Table of contents for Apr/May 2023 in Guideposts

Hiking the Appalachian Trail with Gracie not long ago, I crossed a brook that connected two marshes. I saw what I thought was a small log roll into the water. Then I realized logs don’t have tails. The log was actually an otter. I pointed him out to my golden. “See him?” Her ears perked up. I love otters—don’t you?—and this was the first one I’d seen in the wild. We stood for a while watching the otter circle. He came closer and slapped his tail on the water. I don’t know if this was a greeting or a territorial warning, but I laughed and Gracie’s nose quivered. The otter zoomed around a bit, slapped his tail again and was off. “Happy hunting, my friend,” I said. River otters average…

PLASTIC WITH A PURPOSE Most people see discarded plastic shopping bags as litter, but the ladies in the prayer shawl ministry at Grace Avenue United Methodist Church in Frisco, Texas, use them to make portable sleeping mats for people who are homeless. We cut recycled plastic bags into strips and tie them together to make a skein of plarn—yarn made from plastic bags—which is then crocheted or knitted into a sleeping mat that provides a waterproof and surprisingly durable cushion against the cold ground. Four years ago, our church took a tour of a large homeless shelter in Dallas. We learned it always fills to capacity. That spurred us to create mats that roll up and tie like a sleeping bag. We got how-tos from a YouTube video and set…

If you’ve seen me on television—on America’s Got Talent, Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Everybody Hates Chris, for example—or in movies such as The Expendables, you know I’m known for my big muscles and alpha swagger. Yeah, I bought into that hype too. Sure, the image allowed me to support my wife, Rebecca, and our five kids in style. But it went deeper—and darker. What I couldn’t let anyone—even myself—see was that inside I felt inadequate and vulnerable, like the seven-year-old boy I used to be. A boy who was desperate for his parents to stop fighting, desperate for his father’s love. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, the middle child of three. One of my earliest memories was of seeing my father, drunk, knock my mother to the floor. This happened…

Filling: 8 cups blackberries (or a mix of berries)⅓ cup sugar2 tablespoons cornstarch2 teaspoons lemon juice Biscuit crust: 2 cups flour, plus more for dusting½ cup sugar1½ teaspoons baking powder¼ teaspoon baking soda½ teaspoon salt½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pea-size pieces or grated½ cup buttermilk Topping: Butter, sugar, nutmeg 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8-inch baking pan or cast-iron skillet. 2. In a large bowl, combine berries, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice for the filling. Gently mix together. Set aside. 3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt for the crust. 4. Add butter to dry ingredients, and use a pastry cutter or your fingers to combine until flour mixture resembles rice. 5. Stir in buttermilk until mixture forms…

When NASA launched Voyager 1 and 2 into deep space in 1977, each carried a Golden Record, a disk of sounds and images selected to communicate the story of our world. Along with greetings in 55 languages, it featured 27 musical samples, including Bach, Beethoven and someone you may not have heard of—Blind Willie Johnson. A committee led by astronomer Carl Sagan chose Johnson’s 1927 recording of “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” which borrowed its structure and title from an eighteenth-century English hymn. Johnson plays a bottleneck slide guitar in his haunting blues version. The vocals have no discernible words, only hums, moans and pained cries as he contemplates Christ’s crucifixion. Johnson’s life well prepared him to create a work of such depth and emotion. Born in…

WHO SHE IS Kristin Schell is the founder of The Turquoise Table, a movement of ordinary people who want to create community right in their own front yards. Ten years ago, she and her husband and their four children moved to a new home in Austin, Texas. Kristin knew God had given her the gift of hospitality, and she tried to connect with her new neighbors by hosting Bible studies and playgroups. But those activities required planning ahead and coordinating schedules, not to mention cooking and cleaning. One day, Kristin needed backyard furniture for a party and bought a few picnic tables from Lowe’s. The delivery driver set one table down in her front yard by mistake, and Kristin couldn’t get the image out of her head. “After the party,…

When Alan Corrales was in third grade, his teacher, Mrs. Ellis, asked if he would be a shepherd in the Holy City of the Wichitas Passion play (The Holy City of the Heartland, page 32). As the production’s director of children, she was always looking for recruits. That was 56 years ago. Alan has performed annually ever since. “Everyone here is like family to me,” he says. In 2004, he became the play’s director, continuing the legacy of people like Mrs. Ellis and founder Anthony Wallock, a pastor in Lawton, Oklahoma. Born in Austria, Rev. Wallock was familiar with the renowned Oberammergau, Germany, Passion play. In 1926, he put on a small production for his Sunday school class at a park. The play’s popularity exploded. Three years later, with the approval…

THANK YOU, READERS! I direct Soup of Success, a faith-based nonprofit that teaches women life skills. When the October/November 2022 issue of GUIDEPOSTS, featuring Soup of Success in Everyday Greatness, hit mailboxes, we had an almost instantaneous response. I received emails, calls and texts from friends and family members telling me how excited they were. But that wasn’t all. We received more than 200 orders from GUIDEPOSTS readers! Folks have driven more than an hour to visit our little store. It has been so nice to hear the words “I read about your program in GUIDEPOSTS magazine.” I have also received some lovely notes—and donations—from people expressing how inspired they are by the work that is being done here to empower women. It is humbling to receive such support from…

