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A Horse Called Amber
'I knew she was trying to kill me.’ This is a story of two horses, one a jet-black mare called Midnight - some would call her a ‘devil horse’ - and the other, my favourite, a gentle six-year-old palomino called Amber. Shortly after my husband, John, had bought Midnight, I went out to work with her. I led her out, locked the stable door behind me, and proceeded to saddle and mount her. Midnight was nervous. She skittered. Within seconds she became violent. She reared and threw me to the ground; then went berserk, rushing wildly about the yard. Suddenly she headed back towards me at full gallop, teeth bared. Already in great pain from a shattered neck joint, unable to move, I knew she was trying to kill me, to stomp me to death. ‘Lord, Lord!’ I screamed, but there was no one near to hear. No one human, that is. Unbelievably, Amber came charging out of the stable. She hurled herself at Midnight, savaging her with her teeth. Midnight retreated, charged again, retreated again and came back again. Amber stood her ground, defending me until Midnight gave up. And to think that I’d last seen Amber in her stall, a restraining chain across its entrance. And the stable door - it was locked. I myself had carefully slipped the metal bolt. Yet my gentle Amber had rescued me. She had overcome the barriers between her and me, and had done that with crucial and uncanny speed. How?
By Mary Wilson
What Do You Need?
I got off to an early start. Before my first appointment, I took a friend to Kansas City International Airport and drove back by my usual route. Approaching the fork where I would turn left, I was in the left of four lanes. Then my car began to move right, almost involuntarily, as if someone had taken the wheel from my hand and was steering for me.
I spoke to myself out loud, saying, “Why did you do that?” as I continued to drive along.
My white suit was perfect for this beautiful summer day. Knowing my tendency to speed in good weather, I put on my cruise control and enjoyed the scenery. I continued down the highway, singing, when a voice in my head said, “Slow down,” I looked at my speedometer and saw I was only going sixty mph, so I thought, I’m fine, and waved my hand dismissively.
A moment later, a voice that sounded as if it came from the back seat yelled. “Slow down!”
Startled, I slammed on my brakes, which brought me to a near stop. I had just enough time to utter, “What was that all about?” when the little white car in front of me started losing control.
I immediately moved to the side of the highway, sensing a bad accident was about to happen. By the time the white car crossed all three lanes and slammed into the guardrail, going about seventy, I was at a stop.
The minute I jumped out of my car, another car stopped beside me. A man rushed over and asked, “Why did you slam on your brakes? Nothing had happened yet.” I answered, “I don’t know.” then he said “Thank you. You saved my life!” I asked how, and he went on to say “I was speeding, going about eighty-five - I’m late and was trying to make up time. I’ve had so many speeding tickets that when I saw you slam on your brakes, I assumed you saw a cop. So I hit my brakes too. I would have been directly beside that car when it started to lose control.”
Still stunned, he got into his car and drove away.
As I approached the wrecked car in the middle of the highway I whispered to God, “Why me? What do I know about first aid?”
The driver, a pregnant young woman, and her husband were sitting in the white car, both looking badly injured. Blood was everywhere. His teeth were broken, and they were crying and scared. I knew we need help and an ambulance.
A car stopped, and a woman asked, “What do you need?” I answered, “We need to call the police and an ambulance. These two people are badly injured!” she drove away to find a roadside phone.
As I walked back to the couple to tell them help was on the way, someone yelled from a passing car: “You’ve got to get them out. There’s fluid leaking under the car!”
I went to open the driver’s crushed door, when the woman told me it wouldn’t budge. There was jagged glass in her window, so I knew she had to exit by the door. Using all my strength, I pulled on it. Unbelievably, the door gave way.
I helped the frightened woman out of her car and set her down, and then I ran back for her husband. The passenger door was jammed against the guardrail, and an obstruction blocked the front seat. He could not slide across to get out the driver’s side. I shouldered his weight while he hoisted himself up and out the window. I helped him lie down on the road next to his wife.
He was bleeding so badly that I thought to myself: We desperately need two towels. At that moment, a woman stopped her car and yelled, “What do you need?” I told her, and she reached in the back seat for a Kmart bag, which contained two towels she had just purchased. Returning to the couple, I applied a towel tourniquet on the man’s arm and placed the other towel under his head.
They were going into shock, and I knew they needed blankets to stay warm. Another woman pulled up and asked, “What do you need?” I said I needed two blankets. She walked to the back of her van, pulled out two blankets from a laundry basket filled with clean bedding, and said she had to leave.
As I covered the man and woman, I realized I had done all I could do on my own. I though: I need a medic - I need someone right now! I look up and saw a man in a while uniform on the side of the highway, running toward us. I didn’t see any vehicle; he seemed to have appeared out of thin air. He told me he was an off-duty medic. I stepped back as he began to administer first aid to the couple.
I’m sure I looked confused when the police came and told me I could leave. My mind flooded with the grace of the miracle. I had received everything I needed the moment I asked for it. For the first time in my life, I comprehended how safe we really are. Our angels are only a whisper away, to do God’s work in our lives.
I realized I had just enough time to get to my appointment. When I arrived, I suddenly remembered, starting through the office door, that I was dressed completely in white. I looked down in disbelief. After all I’d been through, my clothing was spotless.
Diann Roche
Reason for Hope
An explorer discovers something unique
Mungo Park, the explorer, one day was stranded alone in an African wilderness. Nearly dead from hunger, thirst and exhaustion, he decided there was no hope for survival and stretched out on the ground to await death.
But then a small flower of exceptional beauty caught his eye.
He said, ‘though the whole plant was no larger than one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, and capsules without admiration.’
‘can the /being who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and suffering of creatures formed after His own imagine? Surely not.’ he started out again, and disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forward until he reached safety.
By Jamie bliss ford
Out Of Our Hands
Miracle in a wall of flames
Seeing a car wreck on the six o’clock news is one thing, but being there at the scene of the accident is another. In seventeen years as a paramedic I’ve witnessed every kind of horror. We learn to expect the worst. Our real nightmare is fire. Paramedics are not fire fighters. We’re trained - among other things - to rescue survivors from a vehicle and treat their injuries first, but if a car is in flames, it’s a non-stop emergency. You just have to hope God’s with you because there’s not one moment to pray.
My partner Tim and I prided ourselves on suiting up in less than thirty seconds: protective pants and coat, helmet and fire-resistant gloves. One October afternoon in 1993 an urgent call came over the radioed: “Two-vehicle collision. Ferguson Road.’
‘Let’s go!’ yelled Tom. We responded to the call. Tom had his gear on before we left the station. Mine was still stowed in a bag in the ambulance. Tom climbed into the driver’s seat, and we proceeded to the accident location, just a few minutes north of town. I’ll set no records suiting up today, I thought, reaching for my bag.
‘Bad news, Roy,’ Tom called out as he pulled our ambulance to a stop by the road. We were first on the scene. One car, its front end smashed, was on the highway, while off on the side of the road a white car was engulfed in flames. Fire roared into the sky. I caught my breath. Our puny ten-pound extinguisher was no match for a blaze like that.
‘Two people are in front,’ I said, spotting their silhouettes amid the flames. Tom ran to the driver’s side of the burning car. I pulled on my gloves, grabbed my medical kit and got to the car seconds behind him.
Tom yanked on the door, desperate to reach the driver, whose stricken face was visible through the window. I could see the car’s crumpled dashboard pushed into her body, trapping her. The door wouldn’t budge. Just as I reached Tom’s side the flames leaped into the front seat.
Panicked, the passenger shoved his door open, falling out on the ground. His clothes were on fire!
‘Tom!’ I yelled. The two of us carried the man away from danger. We pressed his chest and back with our protective gloves, smothering the flames. Then we heard a muffled bang. The car’s windows had exploded from the heat. Tom ran back to the car while I opened my kit and began to treat the passenger’s burns.
Sirens wailed as a fire engine screeched to a stop. Glancing up from my patient I saw Tom reach his arms through a wall of flames, into the car, trying to pull the trapped driver from the car.
‘Out of the way!’ shouted a fire-fighter, moving Tom aside. Positioning a hose, the fire-fighter directed a stream of water into the car. As flames subsided, we could see that the driver was beyond help. We do what we can, I told myself sadly, returning to my patient. People say everything is in God’s hands. In my line of work, that fact was sometimes hard to accept.
With the fire under control, we had our first chance to check the other car involved in the collision. The driver was crumpled in the seat in pain but conscious. As I was examining her I heard the thunder of an arriving helicopter, and a fire-fighter came up beside me to offer his help. ‘Take care of this one,’ I said. I went back to our injured passenger. Tom and I waited until our patient was turned over to the helicopter team.
We removed our protective clothing, and then drove back to the station to clean and restock our ambulance. I was reviewing the disturbing events of the day in my mind, still hoping for some kind of reassurance. Putting new sheets on the stretcher I looked up and saw Tom. His face was pale.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
Without a word, Tom gave me his fire-resistant gloves. Three fingers of his left glove were gone, completely burned off. On his right glove, three fingers and the thumb were burned away
‘Are you okay?’ I asked. Tom raised his hands and turned them palm up. I winced, expecting to see third-degree burns. But his hands were whole and healthy. I turned them over to examine the backs. Not a mark. No evidence of burns. I was speechless.
‘That isn’t all,’ Tom said, motioning for me to follow him.
