I’m not much for jewelry. A wedding ring was all I ever wanted —until now. Next to my wedding ring, on the little finger of my left hand, rests a simple silver band. It’s my daughter Melissa’s.
Soon after Mell died in a car accident in June 2002, just 6 weeks short of her 18th birthday, I was in her bedroom when I found the ring. I recalled having seen it on her beautiful hand.
As a young boy, theologian Alister McGrath enjoyed experimenting with chemicals in his school’s laboratory. He liked to drop a tarnished coin into a beaker of diluted nitric acid. He often used an old British penny bearing the image of Queen Victoria. Because of the accumulated grime, Her Majesty’s image couldn’t be seen clearly. But the acid cleansed away the grime and the Queen’s image reappeared in shining glory.
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A Scottish athlete in the 19th century made an iron discus based on a description he read in a book. What he didn’t know was that the discus used in official competition was made of wood with only an outer rim of iron. His was solid metal and weighed three or four times as much as those being used by other discus throwers.
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Years ago I was an extremely anxious Christian. When I began spiraling downward emotionally, God didn’t intervene, for He knew I needed to reach the end of myself. When I finally hit rock bottom, the “rock” on which I fell was Jesus Christ.
The Lord immediately began rebuilding me, applying truths from His Word to teach me trust and faith. Gradually He changed me into the joyful, God-dependent person He intended me to be. Through this painful but profitable experience, I learned that when God disciplines us, our greatest gain isn’t what we get but what we become.
Jesus emerged from obscurity and was baptized by John the Baptist. When He came out of the water, He heard His Father say, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
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When we are young, we can’t wait to grow up. When we are old, we look back longingly to former years. But God intends that we joyfully take each season of life as it comes. Whatever our age, He imparts what we need to be all that we can be. He asks us to commit our way to Him and accept the struggles He allows and the strength He provides.
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If you’re over 40 years old, your heart has already beat more than 1.5 billion times. I know that when my heart stops, it will be too late to change my ways. So I’ve been trying to control my weight, get exercise, and watch not only what I eat but also what’s eating me.
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I picked up a gardening book the other day and got some good advice: Take care of the soil, and don’t worry about the plants. If the soil is good, the seed will take root and grow.”
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Time flies when you’re having fun.” This cliché has no basis in fact, but experience makes it seem true.
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The Louvre in Paris is perhaps the most famous art museum in the world. It displays originals by such masters as Delacroix, Michelangelo, Rubens, da Vinci, Ingres, Vermeer, and many others.
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The local newspaper reported the death of a semi-pro baseball pitcher I had admired during my teenage years. His name was Elmer “Lefty” Nyenhouse. He was a likable Christian. The article said that he had been active in his church and a respected member of his community until his death at 88.
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A few days after arriving on the campus of Texas A&M University in 1984, Bruce Goodrich was awakened at 2 a.m. Upperclassmen roused him out of bed to initiate him into the Corps of Cadets, a military-style training program.
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According to Homer’s Odyssey, when King Odysseus went off to fight in the Trojan war, he left his son Telemachus in the hands of a wise old man named Mentor. Mentor was charged with the task of teaching the young man wisdom.
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Some Christians try to live from one dramatic mountaintop experience to another. Their relationship with the Lord is based on their feelings at the moment. They go from Bible conferences to seminars to Bible studies, trying to maintain an emotional high.
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During a visit with a friend suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease, I asked what lessons God was teaching her as she traveled down this difficult road. Her immediate response was, “Loss of control.”
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As I read a modern paraphrase of John 15:1-8, I began to reconsider my concept of what it means to be a fruitful Christian. Jesus said, “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of Me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing He prunes back so it will bear even more” (The Message by Eugene Peterson).
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According to one little boy, “Thinking is when your mouth stays shut and your head keeps talking to itself.”
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One night a woman dreamed that she was having a conversation with God. She was angry about all the suffering and evil she saw around her, so she complained to the Lord, “Why don’t You do something about all this?” God gently replied, “I did. I created you.”
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The Bible—how much of it do you know and understand? Does it seem overwhelming? Do you feel it’s too late in life to study it seriously?
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Every January, health club memberships dramatically increase and exercise rooms become crowded with what some people call “the New Year’s resolution crowd.” Fitness regulars know that by March many of the newcomers will be gone. “They don’t see results as quickly as they think they will,” says one club director. “People don’t realize it takes a lot of work and perseverance to get in shape.”
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It was a sunny, sad day in 1982—the day after my husband’s funeral. I had gone alone to Bill’s grave, hardly knowing why. As with Mary Magdalene who visited Jesus’ tomb, the risen Lord was waiting for me. He impressed the words of Philippians 1:21 on my mind, still numbed by Bill’s untimely death from cancer.
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I’ll never forget Jake. His legs seemed too thin and spindly to hold him against the current of the river. His patched and discolored waders looked older than he was. His fishing vest was tattered and held together with safety pins; his ancient hat was battered and sweat-stained; his antiquated fly rod was scarred and taped.
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In some ways humans are inferior to animals. I have seen some incredibly strong men, but never one “as strong as an ox.” Men can run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, but that doesn’t begin to compare with the speed of a cheetah. There are people who have an uncanny sense of direction, but even they can’t explain how migrating swallows can return unerringly to the same place year after year.
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“In a lot of organizations, change is like putting lipstick on a bulldog. There’s a tremendous amount of effort involved, and most times all you get is some cosmetics—and an angry bulldog.” So writes Dave Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle.
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