Page 176 – Guideposts Articles

Bald, Beautiful and Blessed

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Jane Bingham

Belle, my nine-year-old daughter, snuggled against me in my bed, where I lay exhausted from chemotherapy. Her eyes skipped up to my bald head.

“I miss brushing your hair, Mommy,” she said.

“It will grow back,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m still your mommy. That hasn’t changed. I still love you, hair or no hair.”

“Can you play with me?” she said.

“Honey, I’m just too tired. You need to let Mommy rest.” She nodded and slipped out of the room.

I’d always been proud of my long hair. So had Belle. It broke both our hearts when it started to come out. But it wasn’t really about the hair. It was her fear of losing me. How could I make her understand that, no matter what, God would care for her? Lord, help her understand, I’d begged these last six months.

When I was first diagnosed, five years earlier, my husband and I had told our three older boys about my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but Belle was too young. I’d tried immunotherapy, which has fewer side effects than chemo. It hadn’t worked.

Now there was no avoiding the fact that I was sick. I’d had to quit working as a portrait photographer. I couldn’t go with Belle on school trips. It was all I could do to walk her to the bus in the mornings.

I thought back to that day in June, waking up to find huge clumps of hair on my pillow. I’d started to cry and couldn’t stop. We would have to tell Belle now. I called my sister-in-law. “It’s happening,” I said. “Can you shave my head?”

My sons Christopher, 18, and Seth, 16, and Belle gathered later in the kitchen, Belle biting her lip bravely.

I felt the electric razor’s tingle on my scalp, my hair falling to the floor.

Christopher and Seth had their hair cut into Mohawks. “Mohawks for Mom,” Seth said. We took pictures of the three of us. Belle watched it all, pensively. The next day at breakfast she stared at me. “I wish you still had your hair.”

Now, here in my bed, I heard Belle playing with her Barbies. “Let’s go shopping,” one said. “Then later, we’ll go to lunch!” I couldn’t help but smile.

I opened my laptop and signed on to Facebook. I’d started a support group for women with cancer. Amazingly, one of them had just sent me a link to a news article. Mattel had made a one-of-a-kind bald Barbie for a girl going through chemo.

That’d be perfect for Belle, I thought. It would make it all seem less frightening. What if they made a special Barbie and sold it in stores? I went to the Barbie website, found the link to customer service and sent off my idea.

I posted what I’d done on my Facebook wall. “You should make a bald Barbie Facebook page,” someone suggested. I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Beckie, a friend in California, whose daughter had cancer, helped me launch the page. “Beautiful and Bald Barbie! Let’s See If We Can Get It Made,” we called it.

The next day there were 100 “likes.” In a week, 2,000. From all around the world. People posted stories and photos. “My daughter lost her hair after chemo,” a mother wrote, “and I don’t know how to comfort her.”

Belle and I read the postings together. The idea of a bald Barbie seemed to take on a life of its own. “I never knew there were so many girls without hair,” Belle said one evening. “I wish there was something we could do for them.”

“Me too,” I said, hugging her. So many people. Not just with cancer, but thousands of others dealing with hair loss. All of them looking for comfort. Including my Belle. Help her understand, Lord, I prayed again.

By early January the page had mushroomed to 30,000 fans! Then one day I got an e-mail from Mattel: “Thank you for your interest in Barbie. Unfortunately we don’t accept design ideas from the public.”

I stared in disbelief. I’d let myself get caught up in all the excitement. I felt angry and hurt. And yet I couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible, as if I’d let everyone down. Soon others began posting that they had received the form letter too. The tone of the page quickly turned sour.

“Should I take down the page?” I asked Belle.

Her eyes were glued to the face of a bald girl on the computer screen. “No, Mommy,” she said. “You can’t give up. It won’t happen if you quit.”

She wasn’t just talking about my fight against cancer. She was talking about all the other girls like herself. I could barely hold back my tears; I was bursting with love and pride.

Days later the Facebook page was buzzing with talk that MGA Entertainment, the maker of Bratz and Moxie Girlz dolls, might be coming out with bald dolls, both boy and girl models. Soon after, my phone rang. “Hello, Mrs. Bingham,” the voice on the other end said. “This is the general manager for the Barbie product line.”

I was still pinching myself as I took my seat inside a huge conference room at Mattel headquarters in California. It was early February and at Mattel’s invitation I’d flown out so that Beckie and I could meet with the GM and the director of philanthropy. They got right to the point.

“I’m afraid we’re still not ready to make a bald Barbie,” the GM said. “We think it might be too disturbing to our consumers, and that would defeat the purpose.”

My mind raced. “What about a friend for Barbie?” I asked.

The GM glanced at her colleague. “We could do that,” she said.

I left with a promise that Mattel would make 10,000 bald friends for Barbie and give them to children with cancer in hospitals throughout the United States and Canada. They wouldn’t be sold in stores.

Not yet, at least. With the Lord, anything is possible.

That afternoon I sat in the airport, thinking. About losing my hair. The boys and their Mohawks. The many women and children I’d connected with. I’d prayed for my little girl to understand that God was in charge, not the cancer. I’d asked him to show her she was not alone.

And he had answered my prayer—thousands of times over.

And then guess what? Remember MGA Entertainment? This past summer MGA introduced its line of bald dolls—six all together, sold in stores nationwide. It even sent me 100 dolls to give to some of the families whose stories have touched me most. The dolls are called True Hope. I couldn’t have put it better.

See country singer Kellie Pickler shave her head in solidarity with her best friend, who is fighting breast cancer.

Download your FREE ebook, The Power of Hope: 7 Inspirational Stories of People Rediscovering Faith, Hope and Love

Baking Her Way Back to Life

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Rita Turner

Mmm…the rich chocolate chips melted in my mouth. I savored the grainy texture of the sugar on my tongue. I was like a kid when it came to cookie dough and I still had plenty left to bake with. Too much, in fact.

