Índex per April 2015 a Guideposts

This issue features the fourth installment of our Caregivers series, supported by our friends at Home Instead Senior Care: a story by Kim Campbell, singer Glen Campbell’s wife, about her family’s experience dealing with the beloved Rhinestone Cowboy’s Alzheimer’s disease (page 38). Twenty years ago I interviewed Kim and Glen in Branson, Missouri, where Glen was opening a theater. They’d agreed to do a Guideposts piece about overcoming challenges in their marriage and how they’d grown closer to God and to each other. They were generous with their time, though Glen got a little antsy. It was his day off and he kept gazing longingly out the window of their condominium at the nearby golf-course fairways. Finally I had mercy on him. Glen couldn’t get to his clubs fast enough.…

“I think it’s vital to have something outside your acting to keep you rooted. For me being a Christian has been invaluable: It simply means acting isn’t the center of my life.” actor DAVID OYELOWO, who played Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma “Our faith is what connects our weakness to God’s power.” submitted by GUIDEPOSTS reader WANDA McDANIEL, of Randleman, North Carolina “When I get up in the morning, I don’t think about all the things that are going to happen, whether it’s good or bad. I say to myself, ‘This is going to be the best day of my life.’” TAO PORCHON-LYNCH, 96, certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest yoga teacher “We can’t make people change, but when we change, others may change.” GRETCHEN RUBIN,…

THIS WAS ALL DAVID’S FAULT. David, my longtime boyfriend. I mean, my ex-boyfriend. I had been so sure that we were soul mates, destined to spend the rest of our lives together. David and I had met in high school and dated all through college and graduate school at Georgia Southern University. We were two months away from graduation when he took me out to dinner and popped the question. Only it was the wrong question. That’s why I was 3,000 feet in the air, in a small propeller plane, crawling toward the open door. Wind whipped at my face and my oversized red jumpsuit. I sat, dangling my legs out the door the way I’d practiced, and looked down carefully. Very, very carefully. Everything on the ground seemed so…

OUR CHURCH FAMILY WAS gathered around our pastor. He was having knee surgery in the morning and we wanted to send him off with a special prayer. As I bowed my head, the strangest idea came to mind. When Pastor returns to the office, bring him roses. Start with one rose the first week. Each week, add a rose until he receives a full dozen. The thought had to have come from somewhere else. I wasn’t that imaginative. I mean, I was an accountant! It was more than a job for me, it was a whole way of thinking. I liked numbers. They were clear. Precise. Practical. Safe. There wasn’t anything practical about roses—it would make more sense for me to offer to do the pastor’s taxes—but the numerical aspect…

MY BUSINESS IS AN UNUSUAL one. I founded K9 Fit Club, a gym where people and their dogs can work out together. How did I come up with that concept? That’s quite a story. I’ve always loved animals. Health and fitness? Not so much. I’d been overweight all my life, and I was resigned to it. It wasn’t until a doctor forced me to face the truth that I discovered nothing is impossible if you have the right motivation. It wasn’t even my doctor, but my dog Louie’s. Louie was a Basset hound. I’d had my share of struggles, but I knew Louie was one blessing God had given me to get me through the tough times. He was my best friend. I showered him with goodies (we liked the…

Birth of the Church Roma Downey (page 28), executive producer of the new NBC series A.D.: The Bible Continues, talks about the importance of prayer to the apostles and to her in our exclusive video. Watch it at guideposts.org/downeyprayer. Pups in the Park Fitness expert Tricia Montgomery shares the joys of exercising with your dog to keep you both in shape (page 46). We joined some New Yorkers who work out with their pooches in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. See them in action at guideposts.org/gofetchrun. Inspiring Voices Have you gotten to know our new bloggers? Take a little time to get acquainted with them today at guideposts.org/blog. Easter Every Day GUIDEPOSTS’ cofounder Norman Vincent Peale reminds us that “Easter experiences… happen every day. They can happen to me and they can…