We walked around to the driver’s side of the ambulance. Tom opened the door and pulled his protective coat from where he’d stowed it behind the seat. He stepped back, offering me the coat.
I couldn’t believe it! Both arms of his thick coat were charred black, clear up to the elbows.
‘I watched you,’ I said. ‘You reached through the window of that car.’
Fire all around me,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘A wall of fire.’
Tom pushed up his sleeves. Again, no burns. Not even the hair on his arms was singed. He’d reach through fire, but he was untouched. It was almost as if the laws of nature had changed.
‘How could this be?’ Tom asked.
I shrugged, and then spoke the answer that hovered in my mind: ‘You were in God’s hands.’
By Roy Gilliland
Return From Tomorrow
A young army private experiences an astonishing new world that changes his life forever
When I was sent to the base hospital at Camp Barkeley, early in December 1943, I had no idea I was seriously ill. I’d just completed basic training, and my only thought was to get on the train that would take me to medical school as part of the Army’s doctor-training programme. It was an unheard of break for a private, and I wasn’t going to let a chest cold cheat me out of it. But days passed and I didn’t get better. It was 19 December before I was moved to the recuperation wing, where a jeep was to pick me up at 4 o’clock the following morning to drive me to the station. A few more hours and I’d make it! Then about 9.00 p.m. I began to run a fever. I went to the sister and begged some aspirin. Despite the painkiller, my head throbbed, and I’d cough into the pillow to smother the sounds. At 3.00 p.m. I decided to get up and dress. The next half-hour is a blur for me. I remember being too weak to finish dressing. I remember a nurse coming to the room, and then a doctor, and then a bell-clanging ambulance ride to the X-ray building. Could I stand, the captain was asking, long enough to get one picture? I struggled unsteadily to my feet. The whir of the machine is the last thing I remember. When I opened my eyes, I was lying in a little room I had never seen before. A tiny light burned in a nearby lamp. For a while I lay there, trying to recall where I was. All of a sudden I sat bolt upright. The train! I’d miss the train! Now, I know that what I am about to describe will sound incredible. I do not understand it any more than I ask you to; all I can do is relate the events of that night as they occurred. I sprang out of bed and looked around the room for my uniform. Then I stopped, staring. Someone was lying in the bed I had just left. I stepped closer in the dim light, and then drew back. He was dead. The slack jaw, the grey skin was awful. Then I saw the right. On his left hand was the ring I had worn for two years. I ran into the hall, eager to escape the mystery of that room. Medical school that was the all-important thing - just getting there. I walked down the hall towards the outside door. ‘Look out!’ I shouted to a nurse bearing down on me. She seemed not to hear, and a second later had passed the very sot where I stood as though I had not been there. It was too strange to think about. I reached the door, went through and found myself in the darkness outside, speeding towards the station. Running? Flying? I only know that the dark earth was slipping past while other thoughts occupied my mind, terrifying and unaccountable ones. The nurses had not seen me. What if the people at medical school could not see me either? In utter confusion I stopped by a call box in a town by a large river and put my hand against the telephone. At least the phone seemed to be there, but my hand could not make contact with it. One thing was clear: in some unimaginable way I had lost my firmness of flesh, the hand that could grip that phone, the body that other people saw. I was beginning to know too that the body on that bed was mine, unaccountably separated from me, and that my job was to get back and rejoin it as fast as I could. Finding the base and the hospital again was no problem. Indeed, I seemed to be back there almost as soon as I thought of it. But where was the little room I had left? So began what must have been one of the strangest searches ever to take place - the search for myself. As I ran from one ward to the next, past room after room of sleeping soldiers, all about my age, I realized how unfamiliar we are with our own faces. Several times I stopped by a sleeping figure that was exactly as I imagined myself. But the ring was lacking, and I would speed on. At last I entered a little room with a single dim light. A sheet had been drawn over the figure on the bed, but the arms lay along the blanket. On the left hand was the ring. I tried to draw back the sheet, but I could not grip it. And now that I had found myself, how could one join two people who were so completely separate? And there, standing before this problem, I thought suddenly, This is death. This is what we human beings call ‘death’, this splitting up of one’s self. It was the first time I had connected death with what had happened to me. In that most despairing moment, the little room began to fill with light. I say ‘light’, but there is no word in our language to describe brilliance that intense. I must try to find words, however, because incomprehensible as the experience was to my intellect, it has affected every moment of my life since then. The light, which entered that room, was from heaven. I knew because a thought was put deep within me: You are in the presence of God. I have called Him ‘light’, but I could also have said ‘love’, for that room was flooded, pierced, illuminated, by total compassion. It was a presence so comforting, so joyous and all-satisfying that I wanted to lose myself forever in the wonder of it. But something else was present in that room. There also entered every single episode of my entire life. Here they were, every event and thought and conversation, as palpable as a series of pictures. There was no first or last, each one was contemporary. Each one asked a single question, What did you do with your time on earth? I looked anxiously among the scenes before me: school, home, scouting and the cross-country team - a fairly typical boyhood, yet in the light of that presence it seemed a trivial and irrelevant existence. I searched my mind for good deeds. Did you tell anyone about me? Came the question. ‘I didn’t have time to do much,’ I answered. ‘I was planning to, and then this happened. I’m too young to die.’ No one, the thought was inexpressibly gentle, is too young to die. And now a new wave of light spread through the room, already so incredibly bright, and suddenly we were in another world occupying the same space. I followed through ordinary streets and countryside’s, and everywhere I saw this other existence strangely superimposed on our familiar world. It was thronged with people. People with the unhappiest faces I have ever seen. Each grief seemed different. I saw businessmen walking the corridors of the places where they had worked, trying vainly to get someone to listen to them. I saw a mother following a sixty-year-old man, her son, I guessed, cautioning him, instructing him. He did not seem to be listening. Suddenly I was remembering myself, that very night, caring about nothing but getting to medical school. Was it the same for these people? Had their hearts and minds been all concerned with earthly things, and now, having lost earth, were they still fixed hopelessly here? I wondered if this was hell: to care most when you are most powerless. I was permitted to look at two more worlds that night. I cannot say ‘spirit world’s, for they were too real, too solid. Both were introduced the same way a new quality of light, a new openness of vision, and suddenly it was apparent what had been there all along. The second world, like the first, occupied this very surface of the earth, but it was a vastly different realm. Here was no absorption with earthly things, but - for want of a better word - with truth. I saw sculptors and philosophers here, composers and inventors. There were universities and great libraries and scientific laboratories that surpass the wildest inventions of science fiction. Of the final world I had only a glimpse. Now we no longer seemed to be on earth, but immensely far away, out of all relation to it, and there, still at a great distance, I saw a city - a city, if such a thing is conceivable, constructed out of light. At that time I had not read anything on the subject of life after death. But here was a city in which the walls, houses, streets seemed to give off light, while moving among them were beings as blindingly bright as the One who stood beside me. This was only a moment’s vision, for the next instant the walls again closed around me, the dazzling light faded, and a strange sleep stole over me. To this day, I cannot fully fathom why I was chosen to return to life. All I know is that when I woke up in the hospital bed in that little room, in the familiar world where I’d spent all my life, it was not a homecoming. The cry in my heart that moment has been the cry of my life since: to see that world again. It was weeks before I was well enough to leave the hospital, and all that time one thought obsessed me: to get a look at my chart. At last I was left unattended. There it was in terse medical shorthand: Pvt. George Ritchie died 20 December 1943, double lobar pneumonia. Later I talked to the doctor who had signed the report. He told me there was no doubt in his mind that I was dead when he examined me, but nine minutes later the soldier who had been assigned to prepare me for the morgue came running to him to ask him for a shot of adrenalin. The doctor gave me a hypo of adrenalin directly into the heart muscle, all the while disbelieving what his own eyes were seeing. My return to life, he told me, without brain damage or other lasting effect, was the most baffling circumstance of his career. Today I feel that I know why I had the chance to return to this life. It was to become a physician so that I could learn about man and then serve God. And every time I have been able to serve by helping some broken-hearted adult, treating some injured child or counselling some teenager, then deep within I have felt that he was there beside me again.