It was true that I’d put on some weight since my husband died—comfort food, always sweets, often cookies. Only I’d comforted myself a bit too much. This will be my last taste, I promised myself. I’d agreed to bake for the church get-together at the beach that night—a singles group that met every Friday. Being near the beach was one of the advantages of living in California.

Paul had loved to socialize, but since he died I’d been hiding out at home. My sister had scolded me over the phone just that morning. “You’re becoming a recluse, Rita,” she said.

READ MORE: HER HEALING IN HAITI

I wasn’t looking forward to this gathering, however. In fact I’d nearly decided to cancel. Then I saw how much cookie dough I’d made. If I didn’t take my cookies to the beach I would be in danger of eating every last one myself. That couldn’t happen.

I hurried next door to borrow extra baking sheets from my neighbor. “I have more dough than I banked on!” I told her.

“Come in for a few minutes,” she said. “Let’s catch up.”

We chatted for a while before she sent me off with six pans. I hadn’t realized until now how much I missed being in the company of others.

I grabbed a stick of butter from the fridge and greased all the pans—my neighbor’s six and my two. Dollops of dough in neat rows filled all eight pans, a dozen cookies per pan. I stopped to do the math—96 cookies in all!

Baking them was done in shifts. I bent down to watch through the oven window as the first batch bubbled and rose. Then I glanced at the clock—just enough time to finish and clean up before the event.

When the last batch came out of the oven I set the pans aside to cool and tore off my apron. I laughed when I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror—covered head to toe in flour and sticky dough. But I got ready in record time, grabbed a beach chair and my tub of cookies, and loaded my car.

When I showed up at the event everyone came over to hug me or shake my hand. “Welcome back,” they said. “We’ve missed you.” And I’d missed them. Why hadn’t I opened myself to the comfort of this group sooner? We settled around the fire pit, munching on hot dogs. Hickory-tinged smoke from the fire curled in the breeze, as ocean waves heaved in and out.

“Paul would have enjoyed this,” I said, and my friends heartily agreed. It seemed a good time to pass around my cookies. “I can’t imagine why I made so many,” I told everyone. No one seemed to mind.

The cool night air was filled with laughter and chatter, much of it coming from me. We made bets on what time the sun would set and all clapped when it did. As I went back to my car after all the good-byes—without one leftover cookie—it occurred to me that I enjoyed socializing just as much as Paul.

How do you like that, honey? I thought to myself. No wonder I’d wound up with way too much cookie dough. Angels must have tripled the sugary recipe so I would have to come here and share and discover the healthy sweetness of fellowship.

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A World War II Hero in the Family

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Ron Berler

The stories of countless heroes in war go untold. Until recently, Angela Davis of Huntington Beach, California, believed that her uncle was one of these lost figures, a hero unheralded by history.

Morris Seronick was 20 years old the morning of October 25, 1944. He was a seaman first class on the U.S.S. Hoel, anchored in the Leyte Gulf in the Philippines. A day earlier, the famed Fleet Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, Jr.’s battle group had engaged the main Japanese fleet, leaving the Imperial Navy in disarray.

Halsey and the bulk of his ships steamed northward to chase what he believed was the biggest remaining Japanese naval threat, leaving behind only the Hoel, two other destroyers and a small, lightly armed flotilla to protect the gulf and the soldiers on the island of Leyte, a major base of operations for the Allies’ Pacific campaign.

At 6:50 A.M., a U.S. patrol pilot radioed a warning. An armada of heavily armed ships—four supersized battleships, seven heavy cruisers and nine destroyers—was speeding at 30 knots toward the San Bernardino Straits, a critical passageway to the Philippines.

The Japanese had tricked Halsey—the ships to the north were a decoy! With no help coming, the Hoel, the U.S.S. Johnston, and half a dozen smaller ships raced to intercept the enemy fleet. The Americans were outgunned, little more than tin cans bobbing in the waves. But they fought gallantly.

Using smoke screens and loosing a barrage of 10 torpedoes, the Hoel held off the enemy for two hours, despite losing both engines, all but two guns and taking more than 40 direct hits. Three enemy ships were destroyed, and another crippled; eventually the Japanese were forced to change course.

At the end of the battle, however, both the Hoel and the Johnston were sunk. Of the 340 men aboard the Hoel, only 88 were pulled from the shark-infested waters alive. Morris Seronick was not among them.

History recorded that the fight helped the Allies win the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval engagement of World War II. But Angela’s mother, only 11 years old at the time, was haunted by the loss of her big brother. There was no record of when or how he had died.

In her dreams, she imagined he had washed up on a Pacific island with no memory, living out his days sipping coconut milk on the beach. But that was a fantasy. Angela’s mother died without knowing her brother’s fate. That lack of closure had always saddened her.

Angela knew almost nothing about the U.S.S. Hoel. Her husband, Jeff, was the history buff, not her. She had more urgent things on her mind. Jeff, himself a 20-year Navy veteran, had been laid off as an engineer for the Union Pacific railroad.

For months, he sat around the house, sinking into depression. That concerned Angela more than the loss of a paycheck. God, she finally begged, find him something to do. Anything.

Their daughter Mariah worked at the Huntington Beach library. “Dad, at least read a book,” she urged. Jeff’s love of history attracted him to stories about America’s greatest leaders. And his spirit lifted as he retold some of those stories to Angela.

The biography of William Halsey, Jr., mentioned a battle in the Philippines. Jeff dug deeper. He found an obscure book called The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors. He was riveted.

One night, Angela was sitting with her laptop when Jeff came racing into the room, waving a copy of the book. “I have something to show you,” he said.

He flipped to a page near the end, a list of the 252 men who had perished in battle on a ship called the U.S.S. Hoel. Jeff pointed near the top of the page.

“Uncle Morris!” Angela cried.

The book mentioned an association for the Hoel survivors. A man named Warren Stirling was listed as treasurer. Jeff and Angela immediately looked him up online. There was one match, an amazing match. He was in Huntington Beach. Only a few blocks away.

