Table of contents for May 2016 in Guideposts

Courage for a Cause Jim Gash (page 34), who helped a young man falsely accused of murder find justice in Uganda, discusses the importance of remaining open to God’s direction. guideposts.org/jgash Let’s Hear It for Mom Celebrate Mother’s Day with some of our favorite quotes honoring moms. guideposts.org/mothersdayquotes The Joy of Grandkids Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes (page 22) says the most transformative experience of her life was not a story she covered. It was becoming a grandmother. In our exclusive video, she talks about the therapeutic effects of grandchildren. guideposts.org/lstahl Mothers of the Good Book From Eve to Mary, mother of Jesus, mothers play a powerful role in the Bible. Learn the stories of these women of Scripture. guideposts.org/biblemothers…

KEY JAR I’m a mother of two boys who also happens to serve in the U.S. Army. When I was on deployment, I did my best to stay in touch with my family: through cards and e-mail, phone calls and video chats. Still, I knew I had missed out on the little day-to-day moments parents have with their kids. The funny things you find out about them, the way they think about stuff. Then I saw a post on Facebook about a jar full of questions created by a teacher and her students that kids could draw from and answer, an activity that livened up conversations around the family dinner table. It was called the key jar, because the questions unlocked the kids’ hearts. I took a look at some…

The second I walked into my kitchen I saw it. A cricket sitting right in the middle of the tile floor. I hated crickets. How would I get any sleep with him chirp, chirp, chirping all night? And I needed sleep, desperately. My whole body ached. I felt tired, light-headed and nauseated, worse than I could ever remember feeling. That was saying a lot. I’d lived with fibromyalgia, a musculoskeletal pain disorder, and other health issues for years. Sometimes I was able to push through my fatigue and pain. This week, though, I couldn’t even seem to get up in the morning. The day before, I’d done the laundry. I had felt so weak taking clothes out of the dryer that I had to sit on the ground and toss…

I’D HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT. I’D take a six-month sabbatical from my teaching job at Pepperdine Law School to help juveniles caught up in the slow-moving Ugandan criminaljustice system get access to justice. Not just me—my whole family would go. My wife, Joline, and I thought we could get our two daughters, Jessica, 15, and Jennifer, 11, and our 13-year-old son, Joshua, involved with a nonprofit organization working at a Ugandan juvenile-detention facility. That we’d made it to Kampala, the capital, was miracle enough. When I’d first sprung the sabbatical idea on the kids the reaction was, well, mixed. Our two girls were definitely not into it. “What would we do all that time?” Jessica asked. “Who would our friends be? Where would we go to school?” Jennifer asked.…

AGNES IS 33 AND LIVES IN Poland, an electrical engineer with a particular interest in renewable energy. She’s also interested in energy of another sort, the spiritual power that comes from prayer. Since Guideposts was founded, more than 70 years ago, readers have sent in their requests for prayer and we have prayed for each and every one. What began with just a handful of letters has grown into millions of requests a year, coming through social media and our website. Go to ourprayer.org to post a request of your own or to pray for others. When you read people’s thanks for answered prayer, you’ll see the power of prayer in action. We couldn’t possibly do this on our own. We have some 3,000 volunteers in 60 different countries, in…

RETIREMENT. I WASN’T JUST looking forward to it. I yearned for it like a desert nomad glimpsing an oasis shimmering in the distance. After 40 years of marriage, of raising five daughters in the Detroit suburbs, of hard work— especially with my husband Joe’s demanding job in management at General Motors—this was finally going to be our time. To really be with each other. To reconnect. To fall in love all over again. Then one terrible moment derailed everything and dispelled my vision of retirement for the mirage it was. Father’s Day, 2012. Joe was newly retired, and we were riding our bikes around the little town of Reed City, Michigan, where we’d just bought a second home to be closer to our daughter Susan and our “up north” grandchildren.…

THE DEATH OF MY HUSBAND, Frank, was still fresh in my mind as I started a process I hoped would be healing—cataloguing the things in his desk. There were a lot. Frank had lived an incredibly full life. His daily calendars attested to that. On the front page of each he had written some sayings, words that I believe he lived by. Here are a few:   Life isn’t mind over matter. It is present over past and present over future. Frank was a veteran of World War II, a recipient of the Purple Heart Medal. On November 15, 1944, he was wounded in Nancy, France, and lost his right forearm. When he awoke in a battlefield hospital his first thought was that he had had a bad dream. He…

