Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2017 i Guideposts

Get Personal With Reba Reba McEntire (page 26) shares inside stories about what she calls her most personal album, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope. guideposts.org/rebasongs Doggie BFFs Watch this amazing reenactment of the story Edward Grinnan tells on page 18 about his dog Millie and her pal Winky. It’s from his new book, Always By My Side: Life Lessons From Millie and All the Dogs I’ve Loved. Go to guideposts.org/ millievideo Celebrate Spring What is your favorite sign of spring? Check out our collection of great things about the season. guideposts.org/springjoys A Prayerful Path to Easter Strengthen your faith with our gallery of seven Lenten prayers. guideposts.org/ prayersforlent…

IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY AT work, and all I wanted was to relax, maybe wind down with a movie and wait for my boyfriend to come home. That afternoon we’d had a silly text exchange that turned into an argument. No big deal, but I wanted to clear it up. As I was going through some DVDs, a foil packet covered in black ashy markings tumbled out of one of the cases. My heart practically stopped. I unfolded the foil. Familiar white pills spilled into my trembling hand. OxyContin. They were his. Who else could they belong to? I loved him. We had our whole lives to look ahead to, together. I’d met him two years earlier, when I was 17. I came from a really messed-up home.…

The convention center in downtown Dallas was packed for the conference. More than 6,000 of us had come for a week of inspirational talks about how to better our lives and grow in our faith. I’d driven some 30 miles from Fort Worth. From my seat in the balcony, I listened to the afternoon seminar, about clearing one’s conscience. “Is there anything you may have done wrong that you need to make right?” the speaker said. “Do you need to ask forgiveness of someone?” Mr. Wilcox. The name unexpectedly came to mind. He was my geometry teacher my sophomore year of high school in Fort Worth. I hadn’t thought of him since I graduated, five years before, but suddenly I remembered with great clarity—and greater shame—what I’d done in his…

As Lynda Hacker and her husband, Carlos, discovered, being caregivers for aging parents puts a strain on a marriage. It’s natural to focus on the older loved ones, but that often means the caregivers’ personal lives get shortchanged. We asked the experts at Home Instead Senior Care for their tips on how a caregiving couple can keep their marriage strong. •Find daily moments to connect. Share a devotional before the day gets crazy. Take a coffee break or go for a walk together. Lynda Hacker says, “We prayed with each other every day, even if it was over the phone.” •Double up. Typically, one caregiver takes the elderly parent to the doctor, the store, the park. What if both of you go? Accompanying your spouse on errands isn’t quite the…

Think you can’t find purpose and fulfillment once your working days are over? Take inspiration from Dawn Blackman and let volunteering add life to your years! We asked Melinda Larson, the associate director of volunteers at the Good Samaritan Society, to share why volunteering is good for you and how you can get the most out of your experience. Volunteering improves overall well-being because: It boosts mental and physical health. Studies have shown that seniors who volunteer have fewer physical limitations, lower rates of depression, better cognitive function and longer lives than non-volunteers. It makes you happy. “Human beings are hardwired to give to others,” Larson says. “The more we give, the happier we feel.” It helps you make new friends. Volunteering is a fun, meaningful way to expand your…

“Lord, make us thankful for these and all blessings.” GLENN GRIFFIN, Northport, Alabama Candied Carrots With Feta A savory spin on a traditional spring dish 1½ pounds carrots 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 3 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons brown sugar Salt and pepper Lemon juice 4 ounces feta cheese, crumbled Preheat oven to 400°F. Cut carrots lengthwise into thin strips. Whisk together balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Add brown sugar. Toss carrots in dressing and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, or until carrots are tender and browned, stirring every 15 minutes. Transfer to a serving platter and gently toss with lemon juice and feta. Serves 6 to 8. From Hungry Is a Mighty Fine Sauce, by Shellie Rushing Tomlinson (Barbour Publishing).…

Spring is on track to be a busy season for Dawn Blackman (A Garden Grows in Champaign, page 45) and the Randolph Street Community Garden. The organization has partnered with a group of University of Illinois engineering students for an irrigation project that will help conserve water. Dawn and the kids planted more than 300 flower bulbs. Some of the blooms will go to the kids’ moms; most will go to senior citizens. Dawn says they have had canning workshops and will have more now that they’ve been blessed with canning equipment. This year on their spring work day, volunteers will prepare a play-and-nap area for the newest program, Moms and Tots in the Garden. “We already have community members signed up,” Dawn says. In addition, she plans to hold…

First came the pain. Then the denial. Finally I went to the doctor. “You have arthritis in your left hip,” he said, pointing to the X-ray. “Eventually you’ll need surgery.” I’d worn the joint out, probably from years of biking and hiking. Why the left hip, I wanted to know. “It could be this,” he said, tapping the spot on the X-ray where the left side of my pelvis had been fractured when I was 12. I’d been hit by a car while riding my bike near my house in Michigan. It surprised me that a decades-old injury, long healed and forgotten, had come back to haunt me. Could that also be true, I wondered, of other injuries that I’d suffered, spiritual and emotional injuries as well as physical ones?…

