Idaho, where his wife’s family lived and there were more work opportunities.

The Bible study group drifted apart. Slim and Alma died; their house was sold. After years as a single mom, juggling work and parenting, I was alone.

Another of those strange thoughts came to me. If I stayed in Rangely, unanchored and unhappy, I would be back in the bars in no time. Something pulled at my soul, directing my gaze out of town, toward the hills.

This time, I knew where those thoughts came from. I bought a house 12 miles from town in Blue Mountain, a small, desolate parcel surrounded by acres of public land.

It was a lonesome spot. I couldn’t help wondering why God had directed me here. I explored my new territory. Every afternoon, my dogs and I took long walks through the hills.

We meandered through scrubland and unusual rock formations. I saw ancient fossils and evidence of the Native Americans who’d once lived here.

This place was not desolate. Once I set aside my preconceptions and opened my eyes, I could see beauty everywhere.

That’s how it is with God. The more I walked, the more I soaked in the hills’ muted colors and ever-changing vistas, the more I listened to the voice of the wind in the sage, the closer I grew to my Creator.

I guess I’m like my dad in some ways. A little ornery. Single-minded. People like me don’t always fit in at church. For this stage of my life, God gave me this wilderness as my church.

Family and friends try to persuade me to return to Oklahoma. “You moved out there for Scott. He’s well now. Why don’t you come home?”

No, thank you. Here on Blue Mountain, God has sustained me through the losses that come in the second half of life. My older brother died, and my younger brother took his life.

Both times, I plunged into depression. Just when my doubts felt overwhelming, I would take the dogs for a walk and suddenly feel lifted up by a powerful sense of consolation.

God was here. I was home.

The deepest lesson God has taught me in this church of the outdoors is that, however close I feel to him here, he is everywhere.

My life story confirms it. God was with me by the creek in Oklahoma. There in Dr. Bob’s office. Even in that bar where the priest helped rescue my fledgling faith.

This Easter, surrounded by the sage and cedar I’ve grown to love, I will give special thanks for my home in the wilderness and my relationship with my Creator. I’ll take comfort in his presence here. And everywhere.

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The Friend He Never Forgot

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Walter P. Smith

Times were tough for my family that summer of 1928. My father was without work. But the morning sun was warm in our yard, and I pushed tin cans around in the dirt like trucks. What else could a nine-year-old do? Nothing that would make a difference, I figured.

My mother watched me from the front porch. Suddenly I heard: “Corn! Butter beans! Tomatoes!”

I jumped up and ran to the fence. An elderly black man in a broad-brimmed hat drove a mule cart loaded with vegetables. “Two cents an ear for corn!” he called out. “Four cents each tomatoes!”

“I’ll take some corn and three tomatoes, please,” my mother said. “You ask a decent price.” The man got down off his cart and gathered up the vegetables. He walked stiffly to the porch.

“Could I have a ride?” I blurted out.

“Sure enough,” the man said. “If your mama doesn’t mind.”

“I’d be thankful if it kept the boy busy for a while,” Mom said. She dropped some coins into his hand. He laughed and helped me into the wagon. “I’m King Brooks,” he said. “Let’s go, Maude.” The old mule started walking along.

Sitting up in that high wagon, I felt like a king myself. “I gotta get on with my work now,” said King when we got to the end of the street. “You run on home, you hear?”

“Can I ride with you again tomorrow?” I asked. “I could carry people’s groceries to them.”

King thought for a moment. “That would be a great help to me,” he said.

Next morning King picked me up at nine. We rode through the neighborhood. King called out prices and a lady called back her order. I gathered up fruits and vegetables from the back of the cart. My first customer!

“Thank you, young man,” she said when I handed her some butter beans and a watermelon.

I felt my face go hot. I looked down at the ground. “You’re welcome,” I mumbled. I turned and fled back to the cart. That was pretty much how it went all day.

In the afternoon King dropped me off back home with several ears of corn to give to my mother as payment. When I saw that corn on the dinner table that night my chest swelled with pride. I was making a difference.

I’d ride with King on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. That first week I brought the customers’ money to King to make change. “Now, you watch,” he said to me. “This lady gave me 50 cents, and her order costs 39 cents. So that’s one penny plus two nickels she gets in return.”