Angela called Stirling. He didn’t know Uncle Morris, but he told her that the surviving crew members held an annual reunion. “You should come,” he urged. “There aren’t many of the crew left.”

Seven Hoel survivors and many family members attended the event in San Diego a few months later—along with Angela and Jeff. “Did any of you know Morris Seronick?” they asked. One grizzled man spoke up. “I knew Morrie, as we called him. I was on his detail,” the old shipmate said.

His stories about Morris were as riveting as Jeff’s book had been. During the battle they were with a gun crew near the stern. The veteran’s eyes welled with tears at the memory. “A shell hit us. Your uncle died at his post, doing his duty, brave to the end.”

It seemed impossible that after so many years, there was still someone alive who was there with Morris that day, there with him when he died. Someone whose hand Angela could shake and who she could thank for helping her close a chapter of her family’s story.

Jeff found a good job—as an aircraft mechanic. But in the interim, he’d been given an important job to do. Unknowingly, he’d helped his wife uncover the fate of her mother’s beloved brother. The hero she had never met but now knew.

Download your FREE ebook, Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories that Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace

A Wife’s Wisdom Set Him Straight

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Richard H. Schneider

My wife, Betty, had just come home, proud of her find at the local thrift shop. Six small glasses. “Six dollars for the whole set,” she said.

“Hmm,” I said. “We could use them for orange juice.” I picked up one. Nice design. Cut glass, solidly made. I liked the heft of it in my hand. I held it up to the light…and noticed something on the bottom. An inscription.

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I turned the glass upside down. There etched in the glass was a crown and the British lion rampart encircled by the words: the Cunard Steamship Company, Limited. A Cunard glass! Immediately I put the glass down for fear I’d drop it. My first instinct was that we needed to lock up the set.

“Betty, these are Cunard glasses! They probably graced the table of some first-class dining room on a long-ago liner. They’re real collector’s items.” Betty knew of my fascination for old ocean liners, and Cunard was top of the line, famous for its transatlantic ships like the Lusitania and the Aquitania.

The first ocean voyage I took was on a Cunard ship, the Scythia II, and even though it was World War II and the liner had been converted into a troop carrier, it still showed evidence of its prewar style.

Why, these juice glasses could have been used on any number of historic ships. Betty put them in the sink. “Be careful with them,” I said. “I’m going to find out just how much they’re worth.”

I called an appraiser. “I’d say each glass is worth at least $50,” he said. “In a few years even more.”

“We can’t use these for breakfast,” I told Betty. I took them from the drying rack and put them on the top shelf of the sideboard. “They’re too valuable.”

“Nonsense,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron and following me. “I bought them to use and that’s what we’ll do.”

“Don’t you realize what we’ve got?” I raised my voice in anger.

“Six juice glasses,” she said, and in a moment we were having a full-blown argument, with Betty even quoting the line from scripture about not storing up things “where moth and rust corrupt.” I said she didn’t understand a thing about collecting and she said when you buy something you should use it.

Dinner that night was frosty. We didn’t want to say much and the glasses glared right back at us. Finally Betty broke the silence. “Remember your war bonnet?”

I flinched. I’d told the story to our boys many times. When I was 10 I’d won an Indian war bonnet in a contest. I was so in love with it that instead of wearing it, I hid it so my brother couldn’t find it.

In fact, I hid it so well that I forgot where it was. I never really enjoyed it because I was so afraid it might get dirty or someone else might bust it.

Maybe something even worse than moths or rust could corrupt a thing. I thought of another Bible verse: “He that is greedy of gain troubleth his own house.”

I looked up at the glasses. “We’ll use them at breakfast.” Betty smiled. I took her hand. After all these years it felt like I’d finally unearthed that old Indian war bonnet.

A Wake-Up Call from Grandma

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Margaret Ames

I didn’t want to open my eyes that morning, let alone get out of bed. It wasn’t just the winter cold. It was… everything. My breast cancer had returned. My two twenty-something children had moved back home, and every day brought another argument over who was going to do what around the house.

Most of the time, the answer was me, and I just couldn’t do it all anymore. Even my job teaching ESL at an elementary school, normally a joy, was stressing me out, because I was prepping my students for high-stakes testing.

I had to get up and go to work. I opened my eyes a crack. My gaze fell on the basket across the bedroom, piled with my late grandmother’s embroidery. Grandma Sadie—now there was someone who could do it all.

She raised nine children on a farm during the Dust Bowl. She lost a leg in an accident in her forties, but didn’t let that stop her. She lived to 107, independently until she was 102. When a reporter asked her the secret to such a long, productive life, she replied, “Start each day with a happy heart.”

Oh, Grandma, I wish I could, I thought. She was so proud when I got into college that she took me shopping for things for my dorm room. I was touched because Grandma didn’t much like shopping; it went against her Depression-era frugality.

Everything she got me served a practical function, like a little alarm clock so I wouldn’t be late for class, a sturdy mug for my coffee if I needed to stay up writing a paper.

Above my desk, I’d hung a note Grandma had written me shortly before she died. It read, “I love you, dear girl” in her spidery handwriting. Inspiration to live up to her example.

Brrriiing! Brrriiing! My eyes flew open. I sat up. What was that sound?

A muffled ringing, like a bell, from somewhere across the room. Brrriiing!

I threw off the covers and got up to investigate. The ringing was coming from that basket of embroidery. I reached in and felt around. Aha!

I pulled out the Baby Ben windup alarm clock that Grandma Sadie had given me. I’d held onto it purely for sentimental reasons. I’d wound it too tightly in college and it hadn’t worked for more than 30 years.

Until now, when I’d never needed a wake-up call more. It was time to start my day…with a happy heart.

Download your FREE ebook, Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories that Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace.

A Tuskegee Airman’s Inspiring Story

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by mcherkezian

I was born February 1 in 1921. So by this February, I’ll be 88 years of age. And I’ve been living in New York all of my life.

The Tuskegee Airmen was the first black Air Force units out. There were no blacks in the Air Force. And a lot of activists and the black newspapers were pushing and saying, why aren’t any blacks in the Air Force? So that’s how it started.

