Difficult Times
Story of the Week 2/14/09 Spirited Encounter
Jim Snyder would consider himself an ordinary man living an ordinary life, surely not one that involves angel sightings.But when his wife died of pancreatic cancer, Jim was devastated by her loss. He tried to hold everything together and deal with his grief. But as months passed and Jim’s heartache continued, “I began asking God [...]
Perfect Timing
When Catherine Scott was a little girl, money was very tight, especially right after her father was ordained as a minister. “My mother often reached the end of her grocery money long before the end of the month,” Catherine says. “She used to send me into my father’s closet to go through the pockets of [...]
Pennies From Heaven
When a mother becomes ill, or needs to work in order to help support the family, oldest sisters sometimes become Junior Moms. Donna Ronio of Lawton, Oklahoma took on that role when her mother worked to support her six children. “All my life I have felt like the guardian of the family,” Donna says, “the [...]
Not All That Interested
Now that their children are grown, Cindy and Jim Hawkins run a closet organizer business out of their home. A few years ago, they moved to a house in a new community, and of course, the closet business came too. Cindy was nervous about the move; it would be hard to build up a new [...]
Meat Delivery
Ilene Cederquist’s husband had been out of work for weeks, and with five young children to feed, life was hard. “It seemed ages since we had had meat,” Ilene recalls. “But it was too expensive.” How she longed for a beef roast or hamburgers. Ilene’s husband searched for work each day, but he was too [...]
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 [...]
The Hitchhiker
James Raffan works as a miner in a small town in Southern Alberta, Canada, and when he was nineteen, he experienced a Christmas event he’ll never forget. “At the time I was dating a girl from a nearby town and I was at her house on Christmas Eve goofing around and opening presents with her [...]
What Do You Think?
Liz Cobos had separated from her husband. She was emotionally devastated, and the reality of keeping her two preschool daughters fed and cared for had all but shattered her spirit. She believed in God, but where was He? She felt so alone. Reluctantly, she decided to file for financial aid, until she could find a [...]
With Red Dots
For many years Vivian and Lenny M. had preached in any town that welcomed them. Like most missionaries, they asked for nothing in return. The couple lived on what God, through others, provided. If they had anything extra, they gave it to the poor. One December Vivian and Lenny were staying in Springfield, Missouri, in [...]
Glad Tidings
In times of great stress, we need to hear about miracles. I can find no better encouragement than reports of good news during the 2004 tsunami. Here are just a few where angels and saints might have been involved: The Santhome Cathedral Basilica in Chennai, India, was right in the path of the storm. But [...]