WHO KNEW? In 2010, I landed a job as a receptionist at a community-service employmentprogram office that helped senior citizens find meaningful work. The longer I was there, the more government and nonprofit resources for seniors I learned about. Many of the people who came in didn’t know what services were available to them to help with common problems like needing insurance, being unable to drive themselves to medical appointments, or finding people to do home repairs. What if all of the information was available in one place? I thought. I spoke to my pastor at New Martinsville First Christian Church about making people aware of these services. He loved the idea, and let me set up shop in an office at the church and post the hours and phone…

THE FIRST SONG I EVER SANG in front of an audience was a hymn. I was four or five years old, and our family was staying at the Frontier Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the Frontier Days Rodeo. Daddy had won the steer-roping event there twice in previous years—just like his daddy had done a couple of decades earlier at the same venue—and he was competing again. In between performances, when we weren’t at the rodeo arena, the cowboys and their families would hang out in the lobby of the hotel to visit and pass the time. One afternoon my older brother, Pake, stood in front of a group of the cowboys, who had talked him into singing them a song. He launched into Elvis’s “Hound Dog” (minus the hip…

DOLPHINS. THAT’S HOW I GOT into trouble. It was the week before Lent. My husband, three teenage daughters and I were eating dinner at the kitchen table when I brought it up. Something I’d seen on Facebook that afternoon. An acquaintance from church had a penchant for posting overly inspirational quotes accompanied by photos of rainbows, sunsets, ice-cream-cone-shaped clouds, you name it. “Now she’s moved on to dolphins,” I told my family. “I wonder if killer whales are next.” I dropped the word cheesy. Everyone laughed. Everyone, that is, except my 17-year-old daughter, Maggie. She just stared at her plate and moved her peas from one side to the other. After dinner, I went upstairs to check on her. Maggie was sitting on her bed, earbuds in. I tried to…

THE FLEETING SERENITY I felt driving away from the hair salon disappeared when my cell phone rang. It was the home-alarm company. “We’ve received a Zone Eight at your residence. How would you like us to proceed?” I had no idea what a Zone Eight was, but who cared? We never used our house alarm these days. We’d gotten a Pomeranian puppy, Coda, who seemed to need to go outside every five minutes. We’d set off so many false intruder alarms that we finally just turned the system off. This must be a mistake. “Let me call my daughter first,” I told the operator. “She should be home and she can tell me if anything’s wrong. We don’t use the system much anymore.” I homeschooled my kids. Jessica, my high…

COMING UP ROSES JB Bookstore—named for my brother— was more than a coffee shop with books. In Bayombong, the town in the Philippines where I grew up, it was a beloved gathering place. People came to talk, get news and enjoy a tasty merienda. It was busy every day. JB wasn’t just the family business; we lived above it. When my mother wasn’t teaching school, she ran the shop with my aunt; my father operated a printing press in the back. When I was 11, my family got bad news: The landlord canceled the lease and gave us a couple of months to move out. “My husband has big plans for the area,” the landlord’s wife told my mother. She could see how upset my mom was at the news.…

A SAMPLE OF FAITH One of my passions is collecting antique samplers. I’ve even written about it in Guideposts and Daily Guideposts. Recently a friend suggested I look on eBay for rare Victorian paper-punch examples. Maybe that would lift my spirits, I thought. I was facing another surgery for neurofibromatosis and was filled with more doubts than faith. What if my facial nerve got severed and I could no longer smile? I scrolled through the listings until a piece caught my eye. It read, “God Bless Our Home,” and had the cutest little house—it looked like my old log cabin. I placed a bid. When no one else did, it was mine! The sampler was lovely. But it was the accompanying letter that really got to me. It turned out…

“It always helps to have a bit of prayer in your back pocket. At the end of the day, you have to have something, and for me that is God. Jesus. My Catholic upbringing. My faith.” actor PIERCE BROSNAN “The next time you hear yourself say ‘Yeah, but…,’ ask yourself if you’re describing a genuine obstacle that cannot be circumnavigated. If not, do exactly what your Yeah-but says you shouldn’t.” MARTHA BECK, life coach and author of Finding Your Own North Star “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves.” JEFF BEZOS, founder of Amazon “Humility is evidence that you have successfully failed.” submitted by Guideposts reader MARCIA LYNCH, of Fairfax, Virginia “Everyone shines, given the right lighting.” SUSAN CAIN, from the book…

After we brought millie home, it was a few weeks before her vaccinations kicked in and we could walk her outside on the Manhattan streets. I was looking forward to it. Nothing attracts an adoring, cooing crowd in New York like a puppy, especially a golden retriever pup. You think New Yorkers are tough? Just watch them make fools of themselves when a golden puppy comes trundling down the street. Kids squeal, doormen bow, cool cats whip off their shades and shout. Except none of that happened with Millie because she declined to trundle down the street. She refused to go anywhere beyond the sidewalk immediately in front of our building. She’d politely do her business, to my effusive praise, but when I’d try to walk her down the block,…

may 2013. i watched my 22-year-old son, Blake, walk across the stage to receive his diploma. Though I was happy that Blake had reached this milestone in his life, I was also filled with fear. Fear of the future. Fear of what Blake’s life would be like now that he no longer had a place to go to every day. For parents of children with special needs, there is one moment that is feared above all others. It’s not when you learn your child’s diagnosis. Or even when you see your child sitting all alone in the school cafeteria and realize that he or she might never have a close friend. No, it’s a milestone that most families celebrate: high school graduation. In fact, among the special-needs community, we actually…