I watched King closely—more closely than I’d ever paid attention to math in the fourth grade. By the end of the day I was making change myself.

“With you doing the leg work,” King said, “we’re doing twice as much business as usual.” That made me feel important, like a man instead of a child.

Now when a lady said, “Thank you, young man,” I looked her in the eye. “It’s a pleasure,” I’d reply.

King liked to tell stories as we rode along. “The Samaritans were considered real good-for-nothings,” King explained one day. “But when a man was hurt by the side of the road, only a Samaritan stopped to help him.”

King yanked the reins. “Whoa, Maude,” he said, pulling up in front of a water fountain.

“Why did everyone think the Samaritans were good for nothing?” I asked, climbing down off the cart to get a drink.

“Because they were different,” said my friend King.

“Oh,” I said, not really understanding. I climbed back onto the wagon. “Don’t you want a drink, King?”

“Can’t have one here,” he said. “It’s for white people.”

I looked back at the water fountain as we drove away. “Whites Only” the sign above it read. I’d seen that sign all my life. For the first time I questioned why it was there.

Half an hour later King and I pulled up in front of the grocery store—my favorite stop of the day. Once Maude was settled with her feedbag, King bought us some soda crackers, rat cheese and a bottle of grape Nehi.

We sat down on the steps with the bottle between us, talking and passing it back and forth. A couple of men walked by. I saw one of them stop and stare. He said something to his friend and walked on.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked King, reaching again for the Nehi.

“Negroes and white people aren’t supposed to drink out of the same container,” he said. “It’s against the law.”

“But it doesn’t make any difference to God, does it?” I asked. “He loves Negroes just like he loved the Good Samaritan. And me.”

“That’s right,” said King. “Color doesn’t make no difference to God. It shouldn’t make a difference to people.”

“It doesn’t make any difference to me then,” I announced. I took a big swig of grape Nehi. Nothing tasted better on a hot day. Especially that hot day.

At the end of August my father got a job, and we had to move from Richmond to another part of Virginia. Soon as we got word, we had to pack up and go. I knew how important this was for Dad.

Thing was, all this came about on a Saturday. King wasn’t due back till Tuesday! I wished I could see him, but I didn’t even know where he lived. In a different part of town, no doubt, where white people didn’t go.

King made many trips to us in Barton Heights, but I never once thought about where he lived.

I grew up, joined the Navy and fought in World War II. But time seemed to be at a standstill, at least in Virginia. Home on furlough, I offered a young lady of color and her baby my seat on a crowded bus. The driver pulled over. “You know better than that,” he told me. “You want me to lose my job?”

The young woman got up and I took my seat again. “Why don’t you give me the baby?” I said. She handed her son to me. “Is there a law against this?” I challenged the driver. “Not that I know,” he muttered. He went back to driving the bus. I kept the baby on my lap.

After the war, I landed a good job, got married and settled back in Richmond. Things started to change. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. “Whites Only” signs disappeared. Schools were integrated.

I never forgot my friend King. But in all my asking, no one could tell me anything about him. I tried to give my own children the self-respect I’d learned from that man, and teach them we are all equal in God’s eyes. Same with my grandchildren.

I’d come a long way from those days making change on the wagon. I’d had a successful career in business. Now it was time to relax, so I was told. But retirement just wasn’t for me. Nothing beat the satisfaction of an honest day’s work. King would have agreed.

At the age of 70, I took a job managing corporate functions for Colonial Downs racetrack. One afternoon I was leaving the building just as the FedEx truck pulled up outside.

I recognized our regular deliveryman and stopped to talk. For some reason I found myself telling him stories about my childhood all those years ago in Barton Heights.

“My father used to drive a truck around there selling vegetables,” he said. “Every once and a while I’d ride along with him and help.”

“I used to sell vegetables too!” I said. “In my day we did it with a mule and cart. Just me and a dear friend and mentor named King.”

“King?” he asked. “King Brooks was my great-uncle! My father’s father’s brother! I’m GeRald Brooks!”

GeRald and I threw our arms around each other. I thought King would always be just a memory, but here was his own flesh and blood standing right before my eyes. GeRald told me King had died in 1951. I admitted how awful I’d felt all these years that I never even knew where the man lived.

“You’ll see now,” GeRald promised. “And you’ve got to meet my family.”

