Inhoudsopgave van January 2019 - Guideposts

The January issue is usually when I announce our annual editorial series. But not this year. For the first time we are extending our current series, Overcoming Addiction, through 2019. Why? Because the need is so great and the opioid crisis—and the larger crisis of addiction—has only worsened. Twelve stories are simply not enough. Recently I was giving a talk to a group of our donors about Guideposts’ new recovery initiative R2Q (Resolve2Quit.org). There were about 75 people in the room. I asked how many of their lives had been affected by addiction, whether their own or someone to close to them. Nearly everyone’s hand shot up. I was shocked but not really surprised. We had seen an increase of prayers for the addicted in Prayer Fellowship for some time.…

WHAT’S THE BEST JOB I ever had? The answer might seem obvious. From 1993 to 2006, I was a professional basketball player, a four-time NBA All-Star. I went to the playoffs multiple times with the Seattle SuperSonics and the New York Knicks and won a gold medal representing the United States in the 2000 Olympics. I earned millions doing what I loved. A no less worthy answer might be the jobs I held after my NBA career was behind me. For three years, I was a youth minister at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, one of New York City’s most vibrant places of worship. Two years ago, I joined the staff of the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA team that had drafted me right out of college. I’m now an assistant…

I WHEELED MYSELF DOWN THE walkway, following the rise of the black granite wall. Connie, my wife, walked beside me. My eyes fixed on the names, almost 60,000 of them. Each one a memorial to a soldier killed in the Vietnam War, the war I’d fought in as a Marine 30 years before. The one that took my legs. I’d put off coming here for more than a decade. Connie had urged me to make the trip. But I wasn’t sure I could face all those tragic names without asking myself the question that haunted me: Why had I lived while so many others died? I’d grown up in a poor Oklahoma farm family, the eighteenth of 21 children. My mother had instilled in me my faith. The last thing…

DAVE, MY HUSBAND, WAS WORKing crazy 18-hour days. I hardly saw him. But there was no reason to expect otherwise. He was a doctor in his third year of residency in orthopedic surgery at Rush University in Chicago. He had to work hard. He’d always worked hard. That’s who he was. Type A all the way. Focused, driven. All the more reason we needed this vacation, a babymoon. I was five months pregnant with our first child, and we figured we’d give ourselves a trip to Hawaii before things got even more crazy. Just the two of us. Time together. The last thing we did before leaving our apartment was say goodbye to our dog Penny. (A friend was going to pick her up later.) Penny wagged her tail and…

A Civil Rights Icon Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the only nonpresident to have his birthday honored with a federal holiday. Guideposts blogger Holly Lebowitz Rossi shares an important part of his legacy: three key lessons he taught us by example. guideposts.org/mlklessons Not the Man She Married In our exclusive video, writer Allison Pataki (page 56) describes the effects her husband’s stroke at age 30 had on their marriage and the way they have now become closer than ever. guideposts.org/apataki A New Path to Prayer Happy New Year! Blogger Bob Hostetler offers seven prayer tips to help you grow closer to God in 2019. guideposts.org/prayerpath Keep Your Guideposts Coming We make it easy to renew your magazine, check on the length of your subscription, view your donation history or…

SHORTCUT TO FAITH Seven hours I’d been driving, with at least one more to go. Dusk was settling in over the sagebrush-covered Wyoming hills. Should have left home earlier, I thought. I really needed to get back. After spending Christmas break with my parents in Utah, I was on my way back to college in Colorado in my old Jeep, a hand-me-down from my brother. I approached the turnoff for a shortcut. Interstate 80 would be the safer route, I knew. The shortcut was 65 miles of two-lane road through the middle of nowhere. I might not pass another car until I crossed the state line. But the drive would be quicker. I checked my gas gauge. The needle said it was half full, but that was just one of…

