The Perfect Christmas Gift

By Dorothy Ward-Winters

Many men are challenged when it comes to selecting a gift for their wife, especially during the Christmas season. My husband is gift-selection-for-the-wife challenged in the extreme. TV commercials have no effect on him. A pretty girl wearing a mink stole extolling its virtues for the wife would not occur to him to think she was talking about his wife. A mink stole in Texas? A plastic raincoat perhaps.

I once hinted for a vial of Chanel No. 5, a much advertised perfume during the 1950s and still popular today. Innocent that I was, I had no idea what it cost, but I wanted a bottle. Once I discovered the cost, I lost my desire for it. I knew we could use that money to purchase pajamas for a family of ten. I did not get the perfume.

Jewelry? Clothes? Each selection presented more obstacles. Poor husband, getting more and more frustrated would finally give up, meet me in the coffee shop, and confess, “Failed again”.

Read more

You Can Stay Fit During Christmas!

By Laurette Willis

“I am the bread of life” John 6:48 Those words really put holiday overindulgence into perspective don’t they? Perhaps the overindulgence we could enter into this Christmas is filling up on the “bread of life” instead of the bread of this world—after all, Jesus was placed in a manger (a feeding trough!) as a baby.

When we think of the bread of this world, do you think of physical bread? It can be that, as well as what I call the “soul junk food” of this world. I’m referring to the PG-13, R-rated (and worse) so-called “entertainment” of this world (TV, movies, music, etc.).

Okay, now I’m meddling, right? It’s just that I’ve found that if I’m filling up on the world’s junk food through my eyes and ears, I also seem to want to satisfy my mouth with the world’s processed junk foods for my body.

Read more

Keeping What We Have

By Virginia Smith

I recently attended my first “anonymous” meeting to support someone I care about. Never having been involved with a twelve-step program, I was a little intimidated, as was the person I went to support. Though I never realized it, my unconscious attitude toward difficult personal struggles has been “pray for strength, but suffer in silence.” This meeting blew that attitude out of the water.

Eighteen people gathered around a table and talked openly about their addiction. They told how their lives had been destroyed, how their disease took over every waking minute and every ounce of attention. It became the focus of their existence. They spoke of losing jobs and homes and families, of bankruptcies and suicide attempts. I was impressed over and over by how transparent these people were. They held nothing back. Their words were stark, often harsh, and the pictures they painted made me want to weep.

Read more

Wrong Door

By George Dalton

On a recent trip I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me.  So when my plane landed at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, I raced off the plane and headed for the nearest restroom.  Lucky for me there was no line, so I ran right into an open stall.

I was feeling better when, all at once, my reverie was interrupted by someone opening the stall door next to mine. I was about ready to leave when I happened to look down at the space under the stall partition and I saw a pair of high heel shoes. My first thought was that I didn’t want to embarrass the poor dear, so when I leave, I will leave quietly and she will not realize she is in the wrong restroom.  Before I could get the door open, someone opened the door on the other side and, OH MY GOSH; there was another pair of high heels.

Read more

The Call Is Holy

By Norma Vera

Saying “Father if it is your will, remove this cup from me; never – the-less not my will but yours be done.” And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. Luke 22:42, 44

I recently read an article that talked about how weak and emotionally wounded the Church is today. The world is full of hurting people even though we are the most advanced and richest generation that ever lived.

We are far from being anything like the First Church. The power, courage, and love they had for Christ, was unprecedented to anything we have today. Their passion to live and die for Him was the paramount cry of their heart. Hebrews 11 gives an inside view of what they were like.

What will it take to transform the Church to its former glory? I believe it will take absolute surrender. We ask, how do we do that? It is not what we do but what the Holy Spirit does in us and through us.

Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »