Inhoudsopgave van September 2018 - Guideposts

I was still new at Guideposts when I pitched the idea of a series focusing on narrators who had struggled with addiction—either themselves or in their families. My editor shook his head and said, “I’m not sure enough families identify with that problem.” Maybe my own experience with addiction skewed my thinking, I concluded. American families affected by alcoholism, drug dependency and other devastating addictions now number in the tens of millions. Surveys suggest that addiction has touched as many as a third of all families. America is undergoing an epidemic of addiction. Then there are the conditions that are brought on or worsened by addiction: heart and liver disease, diabetes, cancer, depression and dementia, to name just a few. Suicide rates are on the rise as well. The medical…

I was soaking in my claw-foot tub, staring at the bathroom ceiling and trying to wash away the tensions of the day. Bubble baths had become my nightly ritual, ever since I started my new job. It was my first year as a teacher, and the school had given me a class of rowdy seventh graders. What on earth had I gotten myself into? My husband, Steve, and I had just moved into the first floor of a house we were sharing with friends of ours, another young couple. This tub was one of the best things about the move. CRASH! A terrible noise rocked the house, like a bulldozer hitting one of the walls. It sounded as if it had come from the direction of our bedroom. Steve! Frantic,…

“I love the life lessons that Steve Scarano learned during his seasons as a trail angel,” says Cullen Woods, chaplain at Good Samaritan Society–Manzano del Sol Village in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A serious mountain biker, Woods, 65, has tackled plenty of trails himself, and he believes Scarano’s lessons have spiritual resonance, particularly for people in retirement. Say “thank you.” Woods thinks the trail is an apt metaphor for life, as Christianity was originally referred to as the way and early believers were known as followers of the way. “We are pilgrims as we move through life,” all of us travelers on a journey to a holy place, says Woods. “Gratitude is really important on our pilgrimage. Gratitude for this life. For this day. For the breath we have right now. Once…

EVERY MORNING, I LOOK IN THE mirror and I like the guy I see. My mother and God are the reasons for this. Every day, I give thanks for being alive, for having two children I love, for having a woman I love, a job I love. When someone asks how I’m feeling, I usually say, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” I’m a comedian, an actor and a motivational speaker. I’ve done street comedy, stand-up, television, movies. I’m supposed to say funny stuff. Except now I mean it. That’s also because of Momma and God. Seven years ago, I was a hard-core crack addict. I’d smoke rock all night, then come home at 3:30 a.m., feeling crazy and exhausted. My wife would be in the bedroom, having fallen asleep waiting up for me. I’d…

—1 JOHN 4:18 (KJV) Don’t forget,” sharon said at breakfast, “we are going to the open house today, for that new business in town. There will be lots of important people there.” My stomach tightened. Meeting new people is hard for an introvert like me. On the way to the open house, I watched a small plane landing at our airport, and my mind drifted back to my childhood. I lived in New Antioch, Ohio, just south of the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. A steady flow of aircraft flew low over our house every day and frightened me. The big transport planes sounded mournful, crawling across the sky, and the jets arrived with a boom, startling me. My father must have sensed my fear because one day he pointed to…

In just two and a half years, Chris Bohinski (Smile On, page 56) has asked his signature question, “What makes you smile?” to 500 people for his website nycsmile 4me.com. He hit the milestone with Tony Award winner Lea Salonga while covering the 2018 Drama League Awards. Regular travel from Pennsylvania to New York—sometimes accompanied by his mom, Barbara—gives Chris time to work on a new hobby of his: knitting. Shortly before moving back home to take care of his mom, he stopped in a yarn store and got a free lesson. “I was approached by a man who thought I was there for ‘gentlemen’s night,’” Chris says. “Over the next two hours, he taught me how to knit.” Chris’s specialty? Hats. He made them for his mom when she…

Meet Maria Taylor She talks sports for a living as a reporter on ESPN’s College GameDay. Hear how this rising star (page 22) stays grounded, both on the sidelines and off. guideposts.org/mtaylor A Funnyman’s Struggle In our exclusive video, comedian Michael Colyar (page 44) shares how faith—his and his momma’s—helped him overcome a 23-year addiction to crack cocaine. guideposts.org/mcolyar Job Well Done Celebrate Labor Day with our selection of Bible verses on the virtues of work. guideposts.org/labordayverses How to Keep Your Cool Feeling flustered? We offer tips for handling life’s stressful moments. guideposts.org/4stresstips Keep Your Guideposts Coming We make it easy to renew your magazine, check on the length of your subscription or manage book series shipments. guideposts.org/ecares…

I FIRST NOTICED THE TREMOR 10 years ago. My thumb started quivering. Insistently, nervously, mysteriously. As if my thumb lived on a caffeine drip. With a mind of its own. Almost immediately, I assumed the worst. My father had died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Am I going to go like he did? I wondered. Is this the first symptom? I combed my hair, and my thumb quivered. When I was putting on the golf course, guess what couldn’t settle down? If I raised my left hand to make a point in a sermon, all I could see was a twitchy thumb. Dad had been an oil field mechanic. He was used to depending on his hands. One day, he squeezed a screwdriver and noticed something shaky. He diagnosed…