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips¼ cup chopped hazelnuts, dividedGrated zest of 1 large orange, divided½ teaspoon medium roast ground coffee, dividedFlaky sea salt, for garnish Hazelnut, Coffee & Orange Zest Chocolate Bark Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water (but bottom of the bowl should not touch water). Place chocolate in the bowl; stir until melted and smooth. Mix in half the chopped hazelnuts, orange zest and ground coffee. Immediately pour mixture onto the prepared baking sheet, and use a spatula to spread into a thin layer. Sprinkle with remaining ingredients. Freeze for 15 minutes. Break up bark into pieces and serve. Bark can also be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week or…

“Guideposts Outreach’s new booklet Seven Values reminds me that my worth is not tied to money, titles or popularity but to the basic belief that we have a positive impact on humanity. Caring for others, responding to challenges and righting wrongs deepen my relationship with God.”DR. RHONDA NEAL, Guideposts Outreach manager, Danbury, Connecticut For more information on Guideposts’ Outreach programs, visit guidepostsfoundation.org, write to GUIDEPOSTS FOUNDATION, 39 Old Ridgebury Road, Suite 27, Danbury, CT 06810 or e-mail us at outreach@guideposts.org.…

“If you feel rooted in your home and family, if you’re active in your community, there’s nothing more empowering. The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life.” actress JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS “Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace.”DR. JOAN Z. BORYSENKO, author and expert on health and spirituality “The only thing keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have it.”TONY ROBBINS, life coach “Joy points upward.”MARIE KONDO, organizational guru “Dear God, be good to me; the sea is so wide, and my boat is so small.”prayer of Breton fishermen “FEAR—Face Everything And Recover.”submitted by Guideposts reader NANCY SULLIVAN, of Newark, Delaware SEND…

I was in my home office one fall day when my husband, Neil, called me over. He pointed out several cracks in the concrete slab garage floor. “Groundhogs did this,” he said, looking grim. I winced. Groundhogs are my favorite wild animal. Because of this, Neil had agreed to make our place a kind of groundhog sanctuary. Our yard is big. We loved watching the babies play in the spring. And usually the groundhogs weren’t a nuisance. I prayed they wouldn’t cause any more damage to our home. But Neil soon discovered a new burrow under the front porch. “We have to do something,” he said. “What if they break into the house?” “That would be bad,” I agreed. “But we can’t hurt them.” I talked to groundhog experts. We…

Amy Trice discovered retirement can be both unexpectedly challenging and unexpectedly fulfilling. That’s something Tim Nordstrom, who has been a pastor for 45 years and chaplain at Good Samaritan Society–Kissimmee Village in Florida for the past 11, has seen many people experience. Here are his insights into coping with the life changes of aging: Make plans. “Many people don’t want to face the changes that come with aging,” Nordstrom says. “But you need to plan for the future.” Think about what you want to do if your health declines or you need to downsize, as well as at the end of your life. Don’t be afraid to discuss your preferences with your family. Let yourself grieve. Even when the change is something you’ve looked forward to and planned for, such…

“GREAT course on how to tell a story, no matter what genre—fiction or non-fiction. The printed material plus the videos solidify the information. The best investment you could make! —Dianne M. Join Guideposts Editor-in-Chief Ed Grinnan and other senior editors in an exclusive online class designed to teach you how to write your own story or memoir. These master storytellers will show you how to make your story compelling and entertaining as they share techniques that have worked at Guideposts for more than 70 years. With more than two hours of video lessons, this creative writing course delivers professional instruction designed to improve the quality of your writing. How To Tell A Great Story includes: • 12 video modules to guide you in your creative writing journey. • Digital workbook…

MEET THE MAYOR “Hi, ma’am. I’m calling from the Grafton Police Department.” Police department? My heart skipped a beat. Until the officer explained why he was calling: “I received a letter from a woman in Virginia. Apparently your son is the Mayor of Muttland Meadows?” The woman had read the story with that title about my 17-year-old son, Caleb, in the March 2018 issue of Guideposts (guideposts.org/calebg). Caleb had been born with a rare brain disorder—agenesis of the corpus callosum with colpocephaly. Doctors hadn’t expected him to talk or walk. But he’d defied the odds, worked hard in therapy and, with his dog, Xander, now finds purpose in making our community dog park a much friendlier place. The reader in Virginia also sent a check for dog treats in honor…