By Dr George Ritchie
When Dreams Come True
The Dream That Wouldn’t Go Away
Remarkably, I knew I had been shown where those people were and that they were still alive
Back when I was a young farmer north of Roosevelt, Utah, the news, one cold November morning, reported that a California doctor and his wife were missing on a flight from Custer, South Dakota, to Salt Lake City, as a student pilot, I had just completed my first cross-country flight with an instructor, though I had only twenty solo hours. Paying close attention to all radio reports in the search I was very disturbed two days later by a newscast saying that Dr Robert Dykes and his wife, Margery, both in their late twenties and parents of two young children, were not likely to be found until spring - and maybe not even then. They had been missing for four days, and the temperature had been below zero every night. There seemed little chance for their survival without food and proper clothing. That night before I retired I said a simple prayer for these two people I didn’t know. ‘Dear God, if they’re alive, send someone to them so they will be able to get back to their family.’ After a while I drifted off to sleep. In a dream I saw a red plane on a snow-swept ridge and two people waving for help. I awoke with a start. Was it the Dykeses? What colour was their plane? I didn’t remember any of the news reports ever mentioning it. I couldn’t get back to sleep for some time. I kept reasoning that because I had been thinking of the couple before falling asleep, it was natural for me to dream of them. When I finally did go to sleep, the dream came again! A red plane on a ridge - but now farther away. I could still see two people waving, and could see some snow-covered mountain peaks in the background. I got out of bed and spread out the only air chart I owned. It covered a remote area in Utah - the High Uintas region, along the Wyoming-Utah border. The Dykeses’ flight plan presumably had to pass over this range. I was familiar with the rugged terrain, for I had fished and hunted it as a boy. My eyes scanned the names on the chart - Burro Peak, Painters Basin, Kings Peak, Gilbert Peak. Again I went to bed. And again, incredibly, the dream returned! Now the plane was barely insight. I could see a valley below. Then it came to me in a flash - Painters Basin and Gilbert Peak! I rose in a cold sweat. It was daylight. Turning on the news, I found there had been no sign of the plane and the search had been called off. All that day, doing chores around the ranch, I could think of nothing but the Dykeses and my dream. I felt I had been shown where those people were and that they were alive. But who would believe me and what could I do about it? I knew I wasn’t really qualified to search for them myself. I knew too that even trying to explain my dream to my flight instructor, a stern taskmaster named Joe Mower, would have me laughed out of the hangar. I decided to go to our small rural airport anyway. When I arrived, a teenage boy who was watching the place told me Joe had gone to town for the mail. The force that had been nudging me all morning seemed to say, ‘Go!’ I had the boy help me push an Aeronca plane out. When he asked where I was going, I said, ‘To look for the Dykeses.’ I gave the plane the throttle and was on my way. Trimming out, I began a steady climb and headed for Uinta Canyon. I knew what I was doing was unwise, even dangerous, but the danger seemed a small thing compared to what I felt n my heart. As I turned east near Painters Basin, I was beginning to lose faith in my dream; there was no sign of the missing plane. The high winds, downdrafts and rough air were giving me trouble in the small 65-horsepower plane. Terribly disappointed as well as frightened, I was about to turn back when suddenly there it was! A red plane on Gilbert Peak, just as I had seen in my dream. Coming closer, I could see two people waving, I was so happy I began to cry. ‘Thank you, God,’ I said over and over again. Opening the plane’s window, I waved at the Dykeses and wigwagged my wings to let them know I saw them. Then I said a prayer to help me get back to the airport safely. Thirty minutes later I was on the ground. When I taxied up and cut the motor, I gulped, for Joe Mower was there to greet me. ‘You’re grounded,’ he hollered. ‘You had no permission to take that plane up.’ ‘Joe,’ I said quickly, ‘I know I did wrong, but listen, I found the Dykeses and they need help.’ ‘You’re crazy,’ Joe said and he continued to yell at me. My finding that plane in an hour and a half when hundreds of planes had searched in vain for nearly a week was more than Joe could believe. Finally I turned away from Joe, went straight for a telephone and did what I should have done in the first place. I called the Civil Air Patrol, in Salt Lake City. When they answered, I asked if there had been any word on the Dykeses’ plane. They said there was no chance of their being alive now and that the search was ended. ‘Well, I’ve found them,’ I said. ‘And they’re both alive.’ Behind me, Joe stopped shouting at me, his eyes wide and his mouth open. ‘I’ll round up food and supplies, and the people here will get it to them as soon as possible.’ the CAP gave me the go-ahead. Everyone at the airport went into action. Within one hour we were on our way. A local expert pilot, Hal, would fly in the supplies. I would lead the way in another plane. I wasn’t grounded for long. Back in the air, we headed for the high peaks. Hal’s plane was bigger and faster than the Aeronca I was in. He was flying out ahead and above me. When I got to Painters Basin at 11,000 feet, I met the severe downdrafts again. I could see Hal circling above me and knew he was in sight of the downed plane and ready to drop supplies. Since I couldn’t go any higher, I turned around. Back at the airport I joined a three-man ground rescue party, which would attempt to reach the couple by horseback. Another rescue party had already left from the Wyoming side of the mountains. For the next twenty-four hours our party hiked through fierce winds and six-foot snowdrifts. At 12,000 feet, on a ridge near Gilbert Peak, we stopped. In the distance, someone was yelling. Urging our frozen feet forward, we pressed on, tremendously excited. Suddenly, about ten yards in front of us, the fuselage of a small red plane sat rammed into a snow bank. Nearby, two people flapped their arms wildly. Charging ahead, we shouted with joy. At about the same time we reached the Dykeses, the other rescue party was coming over the opposite ridge. After much hugging and thanking, I learned what a miracle Dykeses’ survival was. They had had nothing to eat but a chocolate bar, and their clothing was scant - Mrs Dykes had a fur coat, but her husband had only a Mac. The altitude made starting a fire impossible and at night they huddled together in their downed plane, too afraid to go asleep. ‘We had all but given up, had even writing notes as to who should look after our children,’ Mrs Dykes said. Then, turning to me, she said, ‘But when we saw your plane, it was the most wonderful thing…. Our prayers answered, a dream come true.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, smiling. My dream had occurred for a reason. In order to help give life to two others. Even in the most mysterious of ways, God had shown me He is always there, always listening. He had heard my prayers and the Dykeses’ prayers and had answered all of us in his own infallible way.
By George Hunt
A Giant Beside Our House
I’m in our garden on Big Fir Court, gazing up at the mighty 250-foot tree the street is named after. Rising from the corner of our property to the height of a 20-storey building the great white fir dwarfs our home and everything in sight like some ancient giant. It gives the illusion of leaning ominously towards me, creaking and swaying ever so slightly in the rustling wind. Look! It’s not leaning its falling! It’s toppling towards our house, gaining momentum, rushing to meet its shadow, until finally it crumples the roof and splinters through the living room and front bedroom with a sickeningly thunderous roar. I let out a cry. Alison’s room! I awoke in a drenching sweat and sat bolt upright trying to blink away the terrifying vision. Another nightmare. I slipped out of bed and stole a peek into Alison’s room. Our nine-year-old daughter was sleeping peacefully, as was eleven-year-old Heath across the hall. But I couldn’t shake the irrational fear until I’d checked. This was not the first time I’d dreamed of such an accident. In another dream I’d seen a giant tree limb tearing loose and slamming down on Heath, leaving him crippled. As a computer engineer, I deal with quantifiable information. I don’t pay much attention to impractical things like dreams. But these nightmares were so vivid and frightening. I eased back into bed next to my wife, Nita, but not before looking out the window at the tree. There is stood, stately and still; its coarse bark ghostly pale in the faint moonlight. A few nights later I had another dream, this one more puzzling than alarming: I am in our garden and in front of me stands a white angel. The angel has a broken wing. What did all these dreams mean? Then one day I noticed a twenty-foot dead limb dangling from the fir. We call a dangerous branch like that a widow marker. I remembered the dream about Heath. ‘Don’t go near that tree,’ I warned him. That Saturday I enlisted a neighbour to help me rope it down. All week I’d worried about the precarious branch and had some other dead limbs removed too. Why am I so concerned about this tree? I wondered. It’s stood here for generations. It even survived the fierce storm of ‘62. My nightmares about the tree eventually subsided. Christmas season arrived and Nita and I rushed madly to get our shopping down. More than anything my daughter wanted a Cabbage Patch doll. We soured the stores with no luck. Everywhere we went it was the same story. ‘Sorry,’ said the shopkeepers inevitably. ‘We sold out our Cabbage Patch dolls weeks ago.’ Finally Nita settled on a handmade rag doll. It was thicker and heavier than the Cabbage Patch version, but there was something about it that caught our fancy. ‘Well,’ sighed Nita as we paid for it, ‘this will have to do.’ ‘Alison will love it,’ I reassured her. We arrived home to a surprise. Alison had impetuously decided to rearrange her room. She had been talking about it for days, but Nita had implored her to wait until the holiday excitement died down. ‘Then I’ll help you,’ she promised. Instead, Alison had recruited her brother for the task, getting Heath to help drag her heavy bed across the room. ‘I just wanted to get it done now, Mummy,’ she explained as Nita surveyed the scene with obvious displeasure. ‘It’s important.’ Alison toys and furniture spilled out into the hall. By bedtime, however, Alison had her room in order again and we could scarcely hide our admiration. ‘See?’ said Alison knowingly. ‘It’s not such a big deal.’ Outside I heard the wind whistle through the big fir. A howling blizzard marked Christmas Eve. I drove home from work through swirling snow and pounding winds. I pulled into the driveway, turned up my collar, and hurried inside to get ready for church. Church was not one of my priorities even under the best circumstances, and on a night like this I didn’t want to be anywhere but inside my house, Christmas Eve or not. But I’d promised. At the service with Nita and the kids, I felt strangely detached as I hunched in the pew with my arms folded tightly, thinking about whether I even believed that God was a part of my life. I know I had been raised in church but that was a long time ago. Now I certainly didn’t feel any ‘tidings of comfort and joy’. God may have created the world and all its wonders, but I didn’t see where that had much to do with my life. If God was real, He was much too remote for me to have faith in. We arrived home late, and the wind and snow stung our faces as we walked up the driveway. Heath and Alison rushed inside to turn on the Christmas tree lights. From our bay window the blue lights cast a peaceful glow across the snowy garden. I draped my arm around Nita and led her in. Wrapping paper flew as the children tore into a few early presents, and Nita and I settled back on the couch to view the happy chaos. Nita had turned the tree into a work of art. The crowning touch was a glorious blonde angel perched high at the top. ‘It looks like Alison,’ I said. Alison was so delighted with her big new doll that she granted it the honour of accompanying her to bed. ‘Told you she’d love it.’ I reminded Nita as we climbed under the covers. The morning wind lulled us to sleep. ROAR! The explosive sound jolted the house. I hadn’t been asleep long, and my startled, half-awake mind tried to separate fantasy from reality. The dream again, I thought. But then I sat bolt upright, and saddening I knew. This was no dream. This time my nightmare was real. The tree really had fallen on our house! I leapt out of bed and raced across the hall to Alison’s room. ‘Daddy, help!’ she was calling frantically. ‘I’m stuck!’ I couldn’t budge the door. It was jammed shut. ‘Oh, my God,’ I whispered. ‘Don’t move, honey!’ I shouted through the door. ‘We’ll get you out.’ I grabbed a torch and told Nita to call for help. ‘I’ll see if I can get to her from outside.’ I was horrified to find the tree filling the front hall, branches whipping in the gale. I stumbled through the family room to a side door. Outside I nearly collided with the trunk, propped up on its giant ball of roots, which had been torn from the earth. It looked prehistoric. I crawled underneath as the rough bark tore at my robe and ripped my flesh. The wind sliced through me. Above the din I heard the distant wail of sirens. Groping my way to Alison’s window I aimed the flashlight beam inside and wiped the icy snow from my eyes. All I could see were branches, tattered insulation and hunks of ceiling strewn about the trunk. Somewhere buried beneath the tree was my daughter, crying faintly, ‘Daddy! Daddy!’ Someone was standing beside me. ‘Alison! This is Captain McCullough of the fire brigade,’ he called. ‘Your daddy’s with me. Can you move at all?’ ‘I think I can move my arm,’ came a brave little voce. ‘Good. Push your hand up as high as you can.’ Tiny fingers wriggled up through the debris. I breathed a tentative sigh of relief. Firemen rushed to set up lights and heat lamps. They fastened a plastic tarpaulin over the rescue area. Captain McCullough turned to me and quietly said, ‘This isn’t going to be easy, Mr Gullion.’ As I huddled with Nita and neighbours looked after Heath, a terrifying game of pick-up-sticks slowly unfolded. The night air was filled with the roar of chainsaws and the reek of fir pitch as rescuers cut away the tree and cautiously removed brunches as they went. A slight shift of any debris could spell disaster. Bit by bit they chipped away at the wreckage until, after an hour, Alison’s head and shoulders emerged. Her right leg appeared to be crushed under the tree. A fallen two-by-six rafter clamped down on her torso. We could see Alison’s new doll squeezed between her chest and the rafter. Apparently she’d fallen asleep clutching it. McCullough shook his head grimly and called a halt to the work. ‘We can’t risk it,’ he said. ‘Show me the crawl space.’ moments later he shone his torch on the area under Alison’s room. Huge braches a half foot in diameter pieced the floor and stabbed the ground beneath. Again McCullough shook his head. ‘We can’t cut away the floor without disturbing the tree. And that tree must not shift.’ The subzero wind had intensified. Hours had passed and now there was the threat of Alison succumbing to hypothermia. Neighbours rushed in warm blankets and hot-water bottles. A paramedic put his wool cap on Alison’s head. But I could see she was drifting, her big eyes fluttering. Once or twice her head rolled back, if we didn’t get her leg out soon, the surgeons might have to amputate it to free her. Only one option was left: Lift the tree. A crane was out of the question; in this wind it would be too unstable. But McCullough had called a towing company that used giant air bags to gently right overturned trucks. ‘It’s a gamble,’ he warned me. ‘But we’ve run out of options.’ Huge rubber bags were packed under the tree. A compressor roared to life. Slowly the bags filled with air and swelled against the great fir. Despite the blizzard, I could see sweat bead up on McCullough’s tensed brow. My hands trembled as Nita buried her head in my chest, afraid to look. Suddenly, I heard myself praying to God whose very existence I’d doubted just hours earlier. You would have thought I’d be ashamed to ask for His help now, but something told me I must. ‘Please, Lord,’ I begged. ‘Spare her life. I believed You are here.’ The shriek of the compressor was deafening. The bags bulged like great billows, but at first nothing gave. Then there was movement! Inch by agonizing inch, the tree was lifted. A cry rose from the crowd as paramedics rushed to free Alison and whisk her to a waiting ambulance. Nita and I jumped in with her, and we roared off. Alison smiled weakly. ‘I’ll be okay now, Daddy,’ she whispered, still grasping her new doll. That overstuffed doll, it turned out, was possibly just enough of a cushion between the fallen two-by-six rafter and Alison’s chest to have saved her life. The doctors confirmed that she would recover. And Alison’s leg was only broken, not crushed. Christmas Day, Heath and I kicked through the rubble of our house. I’d been thinking about that desperate prayer I’d said, thinking about it a lot. In Alison’s room I saw that the bulk of the fir had landed near the southeast wall - right where her bed had been before she’d impulsively moved it. On the trunk directly over where Alison lay when the tree came crashing through, I noticed a wide scar from a recently cut branch that might have killed her. Had God been trying to warn me all along about the tree? To protect us? Had I been blind to God’s ways? In the snow outside what used to be our living room I found the angel from our Christmas tree, the one that looked like Alison. Its wing was broken, just as the angel’s wing in my dream had been. As I brushed it off and held it up, Heath came running. ‘Dad Dad!’ he grabbed the angel. ‘I’ve seen this before! In a dream! Angels with broken wings just like this one!’ Dreams. Does God speak to us through them? This much I myself can say: Alison is safe ad well. And God is, and always has been, watching over my family.
By Ron Gullion
The Pin
I suppose none of us know the meaning of dreams. But I know what prayers can do. I was working the three-to-eleven shift at my local hospital, when a patient I was feeding asked, ‘Why don’t you have a little pin like the other nurses?’ ‘I did,’ I said, reaching to show him the golden, wreath-shaped R.N. pin on my collar, one of my proudest possessions. It had been given to me when I graduated from nursing school, and it stood for years of hard work and study. But now when I looked down, the pin was gone. I knew I had pinned it to myself before I left the house. I looked everywhere for it. A colleague and I searched through all the linens and bedside equipment but found nothing. I even took a mop and dusted under the beds. At home I turned the place upside down. No pin. Of course I could replace it, but a substitute would never mean as much. That night, as lay in bed, I prayed that the Lord would help me find it. Soon I was asleep. In the deep of night I had a dream. I dreamed that I got out of bed put on my slippers and ran downstairs and out the door to a puddle of water in front of the house. And in this puddle was my pin. The next morning I awoke disappointed. ‘It was only a dream,’ I muttered to myself. ‘A worthless dream.’ but as my head cleared, I seemed to hear a voice saying. No, it was more than a dream. Go and see. I put on my slippers and walked out to the road in front of our house, and found there a puddle of water. I placed my hand into the brown water. In a moment I held in my hand an answered prayer.
By Mary Rosco Recurring Dream
My mother had been haunted by the same dream for five nights in a row. She described it to me as I took her to the hospital for an operation to relieve a slipped disc. ‘It’s snowing,’ she said. ‘In the distance I can see the headlights approaching. When they come close, I recognize a hearse. It stops in front of me. A door opens and the driver motions me inside…’ Against her wishes, I told mum’s doctors and nurses about the dream so they would be sensitive to her fears about the operation. Before dawn on the day of her surgery the snow began to fall. At 7:15 I went to her hospital room to be with her while she was prepared. An orderly came in and I helped him get Mum on the trolley. We were waiting at the lift when a nurse hurried up. ‘The surgery has been cancelled,’ she said. Finally, I was able to reach our doctor to find out what was going on. ‘Well, I woke up during the night and couldn’t go back to sleep,’ he said. ‘Something was bothering me. I looked outside and saw the snow. I thought about your mother’s dream. I called the hospital and ordered a second electrocardiogram. It caught a heart condition that didn’t show up on the first one. The lab called the anaesthetist and he cancelled the procedure.’ The doctor hesitated and took a deep breath. ‘If your mother had had the anaesthetic, well…’ Later I found out what he did not say then. Under anaesthesia Mum would have been in grave danger of dying of heart failure.