A week later GeRald came through. King’s old house was empty, but I walked through the garden where he’d grown his vegetables.

“This land was part of a plantation,” GeRald told me. “After the Civil War the plantation owner sold it to the slaves who had worked it. King’s father was one of those slaves.”

GeRald took me to the church where King had been a deacon, then to the cemetery where he was buried. “I came back, King,” I said, putting a lily on his grave. “I never forgot you.” GeRald slipped an arm around my shoulders.

GeRald invited me over for Sunday dinner along with his four brothers and their wives and children. I could see a bit of King in all of them. Not just mannerisms or a laugh. They had that same quiet confidence I remembered in King.

“There were so many things Great-Uncle King couldn’t do in his lifetime,” GeRald said, shaking his head. “Buses he couldn’t sit on, water fountains he couldn’t drink from. But look what a difference he made in both our families.”

I thought back to that summer in 1928. King had taught me about self-respect even when society was not respecting him. He’d taught me that he and I were equal in God’s eyes.

What a blessing, to be the equal of such a man as King Brooks.

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The Blessings of Sight

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Michelle Cox

I almost cried in my eye doctor’s office this morning. I did cry when I got in the car, but they were tears of relief. I’m going to be honest, the last six or seven years have been scary for me. During a routine exam, I was diagnosed with a progressive eye disease and started using drops to try and control my eye pressure.

We went through all kinds of drops without any of them working. Since my cousin is blind in one eye and has lost part of his sight in the other one due to this disease, I knew it was vital to get the pressure down. After months of trial and error, we found a combination of drops that helped a little. The pressure wasn’t as low as my doctor would have liked, but it was some progress.

My right eye is the worst. When I close the left one and look at a page with just my right eye, it looks like I took a gray pencil and marked out areas on the page. The left eye helps to compensate for the loss of sight in the right eye, and I’m so grateful that I can still read and drive and be independent. So you can imagine how frightening it was when I had two retinal tears in that left eye last fall, leaving the sight in that one in jeopardy for several weeks.

I know we aren’t supposed to worry, and I’ve tried to trust God through all of this—but there’s something just really frightening when it comes to the prospect of losing your sight.

I had two more eye surgeries in June. Today’s appointment was to see if the surgeries worked. When the nurse checked the pressures in my eyes, they were the lowest they’ve been in several years. It makes me cry just to type those words. Lord, I thank You so much!

The disease isn’t gone. It’s something I’ll deal with for the rest of my life. But these surgeries bought me time—more days and months to see the precious faces of my grandbabies, to share the beauty of a sunset with my husband, to write and edit my book projects and articles, to drive and see where I’m going, and to read the labels on the cans in my pantry.

I don’t ever want to take any of that for granted. So, today, I just want to thank Him for doctors who go the extra mile to help their patients, for family and friends who pray, for answered prayers and for the precious-beyond-words blessing of the gift of sight.

The Blessing of Burnt Beans

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Marsha H. Myers

Living in faith every day isn’t easy. The more troubles rained down on me, the more I realized I didn’t understand how God reveals himself to us. So one evening, with my husband out on a driving job and some beans simmering in my favorite pot, I opened my Bible. I wanted to know God better, so I could serve him better.

“Make a joyful shout to the Lord,” I read in Psalms. “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing.”

Joy was not easy to come by these days. My husband and I had thought things were looking up when we were able to lease a house by the lake. But right after our costly move, his company cut his hours. Then the money order for rent was lost in the mail.

Our water was cut off because it was included in the rent. I had to fill bottles of water at my neighbor’s house. We put off getting new glasses and going to the dentist. Still, it was a struggle to feed the two of us as well as our pets.

No wonder I became engrossed in the Word of God that night. Make a joyful shout to the Lord! …Come before his presence with singing.

That’s when I smelled it. Something burning. “Oh, no!” I shouted, jumping up. “I forgot about the beans!”

I ran to the kitchen. The beans I’d been looking forward to eating, not just tonight but for several nights, were ruined. And my favorite pot—a gift from a dear friend—along with them. Now, my neglect hadn’t been caused by falling asleep or drowning my sorrows. No, my beans had burnt while I was diligently attempting to deepen my spiritual understanding.