Even with her rheumatoid arthritis under control, Rhonda Neal (My Perfect Weakness, page 42) still turns to the advice given in a booklet published by Guideposts Impact that she relied on when her symptoms were at their worst. The pocket-sized guide, called What to Do When…, offers practical suggestions and Scripture passages to help readers deal with 14 common troubles, such as being disappointed, frustrated or discouraged. Rhonda considers the booklet such a good resource that she hands it out to everyone she meets. “It’s a good reminder to manage emotions in a constructive way,” she says. “It helps me step back, trust God and understand that his way allows me to think clearly and sleep well at night.” You can get a free downloadable copy of What to Do…

Maybe you should read Lynne Nichols’s story (page 28) before you read this note. It might make more sense. That story begins with a desperate late-night phone call from Lynne’s drug-addicted son, Ben, who has just been expelled from a sober-recovery house for using drugs again. He has no money, nowhere to go and little hope left for himself. In fact, the large quantity of drugs he has ingested is no accident, as Lynne soon learns. Lynne wrestles with the dilemma of whether coming to her son’s rescue yet again is an act of love or just a continuation of her enabling. It is a quandary many mothers—many parents—face these days as drug addiction, especially opioid dependence, maintains its hold on our country. Many years ago, as I recount in…

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO this month, a group of men met in New York City to form a new organization with a far-reaching mission. It was called the American Bible Society and its founders had a singular goal. “They envisioned the Word of God going across the country,” the current ABS president, Roy Peterson, says. “They had no idea how big the United States would become, but they were determined that each family should have access to an affordable Bible.” Today, billions of people around the world can hear and read Scripture thanks to ABS. The society’s Bibles are available in close to 1,000 different languages, not just in print but also on cell phones and in audio translations. Here’s a look at how ABS has touched lives through the…

MY 93-YEAR-OLD MOTHER was in the hospital in Massachusetts. She was not doing well—her cancer had metastasized and she was weak and tired. Fading, I feared. I was visiting her when I got the call from my daughter, Taylor, who lives in Los Angeles. Her contractions had started. My first grandchild was on the way! I kissed my mom goodbye, promising that I would be back soon, and booked the next flight to L.A. for my husband, Aaron, and myself. I’ve always thought of myself as having enormous self-control. I can hold it together in any situation. That’s what I do in my career as a television journalist. I’ve reported from war zones and challenged heads of state. I have to listen to heart-wrenching stories and remain composed. Not now.…

As a parent you want to pass along your faith to your children. You say grace, go to worship services, teach them their bedtime prayers, maybe lead a religious-studies class. But ultimately what you want is for them to live their faith, and the best way to do that is to have a spiritual adventure. Here are some of the things we learned on ours: Don’t be overprotective. Your kids are stronger than you think. To minister to others, they need to understand their suffering. Our children saw a lot in the slums of Uganda— open sewers, severe malnutrition, families drinking dirty water, the sex trade. At the very least it gave them a better perspective on their life back home. A computer on the blink? A broken air conditioner?…

I CHECKED THE DATE ON THE INVITATION— yes, the baby shower was tomorrow—and slid it back into the envelope. Normally I would’ve made some excuse to avoid going. It was too painful to be around expectant mothers, to celebrate a joy it seemed I would never get to experience for myself. More and more, I’d been feeling as if God had overlooked me. But this shower was different. The parents were friends from the infertility support group my husband, Mickey, and I went to. They’d been trying even longer than we had to start a family. Over the past four years, we’d bonded, praying together for the blessing of a child, comforting one another through round after round of failed treatments and negative pregnancy tests. A few months ago, our…

Home Instead Senior Care interviewed more than 1,000 family caregivers and found that most, like Marilyn Strube, experience a wide range of emotions, from love and accomplishment to resentment and being overwhelmed. It’s normal for major life events to bring conflicting feelings. People tend to hide emotions they think are negative. But anger and frustration are just as natural as joy and love, and you have a right to feel how you feel. In fact, it only stresses you out more to keep emotions buried. Caregivers who hide their feelings are more likely to suffer fatigue, high blood pressure and depression, the interviews showed. Here’s how to cope with the emotions of caregiving: • Acknowledge all your feelings. Remember, there are no good or bad emotions; there are just emotions.…