By June Davis
Heaven Is For Dancing
Sara Brown, age five, has dark, naturally curly hair, eyes like shiny brown buttons, a rosebud mouth and a low-pitched voice. A blue of bursting vitality and motion, Sara could never sit still for long in anyone’s lap - unless, of course, that lap belonged to her grandmother, Louise Brown, who she called ‘Nana’. Nana, sturdy in build, belying her eighty-three-years, with iron-grey hair and lively eyes in a vivacious face, could always be counted on for a story - from a book or from memory. After all, Sara’s Nana had been a first-rate teacher for many years. The two of them would sit cuddled close together in a certain wing chair in the Browns’ two-century-old farmhouse. The story Sara asked for over and over was the tale of the ‘turkey-gobbler’ who had swallowed a child’s ring. For Sara, the suspense hung on one question: Would the turkey choke to death? A very sensitive child, Sara could not bear to see any animal or person hurt. Death was a calamity beyond her comprehension. But the turkey story had such a happy ending! The ring was recovered when the gobbler was held brashly upside down and the ring shaken and stroked out of his long neck. ‘He spitted it up,’ in Sara’s words, and she would laugh and laugh with glee at the funny sight this presented to her mind. Last winter Louise dislocated a knee, aggravating very painful arthritis. A systemic infection followed, and it invaded the bloodstream. After weeks of hospitalization, Louise came home, confined to a wheelchair, able to take only a few small steps. The doctor’s verdict to the family: the end was not far distant. Louise had lived a long, useful and full life. She was not afraid of death and had always made a point of telling Sara, her only grandchild, how much she looked forward to the joyful reunion with her husband, her mother and father, her four brothers and two sisters who had preceded her into the next life. But even with this preparation, Jean and Bill Brown, Sara’s parents were troubled. Louise’s death would be devastating to their small daughter. So in prayer, they asked for help. The petition was, ‘Lord Jesus, please don’t let our little girl be hurt. Let this experience be one that will teach her what you want her to know about death and immortality.’ On a Tuesday night, Sara came bursting into her parents’ room in the middle of the night. ‘A dream woke me up,’ she whispered. Her mother took Sara back to her own bed and crawled in with her. ‘Do you want to tell me about the dream?’ ‘Well, maybe a little bit. I dreamed that Nana was taken up out of her bed…’ since Sara seemed reluctant to share more, her mother reassured her that Nana was still in her bed, and both of them drifted off to sleep. The next morning began normally. The nurse, whom the Browns had employed to care for Louise during the day, arrived. Bill left for work in Washington, and Jean took Sara to playschool on her way to the office. At 9.30, while the nurse was changing her bed, Louise was sitting in a chair. All at once she sighed and quietly bowed her head. Her life on earth was ended. The nurse called Jean Brown, and she returned home immediately. Bill drove home from Washington. One moves mechanically at such a time. Contact the local mortuary….. Decisions about the funeral… and Sara would soon be back from playschool. Bill and Jean wondered how to tell her about her Nana’s death. The five-year-old would be heartbroken. That afternoon when Sara got home her parents took her into the garden. Though it was early February, the day was glorious, warm and sunshiny. Then Sara’s father had a sudden inspiration - a divine inspiration. The dream! Sara’s dream held the key! ‘Honey, tell us again about your dream last night.’ There was a moment of pensiveness. Then Sara brightened, ‘Oh, yes! Nana was standing in the air above her bed, dancing, like this.’ She stepped back to demonstrate with exuberant twists, turns and pirouettes. ‘And Nana’s back and legs didn’t hurt anymore - not a single bit!’ Her father fought back the tears. ‘You know what, Sara? Last night in your dream, God whispered a secret to you before anybody else in the whole world knew. The secret was that today he was going to take Nana up to be with Him. She’s dancing with the angels in heaven right now.’ A series of expressions crossed the little girl’s face. Then to her parents’ surprise, Sara began to laugh and clap and dance some more. She rushed into the house to telephone several of her friends, eagerly sharing the glad tidings that her Nana cold walk and even dance now in her new life. Remembering their prayer request weeks earlier, the Browns stood there marvelling. ‘To think,’ there was wonder in Jean’s voice, ‘that God would care that much about one little girl!’ Later that evening some neighbours dropped over; bringing along their seven-year-old daughter. Both sets of parents noticed that the two children were huddled together in the next room, laboriously writing something. When the guests had gone, Sara handed her mother a piece of paper. With assistance, she had scrawled these exact words to her Nana: ‘I love you and hope you feel good in Heaven.’ Nana is free from pain and doing fine, while some of us earthbound creatures are once again amazed at the way of a loving Heavenly Father. He singled out a little child through whom to pour a special revelation. We know that Heaven is for dancing!
By Catherine Marshall Figures Amid The Flames
The fire fighters said it was one of the hottest fires they had ever encountered.
I was putting the final load of clothes in the drier at about 10:30 that overcast May last year. When you have four kids at home you do a lot of washing. I was exhausted, and I figured I’d leave the folding until morning. I flipped the door shut and the dryer started with a determined rumble. The laundry room was on the first floor of our old house, just off the living room, where my husband, Bob, sat watching television. I gave him a pat on the shoulder as I passed through. ‘Goin’ up,’ I said as he squeezed my hand. I made my way up the sturdy old staircase to the master bedroom, recently created by knocking down the wall between two smaller rooms. It was in the middle of a paint job. The mattress lay on the floor and much of the furniture lined the hallway. But that night I didn’t mind. I just wanted to crawl into bed - wherever it was. Alicia, 14, said goodnight and headed down the hall to the room she shared with her sister, Wendi, 12. The boys - Sean, 4 and Dale, 10 - shared the other bedroom. I fell asleep almost instantly to the drone of the TV coming up through the floor. I must have not been sleeping long because Bob’s voice still came downstairs when I awoke to the shock of him yelling, ‘Deb, the house is on fire!’ I jumped up, alert but a little disoriented. I stepped into the dark, cluttered hallway to be met by the overpowering stench of burning wood and insulation. ‘I can’t use the phone!’ Bob shouted up to me, his voice seeming to rise on a cloud of thick, billowing smoke. ‘I’ll run next door!’ ‘Hurry!’ I called back. ‘I’ll get the kids.’ I rushed to the boys’ room, ‘Fire!’ I shouted. ‘Get up! Fire!’ I grabbed little Sean, but Dale slept soundly on the top bunk. I shock him. ‘Dale, get up! Fire!’ Then I shouted to the girls. Acrid smoke tumbled up the stairs, filling the hallway. My eyes stung and my chest burned. I stumbled towards my daughters’ room. Everything was happening so quickly in chaos of fear and confusion. I still had Sean in my arms. ‘Everybody out!’ I screamed, but the words seemed to bounce back in my face in the engulfing smoke. I met Alicia coming out of her room. She was dazed and coughing. I took her by the shoulders. ‘Get Wendi,’ I told her. A horrible panic came over me. Blinded and shorted-winded, I went back to see if Dale was up. I could barely get enough air to shout. I bumped into Alicia again and asked about Wendi, but all she could do was gag. Dale and Wendi must have gone out. Alicia, Sean and I felt our way to the bottom of the staircase, cringing from the heat and flames shooting out from the direction of the laundry room. Then we burst through the smoke and out onto the lawn. I opened my eyes and gulped the sweet night air, pulling Sean and Alicia close. A sprinkling rain began to fall and it felt good on my skin. Bob ran up to us, eyes wide and searching. ‘Where’s Dale?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Wendi?’ I began screaming their names and looking all around me. Bob ran towards the house. They’re still inside. My babies are still inside. ‘Mum,’ Alicia said, ‘I’m going in to find them.’ ‘You can’t go back in,’ I said, catching my breath and handling a crying Sean. ‘I’ll go.’ I dashed up to the front door, where Bob was being driven back by the heat and smoke. He grabbed me. ‘I couldn’t get further than the landing, even on all fours,’ he gasped. ‘It’s no use. The fire engines will be here in a minute.’ I fell on my knees sobbing, feeling utterly helpless. I screamed inside my heart. Help them! Bob and I began to yell, telling Wendi and Dale to follow our voices. My throat burned from the smoke but I kept yelling, my voice hoarse and cracked. Flames danced through the living room of to my left. I heard glass shattering and a roar like a giant blowtorch. The air itself seemed about to burst into flames. Directly in front of me I could make out the first few steps of the old stairway before it disappeared into an undulating cloud of smoke, tongues of flames lapping sides. Where were my children? Then, in that thick haze, two figures appeared on the stairs. They seemed unaffected in any way by the raging blaze. Such calmness glowed about them that I stopped crying. Thank you, Lord, I prayed, standing up. Thank you. A complete serenity overtook me. Time slowed, stilled. All at once the figures were gone. One small hand pushed through the smoke. Dale! His daddy grabbed him, sweeping him into his arms. Where is Wendi? Then her hand emerged. I pulled her out and we fell back on the lawn, crying. The six of us huddled together as if we would never let go, watching as our house went up in flames. Forty minutes earlier I had fallen fast asleep in my bed. Now my family and I were homeless, standing in the rain in our nightclothes. When the fire engines pulled up, we retreated to our neighbour’s front porch. The old bricks in our house held in the tremendous heat, almost like a kiln, and the fire grew quickly, consuming almost everything. One fireman who tried to get in with a hose had his face shield melted. The fire fighters said it was one of the hottest fires they had ever encountered. The investigation pointed to the drier. Apparently highly combustible lint had clogged the faulty exhaust hose. There wasn’t much the fire fighters could do to save our home once the blaze began. Neighbours came to our rescue with clothes to wear until we could buy new ones. People donated food and kept us in their prayers. We spent that first night with our pastor, then a week with friends. After another week in a motel, we were able to fine an apartment. Clothing poured in, especially for the little guy Sean. The school went into high gear to replace Wendi’s and dale’s instruments so they could play in a bad concert that first week. We always knew we lived in a wonderful community but we found out just how wonderful our people could be. Mighty God reached out to yes through the helping hands of neighbours and friends - angels each and everyone. There are earth angels and there are heavenly angels. The two magnificent figures that appeared on the fiery staircase that night were sent by God to save my children, who miraculously escaped the flames unharmed and safe. When Wendi told me, ‘Mum, someone pulled me out,’ we assumed she meant Dale. ‘No, Mum,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even know she was there.’ we’re convinced Wendi felt the hand of an angel! Almost immediately we began building a new home on the same site. We moved in just in time for the holidays last year. Our Christmas tree had handmade decorations from family and friends. How thankful those holidays were! A house can always be rebuilt. God looks after families first - with angels at the ready.
