Table of contents for Oct/Nov 2023 in Guideposts

Few have had greater influence on my work at Guide-posts than Elizabeth Sherrill, who died this past May at the age of 95. In his excellent memorial on page 69, Rick Hamlin praises Elizabeth’s honesty and the personal depths she fearlessly plumbed in her writing. I will never possess her courage as a writer, but she did teach me to reach inside myself and share what truth I found. Nothing I have written owes a greater debt to Elizabeth than my new book, A Journey of Faith: A Mother’s Alzheimer’s, a Son’s Love and His Search for Answers. In this memoir, I share my family’s experience with Alzheimer’s, my mother’s battle with the disease and my own fears of succumbing to it. What started as a short article in GUIDEPOSTS…

MEANINGFUL MEMENTOS Monday morning, I walked into the high school where I worked and spotted Jeanette, the assistant principal, waving me over. “I have pictures for you,” she said. I’d gone to the school football game on Friday night, where Jeanette had taken photos of me with some of the students. She’d printed copies to share—not just with me but with the students. Most of them took pictures on their phones and had very few printed pictures. The kids got so excited that they flocked to Jeanette’s office to retrieve the photos she’d taken of them. Once I saw how meaningful the prints were, I adopted the habit myself. Whenever I take pictures on my phone, I try to take the next step and print copies to share. When my…

Jarvis Rockwell remembers Thanksgivings with his father, Norman, as a joyous time, when the renowned and prolific painter and illustrator could relax with his family. Indeed, Norman Rockwell embodied the very essence of the holiday he has come to be so associated with, particularly through one painting that has become iconic. “My father was wonderful at Thanksgiving,” Jarvis told me. His mother, Mary, and the family cook would pull out the white table-cloth and sterling silverware. The family would gather at the table, and his father proudly carved the turkey, with Jarvis and his younger brothers, Thomas and Peter, looking on. But the Thanksgiving of 1942, when Jarvis was 12, was anything but relaxing. World War II raged in Europe and the Pacific. Fear and uncertainty gripped the country, from…

Tom and I had been planning a road trip to visit family in Idaho for weeks. So why did I feel as if we should postpone? We’d already put off the trip once. We had a new car with good tires. What could go wrong? I ignored the feeling, and we started off for Idaho, some 1,400 miles away. Two days later, we were stranded in a diner in Montana. It was only snowing lightly, but our new car had broken down. Now we were waiting for the tow truck. As Tom took our Yorkie outside for a walk, I found myself thinking about a day years before. I was 13 back then, standing at the kitchen counter, my long hair hanging almost to my waist. I’d been craving a…

Elizabeth Sherrill recently passed away at age 95. What a remarkable woman she was and a profound influence on the Guideposts content we know today. Back in 1951, when GUIDEPOSTS was a fledgling magazine, her husband, John, was hired as a staff editor. A natural at chasing down true first-person inspirational stories, he shared his work with his wife and discovered her untapped genius for writing and editing. Modest in the extreme, she would never have put it that way. Len Le-Sourd, then editor of GUIDEPOSTS, soon realized he had two fine writer-editors in one husband-and-wife team. The Sherrills’ stories often expanded beyond the pages of the magazine. There was a dynamic young preacher in New York reaching out to the gangs of the city; David Wilkerson’s story became The…

“I think the more you engage, the more you learn about different ways that people believe and worship, the more you can sit next to anyone and be a neighbor.”JENNIFER GARNER, actor, on her faith “I’ve learned not to hide or paint over the hard parts of my story, because those are the very things that allow me to see God’s transforming brush-strokes most clearly.”ANNE NEILSON, artist and author of The Brushstrokes of Life “You can’t change the past, and you can’t predict the future, but you can ruin the present by worrying about both.”NOA SHAW, life coach and author of Stop Thinking Thoughts That Scare You “To live in gratitude for both existence and awareness of existence is to live a life that is both holy and healed.”DEEPAK CHOPRA,…

Twenty-two years. That’s how long I’d been a homeschool teacher to our five boys. Now, with our youngest starting his freshman year at the public high school, as his brothers had done before him, that phase of my life was ending. The thought of spending long, empty hours in our empty house scared me. I’d always struggled with change, but this was more than a shift in circumstances. This was losing my identity. Losing my calling, something I’d dedicated myself to and excelled at. My husband, Lonny, was laid-back about my getting a job outside the home. “You don’t need to rush into anything,” he said. “Look into different options.” I was eager to find a new purpose. I was good with kids, but I yearned to help people in…

I pulled the overgrown remnants of my herb garden, putting it to bed for the season, and went over a mental list of all the things to do before winter began—change out the screens for storm windows, finish the yard work, bring down the draft blockers from the attic. My husband, Tony, stood over me. “Come see what I found,” he said. I followed him beyond the row of century-old apple trees to the side of our property, where, oddly, a weathered tool handle emerged straight out of the ground. “I tripped over it,” he said. I gripped the iron handle and tugged. It didn’t budge. Tony got a shovel from the barn and began to dig around it. I went back to my garden, my thoughts fixed on the…

From the day we met as teachers at Arkansas Baptist High School in Little Rock, Janet Boyd and I knew we had found a best friend. We connected right away. I taught math. Janet taught English. We shared a love of words, books, the outdoors, shopping, jewelry, talking—pretty much everything. We were both women of faith. Janet swore she couldn’t live without my prayers, but her faith always seemed wiser than mine. She had a way of putting things that I wanted to imprint in my mind. I have a habit of writing down things I want to remember and putting them in a box. I have several boxes filled with yellow sticky notes, note cards and even entire journals preserving things I’ve heard or read that matter to me.…