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It started at a place called Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. I went to college down in State Teachers College in Montgomery, Alabama. It’s called Alabama State University. But I got into trouble just when I went to town. I almost got myself lynched twice.

One semester, I came home– and Alabama was the second worst state in the union for blacks in those days, Mississippi was number one– and my mother told me not to go to Alabama. But I didn’t listen. I should have. I always listened to her before. But I thought I was grown.

Anyway, I came home. And I was going to go to City College. But then when the war broke out, and I was afraid of getting drafted. And in those days, the only place they put blacks were in the infantry, the engineers, which is like building roads, and the quartermaster, which is like for supplies. But then I heard about this black organization pushing for an Air Force unit.

I ran down to 39 Whitehall Street, and I volunteered to go into the Air Force. And they thought I would get there. They sent me to Camp Upton on Long Island for my basic training. And after a couple of weeks, they put us on a train.

So I thought I was going to Rantoul, Illinois. They never told you where you were going in those days, because they said loose lips sink ships. So they put you on something and they told you when you got halfway there, if they told you at all.

They didn’t tell us. And when I got off the train, where was I? At Cheaha, Alabama, which is the railroad station. I said I’m back in Alabama again.

Anyway, I thought I’d go to the airfield. It wouldn’t be too bad an airfield. Well, segregation was the law of the land in those days. It wasn’t illegal.

And so on the airfield, 85% of the personnel were black. But if you didn’t want to eat in the regular mess hall and you went to the post exchange, which was right there on the field, to eat, that was segregated.

So naturally, the black side was always packed tight. And on the white side, it were beautiful. So you had to deal with it. That’s the facts of life. So after a while, you get used to it.

When we came back from overseas, they gave us two weeks vacation. And then we got on a train. And when we got to Washington, the conductor told us that we couldn’t sit in the car. There were just two white soldiers. They were sleeping.

So he said you’ve got to go to the next car. I looked in the next car, it was packed full of black soldiers. They were like sardines. So we ignored him, and we sat there.

So he came back and he said, I told you that you can’t sit in this car. So my friend said, well, if you come back one more time, I’m going to blow your brains out. And we rode in comfort all the way down till we got to the place where you had to get off the train. And then we ran to the next car, because we thought he may have the police waiting for us.

Here we are in uniform. We got set up with the same foolishness. I said I could not believe it. Isn’t that something? I could not believe it. I said the same old junk that we left here.

Anyway, we rode in comfort. He didn’t come back. I said, good gosh. That’s unbelievable.

I’m saying that, but it made us so close together. I say everybody was buddy-buddy. It wasn’t strictly officers, enlisted men only. They didn’t have that kind of thing.

It was wonderful. And I said we were blessed in that we had an excellent commanding officer, Colonel Benjamin Oliver Davis Junior. He was fabulous in that he was strict, he was fair. But you didn’t mess up with him. That made the difference.

I found out. I was standing and waiting for my accessory to take me to my Bible study. And the fellow walked out, and he said, I saw on the “New York Times,” he said that the Tuskegee Airmen are invited to his inauguration. And I ran around looking for a “Times.” I could not find a “Times” anywhere. They were all gone.

So then two young ladies called me and said, the Tuskegee Airmen are going to be invited. Are you taking me? I said, invited where? They said you’re invited to the inauguration.

And then when I got to church that following Sunday, the priest announced it from the pulpit. I said, oh, my gosh. But it’s been a wonderful feeling for me. And I never thought that I would live, first of all, to see a black president– never in my life. I didn’t expect it.

At-Risk Teens Grow Hope in Community Garden

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Jessica Toomer

In Martin County, Florida, two non-profit organizations have come together to plant seeds of hope through community gardening. Recently, the House of Hope charity for the homeless and people with addictions and other mental health issues partnered with Project L.I.F.T., an organization that helps at-risk teens, to grow community gardens in 4 small towns across the county.

The teens in Project L.I.F.T.’s program—many of them aged 14-19 who are also struggling with addictions, managing mental health or legal issues or have been victimized by crimes—visit the gardens every day after school where they grow seeds, maintain and water plants, set up irrigation, harvest the produce and learn to create their own meals. They take some of the produce home to their families but most is sent to House of Hope’s pantry for the homeless community.

“We saw a need for people that were hungry and homeless,” Laura Lyman, House of Hope’s agricultural coordinator tells Guideposts.org of their decision to partner with Project L.I.F.T’s community gardens initiative.

Beyond the need for food, Project L.I.F.T. envisioned the gardens would provide an educational opportunity to their teens.

“We’re trying to teach nutrition,” Bob Zaccheo, the executive director of Project L.I.F.T. tells Guideposts.org.

“We have a problem with diabetes and obesity in our community, like a lot of other communities,” Zaccheo says. “We want to start with education and nutrition, but when we get into the garden, now they’re doing hands on stuff that really connects.”

The gardens also offer the teens vocational skills that can help them find work later in their largely agrarian county. Beyond skills, this project has helped the teens find confidence and hope for their futures.

Alisia Kifer, director of the all-girls branch of Project L.I.F.T. called The Willow Project, can speak to that.

“Once you give them something to get their hands dirty in and they see the fruits of their labor quite literally, they become passionate about it,” Kifer says.

So far, the four gardens around Martin County have yielded 100 pounds of produce for the pantry and the community at large. It’s just a dent in the greater need – the area’s homeless population is high, especially in the off season when tourists return home and work is scarce – but the opportunity to teach kids the importance of giving back is just as valuable as the food they’re harvesting.

“You see a paradigm shift in the thinking of these kids,” Zaccheo says. “You see them giving. The kids are learning to give at a bigger level than they’ve ever been able to give at before.”

Lyman hopes the collaboration can foster seeds of togetherness in the community and bring sustainability, nutrition and hope to the area.

“The whole point is to get people aware and growing their own fruits and vegetables so they can take what they’ve learned and share it with their friends and families.”

