Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i Guideposts

Next to our houses of worship, libraries are the most important buildings in our communities. If you agree with me—and I think many of you do—you’ll love the story on page 14, about the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, library system and how it partnered with Volunteers of America to serve the neediest members of the community. I spent a lot of time in libraries growing up. In fact, my mom was our church’s librarian. Of course, this was back in the PG (pre-Google) era. Practically any bit of information could be found in the library. Searching was more laborious, but it seemed like more of an adventure too. I could get lost in the stacks of our public library. Years later, in graduate school, I made regular visits to the Beinecke…

COOKIE CHAIN Last year I decided to do one nice thing a day for Lent. I braided my sister’s hair, talked to strangers in the elevator and reached out to old friends. But I’m still amazed by what happened with the Tim Tams. I’ve been obsessed with the chocolate-covered cookies since a coworker brought them back from Australia. They’re now sold in the United States, and they are delicious dipped in tea. I decided to pass along a package to three people: a new colleague, a friend who lives far away and an author I work with frequently. The author loved them! She left me a voicemail saying she found them at a store near her. I was surprised to hear that she’d also given Tim Tams to three people.…

“ LET’S GET YOUR WEIGHT FIRST,” the nurse said at my six-month cardiology checkup. I slipped off my shoes, stepped on the scale, listened to the metallic counterweights sliding back and forth. No need to look. I already knew what I weighed—too much. For several years, my cholesterol had been borderline, but I was already on two blood pressure medications and didn’t want to add another pill for cholesterol. So I convinced myself I could get my numbers down with diet and exercise. Whenever I would lose some pounds, for a class reunion or a beach trip—usually with some quick-fix fad diet—the weight always came back. My cardiologist sat down in front of me, flipping through my chart. “Well, you’re the only patient today who has lost weight. Three pounds,”…

I WOKE EARLY. IT WAS STILL DARK. The house was quiet. Where was Kahrin? Was she okay? I reached for my phone, then remembered. It was useless. Kahrin didn’t have her phone. My 19-year-old daughter was on a 10-day service trip to Guatemala organized by her university. Kahrin and I were close. We talked and texted every day. I had two sons; Kahrin was my only daughter. I was all too aware of the vulnerabilities of being a woman. It was my duty to keep her safe. When Kahrin was in fourth grade, she announced she wanted to play football. Tackle football. Kahrin was tiny. I was anxious about letting her play. Still, my husband and I decided to let her give it a shot. Kahrin was so small and…

IT WAS A CHILLY OCTOBER morning in 1975. “Ready?” our outreach group leader asked. At only 15 years old, I’d be giving my first sermon on the streets of New York City. The outreach group, young people ranging from 14 to 21, gathered around me on the corner. I began to give my message to people walking by. I came alive. I loved being able to help others by sharing my faith. That feeling has never left me. Over the years, I went on to pastor several congregations, serve for nonprofit organizations, work as a life coach and teach at the New York Theological Seminary. Today I’m vice president of Guideposts Ministries. But life hasn’t always made faith easy. In 1985, when my wife, Elba, and I were expecting our…

Fighting Addiction Fire chief Jan Rader (page 26) discusses how her city of Huntington, West Virginia, is battling opioid addiction. guideposts.org/jrader Celebrate Black History Month Browse our collection of inspiring quotes from prominent African-Americans. guideposts.org/blackhistory Brighten Your Winter Days Want to beat the seasonal blues or just feel more energized? Try our practical tips. guideposts.org/winterblues All About Love What’s love got to do with it? Everything! Enjoy these heartwarming quotes for Valentine’s Day. guideposts.org/vdayquotes The Words of Lincoln President Lincoln was only 56 when he died, but he left behind a vast legacy of wisdom. guideposts.org/honestabe…

THE REFERENCE DESK STAFF at Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s public libraries pride themselves on answering their patrons’ questions. The best recipe for jambalaya. The history of zydeco. The number of times the LSU Tigers football team has been to the Cotton Bowl (that would be five). Even in this age of Google and Siri, there’s no shortage of queries. “We’re in the information business,” says Patricia Husband, assistant branch library director. Then came the catastrophic flooding of 2016. Suddenly the questions became more urgent. People wanting to know how to contact FEMA for assistance. Where to get help paying utility bills. Even where to find a homeless shelter. Some visitors seemed to need much more than what the library’s reference sources could give them. They needed someone who could spend more…