FIND ME ON TWITTER AND YOU’LL see that I “talk sports for a living on ESPN,” with a photo of me on College GameDay, where I’m a reporter. You’ll also see that I cofounded an organization called the Winning Edge Leadership Academy (more on that later). Most important—and perhaps unexpectedly for some—there’s a Bible reference: Ephesians 2:10, “It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others.” I put that there for a purpose. People can expend a lot of negative energy on social media. I understand how that happens. I’ve made tons of mistakes—some of them even on air. I’m not immune to criticism or…

September is National Recovery Month. Since Guideposts’ founding, more than 70 years ago, we have been helping people overcome addiction through the power of inspiring first-person stories. Bill Wilson, the cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, told his story in these pages in 1947, his first appearance in a national magazine. GUIDEPOSTS remains committed to helping people believe anything is possible—including recovery from addiction—through faith, hope, prayer and concrete steps toward change. Our Overcoming Addiction editorial series features stories by people from all walks of life who have learned to face this difficult challenge. As in all GUIDEPOSTS stories, hope is the guiding theme, helping writers and readers alike find their way to healing. Mark September 12 on your calendar. That’s when Guideposts will celebrate National Recovery Month by reaching out to…

MOM HOOKED HER ARM THROUGH mine. We walked slowly across the back porch, or at least as fast as Mom could go, taking in the autumnal colors. “What’s bothering you?” she asked, squeezing my arm. She knew something was wrong. She always knew. “I guess I feel a bit…lost,” I said. The pine trees and butterfly bushes were beautiful. Yet they reminded me that just months earlier I’d been living in a cramped apartment in Harlem, chasing a dream that now seemed further away than ever. I love to perform and have always wanted to live in New York City. I had studied chemistry and musical theater at Wheeling Jesuit University. Months before I graduated, my father passed away after a courageous battle with brain cancer. Shortly after I graduated,…

A NEW HOPE My prison ministry group was thrilled to see Jan Rader, fire chief of Huntington, West Virginia, on the cover of February’s Guideposts. Her policy of reviving overdose victims as many times as needed makes us proud of our state. My group, The Jailbirds, is also working to give marginalized West Virginians hope. We got discouraged when former inmates return to prison after release or parole because they’d gone back to the same environment that had gotten them in trouble. As Guideposts cofounder Ruth Stafford Peale once said, “Find a need and fill it.” In 2014, we began fundraising for Shiloh Village. We plan to provide female former inmates with the housing and tools they need during their first two years out of prison. This June, our nonprofit…

“When you’re moving in the positive, your destination is the brightest star.”STEVIE WONDER, singer, songwriter, member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame “Your biggest obstacle may turn into your purpose.”actor ARI’EL STACHEL “God, grant me the serenity to stop beating myself up for not doing things perfectly, the courage to forgive myself because I’m working on doing better, and the wisdom to know that you already love me just the way I am.”“The Other Serenity Prayer” by ELEANOR BROWNN, motivational speaker and author “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside you.”DEEPAK CHOPRA, author “Life doesn’t require that we be the best, only that we try our best.”H. JACKSON BROWN, JR., writer “Love is much stronger than hatred, and it’s much more powerful than fear.”GUILLERMO DEL…

WHEN I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD, I took my first ballet class. I wanted to know what it was like to float across the stage like the dancers I’d seen on TV and in plays. I took maybe two classes before I moved on to the next thing, but it didn’t matter. Mom encouraged me to explore new hobbies and activities. She made sure that my childhood was full of wonder, exploration and make-believe. There were no limits on the dreams I could have. Every child should feel like they can take on the world. But it takes an exceptional parent, like Mom, to go out of their way to protect their child’s sense of wonder and whimsy. That’s exactly what Natalia Armoza did for her daughter, Pearl, when she…

eVERY DAY, THE HUMILIATION BEgan anew. At the Jewish high school I went to in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, we didn’t have a gym teacher. For PE, we all lined up, as if facing a firing squad. The two most athletic boys picked teams for basketball. The best players were chosen first, a rigid caste system that seemed passed down by Moses. I looked on, hoping God would make another miracle happen and let me not be the last boy chosen. “Not him,” I heard the other boys whisper. “Not Joe.” It shattered my self-confidence. Through four years of high school, I never touched the ball. I didn’t blame the guys. I was a total klutz. The ultimate benchwarmer. Hopeless at any kind of manual dexterity. I was a whiz…

FAITH IN FOCUS It never failed. At the end of every youth service, something was left behind. Usually many things. As the leader of the college youth group, I was the one who collected them. On this Sunday, I picked up a box of sheet music, props and audiotapes the young people had used during the service, then checked the pews on my way out. Sure enough, I spotted a pair of eyeglasses that someone had forgotten. I balanced them on top of the box and continued on my way through the church. A few rows back, I found a sweater. As I bent down to pick it up, the glasses slid off the top of the box. They dropped to the concrete floor and cracked. Uh-oh, I thought when…