I took one look around the classroom and thought, I don’t belong here. I was a new student at what I thought was a beginners’ art class at the community center. None of the other students looked like beginners. They walked into the room pulling carts loaded with buckets, brushes, easels and other painting equipment. They greeted one another like they’d been painting together for a long time. It had been decades since my last painting lesson. For most of my 69 years, I’d loved art more than I’d been able to make it. I’d married during college, raised three girls and kept our home running until my husband retired. Not much time left for painting. A friend suggested I try this class after I confessed that I felt like…

I’d barely slid open my junk drawer when I saw the receipt with the purple paper clip. If shame had a color, it would be purple. I’d bought a treadmill in the hopes of burning off a few calories. I’d managed to get it out of the box, but my joint and back pain had kept me from doing more. The only thing I used the machine for was hanging my robe on the handlebars. I was tired of it all. The incurable condition I’d lived with since childhood. The surgeries and treatments I’d endured. More meds than I could count, which packed on impossible-to-lose pounds. I didn’t want that treadmill taking up space in my house any longer, reminding me that my body had defeated me. That it was…

BABY BLESSINGS I was a maternal child social worker at a hospital. My job was to support women and families as they navigated the challenges of bearing and raising children. I’d learned to handle all sorts of situations with new parents. The young woman in front of me this morning had been planning to work right up to her due date so she would have the money to buy the many things a baby would need. But her child ended up being born prematurely, and she herself had to take some weeks of rest to recover. There was no father in the picture, and the only family she had to help was a cousin who had little to spare. “I’m going to try to get you what you need,” I…

GOOD READ After reading about Dwayne Jones and the inspiring work he does in his Memphis, Tennessee, neighborhood in GUIDEPOSTS (April/May 2022), I ordered a copy of his children’s book, Dwayne the Contractor Paints a House. I had signed up to be the mystery guest reader in my nephew Teddy’s kindergarten class and needed to find a book to read. Because Teddy’s mother is both a painter and builder, Dwayne’s book seemed like the perfect fit. I was right! Teddy’s class loved the story. I even learned some new terms too, such as cornice. Thank you to “Dwayne the Contractor” for writing the book, as well as to GUIDEPOSTS for showcasing Dwayne’s dedication and care for his community. JENNY ROBINSON Beverly, Massachusetts LIVING SERMON “Tomorrow morning, before you leave home,…

I celebrated my fortieth birthday by going on a getaway with a few close friends. We had a great time, but I kept wishing that my dad, who’d passed away three years earlier, could be there to celebrate with me. I yearned to know what he would have said to me on this milestone. Driving home from the trip, I cried while listening to “Unchained Melody,” one of Dad’s favorite songs. We’d played it for him over and over when he was in hospice. I even pulled up an old birthday message from him I’d saved on my phone, but he said very little besides “Happy Birthday.” I sighed. There was no getting away from my feelings on this birthday. I got home late that night and unloaded the…

Making my Thanksgiving shopping list, I thought of my older brother, Phil, his memory an indelible part of the holiday for me. As adults, we seldom saw each other and never sat down to a turkey dinner together. But I always tried to call him on Thanksgiving. He’d given me much to be grateful for. John Phillip Jacobs was born with a love for cooking. He took joy in whipping up simple, tasty dishes with whatever we had on hand. More than 50 years later, I can still picture him, a shirt tied around his waist like an apron, sleeves flopping as he danced around our Oklahoma farmhouse kitchen. Too bad my father, raising the four of us children on his own after my mother had left us, believed boys…

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”—JOHN 13:34 (NIV) I was driving through billowing snow on the interstate in central Massachusetts when my car began to sputter. I knew I’d need to pull over, so I took the next exit. There were just three houses on the road that abutted the highway. I picked the house that had a light in the front window. Knowing it could be risky, I rang the doorbell and then stepped back from the door, so the homeowners could see that I was a twentysomething Black woman in this mostly white town. That would allow them to choose whether to answer or not. An elderly white woman opened the door and looked…

I have often prayed for guidance to cope with the trauma left by my abusive ex-husband. Today the Lord showed me the way. I am so grateful to him and to all who pray for others.—LAURA Praise God for blessing my finances. He has helped me recoup some of my savings. I thank the Lord for his abundant provision.—LENITA I had a surgical procedure done. I was extremely nervous and prayed for peace and success. Both were answered. God is good all the time.—JOHN WESLEY S. Praise God for a lovely walk yesterday.—MARI From our readers and website visitors. Send your answered prayer to submissions@guideposts.org.…

Leah Vidal’s (Star Turn, page 44) decision to leave the future of her daughter Olivia in God’s hands has continued to be rewarded. Now a senior at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Texas, where she made the Dean’s Honor Roll all four years, Olivia will graduate in December with a major in history and a minor in psychology. What’s next on the docket for Olivia? She plans to start law school at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio in August 2024. “I’m so proud of everything that Olivia has accomplished,” Leah says. “She continually amazes me.” Mother and daughter enjoy exploring new interests together. Lately that has included gardening, raising chickens and thrift store shopping. Leah graduated from the Guideposts Writers Workshop in the fall of 2022 and has…