“Why didn’t you prompt me, Lord?” I demanded. “Not even a li’l hint! How could you allow precious food to burn?” Whine, cry, moan… Well, I could hardly praise God when he’d let my beans burn. “I was trying to learn more about you,” I said bitterly, looking at the scorched pot. “To serve you better! All for nothing!”

Is that how you really feel, Marsh?

Whoa, was God speaking right to my heart?

You were studying my Word, but what did you learn? Are you really going to let a burnt pot of beans ruin our time together?

The Lord’s question got me thinking. If I let this kitchen mishap send me into a spiral of self-pity, my faith wasn’t worth beans. I burst out laughing—and I could hear him laughing with me. A big, booming laugh that filled me with—what else?—joy.

I dumped the beans and went at the pot with a scrubber and baking soda. It took some elbow grease, but the pot wasn’t ruined after all. I chopped some more onions, garlic and salt pork and put them in the pot. I added beans and spice, all the while singing praises to God for filling not only my belly but my spirit too. It was the best pot of beans I ever ate.

Try Marsha’s Texican-Style Pinto Beans at home!

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Students Launch ‘Peptoc Hotline’ to Spread Cheer and Encouragement

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Daisy Urgiles

In need of some encouragement? Kind words? A smile? Try giving this number a call: 707-998-8410. It’s the phone number to “Peptoc,” a free hotline created by students at West Side Elementary in Healdsburg, California, offering advice and uplifting mantras. Teachers Jessica Martin and Asherah Weiss are behind the program, which was designed to offer positive and encouraging messages to those going through a difficult time.

“I thought, you know, with this world being as it is, we all really needed to hear from [the children]—their extraordinary advice and their continual joy,” Martin told NPR.

Martin and Weiss, both art teachers at West Side, spoke to their students, ages 6 to 11, about the idea and asked them to think of how they’ve stayed positive throughout the pandemic and during the spread of local wildfires in the area. They also asked them to recall moments when they received helpful advice. “So all of the responses are really coming from the kids and their own life experience, and the advice they’ve gleaned over their short years on this planet,” Martin told The Guardian. The teachers and their students also hung posters and fliers throughout town promoting positive messages. Martin’s 6-year-old son came up with the name after she had asked him to use special blocks to create the word “Peptalk” and mistakenly spelled it as “Peptoc.”

The hotline launched on February 26 and, in less than a week, went viral, receiving 500 calls per hour in just two days. It currently receives up to 9,000 calls per hour. After dialing, you’ll be prompted with a menu of options such as words for when you’re feeling mad, frustrated, or nervous, words of encouragement and life advice, a pep talk from kindergarteners, kids laughing with delight and encouragement in Spanish. Here are some of the uplifting tips, voiced by excited, optimistic children you can expect to be greeted with:

“The world is a better place with you in it.”

“Don’t give up – power through.”

“If you’re frustrated, you can always go to your bedroom, punch a pillow or cry on it and just go scream outside.”

“If you’re feeling up high and unbalanced, think of groundhogs.”

According to Martin, the children’s “creativity and resourcefulness is something that we need to emulate, because that level of joy and love and imagination is what’s going to save us in the end.”

Amy McWilliams, who has stage 4 malignant melanoma, says she’s called the hotline several times for encouragement and has even shared it with fellow cancer patients. “It’s joy, straight from the literal mouths of babes,” she told CNN. “We adults forget that spreading kindness and positive thinking can really be that simple.”

The hotline, which is funded by donations, will be updated with more messages in the coming months. Martin hopes to secure funding to keep the hotline operating indefinitely.

Yearning for Spring?

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Michelle Cox

With the sidewalks coated with ice and dingy leftover snow piled beside the roads, I am already longing for spring. The department stores have begun putting out their spring stock with cute and colorful clothes for warmer temperatures and bling-decorated flip-flops that look way more stylish than my clunky winter snow boots. Gardening magazines are showing up in the mailbox, tempting me with the glorious blooms of the coming season. Vacation destinations have the nerve to start running TV commercials promising white sand and turquoise beaches.

All while I’m stuck in not-so-winter-wonderland.

