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Not long before writing this note, I set out with Gracie to hike a favorite trail, which is how I found myself huffing and puffing up a steep Berkshires hillside in late-winter snow. The trail hadn’t been broken, and there was a blustering wind. I paused at a trail juncture. One way led to the highest point in the preserve, our goal for the day, and the other descended, wrapped around the bluff and back to the parking area. A longer but easier trail that passed by an impressive beaver dam we always loved to see. Gracie sat, her wagging tail making a one-winged snow angel. I thought of cancer survivor Lynne Hartke’s brave story in this issue, about struggling to reach the summit of El Misti, a dormant volcano…

RIGHT WHERE I AM I’ve always had a heart for helping people and looked for ways to do it, but these days, at 82 years old, I don’t get out as much as I used to. It feels as if the only places I go to anymore are the doctor’s office and the hospital. For a while, it bothered me to think that my days of helping others were over, but then I discovered that I still have plenty of opportunities to bless others. During a recent hospital stay, the nurse who was caring for me confided that she’d recently lost her mother in a tragic way. I told her about a similar experience in my own life, then shared the Bible verse that had brought me comfort. She was…

I awoke with a start and stared at the clock on my bedside table. Almost 10 a.m. already? I had to be at work by 10:30! I couldn’t be late again. I had been warned about my tardiness. I’d been so tired after the kids left for school that I got back in bed. I meant to rest for only an hour. I’d even set an alarm. But once again, I hadn’t heard it. I grabbed my things and rushed out the door. If I was lucky, I might just make it in the nick of time. Driving across town to the Head Start preschool where I worked as an assistant cook, I tried to shake off the grogginess. Halfway there, I got stuck behind a slow-moving car. I tried…

The slow death of our television began with an alert that flashed across the screen one night: This function is not available now. I tried cleaning the remote control, unplugging the TV and updating the system. Nothing worked. I thought about getting a new TV, but we didn’t have the budget to replace it. I spent hours online researching our 12-year-old model and concluded that the motherboard was on its way out. Motherboard. The word held significance. I heard it as two words: mother bored. With my younger son, Henry, away at college, my role as a mom had taken a big turn. I was still navigating the change. I was stressed and, if I was being completely honest with myself, a little bored. I had just resumed watching Jeopardy!…

Marianne Hussle Sophomore year of college, I studied abroad in Austria. I loved it, but I struggled with homesickness. This was before international cell phone plans and video chats, so I hardly ever got to speak with anyone back home. I took a short trip to Rome, hoping it would take my mind off how much I missed everyone. Instead, it only made it worse. Lord, I wish that at least one person from home was here with me, I prayed while visiting the sites. Waiting in line for the Catacombs, I heard a voice I recognized. I turned and saw my best friend from high school chatting with her parents! Somehow, a dear friend had been brought to me when I needed it most. Jeannie Hughes My husband, Roger,…

BELOVED CREATURES Moving Mom into a memory care facility was the right thing to do. But that didn’t make the transition easy, especially for me, her only son. My sisters, niece and I brought in Mom’s things to make her new room feel familiar, and I spent the first night with her so she wouldn’t be alone. Waking up in my sleeping bag in the morning, I looked at the photos we’d hung on the walls. Many were from family trips out west. Mom had snapped pictures of buffalo, elk, prairie dogs, jackrabbits—any of God’s creatures who wandered into her line of vision. She loved wildlife and being out in nature. She couldn’t be farther from there now, I thought. She wouldn’t be taking trips anymore, and the window in…

UNEXPECTED GIFTS Suzi Bevan sent me a lovely letter after reading my story, Sweet Tea, Sweet Times, in The Joys of Christmas 2020, about my aunt Chrissy’s sweet tea forming the cornerstone of our family holiday gatherings. Suzi painted a watercolor based on a photograph of Aunt Chrissy from the story and sent a photocopy in her letter. I called Suzi, and we arranged to surprise Aunt Chrissy with the portrait. Then she and Suzi talked on the phone for hours. In July 2023, Suzi invited Aunt Chrissy and me to her eightieth birthday celebration in Virginia, almost four hours away. We made a road trip of it and were delighted to celebrate Suzi’s amazing life of kindness alongside her family and friends. During her party, Suzi gave me a surprise…