By Debra Faust
Wreck In The Storm
Two sailors cling to life as all hope for rescue fades.
‘Look, Dad!’ I pointed to a pair of elegant white swans swimming in the harbour. In more than twenty-five years of sailing on lakes, we’d seen ducks, geese and thousands of albatross - but never swans. We couldn’t take our eyes off them. Their grace and beauty were mesmerizing, and they shimmered luminously in the low afternoon sun of an autumn day. Dad and I were preparing our seventeen-foot sloop Orysia for a short cruise around one of the biggest, and most favourite, of all our lakes. We watched the swans a few minutes longer and then got under way, leaving the harbour about one o’clock with everything shipshape. The wind was moderate, and Orysica cut cleanly through the waves as I handled the tiller. ‘We could make it all the way across the lake on a day like this,’ Dad said, smiling. Lake Michigan is more than a hundred miles wide. We rounded the top of Rock Island from the west, sailing right on course. Heading south, dad called, ‘The winds are shifting. We’ll have to tack.’ the temperature fell rapidly. Orysia’s sails snapped like whips. Around three o’clock, when we finally cleared the easy side, reaching the passage between Rock and Washington islands, the wind had become fierce. It angled off the cliffs, blowing the water into powerful whirlpools. ‘Get her into the wind!’ Dad shouted. ‘I’ll get the job and mainsail down!’ ‘I’ll start the motor, I yelled. But the wind and current were too strong. Our little boat shuddered, listing to port. With a lurch and a splash of foam, the top of the mast hit the water. We hurled against the gunwales. ‘Hold on!’ I cried. Too late! Dad and I were catapulted into the lake, and Orysia, with a final heave, capsized, her proud sails plunging into the water. I grasped the boat’s hull, trying to keep myself afloat. The water was so cold it hurt to the bone. ‘Dad?’ I called, looking around frantically. I felt a tug at my sleeve, and dad surfaced beside me, gasping for air. I pulled myself up on the hull and reached for him. We flopped onto the boat, clutching the keel and shivering violently, our sodden clothing clinging to us. Then a wave surged against the boat and threw me off. ‘Dad!’ Holding fast to the keel with one hand, my father thrust out his other towards me. Churning waves buffeted Orysia, and dad lost his grip. He slid back into the freezing water, pulling me down with him. We clawed our way back up until we were able to grab the boat’s keel again. The winds drove us out into the huge 20,000-square-mile lake. The boat was sinking. Less than a foot of it remained above the surface. Waves crashed over us as we drifted farther from land. Then, below us, we felt the mast smash against a rocky shoal. The impact tossed us back into the water. We could only watch in horror as Orysia’s keel disappeared into its housing beneath the waves. A small part of the hull was still above water, but how would we hold on? Swimming to shore through the turbulent waves was an impossibility. I was almost ready to give up, almost ready to sink into the lake along with the keel. But then I felt Dad’s arm around me. He pushed me toward Orysia. We both grabbed on and scrambled up, gripping with numb fingers the slot in the hull where the keel had been. Our bodies curved against the bulbous surface, more in the freezing water than out. We hadn’t seen any other boats since we had entered the passage, and none would venture forth now in howling winds. There is no hope for us, I thought looking at Dad. As night fell we turned to prayer. Together and separately, aloud and silently, Dad and I asked that our lives be spared, that God would send help. When the moon rose I was able to see my watch: eight o’clock. We’d been in the lake for five hours. We talked, trying to keep alert, but our speech became slurred. I knew that meant one thing: Deadly hypothermia was setting in. I’d been cold for so long I began to have feelings of warmth. ‘Keep moving,’ Dad urged. We tried shifting our arms, shaking our legs, anything to keep our circulation going. The full moon cast an eerie glow on the pitching waters. I checked my watch again. Nearly midnight. Nine hours. Our prayers for rescue changed to prayers for mercy. Death seemed imminent. Suddenly we heard whirring above us. A searchlight cut through the blackness, reflecting of the waves. A helicopter! ‘Here!’ I shouted, with the little strength I had left. ‘Here!’ Dad echoed, even more weakly than I. We both shouted again, but the roar of the helicopter smothered our cries. The searchlight moved to our right then to our left, but never shone on us. Abruptly the chopper flew off. The lake is so big. How will they ever see us? We’re two specks down here. The helicopter made another pass. We yelled with everything we had left. It flew on, returning several times until I couldn’t yell anymore. Dad and I were exhausted. The boat had sunk lower, and we had to lift out of the water just to breathe. Then I became aware of something to the north of us. I strained to see. I saw white wings. A mirage? No, it was swans! Two swans, just as we’d seen the day before in the harbour - floating on the waves in the moonlight, their long necks swaying in a mysterious dance. What were they doing way out here? ‘Dad!’ my father raised his head. The swans were so beautiful we almost forgot our predicament, and as we watched I saw another searchlight sweeping towards us. A boat! But our hopes plummeted when the light shone away from us. Dad lowered his head, sighing deeply. ‘No!’ I screamed. Almost as if I had been heard, the light swung in out direction again. ‘Look,’ I said, helping my father lift his head. ‘They’re coming back! The powerful beam shot out from the boat’s bridge, surrounding us in its glow. We’d been found. Quickly we were hauled on board. ‘We were going to head the other way,’ the fishing tug’s skipper told us. ‘Then we thought we saw two swans in the light.’ when they looked again, the swans were gone, and they spotted Dad and me instead. The two of us knew the swans had been there on the storm-tossed lake, guided by a merciful force greater than nature itself. By Dan Kulchystsky Silent Hands
In the late 1940’s my husband, Frank, and I were driving late at night on a deserted road in the mountains near Chattanooga when we had a flat tyre. Because of the rocky road edge, Frank was unable to use the car jack and change the tyre. Out of the night a car appeared. Two of the biggest, roughest-looking bearded men I’d ever seen got out. With powerful hands they steadied the car, change the tyre, and drove off. They had not uttered a word. In 952, frank was a Naval officer stationed in Europe. We were driving with our family through thick fog in the Swiss Alps when a gap in the road, about six feet wide and four feet deep, confronted us. Night was coming on, so Frank walked the others down to the next village, since all our belongings were in the car, I stayed behind. I waited. Nervously I tried to pray. The words of a familiar Psalm I had learnt at Sunday school came to mind. ‘God will put his angels in charge of you, to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up in their hands…’ ‘Lord, send some of your angels please.’ A truck suddenly appeared. Out of it piled six big, rough looking bearded men. Without speaking, they picked up their truck and carried it across the crevice. Then, with strong, powerful hands they picked up my car with me in it - carried it across the trench, and set It safely on the other side. They never said a word, and disappeared into the night. I drove into the village of Brig, where I found my family. Nobody in the village could imagine who those men were. All I knew was that they had come, and they had literally held me ‘up with their hands’. Who are these silent men? Will they have reason to help us again?
