The Spring of Hope

Tomorrow is my Mother-in-Love’s birthday. Lula Mae Willis always joked about being born on Ground Hog’s Day. My husband was also due on that date, but stubbornly waited until February 8th to arrive. This way, his mom got a day all to herself.

Mom Willis was one of my role models. I’ll never attain to her skills as a homemaker and penny pincher. But she gave me her heart for helping tween and teen girls. She attentively listened to them—not just hearing them, but enjoying their company, and always had two or three “adopted” well after her own girls had left home. She sang hymns with gusto and listened intently to sermons. She was uncomfortable in the water, especially before moving to a home that had its own pool, and it was a real act of faith when she was baptized by immersion. She always said as long as her feet could touch the bottom and her hair didn’t get wet, she could deal with being in the water-obviously baptism broke those two rules! She had a giving heart and loved seeing and meeting needs, often sensing someone was hurting when no one else noticed.
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Does God Have A Workout Plan?

By Cheri Cowell

Most of us have some form of health goals for the New Year. It seems that every other commercial on television is about losing weight or getting healthy. I’m told that gym memberships increase by over 60% the first six weeks of the year, but decline to their normal numbers after that. Just this week I heard a fitness expert say we need to spend at least three hours each week on some form of physical exercise, and double that if we want to lose weight. He said that for most people, simply walking more is a good place to start in order to create an exercise habit that will stay with us throughout our lives.

How many of us have similar goals for our spiritual exercise? The goal of living longer, being healthier, and possibly looking better this time next year propels us towards making lifestyle changes. But what image or goal is going to drive us to make the commitments needed for our spiritual exercise?

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Knocking Down Walls

By Peter Lundell

In this new year, before we try new things or quit old things, we should remember one thing: To do the new or quit the old, we need to break through what has hindered us until now.

Take a lesson from the Berlin Wall, erected in 1961 by the paranoid East German government, which divided democratic and Communist Berlin. The wall epitomized the government’s iron-fisted control of its people and its fear of the West. The concrete blocks and barbed wire isolated West Berlin from the rest of East Germany for 28 years.

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Serving Cheerfully

By Virginia Smith

I am not fond of housework. I know some people love it, but to me, washing dishes is torture, laundry is capital punishment and the vacuum cleaner is something to be avoided at all costs. So I was shocked when an unwelcome idea came to mind one day as I prayed for my friend Judy, who was recovering from a prolonged illness. You should volunteer to clean her house. I tried to dismiss it, to laugh it off as a rogue thought from an overactive imagination. But no matter how much I disliked the idea, I knew that spiritual nudge of rightness had to be from the Lord. Reluctantly but obediently, I called Judy and made the offer.

The next day, armed with rubber gloves and Lemon Pledge, I arrived for my dreaded act of service. “Lord,” I prayed as I got out of the car, “I’m doing this because I love Judy and I love You. Please help me do it cheerfully.” Then I plastered a smile on my face and went inside.

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Family Resemblances

By Kathy Carlton Willis

In walked a woman opening the door for another woman with an oxygen tank. Behind her was a wheelchair filled by a matronly figure using the oxygen, being pushed by yet another woman. They huddled in one of the waiting area sections, and talked about an upcoming wedding. I searched one face, and then another, and another until I circled the group with my gazes. A mother and three daughters. Probably together for unpleasant reasons (the mother’s health), yet they were making the best of it by talking about an upcoming celebration.

Then I allowed my eyes to visit the filled waiting room, picking out family units. Daughters resembling mothers. I detected at least five families with similar facial features. An elderly woman came out of the doctor’s office, her petite frame stooped over. A taller version of the woman followed behind, surely a daughter.

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