At Peace in the Present

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Guideposts Editors

Mindfulness isn’t just for monks and mystics, though it has its roots in both Christian and Buddhist practices. Anyone can learn it. It’s about being in the moment rather than getting things done. In a mindful state, you simply notice what’s going on—your breathing, your body, your thoughts, your feelings, anything, really—without analyzing or judging or reacting to it.

Studies have shown that mindfulness significantly reduces stress, anxiety and depression, improves sleep and lowers blood pressure. As with most exercise, whether physical or spiritual, the benefits come from doing it regularly. Many people who practice mindfulness say it draws them closer to God.

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The mindfulness training Robbie Pinter participated in at Vanderbilt University had three components that you can apply to your own life.

1. Use supportive phrases to keep things in perspective. For example, if you feel overwhelmed by stress, remind yourself, “This too shall pass.”

2. Accept events for what they are. Don’t agonize over what they might mean in the future. As Corrie ten Boom put it, “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength.”

3. Meditate. Sit in a quiet, comfortable place. Focus on the natural rhythm of your breathing, each inhale and exhale, letting your body relax. It can help to silently repeat a word like peace or part of a prayer or verse as you inhale. If a thought drifts into your mind, let it go and return your focus to your breathing and your word or prayer.

Read Robbie's story!

Advice to My Younger Self

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Josh Sundquist

I was just 10 when I lost my left leg to Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. At first I was furious with God. How could you let this happen? I demanded. You know I love sports! How am I supposed to live with only one leg?

Then, when I was being fitted for my prosthesis, a medical student tried to take a pulse from it. I burst out laughing for maybe the first time since my diagnosis. Man, that felt good! From then on, my attitude changed.

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Yeah, I’d lost my leg, yeah, it wasn’t easy, but God had given me the best tool for coping: a sense of humor. I’d dangle my prosthesis out of the trunk of my family’s car on road trips. Or sneak it under the covers of a friend’s bed to prank them. Humor never failed me…until three months ago.

My girlfriend, Ashley, and I were in church. Halfway through the service, I happened to glance down at the bulletin. My eyes zeroed in on the date: July 6, 2014. It was 20 years to the day since my leg had been amputated.

I was proud and grateful at how far I’d come, how full my life was. I’d competed in skiing at the 2006 Paralympic Games and I’d just made the U.S. National Amputee Soccer Team.

I was touring the country as a motivational speaker, talking to churches, schools and nonprofit groups about how they could find hope in whatever hardships they face. I’d written two books and even had my own YouTube channel where I posted funny (hopefully!) videos about my life.

I was brainstorming for one of my favorite projects: the amputation-inspired Halloween costumes I’d been making since 2010. That year I was a gingerbread man with one leg bitten off.

For the next one, Ashley had a brilliant idea: She helped me dress up as the famous leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story, complete with blinking lights. Last year’s costume was the coolest yet: a flamingo! I did a handstand on my crutches; my foot formed the flamingo’s beak.

But the best thing in my life was dating Ashley. My dream girl. Who could ask for more than that?

That’s why I was shocked when I climbed into bed that night and suddenly burst into tears. I didn’t get just a little choked up. This was a deep, wrenching sorrow. Memories came rushing back—the cancer diagnosis, the chemo, the pain, how scared Mom and Dad were. How scared I was.

C’mon, Josh, I thought. Pull yourself together. The next day I was flying to College Station, Texas, to give a speech to a high school leadership group. How could I motivate anyone if I was a blubbering mess?

I picked up the phone and called Ashley, telling her about the anniversary of my leg amputation. “I’m feeling pretty whompy,” I admitted. Whompy was a made-up word we used when we were feeling down.

“Of course you are,” she said. “This is a big thing. Let it all out. I’m here to listen.”

She did. All night. I told Ashley how vulnerable I was feeling. How part of me felt guilty for being down on myself when I had so many blessings. I told her things I didn’t even talk to God about because I didn’t want to seem weak, or as if I didn’t appreciate all he’d given me.

The whompiness was still with me when I got to Texas. I sat there in the auditorium, waiting backstage before I went on. A text from Ashley lit up my phone: How you feelin’?

Still whompy. Not exactly motivational, I replied.

Must be hard to feel that way before going onstage.

It is, I wrote. Going on—Before I could type soon, she called.

“That’s it: I’m giving you a pep talk,” she said. “A little motivational speech before you give your motivational speech.”

I chuckled.

“Don’t fake it. Just be honest,” Ashley said. “Tell those kids everything you’ve told me. Whatever it is you’re feeling, put it out there. It’s okay not to be ‘on’ all the time.”

Did I mention that one big reason Ashley’s my dream girl is that she’s a lot smarter than I am?

We hung up. Normally I prayed and reflected on all the good things in my life before going onstage, but all I managed now was, God, help me to do my best out there, however you want me to do it.

I heard my introduction.

“You know, back when I was in high school, my friends and I played pranks on fast-food drive-through employees,” I started by saying.

I talked about how my buddies and I would mumble into the speakers when placing our orders, or one of us would pop out of the trunk when we pulled around to the window. The kids laughed.

I segued into how I used humor to deal with losing my leg, and to stay upbeat. Yet deep down, something gnawed at me. Tell them, Josh.

I kept going—telling the kids about all the Halloween costumes, asking for ideas for my next one. I even showed off some of the kicks, handstands and flips I can do on my crutches. Tell them the truth. I looked at my watch. Only 15 minutes left to talk.

“You know what, guys?” I said. “I have to be honest with you all. I’m in kind of a weird mood.”

Silence. Hundreds of eyes, all on me. There was no turning back now.

“Yesterday was sort of a strange anniversary for me; it was exactly twenty years since the day my leg was amputated. I’ve been thinking a lot about the little boy I was in that hospital room, before my operation, and I feel bad for him. So bad.

"Not just because he’s losing his leg and there’s a lot of pain ahead, and a lot of awkward stares. I feel bad because he doesn’t know how much good is ahead of him. He doesn’t realize that he’s going to survive the cancer. And he’s going to grow up and become everything he dreamed and more. I wish he could know that.”