“I always pray, ‘Holy Spirit, walk for me, talk for me, speak for me, sing for me. And if there’s anybody in the audience that needs you, let me be the conduit.’”REBA MCENTIRE, on performing “Whenever you feel you’ve fallen short, perhaps what’s really happened is that you’ve taken a step back to get a running start on the future.”KRISTIN HARMEL, best-selling author “God can do in 60 seconds what you can’t do in a lifetime. Give God the wheel.”SHERYL LEE RALPH, Emmy-winning actor and star of the TV show Abbott Elementary “The farmer does the work he knows how to do, but when the work is done, he is at the mercy of God for rain, sunlight and harvest. Likewise, our souls must be carefully and daily tended to,…

Kristin Chenoweth ACTRESS. SINGER. AUTHOR. Best advice you’ve ever gotten Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s from my dad. Favorite Bible verse I always go back to John 3:16. Especially that first sentence: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” Hardest thing you’ve ever done Forgive someone who hurt me very badly. Once I let that go, a lot of things started releasing for me. And I was happier. Real-life hero My mom. She’s fought cancer three times. I see her help when people are sick or hurting. She is amazing! Q&A by Celeste McCauley. Find a longer version at guideposts.org/kristinchenoweth For more on this story, see FAMILY ROOM…

“Daddy, is that what they call a haunted house?” I could hear the little boy’s voice clearly from where I sat on my front porch, just feet away. He and his father were walking past my house. They couldn’t see me because… well, the little boy was right. My house looked haunted. It’s a 120-year-old log cabin. I’d let it go in recent years, overwhelmed by health and financial problems. The roof leaked. Walls were damaged. Paint peeled. The heater needed replacement. So did the plumbing. The yard around the cabin was a mess too. The weeds, briars and shaggy trees were so out of control, you could barely see the porch. I sat in my porch swing, shrouded by overgrowth, listening to that little boy innocently point out the…

Life gets busy, and friends drift apart. But true friends have a way of staying connected. That’s how it was with David and me. I’d met David after going back to school for my master’s. In class, he was hard to miss, a rugged 6'4" with an infectious laugh. Although he dressed casually, the scent of a classy cologne always hung around him. His signature fragrance smelled like a walk in the forest—a little woodsy, a little piney, with a subtle sweetness. We hit it off right away. There was something so reassuring about his company. David and I would catch up over coffee every few weeks. But over the next decade, moves and career changes made it harder for us to meet up. Our relationship dwindled to a phone…

My phone pinged just as I got home from the grocery that summer morning with ingredients to bake scones. A text from my 21-year-old daughter, Amy. “Do you want to come up for a few days?” she wrote. “We can pick berries and make jam.” Amy, the second youngest of our six children, lived in Northern California, near where she’d grown up, an eight-hour drive from our house in San Diego. Pandemic stay-at-home orders had been lifted. An invitation to enjoy one of our absolute favorite activities together? That should have made my heart sing. Instead, I set my phone on the counter and distracted myself by putting away the groceries. More than an eight-hour drive separated my daughter and me. Amy was bright, an excellent student in high school.…

I asked for prayers for our sweet cat, who had a surgical procedure. He is sitting on my lap now, feeling so much better, and I feel God’s love all around us.—LAURA Thank you, Lord, for my son’s new coach helping build his confidence. His team played amazingly well last night and won the game.—CAROLINE Praise God for a beautiful day yesterday after the storm.—MARI My daughter prayed for deliverance from cigarettes. I was afraid she was about to give up, but she set them down and walked away. God is so very good.—VANESSA From our readers and website visitors. Send your answered prayer to submissions@guideposts.org.…

Annie Williams My five-year-old son, Kyle, woke up with a bad cold. I told him he should spend the day inside resting. Before I knew it, he was sitting in his favorite spot on the couch, snuggled next to his dad, watching the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. Just then, team owner Joe Gibbs’s young grandson began saying a prayer to officially open the race. “Can he pray for me to feel better?” Kyle asked. Before I could explain that the boy didn’t know him, and certainly couldn’t hear his request, the child on TV concluded, “And please bless Kyle!” My son’s face lit up. I could have told him that the blessing was meant for driver Kyle Busch, but I let it go—besides, I think it really was for both…

BOUQUET OF BLESSINGS Teenagers don’t often want to spend time with their grandparents, so I was flattered when 16-year-old Mike called that Saturday and invited me out. “I’m kind of bored,” he told me. “Plus, something always seems to happen when I’m with you.” Many times when I’ve been out with the grandchildren, we would meet someone or see something out of the ordinary. It was never anything I’d planned. What if that doesn’t happen today? I thought later as I pulled out of Mike’s driveway, my grandson sitting beside me. God, I prayed, please let something happen today. For Mike. We drove to a lake a few miles away and parked by the festival center. An art fair was set up out front, but Mike and I skirted the…