It had been a harsh and unforgiving New England winter, which only added to the sense that the connection between my husband, Marty, and me had chilled. One Saturday morning, I watched him as he surveyed the damage to the stonework around our house. Our dream home. I’d asked him years before to build it, and it was where we’d been raising our two children, who had been only three and four years old when we moved in. But the house had become a bone of contention. Marty stopped wearing his wedding band. “I lost it,” he said. But he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to replace it. Marty began construction in 2004. But here we were, 10 years later, and there was still much to be done.…

For Mary Lou Carney, the turnaround in her battle with her weight was not so much physical as it was spiritual—learning to accept the body God gave her. When you’re dealing with challenging circumstances, there’s a power and freedom that come with acceptance. We asked Rev. Greg Wilcox, senior pastor at the Good Samaritan Society, to share his insights: How can I accept a difficult situation? Some people try to put their situation in perspective by saying, “What I am going through is hard, but I don’t have it as bad as…” It’s a little self-help. Beyond self-help, a great coping resource is to talk to someone who doesn’t attempt to fix your problem but simply listens and makes you feel loved and affirmed. “As Paul does in II Corinthians…

FROM THE ASHES In October 2003, a massive wildfire destroyed more than 2,200 homes in San Diego, mine included. I lost nearly a thousand artworks, all the masters for my step-by-step art courses, magazine columns, DVDs and TV shows—everything I needed to support my 17-year-old art education business, learntodrawfast.com. I sifted through the ruins. Inside a squashed drawer was a copy of Guideposts, badly singed. The magazine had long fed my faith, and I’d leaned on The Power of Positive Thinking, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, when building my business. I could see a reference to Scripture on a surviving page: They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings of eagles. That verse reminded me to go forward with faith. Adversity proved…

“ When a smile breaks open into laughter, hearts open! Laughter creates space, ease and connection. Laughter is our soul’s joy song.”TRACEE ELLIS ROSS, actress “Accepting that we are wholly seen and wholly loved, is how we begin to understand what love can really do.”STEVE DAUGHERTY, pastor and author, from his book, Experiments in Honesty “Instead of telling God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is!” submitted by Guideposts readerKERRI MILLER, of Johnson City, Tennessee “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides.”BARBARA KINGSOLVER, author “There is never a wrong time to pray.”KELLY JOHNSON,…

IT WAS MY GRANDFATHER WHO gave me a lifelong love of Abraham Lincoln, one that was to help me in a way he could never have imagined. As a boy of seven, Grandfather had seen the funeral train carrying Lincoln’s body home to Springfield, Illinois. From that moment, sobbing by the tracks, he’d taken Lincoln as the model for his own life of battling injustice. I was seven when Grandfather gave me my first book about Lincoln. In Abraham Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy, I read about the son of a near-illiterate farmer, walking miles through the snow to borrow a book. Straining his eyes to read by firelight because he had to work in the fields in the daytime. Starting to write and getting whipped when his father caught him…

I PRESSED MY BEST SUIT AND starched a white shirt. Held up each and every one of my ties, trying to decide which one looked the most professional. It was the night before my first day at my new job. Not just any job. A job at the White House. I was full of nervous energy. When I tried to read, my mind kept wandering. I thought back to all of the experiences and the people who had helped me get to this point. College professors. Friends from graduate school. Mostly though, I thought about the people from my hometown. I thought about Madison Park. I was raised by my grandparents— Mama and Daddy, as I called them— in Madison Park, a town founded by freed slaves on the edge…

FEAR FACTOR “Be careful.” That’s what Mom always said when I left the house as a child. Or whenever I got in a car. Or in the water after I learned to swim. She was a good, loving mom but a fearful one. She didn’t like to go to unfamiliar places. Didn’t like us kids to take risks. She listened obsessively to the weather reports to warn us of approaching storms. It wasn’t until I was a wife and mother myself that I realized I’d inherited that fear. Though I tried to cover up my anxiety, my children could see how nervous I was on planes, how I was the first to grab a life jacket when we went boating. I avoided using ladders or walking in our backyard near…