By Mary Hattan Bogart
The Silken Thread
During china’s Cultural Revolution this diminutive woman was able to endure six and a half years of brutal imprisonment, humiliation and torture. In September 1966, after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in China and the destruction of my home by the Red Guards, I was taken to a ‘struggle meeting’ where I was physically abused for four hours. Then I was thrown into a dank, dirty cell of the No. 1 Detention House, the dreaded prison for political suspects in Shanghai. Over my head hung a single naked light bulb, under my feet the floor was black with dampness. Cobwebs hung in thick ropes from the ceiling, the walls were crushed with grime. My bed was bare rough planks; my toilet was a crude concrete cube on in one corner of the cell. The air was heavy. I stretched up and pulled with all my strength at the cell’s only small window, high up in the wall. It swung open in a shower of dirt and paint chips to reveal rusty iron bars. For many weeks before they broke into my home, Mao Zedong’s fanatical Red Guards had roamed the streets of Shanghai, ransacking homes and brutalising citizens suspected of ‘Western’ sympathies. Since both my late husband and I had worked for Shell International Petroleum Company, I fell under that category. On the night of 3rd August, the Red guards, nearly forty of them, burst into my home to ‘take revolutionary action’ and destroy the Four Olds: old culture, old customs, old habits and old ways of thinking. They shredded clothes and upholstery, smashed dishes and mirrors, threw the books into a bonfire on the lawn and confiscated my valuables. At least my twenty-three-year-old daughter, Meiping, was at work when they burst in. she was the dearest person in the world to me. Intelligent, beautiful ad warm-hearted, she was an actress at the Shanghai Film Studio. But what would become of her now that I had been denounced and imprisoned as a ‘running dog of the Western imperialists’? Never in my life have I been so alone. I sank down on my ‘bed’ in despair, closed my eyes and asked God for His guidance. My husband had come from one of China’s earliest Christian families and I had spent many hours with his mother, reading the bible to her when her eyesight was failing. I had become a Christian myself, and so far my faith had carried me through many trying circumstances. God would not fail me now. That moment of prayer strengthened my resolve. I went to the cell door and pounded as hard as I could. The small shutter on the door slid open and a guard’s face appeared. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Please give me a broom to sweep this room,’ I said. ‘It’s very dirty.’ The guard was really startled at my request. ‘Nonsense!’ she said angrily. The shutter closed again with a smack. In the past I had found that taking positive action to cope with problems was therapeutic and good for the renewal of courage. To make my dreary quarters more liveable was now my challenge. I pulled the bed out and, using my meagre ration of rough toilet paper, did my best to wipe the grime from it. Little good it did, but the effort made me feel better. With the light bulb still glaring above me, I fell into a fitful sleep. Towards morning, the light was finally switched off. The shutter in the door opened again, and an aluminium container holding some watery rice porridge and a few pickled vegetables was thrust in my hands. As I quickly said my morning prayers, I heard the door shutter slide open. ’What are you doing?’ a voice beyond the door cried out harshly. ’You must read Chairman Mao’s books!’ But once more my moment of prayer had revived my fighting spirit and I asked her again for a broom to clean the cell. To my surprise, she squeezed an old ragged broom through the opening above the door; I pulled my bed around the cell and stood on it, using the broom as a brush to pull down the cobwebs. I sighed in relief - that was a victory. I went to my cell door again and called out. When the guard came, I recited a quotation from Mao: ’To be hygienic is glorious; to be unhygienic is a shame.’ then I quickly asked, ’May I have some water to clean my cell?’ I used the water to wipe my bed and the panes of the widow. Then I bathed myself and rinsed out my blouse. With some rice I’d saved from my midday meal, I made a paste and glued toilet paper along the wall by the bed to make a clean wall surface beside it. Sitting on my bed, I looked at the narrow strip of sky just visible through the window bars. That day and the next I watched a rectangular patch of sunlight moved across my cell floor. Then the days moved into weeks and the weeks into months. I was constantly hungry and exhausted, and my health deteriorated, the isolation was broken only by periods of intense, brutal and irrational interrogation about ’crimes’ I had never committed. Since I could not pray openly, I had to do so while my head was bent over Mao’s little red book that I was told to read for my ’re-education’. And my daughter, Meiping? I worried about her constantly. Was she safe? I did not know. I was isolated from the world outside, and the world of my cell grew lonelier and lonelier until… One day when I was staring up at the widow, I saw a spider about the size of a pea, making its slow but steady way up one of the rust-encrusted bars. The spider moved purposefully to the top of the window and then, after a moment’s pause swung out and down on a slender thread that emerged as if by magic from its own tiny body. Working with precision, it attached the end of the silken thread to where it had started, and swung out again to anchor another thread on another bar. I sat motionless, almost holding my breath, as the tiny spider moved methodically from corner to corner, until what looked like a frame had been created. Then it made its way within that frame, from corner to corner, edge to edge, creating a pattern that was evenly spaced and intricately beautiful. At last the web was completed. The spider waited in its lacy centre. By the time the spider had finished its work, it was early evening. Golden light stream through the cell’s small window. The rays of the setting sun struck the web and turned out into a glittering mass of rainbow colours. I sat in stunned silence. In this ugly cell, before my eyes, beauty had come into being. The spider, one of the tinniest of God’s creatures, had made me feel a part of God’s world again. It was a moment of transcendence. In the first light of day I looked to see if the spider was still there. It was. ‘Good morning,’ I murmured, and that was the beginning of our friendship. Every morning when I first opened my eyes, I looked for the spider and greeted it. And at night I looked over as I went to sleep, reassured by its steady presence. Dad by day, my affection for the spider grew. If a corner of its web was ruffled by a breeze or ripped by the wind, the spider was there in an instant to repair the damage. Again and again it patched and weaved and restored, never retreating from the wind or giving in to defeat. With each passing day, the temperature dropped. Winter was on its way, and the winds were increasingly chill and rainy. I needed to close the window. But to do so would disrupt my friend’s web, perhaps sending it scurrying away forever. No, that was unthinkable. I shivered in the cold, but it was worth it to have the courageous spider with me. Then came the unforgettable morning: The overhead light that stayed on all night went off, and I awoke for the few precious minutes of darkness before the sun rose. With the first rays of light entering the cell, I looked up at the spider’s web. It was gone! And so was the spider. During the night the wind had torn the web apart. Only a few filmy shreds trembled in the air. I panicked. Where was my friend? My eyes scanned from corner to corner, from wall to wall. Minutes passed. A gust of chilling wind blew through the window. I sat motionless, overcome by sadness. I had come to look upon the spider as a messenger of hope, a God-sent creature. Now every hope had been torn from me. This was the darkest moment I’d known. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. Was it the wind blowing something? I looked up. In a corner of the ceiling was the spider. For the first time in months I smiled. Not only was my friend there, but it was back at work, determinedly spinning its fragile cables, creating a new web. Now I knew it was true. God had sent this spider to me. Don’t give up, He was saying to me. He had not left me alone in my prison cell. God was there. In the days that followed, the spider moved from place to place and rebuilt its web throughout the cell. Once I crouched and followed as it moved across the floor, finally settling in a crevice of the wall, where it wove a thick web that enclosed its body like a cocoon. And then one day I watched as the spider went beneath my bed and never emerged. But by now I knew that whatever fate befell it - and me - we were both creatures of God and part of something more vast than we could imagine. I remind in No.1 Detention House for six-and-a-half years - years filled with deprivation, sickness and, at times, torture. When I was finally released in 1973, I learned that my daughter had been beaten to death during an interrogation by the Red Guards. If I had not been a Christian, I would have not wanted to live. But I knew that my Lord expected me to carry on. Today I am alive and well. My old life was torn from me, but like the spider, I have learned to build a new one. And it’s beautiful. By Nien Cheng
The postcard
By Chris Spencer In war torn Beirut, Labanon, in January 1987, Church of England envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped by the extremist group Hezbollah. People around the world began to pray for his safety and release. In the town of Bedford, fifty miles north of London, a British housewife, joy Brodier, joined In the prayers for terry that were included in the regular service of her Baptist church. But joy did something more. She put her prayers on paper. One day after the second anniversary of terry’s capture, Joy happened upon a postcard depicting a memorable event in her town’s history. In the seventeenth century the preacher John Bunyan was imprisoned in a Bedford jail for his religious beliefs, and during his long imprisonment he wrote the classic pilgrim’s progress, the picture on Joy’s postcard was of a stained-glassed window showing john Bunyan in his cell. Struck by the similar circumstances of the two men, joy picked up the postcard and on the back of it penned a message for terry: ‘People everywhere are praying for you and working for your release and the release of the other hostages.’ she signed it, and then hesitated. How to address it? Finally she wrote all she knew, all anyone knew: terry Waite, c/o Hezbollah (party of God), Beirut, Lebanon. The card sat for a day on joy’s mantelpiece next to her clock. Her husband, graham, glanced at it and said incredulously. ‘You’re going to send this?’ joy shrugged and nodded. At the post office she handed the postcard to the clerk and asked, ‘How much?’ the clerk looked at it, scratched her head and then matter-of-factly charged joy the normal rate for an airmail postcard to Beirut. Three years passed. Three years of rumours, bulletins, war, stalled negotiations and continued prayers for the release of the hostages. Then in 1991 word came that terry Waite and us hostage tom Sutherland were being freed. At last, on 19 November, terry Waite landed on British soil. In an airport hangar he spoke to the waiting journalists and TV cameras. At noon that same day in Bedford, joy Brodier watched the news on television. She heard a haggard but jubilant terry speak of his 1,763 days in prison, his hope for the release of the other prisoners and his gratitude to all the people who had been praying for him. In particular he mentioned a postcard, the only piece of mail that had reached him in nearly five years. He described it: ‘A picture of stained-glass window from Bedford showing john Bunyan in jail.’ It can’t be, Joy thought, ‘it had to be,’ her husband said. Four weeks later a letter arrived from terry Waite. ‘It’s my turn to write to you,’ he began. How joy’s postcard got to him was nothing short of amazing. Even the guard who delivered it to terry was amazed. For five years terry’s whereabouts had been secret. The internatational Red Cross couldn’t reach him. The British embassy in Beirut had boxes full of cards and letters they couldn’t deliver. And yet joy’s postcard reached him. The one summer joy Brodier and terry Waite finally met in person. Standing beneath the stained glass window at the Bunyan meeting house in Bedford, terry thank joy for what he described as the ’simple act’ that gave him such hope in his own captivity. A simple act, indeed, and though the odds against her postcard getting through were staggering, joy Brodier proved what power there can be in a tiny deed done in great faith.