But there’s something about a change of season that builds excitement in all of us. As spring nears, I will celebrate the jonquils peeking through the soil and welcome home the robins. But those new beginnings don’t just happen with the seasons. They’re also part of our faith and our lives. God says it best in His Word:

1) 2 Corinthians 5:17
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

2) Isaiah 43:18-19
“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

3) Lamentations 3:22-23
“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

4) Revelation 21:5
“Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ And He said to me, ‘Write, for these words are true and faithful.’”

I’m so grateful that God doesn’t leave us in our old circumstances. I long for the new things He’ll bring into my life—the big dreams, tasks, blessings and things that will draw me closer to Him. When they arrive, I’ll greet them with the same enthusiasm that meets those first flowers each spring. I hope I will blossom just as beautifully for Him.

World War II Sweethearts Reunited After 75 Years

Posted on March 10, 2026April 10, 2026 by Brett Leveridge

Songwriter Sammy Cahn once wrote, love is lovelier the second time around. He’d likely get no argument from 97-year-old World War II veteran K. T. Robbins.

K. T. and Jeannine in 1944

In June 2019, Robbins, who currently resides in Olive Branch, Mississippi, returned to France for the first time since the war to take part in the activities commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. While there, he experienced a reunion he could never have expected.

In 1944, Robbins was stationed in the northeastern French village of Briey, where the 24-year-old staff sergeant was assigned to a mobile bakery unit that made 3,000 pounds of bread daily for the troops.

Robbins soon met a 18-year-old local girl named Jeannine Ganaye (now Jeannine Pierson), who lived near his Army installation. The young couple quickly fell in love, but just weeks later, Robbins was informed that he would be sent to the front lines on the Eastern Front. The night before he was to depart, Ganaye’s family had him to dinner, where they fed him eggs, sausage and toast.

Robbins told Maryse Burgot of the television network France 2 that when the sweethearts said their goodbyes, he told Ganaye, “Look, someday we’ll see each other; I hope we do.”

For her part, Ganaye began to teach herself English in hopes that she might have at least a basic command of the language if Robbins did come back for her. But it was not to be.

“I cried, of course, I was very sad,” Ganaye said, as she recalled watching Robbins depart. “I wish, after the war, he hadn’t returned to America.”

After the war, Robbins returned to the U.S. and met Lillian, who worked at a shirt factory with his uncle and had begun exchanging letters with Robbins in the waning months of the war. The pair, who were soon wed, operated a Memphis, Tennessee, hardware store together for 50 years. They had been married for 70 years when Lillian passed away at the age of 92 in 2015.

Ganaye married in 1949 and had five children before her husband died, but she never forgot her American soldier.

Though Robbins hadn’t returned to France, he retained a small photograph Ganaye had given him when they parted. After Lillian’s death, his thoughts returned to his wartime sweetheart and he searched his trunk to find the photograph, which captured Ganaye standing, hands on hips, smiling at the camera.

When he learned that he would be returning to France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, Robbins, who assumed Ganaye was no longer living, expressed the wish to visit Briey in order “to find her family,” unaware that Ganaye was still alive and residing in a retirement home in Montigny-lès-Metz, Moselle, not far from Briey.

A reunion was arranged and it was almost as if the pair had never parted, as they embraced and kissed. “I always loved you,” Robbins said, as he showed her the photograph he’d kept all those years. “You never got out of my heart.”

“I always thought about him,” Ganaye told France 2, “thinking maybe he was out there, that maybe he’d come.”

The former sweethearts were able to spend a few hours together, catching up and reminiscing, before Robbins had to leave in order to make it to the D-Day celebrations in Normandy. But they agreed that they would meet again soon.

“He said he loves me,” Ganaye said. “I understood that much.”

Robbins said his parting words were, “‘I’d like to see you again. Why don’t y’all try to see me sometime?’ I told her son and daughter, ‘Why don’t you bring her over and stay a couple of weeks with me and I’ll take care of you.’”

Robbins ruled out marriage, saying, “It’s too late in the day. But to visit would be great. If they could come out and see me a while, that would be great.”

In the meantime, the pair hopes to communicate via email. Robbins has never used a computer, but a Parisian man, inspired by the press coverage of the reunion, has volunteered to serve as email translator for the two sweethearts in gratitude for what Robbins had done for France.

Informed they could even send pictures back and forth, The Daily Memphian reported that Robbins said, “That would be great. I’d love to do it.”

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