Archive for November, 2008
Man on the Mountain
It was the evening after Christmas, 1998. The people in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia had had a white Christmas, which was an unusual occurrence there. Lana Burns was on her way home from visiting a friend. She had basically “stopped going to church except for special occasions,” she says, and [...]
Lynn’s Christmas Rose
Lynn’s mother was a true “earth angel.” She worked in a factory alongside big burly men, doing the same work, and never complained. If she saw a child without a coat, she would go to a store, buy one, and give it—and a big hug—to the little one. If someone admired a flower in her [...]
Love on the Lake
About 12 years ago Carol and Larry were boating on Lake Havasu, near Las Vegas. They had done this many times, but today Carol had started to feel weak. The strange feeling persisted, and she eventually stood up and made her way over to her husband. “I put my arms around him, explaining that I [...]
Lost Package
Gloria Shepherd’s friend Ed had promised to send her a particular CD via United Parcel Service. “Be sure you’re home on Tuesday when it comes,” he told her. “I’m not going to be home on Tuesday,” Gloria told him. “But don’t worry—UPS always leaves packages if I’m gone. It’ll get here safely.” She lives with [...]
Looking for Ryan
It was after eleven p.m. when Patti and Dan Burnett, members of the Summit County, Colorado, Search and Rescue team, received the phone call. Ryan, a sixteen-year-old boy had become separated from his father that morning while grouse-hunting. Now he was lost in a wilderness area high in the Rocky Mountains, wearing only jeans and [...]
Little Gift From God
Toward the end of her life, Diane’s mother, a cancer patient, was quite frail. One late-summer day, Diane decided to take her to a street festival at Oaks Park. As Diane pushed the wheelchair along, the two women looked at the wide variety of merchandise displayed. At one point they came across some vendors selling [...]
Life’s Blessings Often Come Disguised as Troubles
To Terence Emptage, it was just another day on the farm he managed in Cheshire, North Wales. He was plowing a field, a job he had done many times. The fact that the field was on top of a cliff (and one side of it steeply dropping into a valley some 150 feet below!) didn’t [...]
Lesson of the Watch
When Richard McCarrick died in 1987, those who knew him mourned. He had almost reached the proverbial “four score and ten,” and his extended family firmly believed that he was in heaven, but that didn’t stem their grief. Sadly, after the final ceremonies, Richard’s wife gathered together his favorite possessions to pass to his loved [...]
Kept Safe
Over the Christmas holidays, Cynthia Cross and her daughter Sue decided to drive the nearly 900-mile journey from Denver, Colorado, to St. Louis, Missouri, to see their extended family. This could be a risky journey at this time of year, they knew, because the weather was unpredictable. But they missed their loved ones. “We’ll bring [...]
Just in Time
Joann Farrell in Yorktown Heights, New York, recounts the time her husband had just come out of heart surgery and her kids had moved to New York City, leaving her with sole snow-removal duties. Neighbors helped, but one day, in March of 1996, it was just too much. A major storm. And out there in [...]