HEALTH CORRESPONDENT; Clearwater, Florida: Dr. Meir Shinitzky, Ph.D., is a former visiting professor at Duke University, recipient of the prestigious J.F. Kennedy Prize and author of more than 200 international scientific papers on human body cells. But now he’s come up with what the medical world considers his greatest accomplishment-- A vital compound. so powerful, it’s reported to repair… even regrow damaged brain cells. In layman’s terms -- Bring back your memory power. And leave you feeling more focused and clear-headed than you have in years! Dr. Shinitsky explains this phenomenon in simple terms; “Science has shown when your brain nutrient levels drop, you can start to experience memory problems and overall mental fatigue. Your ability to concentrate and stay focused becomes compromised. And gradually, a “mental fog” sets in.…

ALL SMILES As soon as I read The Smile Jar, by Sherry Ortiz (February 2015), about the jar full of jokes and inspiring sayings her daughters gave her, I knew a smile jar would make an amazing Mother’s Day gift. My nine siblings and I all contributed to our 92-year-old mom’s smile jar. She loved it. She looked forward to picking a slip of paper every morning. And because we organized what she’d already read into a binder, she could easily revisit her favorites. Thanks to Sherry and her girls for the wonderful idea! ANITA NELSON Eagan, Minnesota DOCTOR’S ORDERS I got a lot of mail about my January 2016 story, Dr. Chef. Readers asked for the recipes and tips my West Virginia University medical students and I use to…

‘‘What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that God is with me. I know that he’s always been with me. It is evident in everything I have endured— and the fact that I made it through with some sanity.” acclaimed actor and director TYLER PERRY, who survived an abusive childhood “Be so busy enjoying your life that you have no time for hate, regret or fear.” via recoveryexperts.com “Maybe life doesn’t get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we’re willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.” novelist BARBARA KINGSOLVER “There are no ordinary moments.” DAN MILLMAN, author of The Peaceful Warrior “Count your age by friends, not years.” submitted by Guideposts reader SUSAN J. DECUIR, of Carrollton, Texas…

NIGHTTIME PHONE CALLS are never good news when you’re the mother of a drug addict. My phone rang at 10 o’clock on a frigid Friday evening in January. “Mom, it’s Ben.” My 27-year-old son’s voice had the forced it’s-not-as-bad-asit-sounds tone he used whenever his addiction took another disastrous turn. “What’s going on?” I asked, trying to control my own voice. After nearly a decade of doing everything I could to help my son overcome his pain-pill addiction, I’d started going to Al-Anon meetings. I was learning—slowly— how powerless I was to solve Ben’s problems. I’d probably made things worse, enabled him, by rescuing him so many times over the years. “I got kicked out of the sober-living house,” Ben said. “It wasn’t my fault! They found the anxiety medication I…

WHERE’ S MY HEALING? That’s what I wanted to know. Even though I was just sitting on the couch reading a book, my knees felt as though they were on fire. My knuckles, swollen to twice their normal size, throbbed. Fatigue swept over me. It seemed so unfair to be reading about God’s miraculous healing power in someone else when just turning the pages took everything I had. I knew this pain. I knew it well. And I thought I’d put it all behind me. Rheumatoid arthritis. An autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints and sometimes the organs. I’d been in remission for three years. Then came this relapse. It was so bad that for the last two weeks I’d been out sick from my job as…

MEANT FOR ME My beagle, Lucy, was my best buddy. She was by my side during several illnesses, including my recovery from open-heart surgery. She was there when my husband, John, passed away and I faced life as a widow. For 10 and a half years she went with me everywhere. The house felt so empty after she died. Being outside was unbearably lonely without her. “Jesus, I need another little buddy,” I said one day while I took a walk—alone. I considered going to the Humane Society, but the thought of seeing all of those animals abandoned and in cages upset me. Finally I decided to call them up and ask if they had any small dogs in need of a home. “Not at the moment,” I was told.…