I’d had a long day of teaching psychology. All I wanted to do now that I was home was go in, have dinner with my wife and unwind. But something blocked my front door. A large UPS box, addressed to me. Odd, I didn’t order anything. The label said it came from the American Bible Society. I hefted the box through the door. “Honey, you know anything about this?” She didn’t. I cut it open. Well, no surprise—Bibles. A bunch of them. But no bill, no indication of who had ordered them. The mystery nagged at me even as my wife and I caught each other up on our day. I told her about handing out the midterm grades. After 25 years at the Community College of Southern Nevada, I…

SAY “WOOF” I was scrolling through Facebook to see what my friends and family were up to when I saw that a friend had “liked” a page called Photo Doggies for Anthony. I love dogs. I clicked on the link to read more. A woman in Arizona started the page to cheer up her friend’s son, 16-year-old Anthony, who was in the hospital for cancer treatments. They noticed that a visit from some therapy dogs really boosted Anthony’s spirits—but sometimes the pups weren’t around. On those days, he can go to the Facebook page and see pictures of dogs. What a sweet idea, I thought. Dogs offer such unconditional love—they don’t care if you’re sick or healthy. My own dogs have helped me get through some difficult times in my…

HEAVENLY HEADHUNTER Just one semester before my husband, Dave, was supposed to graduate from college, it looked as though he would have to drop out instead. He had been laid off from his job on the night shift at the auto factory, and if he didn’t find a new position by the time his unemployment benefits ran out we wouldn’t be able to pay for his tuition. Dave was studying to become a teacher. “Maybe I can find a temporary job until June,” I said. That wouldn’t be easy, though. Our 14-month-old daughter, Kristy, had bad asthma. We couldn’t trust a babysitter to take care of her during an attack. When Dave was working the night shift it was easy to make sure that one of us was always with…

As Kim Campbell discovered with her husband, Glen, the later stages of dementia can be the hardest. Not only does your family member need extensive daily care, but a severe decline in communication skills and memory, along with personality changes, can make it feel as if you’ve lost the person you love. Research shows that even in late-stage dementia, the essential part of the self remains. You can connect with loved ones by engaging their spirit and their senses. Home Instead Senior Care has developed a unique dementia training program for family caregivers in partnership with David Troxel, MPH, a memorycare expert. Troxel has these recommendations: Play their favorite music. People with late-stage dementia can feel the joy a beloved song brings. Lyrics and music come from a different part…

My three-year-old son, Dayton, hopped up on the couch, grabbed the family iPad and clicked on the Angry Birds app. A beautiful, sunny Wednesday morning and all he wanted to do was play a video game? I felt guilty. Why hadn’t I planned some activity for us to do together? It was the one day that he was home from preschool while Sydney, my daughter, was in kindergarten. There was nothing pressing I had to get done. I’d been wanting for months to spend more time with Dayton, take him to story hour at the library or to the Native American museum, something educational. But whenever I thought of it I was busy doing something else. It was a constant struggle to fit everything in, to give both my kids…

1 package cake mix (your choice of flavor, regular size) 2 16-ounce cans chocolate frosting 19–20 yellow chick marshmallow Peeps 1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips Prepare and bake cake mix according to package directions in two greased, parchment-paper-lined 9-inch round pans. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then place on wire racks. Remove paper and cool completely. If cake layers have rounded tops, trim with a long serrated knife to make level. Spread frosting between layers and over top and sides of cake. For petals, arrange Peeps around edge of cake, curving slightly and being careful not to separate chicks. For sunflower seeds, arrange chocolate chips in concentric circles in center of cake. For a nice effect, use smaller chips for the center circles. Makes 12 servings.…

A CHAIN OF HEALING Marlo Thomas’s story The Patron Saint of Hopeful Causes in the December 2014 issue brought me tears of joy. I have so much respect for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which was started by Marlo’s dad, Danny Thomas. My son, Flint, was diagnosed with cancer when he was seven months old. Fortunately, the doctor who treated him at the Children’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado, had trained at St. Jude. She knew just the right chemotherapy regimen to give him— Flint didn’t even lose any of his hair! The pioneering treatment St. Jude developed has saved many children’s lives, including my son’s. Now Flint’s the one helping people—he became a doctor himself. HERBERT BERNIE ORR Mobile, Alabama THE IMPACT OF LOVE Rick Jackson (The Envelope, December 2014),…