As a boy, I loved reading stories about pirates. How those adventures spurred my imagination! Now I live in an area where one of the most infamous of those pirates—Blackbeard (real name: Edward Teach)—had his headquarters. Shipwrecked in the waters off the coast here is Blackbeard’s ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge. We can easily romanticize…
Louise, a project manager, regretted taking on the freelance job. Both the client and designer were testing her patience. Why is it so difficult? she wondered. Why can’t these people get it together? Weeks later, as she read Proverbs 27, verse 17 stood out—“iron sharpens iron.” “You can’t file down rough edges with something soft,…
After being arrested when an $87.26 check for groceries bounced, Sheena Meade learned firsthand the harsh impact having an arrest on one’s record can have—from employment to housing to education to even volunteer opportunities. But Sheena also experienced the transforming effects of those willing to offer her a chance, enabling her “to be able to…
My three-year-old niece is beginning to understand that she can trust Jesus in any situation. This became evident one night as she prayed before bedtime during a thunderstorm. She pressed her hands together, closed her eyes, and said: “Dear Jesus, I know You’re here with us. I know You love us. And I know that…
How could God possibly care about all these people? The thought hit me as I stepped off a busy train platform in a crowded city, thousands of miles from home. I was a teenager traveling abroad for the first time, and I was overwhelmed by the size of the world around me. I felt small…
I walked to the airline kiosk to check in using the confirmation number stored in my cell phone. But my phone was missing! I’d left it behind in the car that had dropped me off. So how could I contact the ride-hailing driver who’d dropped me off? As I scrambled to connect my laptop to…
A lengthy battle with a chronic illness had taken its toll on Jimmy. Though he desired to spend time with God each morning, praying to Him and meditating on the Scriptures, he couldn’t find a way to position his body in his chair that wasn’t painful. He shifted from side to side, but there was…
With extra time on my hands, my plan for the coming months centered on serving people as much as I could. But while helping a new friend, I tripped and fell and broke my arm in three places. Suddenly I was the one in need. God’s people cared for me with visits, gift cards, flowers,…
David Uttal is a cognitive scientist who studies navigation but has problems navigating his way around geographic locations. This isn’t a new problem for him—one that goes back to when he was thirteen years old and was lost for two and a half days on a hike. Uttal admits he’s still terrible with simple directions…
When my two nieces were younger, they’d coax me into a game after dinner. They’d turn off all the lights in the house, and we’d shuffle through the darkness, clutching each other and laughing. They enjoyed scaring themselves by choosing to walk in the dark, knowing they could turn on the light anytime. In his…