The words kept coming, tumbling out, totally unbidden.

“If you’re dealing with some hard situation, I feel bad for you. But I wonder if a future version of yourself would wish you knew right now that things are going to get better. That you’re going to look back twenty years from now and you’re going to say, ‘That was really tough, but I’m okay now. I’m more than okay.’”

I walked off the stage to a standing ovation.

I couldn’t wait to tell Ashley. “That was one of the best speeches I’ve ever given,” I said. “I couldn’t have done it without your pep talk.”

“God gave you the gift of being funny,” she said. “But He’s with you always, no matter how you’re feeling.”

And suddenly, it hit me: I’m okay now. God loved me. All of me. My upbeat, prankster side. My darker, more introspective side. My caring, emotional side. My laughter, my tears, my frustrations, my joy. My strengths and my flaws.

If I could be myself with Ashley, and totally open up, because I knew she loved me no matter what, couldn’t I be myself with God, who loved me even more than humanly possible? And you know what? Totally opening up to God? That feels really good!

P.S. Stay tuned for my Halloween costume this year. It’s going to be my best one yet!

Download your FREE ebook, Rediscover the Power of Positive Thinking, with Norman Vincent Peale.

A Time to Grow

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Max Lucado

I was only in Washington, D.C., for the day. Yet I couldn’t leave without visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I had read and heard about it, but I’d never seen the wall myself. That it was the beginning of Lent made the visit more urgent, for isn’t Lent all about life and death, sacrifice and renewal?

A gray sky shed a coat of drizzle. I pulled my collar tight and descended a sloping sidewalk. There it was, the wailing wall of my generation.

As far as the eye could see, the black stone was carved with name after name of soldiers who had made the ultimate sacrifice. Behind each name was a bereaved widow, an anguished mother, a fatherless child.

At my feet lay a dozen roses, soggy and frosty from the weather. A girlfriend or wife had come to say, “I still remember.” A couple walked behind me. They were looking for a name and had a map. “Did you find it?” I heard the woman ask. “Every name has a reference number.”

True, I thought. Every name does have a number, and sooner or later every number is called.

For a moment I relaxed my focus and stared at the shiny stone. As I did, I saw myself, my own reflection, reminding me that I too have been dying as long as I have been living. I too will someday have my name carved on a stone.

Lent is that season when we stare directly at our own mortality. We make tiny sacrifices of our own to recall the incomparable sacrifice Christ made for us. It might all sound quite dreary, except on the other side of Lent is the enormous spiritual crescendo of Easter.

Jesus unmasked death and exposed it for what it really is–a 98-pound weakling dressed up in a Charles Atlas suit. I don’t doubt that at the end of that first Good Friday, the disciples thought, What a waste of a life. If they could only have seen what was coming. But to them the hour was too dark.

In my work as an author and pastor I remind people that God can use tough times to help us accomplish great things. I’ll be in my office listening to a woman whose husband just told her he wants a divorce. She takes a tissue from the box on my desk and sobs, asking questions I don’t have answers for.

What she needs more than anything is a word of hope. “God is at his best when our life is at its worst,” I tell her. We learn much more from our trials than from periods of happiness. “Get ready,” I say to her. “You may be in for a surprise.”

Do you need the same reminder? Stay close to God’s people when you’re in despair. God’s right there even if you can’t see him. That’s the message of Lent and the Resurrection.

Years ago, my wife, Denalyn, was fighting depression. Her life was loud and busy–three kids in elementary school and a husband who didn’t know how to get off the airplane and stay home. The days took their toll, each one grayer than the last.

Depression can buckle the knees of the best of us; it can be especially difficult for the wife of a pastor. Congregants expect her to radiate joy. They want her to be superhuman. But Denalyn, to her credit, has never been one to play games.

One Sunday when the depression was suffocating, when she could barely drag herself and the kids to church, she armed herself with honesty. If people ask me how I am doing, I’m going to tell them, she thought.

Friends, acquaintances, church members she hardly knew, came up to her and said, “Good to see you. How are you doing?”

She didn’t hedge. To every questioner she was candid. “Not well,” she said. “I’m depressed. Feeling completely overwhelmed. Will you pray for me?”

Obligatory chats became conversations. Brief hellos became heartfelt moments. By the time she left that day she had enlisted dozens of people to hold her up in prayer and to look out for her. She was not alone.

Denalyn traces the healing of her depression to that Sunday morning service. On her darkest day she found God’s presence among God’s people.

My father, a man of rock-solid faith, would have understood. No one had quite as much goodness as Dad. He worked as a mechanic in the oil fields of West Texas. Never finished high school, never went to college, but he learned the important skills in life.

He knew how to listen, how to love. His younger brother, my uncle Carl, was unable to hear or speak. Nearly all of his 60-plus years were spent in silence. Few people in the hearing world knew how to communicate with him in sign language.

Dad did. He took the trouble to master American Sign Language so he could communicate with his brother. Let Dad enter the room and Carl’s face would brighten. The two would find a corner and the hands would fly. Carl’s huge smile left no doubt that he was grateful.

Love is about listening and Dad listened to Carl.

Dad retired in his late sixties and he and Mom bought a travel trailer. Their plan was to see every national park in the country. As for me, I dreamed of doing mission work with Denalyn in Brazil.

I had finished college, gotten married, become a minister and served a church in Florida for two years. Finally we were ready.

Then my world darkened. Dad was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a cruel and fatal neuromuscular condition. Within months he was unable to feed, dress or bathe himself. His world, as he knew it, was gone.

I wrote him a letter, saying that Denalyn and I had decided not to go to Brazil. We needed to take care of him and be with Mom. He wrote back, just two words that looked almost carved into the paper: “No! Go!” with big exclamation points. He had no fear of where he was going.

I prayed and prayed that God would heal him. I expected a miracle, demanded one. I remember driving out into the country near Mom and Dad’s, looking up to the huge Texas sky, pleading with God for healing. That’s what God did for those he loved, right?

