Inhoudsopgave van September 2020 - Guideposts

SUPPORT THE GIRLS I started running in 2013 and quickly realized that wearing a good sports bra is necessary. Fortunately, I have found a number of sports bras that help me stay focused on my performance. My friend Sarah Dwyer-Shick, a soccer coach, learned women and girls in many countries, including the United States, aren’t able to obtain sports bras—they’re hard to find, expensive and seen as a luxury in places where women don’t tend to play sports. On a trip to Namibia, in Africa, Sarah brought along sports bras as gifts for youth soccer players, only to discover that some women on the national soccer team had never even worn them before. That prompted her to found the Sports Bra Project in 2017. The group collects and distributes this…

My husband, Luke, and I didn’t expect to stay in our first house long. We were young, with big dreams and small pockets. It was the perfect starter home, one we planned to trade in for something bigger when we could. But life had other plans: our son, Bernard, and our daughter, Samantha. By the time we could afford to move, it was too late. Our little house had worked its way into our hearts. So we put our savings back into the home for some much-needed renovations. Our latest project was our son’s bedroom ceiling. It had darkened and cracked with water damage. We’d been eyeing industrialchic concrete ceilings for a while and decided to test out the new style in Bernard’s room before using it in the rest…

“I wake up thankful every day,” says Genelle Guzman-McMillan, 19 years after her rescue from the rubble at Ground Zero. Genelle married Roger McMillan in November 2001. “He was by my side in the hospital each day,” she says. “When I got out, he proposed. Even though I was still on crutches, we went to City Hall.” Roger and Genelle now have two teenage daughters, Kaydi and Kellie. Genelle still works for the Port Authority—she’s the office supervisor at LaGuardia Airport. She also volunteers for the Red Cross. “They gave me so much support during my recovery. I saw how caring they were. I want to help others the way they helped me.” Anniversaries of 9/11 are days of reflection. “I take it as my personal holiday,” Genelle says. “Roger…

I WAS DRIVING HOME AND THINKING over and over, There’s nothing wrong with me. This, despite the doctor saying there was, and then the bombshell he dropped: I would probably have to start giving myself shots. A little while earlier I had sat across the desk from a pencil-thin rheumatologist wearing a blue button-down shirt. He had already advised me that the first appointment would take an hour and a half. I liked his messy desk; it resembled mine at home. I glanced down at the chart where he pointed. “Your X-rays and blood work indicate that you are in the early stages of rheumatoid arthritis,” he said. “I’m going to prescribe some pills for you, but I expect you’ll decide to give yourself regular injections.” “I don’t think so,”…

HELP BEYOND MEASURE I had dedicated some 20 years to the company where I worked as a metrologist, calibrating and purchasing industrial measurement instruments. Now, thanks to new management, I was out of a job for the first time in my adult life. I was 56 and trying to find a new position in the middle of a recession. I tried to be optimistic. I updated my résumé. Tracked down leads. I even had business cards printed to give to potential employers. Weeks went by. No luck. Nobody was hiring. What chance did someone my age have? What if I never found work? In desperation, I expanded my network. As a purchaser, I’d worked with salespeople at companies all over the country. Maybe one of them knew of an employer…

BRIGHT NEW CHAPTER Moving to a retirement center after living in the same house for 69 years was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It was physically and emotionally draining to say goodbye to my familiar way of life. How would I begin a new chapter at 91? Thankfully, my granddaughter, Stephanie Thompson, helped me with the move and getting settled. Guideposts published her story about our experience, Independent Living, in November 2019. So many people, including students and fellow educators from my 31 years as an elementary school teacher, reached out. Many new neighbors read the story too. Cathey stopped by with her little dog. Betty greeted me when I came into the dining hall. Helen invited me to play canasta. Valerie in the front…