“I think that people often judge the result and not the journey. But the art, the magnificence, the beauty, the skill, the artistry are in the journey.” VIOLA DAVIS, EGOT-winning actor “[Faith] does not take the pain away, but it does help you move through the pain. I was taking it day by day, and then it became, ‘Oh, Lord, minute by minute, minute by minute, give me today.’” NICOLE AVANT, author and former diplomat, on relying on her faith after the tragic death of her mother “Don’t just dream; do. Learn how to do the things you want to do. Be around people that know how to do it.” CHRIS STAPLETON, country musician “We aren’t trapped by the limited options of life as we’ve always known it. Jesus is…

Our oldest daughter and her husband lived in Connecticut, 1,600 miles away from our home in Frisco, Texas. My husband, Anselmo, and I missed them terribly, and that early June night, the distance felt especially acute because she had just gone into labor. Our son-in-law was keeping us apprised of how she was doing, but by midnight, the baby still hadn’t come. Anselmo and I finally got into bed and fell into a fitful sleep, anxiously waiting for the phone to ring. At 6 a.m., our son-in-law called to say our grandson had just been born but had to be taken to the neonatal intensive care unit due to a breathing problem. Our daughter was fine, but the doctors were very concerned about the baby’s health. Anselmo hurriedly booked us…

Cruising around Nashville in her Cadillac that day in 1973, Marijohn Wilkin should have been on top of the world. She’d made a name for herself writing and publishing hundreds of successful country songs. But at 53, depressed by the failure of her third marriage, Wilkin found herself seeking solace in the bottle more than in the Bible. Passing by a small church, she felt a sudden urge to go inside and speak to the minister. He listened as she recounted her troubles, then asked, “Did you ever think about thanking God for your problems?” The surprising question struck a deep chord with Wilkin. As soon as she got home, she sat down at the piano and sang through her tears, “One day at a time, sweet Jesus, / That’s…

Just a little further. Just a little further… I reached up to push the plastic box just one more centimeter to the left so I could get something in my crafts closet. One centimeter too far, it turned out. Avalanche! Everything came crashing down—scrapbook paper, glue sticks, beads, unfinished projects, markers, yarn, all scattered across the hardwood floor. My husband, Alan, came running in. “What happened?” “I was getting something out of the closet,” I said. “I thought I needed a project to give me a lift.” Alan looked at the mess. “I guess you found one,” he said. “Cleaning up.” “Ha ha,” I said, but Alan had a point. Obviously the closet needed organizing if I wanted to avoid more disasters like this one. Sometimes straightening up could soothe…

Marilyn Turk (A New Togetherness, page 56) and her husband, Chuck, share a passion for lighthouses and have visited more than 100 together, including most of the ones on the East Coast, in Michigan and in places as far away as Scotland, the Bahamas and Australia. They are planning a trip to France this summer with their church choir and hope to visit lighthouses there. Marilyn’s effort to spend more time with Chuck led her to hand over the reins of the Blue Lake Christian Writers Conference, which she started in 2017, to a new director this year. Her new conference role was teaching a Fiction-writing class. Marilyn began her writing career with devotions and articles for Guideposts and next stepped into the world of fiction, where she never expected to…

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The salesperson at the cell phone store went over the options that came free with my plan. I barely registered a word he said. I had a lot more on my mind than replacing a broken phone. “I’ll take this one,” I said, pointing to a phone identical to my 13-year-old daughter Ana’s. The salesperson hustled to the back to get my selection. Ana took my hand and squeezed it. “It’ll be fine, Mom. You’ll see.” I nodded and forced a smile. I knew Ana was talking about her upcoming spinal surgery. These past few weeks, I hadn’t been able to hide how worried I was. I pulled my baby girl close, wishing I could somehow absorb her faith that God would watch over her. But this surgery was too…