We went to Brazil and I still struggled with my doubts. Dad was getting worse, just as the doctors had said. I was bewildered, angry, as hopeless as the disciples on that first Good Friday.

Dad kept trying to teach me. He wrote what would be his last letter to us before the disease took his handwriting away. Angled lines. Irregular letters and inconsistent spacing.

“Max, you and Denalyn always stick together, whatever happens…I hope to see you all again on earth–if not, I will in heaven. Lots of love, Dad.”

I flew back and sat by his bed. He slept for most of those last days, awakening only when my mother would bathe him or change his sheets. Next to him was a respirator–a metronome of mortality that pushed air into his lungs through a hole in his throat.

The bones in his hand protruded like spokes in an umbrella. All he could move was his head and his eyes.

I was watching a movie on TV while Dad dozed. “Max, your dad’s awake,” Mom said. Her words seemed to come from another world. I turned toward my father. His eyes called me over to his side. I sat on the edge of his bed and ran my hands over his barreled rib cage.

I put my hand on his forehead. It was hot and damp. I stroked his hair. “What is it, Dad?”

He wanted to say something. His eyes refused to release me. If I glanced away for a moment, they followed me and were still looking when I looked back. “What is it?” Suddenly I knew. I’d seen that expression before.

I was seven years old. Standing on the edge of a diving board for the first time, terrified I wouldn’t survive the plunge. The board dipped under my 70 pounds.

I looked behind me at the kids who were pestering me to hurry up and jump. I wondered what they would do if I asked them to move over so I could get down. Tar and feather me, I supposed.

Caught between ridicule and a jump into certain death, I stood there and shivered. Then I heard him: “It’s all right, son. Come on in.” I looked down. He had dived in. He was treading water, awaiting my jump.

I could see his tanned face, his bright eyes assuring and earnest. Had he not said a word they would have conveyed the message. But he did speak. “Jump. It’s all right.” So I jumped.

Twenty-three years later the tan was gone and the face was drawn. But the eyes were still bold and their message hadn’t changed. He knew I was afraid. He perceived I was shivering as I looked into the deep. And somehow, he, the dying, had the strength to comfort me, the living.

I placed my cheek in the hollow of his cheek. My tears dripped on his hot face. I said what he wanted to but couldn’t.

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “It’s going to be all right.” When I raised my head, his eyes were closed. I would never see them open again. He left me with a final look, one last statement of the eyes, one concluding assurance from a father to a son: “It’s all right.”

Staring at my reflection in the Vietnam Memorial wall I was suddenly aware of my own eyes staring back at me almost like my father’s eyes. We face our fears, we grow in our struggle, adversity deepens our faith.

There is always something wonderful and surprising around the corner on earth and beyond. That is the sacrificial truth of Lent, the music that builds to the miracle of the Resurrection.

Download your free eBook, Let These Bible Verses Help You: 12 Psalms and Bible Passages to Deepen Your Joy, Happiness, Hope and Faith.

A Time for Necessary Endings

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Pablo Diaz

Endings are necessary and crucial, but often difficult to accept. This is something I observed as we were helping Neredia, my mother-in-law, prepare to move from her apartment into a 55-and-older community. Although her new location is only five minutes from where she lives now and has many benefits including cheaper rent and activities, she is finding it hard to bring this chapter to a close. As we were packing boxes, I could sense her discomfort. I asked her what she was feeling, she responded, “I don’t want to move.”

In his book, Necessary Endings, author Dr. Henry Cloud wrote, “Endings are not only part of life; they are a requirement for living and thriving, professionally and personally. Being alive requires that we sometimes kill off things in which we were once invested, uproot what we previously nurtured, and tear down what we built for an earlier time.” He adds, “But without the ability to do endings well, we flounder, stay stuck, and fail to reach our goals and dreams.”

Why do we avoid endings? Dr. Henry Cloud provides a number of reasons, but I will name a few:

–We do not know if an ending is actually necessary or if it is fixable.

–We are afraid of the unknown.

–We are afraid of hurting someone.

–We are afraid of letting go and the sadness associated with an ending.

–We do not possess the skills to execute the ending.

–We have experienced many painful endings, so we avoid another one.

I admit that I have delayed closing chapters in my life due to a few of the reasons listed above. In life, we will face many endings–some we are in control of, others we are not. In the book of Ecclesiastes the author states, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” Endings are the closing of a season in our life. What has helped you with closing a chapter in your life? Please share with us.

Lord, give us wisdom and courage to make the necessary endings in our lives.

A Take-Charge Caregiver Learns the Value of Asking for Help

Posted on March 11, 2026March 12, 2026 by Stephanie Thompson

I’m a take-charge person. My motto has always been “If it’s to be, then it’s up to me.” But this phone call from my husband Michael’s 90-year-old grandmother blindsided me.

“Bob is nearing his 100-day skilled nursing limit,” Mam Ma said. “He’s still not able to care for himself. Can you find a place we can live near you? We have until January 25.”

I’d known Mam Ma’s 68-year-old son, Bob, had been having falling spells in October and gone to a nursing home for inpatient physical therapy. But I was clueless about Medicare and what it did and didn’t pay for. It had never occurred to me that he’d need someplace entirely new to live. Within six weeks, no less!

“I’ll see what I can find,” I said and hung up, feeling the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. There was no one else to help her. My husband’s mom, Mam Ma’s daughter, had died decades ago, and I was the only one in the family under 60 who didn’t work full-time. Part of me liked being the one everyone turned to. The one who got things done. But this would go beyond finding a home for Mam Ma, Bob and John, her older son, who’d lived with Mam Ma his entire life in Poteau, Oklahoma, three hours east of us.