Fear of Fire
A man’s greatest fear is over come A man lay trapped inside the cab of a smouldering fourteen-wheel trailer, which had rammed into a tree. His truck had been forced off the road by a drunken driver. Police officer Don Henry, responding to a radio SOS, raced to the scene. A recovery vehicle pulled up. But even after towlines had been attached to the cab door, the crushed metal refused to budge. Someone screamed, ‘Look. Fire!’ Flames began to flicker from the bottom of the cab. In a few minutes, the truck would be a funeral pyre. Then out of the night strode a towering figure. ’Can I be of any help?’ He spoke softly. ’We’ve done all we can,’ replied Henry. They’ve gone for cutting torches. It’s our last hope.’ The stranger paused only a second, then walked up to the cab and slowly wrenched off the jammed door with his bare hands. ‘You could hear the metal rip.’ said Henry later. ’I saw the big man’s shirt sleeves split open as his tremendous muscles bulged.’ The truck driver was alive but unconscious when Henry hauled him to safety. But when Henry looked for the giant rescuer, he had disappeared into the night. ’Who was the mysterious Samson?’ the local newspapers asked the next morning. For days the question went unanswered. Then the foreman of a local transport company noticed that a thirty-three-year-old named Charles Jones had strange cuts on his hands and moved away from the crowds that talked about the accident. Jones, it turned out, was the modern Samson. ‘God gives one strength to do anything in an emergency,’ he said when questioned. What Jones did not say was that for the past fourteen months he had been terribly afraid of fire - ever since his own child died in the flames of their burning home. By an unknown reporter.
Piano
Wishing to encourage her young son's progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her. Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE. When the houselights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing. Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit. Keep playing." "FOR WE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT." II Corinthians 4:7
Shadow of the CrossCharles was very patient with me as I would speak to him for hours about Jesus Christ and how He had saved me. Charles was not raised in a home that attended any kind of church, so all that I had to tell him was a fascination to him. He even began to ask questions about forgiveness of sin.
Finally the day came that I put a question to him. I asked if he realized his own need of a Redeemer and if he was ready to trust Christ as his own Saviour. I saw his countenance fall and the guilt in his face. But his reply was a strong "no."
In the days that followed he was quiet and often I felt that he was avoiding me, until I got a phone call and it was Charles. He wanted to know where to look in the New Testament for some verses that I had given him about salvation.
I gave him the reference to several passages and asked if I could meet with him. He declined my offer and thanked me for the Scripture. I could tell that he was greatly troubled, but I did not know where he was or how to help him.
Because he was training for the Olympic games, Charles had special privileges at the University pool facilities. Some time between 10:30 and 11:00 that evening he decided to go swim and practice a few dives.
It was a clear night in October and the moon was big and bright. The University pool was housed under a ceiling of glass panes so the moon shone bright across the top of the wall in the pool area. Charles climbed to the highest platform to take his first dive. At that moment the Spirit of God began to convict him of his sins.
All the Scripture he had read, all the occasions of witnessing to him about Christ flooded his mind. He stood on the platform backwards to make his dive, spread his arms to gather his balance, looked up to the wall and saw his own shadow caused by the light of the moon. It was the shape of a cross.
He could bear the burden of his sin no longer. His heart broke and he sat down on the platform and asked God to forgive him and save him. He trusted Jesus Christ twenty some feet in the air.
Suddenly, the lights in the pool area came on. The attendant had come in to check the pool. As Charles looked down from his platform he saw an empty pool which had been drained for repairs. He had almost plummeted to his death, but the cross had stopped him from disaster.
"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." 1 Corinthians 1:18 [NIV]
[Author Unknown]
Twenty-Six GuardsThe following story was reported by a medical missionary at his home church in Michigan: "While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, I travelled every two weeks by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This required camping overnight half way. On one of these trips, I saw two men fighting in the city. One was seriously injured, so I treated him and witnessed to him of the Lord Jesus Christ. I then returned home without incident." "Upon arriving in the city several weeks later, I was approached by the man I had treated earlier. He told me he had known that I carried money and medicine. He said, 'Some friends and I followed you into the jungle knowing you would camp overnight. We waited for you to go to sleep and planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. Just as we were about to move into your campsite, we saw that you were surrounded by twenty-six armed guards.'" "I laughed at this and said I was certainly all alone out in that jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point, 'No, sir, I was not the only one to see the guards. My friends also saw them and we all counted them. It was because of those guards that we were afraid and left you alone.'" At this point in the church presentation in Michigan, one of the men in the church jumped up and interrupted the missionary, and asked, "Can you tell me the exact date when this happened"? The missionary thought for a while and recalled the date. The man in the congregation told this side of the story: "On that night in Africa it was morning here. I was preparing to play golf. As I put my bag in the car, I felt the Lord leading me to pray for you. In fact, the urging was so strong that I called the men of this church together to pray for you. Will all of those men who met with me that day please stand?" The men who had met that day to pray together stood . . . all TWENTY-SIX them! "The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."
Faith Can Move Mountains
A small congregation in the foothills of the Great Smokies built a new sanctuary on a piece of land willed to them by a church member. Ten days before the new church was to open, the local building inspector informed the pastor that the parking lot was inadequate for the size of the building. Until the church doubled the size of the parking lot, they would not be able to use the new sanctuary. Unfortunately, the church with its undersized lot had used every inch of their land except for the mountain against which it had been built. In order to build more parking spaces, they would have to move the mountain out of the backyard. Undaunted, the pastor announced the next Sunday morning that he would meet that evening with all members who had "mountain moving faith." They would hold a prayer session asking God to remove the mountain from the back yard and to somehow provide enough money to have it paved and painted before the scheduled opening dedication service the following week. At the appointed time, 24 of the congregation's 300 members assembled for prayer. They prayed for nearly three hours. At ten o'clock the pastor said the final "Amen." "We'll open next Sunday as scheduled," he assured everyone. "God has never let us down before, and I believe He will be faithful this time too." The next morning as he was working in his study there came a loud knock at his door. When he called "come in," a rough looking construction foreman appeared, removing his hard hat as he entered. "Excuse me, Reverend. I'm from Acme Construction Company over in the next county. We're building a huge new shopping mall over there and we need some fill dirt. Would you be willing to sell us a chunk of that mountain behind the church? We'll pay you for the dirt we remove and pave all the exposed area free of charge, if we can have it right away. We can't do anything else until we get the dirt in and allow it to settle properly." The little church was dedicated the next Sunday as originally planned and there were far more members with "mountain moving faith" on opening Sunday than there had been the previous week! Would you have shown up for that prayer meeting? Some people say faith comes from miracles. But others know: MIRACLES COME FROM FAITH! Author Unknown
Too Blessed to Be Stressed; Too Anointed to Be Disappointed!
He is all wise and powerful; Jesus is his name; He has promised to be with me, as through this life I trod. I give thanks to him in everything. "But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV)
(Unknown Author)
The Will of GodThe will of God will never take you, The will of God will never take you, The will of God will never take you, "Everything happens for a purpose. We may not see the wisdom of it all now but trust and believe in the Lord that everything is for the best."
The way to be anxious about nothing is to be prayerful about everything.
Author Unknown
Two Babies in a Manger
In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the public schools. They were invited to teach at prisons, businesses, the fire and police departments and a large orphanage. About 100 boys and girls who had been abandoned, abused, and left in the care of a government-run program were in the orphanage. They relate the following story in their own words: It was nearing the holiday season, 1994, time for our orphans to hear, for the first time, the traditional story of Christmas. We told them about Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem. Finding no room in the inn, the couple went to a stable, where the baby Jesus was born and placed in a manger. Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened. Some sat on the edges of their stools, trying to grasp every word. Completing the story, we gave the children three small pieces of cardboard to make a crude manger. Each child was given a small paper square, cut from yellow napkins I had brought with me. No coloured paper was available in the city. Following instructions, the children tore the paper and carefully laid strips in the manger for straw. Small squares of flannel [cut from a worn-out nightgown an American lady was throwing away as she left Russia], were used for the baby's blanket. A doll-like baby was cut from tan felt we had brought from the United States. The orphans were busy assembling their manger as I walked among them to see if they needed any help. All went well until I got to one table where little Misha sat. He looked to be about 6-years-old and had finished his project. As I looked at the little boy's manger, was startled to see not one, but two babies in the manger. Quickly, I called for the translator to ask the lad why there were two babies in the manger. Crossing his arms in front of him and looking at this completed manger scene, the child began to repeat the story very seriously. For such a young boy, who had only heard the Christmas story once, he related the happenings accurately -- until he came to the part where Mary put the baby Jesus in the manger. Then Misha started to ad-lib. He made up his own ending to the story as he said, "And when Mary laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had a place to stay. I told him I have no mamma and I have no papa, so I don't have any place to stay. Then Jesus told me I could stay with Him. But I told him I couldn't, because I didn't have a gift to give Him like everybody else did. But I wanted to stay with Jesus so much, so I thought about what I had that maybe I could use for a gift. I thought maybe if I kept Him warm, that would be a good gift. "So I asked Jesus, 'If I keep You warm, will that be a good enough gift?' And Jesus told me, 'If you keep Me warm, that will be the best gift anybody ever gave Me.' So I got into the manger, and then Jesus looked at me and He told me I could stay with Him -- for always." As little Misha finished his story, his eyes brimmed full of tears that splashed down his little cheeks. Putting his hand over his face, his head dropped to the table and his shoulders shook as he sobbed and sobbed. The little orphan had found Someone who would never abandon nor abuse him, Someone who would stay with him -- for always! And the Americans? They had learned the lesson they had come there to teach -- that it is not what you have in your life, but Who you have in your life that really counts. We all should give thanks for the people that "keep us warm" in life; and for all of God's many blessings to us: freedom from want, life, love, togetherness, and for the enduring love of Jesus Christ, the one person who keeps us warm and safe for always. "And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen." Philippians 4:19-20 [NASB] Author Unknown  |
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