The military and military veterans have always been close to our hearts. Ruth and Norman Peale founded Guideposts in 1945 just as the troops were coming home from World War II, reuniting with their families and returning to civilian life. Dr. Peale wanted Guideposts to be part of that historic transition, with the message that anything is possible with hope, faith and prayer. In fact, our very first cover featured celebrated Army veteran Captain Eddie Rickenbacker. Men and women are still coming home from war, often to an uncertain future. We civilians don’t always properly appreciate their service or understand their struggles. Even when we want to help, we don’t necessarily know how. That’s why I am incredibly proud to have Air Force veteran Sandy Blair in the magazine and…

who she is Lynn Colwell is a mixed-media artist in Redmond, Washington. In grade school, a teacher told her she had no artistic talent and Lynn believed her. Until 2015, that is, when she retired from a career in corporate communications. Looking to pursue a new interest, she took a year-long online painting class. “It blew me away,” she says. She started painting striking portraits of women’s faces, combined with short messages of hope and empowerment. A new one almost every day. In five years, she’s completed about 1,000 paintings. what she does Lynn gives her paintings away. She started with friends, but that only went so far. Then she read about a movement called Art Abandonment, which encourages artists to leave their art in public places for anyone to…

OUR NATION DOES A LOT TO HONOR military veterans. But one group of veterans often gets overlooked. Women. I should know. I’m a woman and an Air Force veteran. I served for 12 years, until a medical discharge prematurely ended my military career. Like many veterans, I struggled to gain a foothold as a civilian. I couldn’t find work. After years of structure and camaraderie in the military, I felt alone and adrift. I endured a period of homelessness and sank deeper into despair. Women veterans face unique challenges. They are often single parents, as I was. When they leave military service, they frequently take on caregiving roles, as I did, nursing my father after he suffered a stroke. They may encounter discrimination. I was told I was overqualified so…

“It was God alone who aligned our paths,” says Sandy Blair (Still Serving, page 26) of Caity Casey, the communications director of her nonprofit, Operation WEBS (Women Empowered Build Strong). In one of their early conversations, Sandy and Caity discovered they had not only both grown up in south New Jersey but had similar Air Force career paths—just 15 years apart. Now residing in California, they guide the veterans in their stability house through the benefits process, starting with a meeting with the local Veterans Affairs representative to help them figure out their immediate and long-term needs. One former resident is now a VA employee. Operation WEBS’ other main project, building a farming community of tiny homes on wheels, is on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic. But Sandy is…

“People always ask me where I get such great strength.… I don’t think about it that way. I put one foot in front of the other and keep going, one step at a time. ‘I’ll go on’ is my mantra.”singer TINA TURNER, 80 “We can never know the ecstasy of true hope without attending to the tragic realities of the poor and forgotten.”REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church and member of the NAACP board of directors “Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I’ll try again tomorrow.’”MARY ANNE RADMACHER, artist “Surround yourself with those who bring out the best in you, not the stress in you.”posted on Instagram by BARB SCHMIDT, author and…

MY FRIEND ROSA AND I talked about the weekend as I settled into work in the Port Authority offices on the sixty-fourth floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. Rosa was the same age as me, 31, and we loved catching each other up on our lives. My boyfriend, Roger, and I planned to get married… someday. But there would be plenty of time for that. I was born and raised in Trinidad and had come to New York to make a better life for myself and my loved ones. If things like marriage had to wait, so be it. I left behind a lot of my old ways of thinking in Trinidad, especially when it came to God. “God” was something I’d always said I believed in—more…

—LUKE 18:1 (NIV) I KEEP A GOD BOX. IT’S A round black cardboard box. I think it was the gift packaging for a necklace. I place in my God Box folded bits of paper with written prayers for help with some of my biggest or most intractable problems. It’s a tangible act of turning them over to God. I’ve lifted the lid of the box from time to time and opened up the little notes. Here, a prayer for my marriage. It’s undated, as I suppose it should be. We are always in need of God as the divine third in our relationship. I like to think of the Lord sitting on the couch with us, listening as we talk about feeling hurt or angry or ignored. That prayer gets…

“I work in a faith-based hospital and use Guideposts materials to provide comfort to our patients and their families. A chaplain visit is great, but the booklets are an in-hand lasting word.”CHAPLAIN DIANNA WENTZ, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Mercy Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania For more information on Guideposts’ outreach programs, visit guideposts.org/helping-others, write to GUIDEPOSTS FOUNDATION, 100 Reserve Road, Suite E200, Danbury, CT 06810 or e-mail us at outreach@guideposts.org.…