The three of them moving to Oklahoma City would mean more calls needing help—and more responsibilities for me—for years to come. I didn’t want to be selfish, but I had our teenage daughter, Micah, to raise, plus my part-time job, Bible study leadership duties, volunteer commitments. All I could think about was how caregiving would take over my life. Just this move was going to consume the lion’s share of my time for months. Finding Mam Ma and her sons a suitable place to live. Getting their current homes emptied and sold. It was mid-December, my schedule jam-packed with holiday activities. Lord, I can’t do all this, I thought, though I wasn’t expecting much help. God was delegating this to me. After all, he’d created me to be a take-charge woman.

The thing was, Mam Ma and I had already gone through this exercise about a year ago. She’d come to Oklahoma City to look at some retirement communities with cottages. We’d visited a dozen facilities, but none seemed right. I loved Mam Ma as if she were my own grandmother. She was a spunky go-getter like me. I couldn’t imagine her being happy about leaving the town where she’d lived the past 70 years.

Then in October, Bob had moved in with Mam Ma because he kept falling. He’d lived alone for decades, despite his neuropathy. But now his condition was worsening. He couldn’t walk on his own, even with a walker. That’s why he’d gone into the nursing home for rehabilitation.

I’d watched three other grandmothers move into retirement centers. No matter how luxurious, how good the food, how close they were to family, each of them had regretted leaving their own homes. Mam Ma and John had lived in the same house for all 69 years of his life. The church they went to was three blocks up the street. Everything was familiar. Moving to the big city, not knowing a soul besides Michael, his brother and their dad’s families would be a huge adjustment. No, Mam Ma wasn’t ready. I definitely wasn’t ready. Maybe that’s why, even after this latest call, I dragged my feet. I figured Bob could continue to rehab at the Poteau nursing home. A few days before Christmas, I called Mam Ma on her cell phone. It went to voice mail, but she never called back. That evening I tried her landline.

“Someone stole my car from in front of the house,” she said. “My purse and phone were in it. I’d come from the nursing home and been so exhausted that I accidentally left the keys in the ignition. The police say they’re going to question the folks in the drug house across the street.”

Drug house? We’d visited Mam Ma enough to know her neighborhood had gone downhill, but I didn’t realize it was that bad. I took a deep breath. “I haven’t forgotten about finding you that new place,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’m on it.”

I hung up and typed assisted living centers near me into a search engine on my smartphone. I wanted a facility that had independent and assisted living in the same building, so Mam Ma and her sons could stay close to each other. I don’t know what I was expecting to find—after all, we’d toured everywhere last year.

Something popped up in the search results—a place I’d never seen before, with exactly the setup I wanted. I visited the next day. They had immediate openings for two apartments, both on the first floor. Bob could be in assisted living while John and Mam Ma could be in independent living, a gorgeous two-bedroom apartment. Her car and phone had been recovered, and I texted her photos. “It looks wonderful,” she said. For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine how we’d missed this place the previous year. Michael, Micah and I drove to Poteau for Christmas, our SUV stuffed with the dinner I’d prepared and flattened moving boxes. After we ate, we showed Mam Ma how to assemble the boxes and pull packing tape across the bottom. Mam Ma struggled with the tape. “Just use your energy for packing,” I said. “We’ll do the boxes.”

I devised a plan. Mam Ma would sort items—deciding what to donate, to sell and to take with her. We’d come back the following weekend to pack them in boxes. But the next weekend, a rare snowstorm hit. The roads were too bad to travel.

Now there were only three weekends left until January 25, and one of them was Micah’s soccer tournament. Mam Ma was going to have to get rid of three quarters of her things. There were two cars to sell. And I had to get both Mam Ma’s and Bob’s houses on the market. I can’t do all this!

I found a moving company, and a real estate agent met with Mam Ma. I contacted used car dealers and had Mam Ma call the utility companies. What was I forgetting?

The first Saturday in January, we got to Mam Ma’s to find her porch filled with sturdy boxes, already assembled. “A cafeteria worker at the middle school brings them when they’re emptied,” Mam Ma said. We went inside. Boxes sat sealed and stacked in every room.

“Some ladies from church came over and packed my curio and china cabinets,” Mam Ma said. “The woman I volunteer with at the clothing closet took the clothes I don’t wear, and a friend from music club helped me pack up the kitchen. Since I don’t plan on cooking anymore, it was easy.”

With her house nearly done, Mam Ma suggested we shift to Bob’s. I took the kitchen, Michael the living room, and Micah and Mam Ma sorted through clothes in his bedroom. After two hours, I had barely made a dent.

“I cleaned out the garage, attic and storage shed,” a voice said. I turned. It was Mam Ma’s yard guy. Unbeknownst to me, she’d recruited him to help. Suddenly my one room didn’t seem that difficult.

“By the way, the neighbors next door are interested in buying this house for their daughter,” he said.

The day before the move I drove to Mam Ma’s, expecting a full day of work. But there was hardly anything left to do. The daughter of a friend of hers had volunteered to hold a rummage sale for everything we weren’t moving. But their cars remained. I couldn’t leave them parked at her vacant house, and local dealers weren’t offering fair prices. “What about selling them on Facebook?” Mam Ma said.

That will never work, I thought. Mam Ma didn’t exactly have a huge social media following. She had a private page with 167 Facebook friends. But I took photos of the cars and posted them to her account, hoping it would take her mind off her house being emptied. I knew it couldn’t be easy for her.

Within minutes, people responded. Both cars had buyers before the movers were even finished. “Boy, word really travels fast on the internet,” Mam Ma said. “You know, I’m looking forward to making a new start. It’s kind of exciting.”

I stared at her. I’d always thought of Mam Ma as being like me. Strong-willed. Independent. And she was. Yet she gladly accepted help. She wasn’t afraid to ask for it either, from friends or from God. Even at 90, she was up for new challenges. I’d never heard her complain about being a caregiver for her sons. These past few months, she’d taught me a lot about faith, about trusting God—and the people he puts in our lives—when things seem overwhelming. If it’s to be, it isn’t all up to me. There was a lot I could learn from her still.

“Yes, it’s going to be awesome, Mam Ma,” I said. “I’m going to like having you a phone call away.”

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