Table of contents for June 2016 in Guideposts

Seems to be a spring tradition to have a ballplayer on our cover, going back to the days of Dr. Peale, who liked nothing better than to spend a sunny afternoon at the ballpark hobnobbing with the players and the coaches. We get a lot of suggestions about what ballplayer we should have, usually on the basis of this person or that person’s faith. But just hearing someone thank God for having a high batting average isn’t very convincing. I don’t think God really cares about stats, do you? So why Pittsburgh Pirates all-star center fielder Andrew McCutchen? I was watching last year’s All-Star Game when one of the announcers mentioned a conversation with Andrew. That previous Saturday night, well into the wee hours, Andrew had hit a dramatic fourteenth-inning…

MY YOUNGER SON, JACOB, NINE, IS A Cub Scout. The other night we made an apple pie for a father-son baking contest. The rules were very clear. Everything had to be from scratch and no female was allowed to help. Let me tell you, that piecrust was a real challenge for this single dad. I documented every step with my camera phone— didn’t want the judges to think we took any shortcuts. I hoped to make Jacob proud. The thing is, I didn’t have a great experience as a Cub Scout myself. But then, maybe I wouldn’t have become a rock musician if I had. Let me back up. I am the lead guitarist and music director for the Bret Michaels Band, playing concerts before tens of thousands of fans.…

Major League Faith Ballplayers have a tradition of inspiring sick children. Learn how a sick child inspired all-star Andrew McCutchen (page 28), in our exclusive video. guideposts.org/mccutchen Our Great Outdoors Did you know that the National Park Service, founded under President Wilson, turns 100 this summer? Check out a photo gallery of our 15 favorite national parks, at guideposts.org/natlparks. Celebrate Dads For Father’s Day, we’re paying homage to 13 of our favorite TV dads, from Leave It to Beaver’s Ward Cleaver to Full House’s Danny Tanner. guideposts.org/tvdads Love and Marriage Were you married in June? Even if you weren’t, you will still enjoy this uplifting and amusing collection of quotes about marriage. guideposts.org/marriagequotes…

THE WAITING WAS THE WORST. Waiting in an exam room at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base hospital in Ohio, where I’d finished chemotherapy for Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma a year earlier. Waiting for the oncologist to come in with my lab results. Waiting to see if the little bumps by my collarbone were just residual scar tissue. Waiting, holding my wife Gretchen’s hand, praying we would be given the all clear to live our lives. I was 24 and Gretchen was 23. We’d been married for five years. We had so much ahead of us, didn’t we? Filling the home we’d just built in Michigan with children, making a lifetime of memories together. But one glance at the oncologist’s face as he walked into the room told me that we’d…

IS THERE ANYTHING FUNNY ABOUT cancer? I certainly didn’t think so when I was diagnosed with uterine cancer, in 2014. I was scared out of my mind! I leaned on my husband, Jim, and my friends, family and coworkers at the school where I’d taught social studies for the past 15 years. Everyone asked for updates, so I sent group e-mails recapping my days. A cancer diary of sorts. Here it is. What did I learn about cancer in that tough year? Read on and find out.   September 26 What an eventful week! I went to the hospital and had a port inserted in my chest to administer chemotherapy. The doctor put me in “twilight” instead of knocking me out completely. Big mistake. It made me very chatty. (I…

LAWN ANGEL My daughter Christina had grown up with a father who could do just about anything. He fixed what got broken, kept our huge yard—and even the woods—neat and beautiful. He installed play equipment and built a wonderful playhouse for our girls. Whatever he did, he had a silent observer who was even more determined to pick up his skills than her brothers were. Years later, when Christina found herself a single mother of three little ones, her dad was only a few miles away if she needed him. But she used what she had learned from watching him all that time, and tried to handle any repairs that had to be done around her house herself. Mowing her yard was something she had to depend upon him for,…

‘‘A grateful heart is a magnet for miracles.” posted by actress ROMA DOWNEY on her Instagram “The greatest joys in life are found not only in what we do and feel, but also in our quiet hopes and labors for others.” author BRYANT McGILL “A word of encouragement can make the difference between giving up or going on.” submitted by DELORES CANNON, of Grifton, North Carolina “Faith is what gets you started. Hope is what keeps you going. Love is what brings you to the end.” MOTHER ANGELICA, Franciscan nun, founder of the Eternal Word Television Network “Sign broken. Message inside.” seen outside a church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania “Be strong. You never know who you are inspiring.” submitted by JEREMY CHAN, of Queens, New York “So shines a good deed…

GRADUATION DRESS : check. Shoes: check. Cap and gown: check. Necklace: double check. I was all set for my commencement ceremony. I wanted it to be as perfect as my senior prom had been. The prom nearly hadn’t happened. Despite our limited budget, my class had managed to book the dance at a castle—an old nineteenthcentury armory. Then, one week before it was supposed to take place, we found out that the castle’s event planner had mistakenly scheduled a wedding on the same night! No doubt they would go with the wedding. It was way more profitable. But Mr. Sav, the castle’s owner, did the opposite. He canceled the wedding. On prom night, Mr. Sav seemed to be everywhere, offering hors d’oeuvres, making sure we danced and dined like royalty.…

This might surprise you coming from a romance writer, but I’m married to a man who doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body. Not that my husband, Wayne, doesn’t try. One Valentine’s Day, he bought me a portable urinal (he didn’t want me to suffer without a bathroom when we went for trips in his small plane). He proposed while we were having a tiff, as though that was the only way he knew how to end it. Even so, when Wayne asked me to marry him, I wasn’t about to give him a chance to change his mind. We set the date—September 7, 1968. I picked out my wedding dress, my mother and father made a down payment on the reception hall, and the invitations were ordered. That’s…

RHONDA DIPPED A CHIP INTO the guacamole we were sharing, her eyes never leaving mine. This was only our second date, definitely still in the gettingto-know-each-other phase, yet already I sensed a connection between us. She was super cute. Easy to talk to. But could I really trust my feelings? I mean, look what happened the last time I thought everything was going great. I was married then, with four kids—three daughters and a son. My star was rising career-wise. Customer service and sales came naturally to me, and at just 29, I was the manager of a Target department store in the greater Houston area. I had a strong work ethic, instilled in me by my parents. I put in long hours, proud that I could provide well for…

I ALMOST DIDN’T ANSWER THE phone. What was the point? Probably another bill collector I couldn’t pay. Well, I had to face the music sooner or later. “Mr. Myers?” a woman on the other end of the line said. “I’m a casting producer for the Food Network show Chopped. Remember? You applied to be on the show. Good news. We’d like you to come to New York for a taping.” It had been months since I’d applied to be on my favorite cooking show. I never expected anything to come of it. “You mean—I’m really going to be on?” I asked. Television people never give ironclad promises. “We’d like you to come for a taping. It will be in our studios in Manhattan. You’ll face off against other military chefs.…

NEWLY INSPIRED Last year I bought a used copy of the novel The Penny, about a small act that leads to big changes. I was expecting just a good read, but when the book came, there was an address label inside the front cover. I wrote a letter to the woman at that address, hoping for a pen pal who shared my love of stories. She wrote back. Over the next nine months, we progressed to e-mails and texts. My pen pal gave me a subscription to Guideposts for Christmas. It inspired me right away—I read Rebekkah Hogsett’s Someone Cares (January 2016) about giving away her birthday. On my birthday I left a bouquet on a friend’s porch, and gave other friends baskets containing cake mix and icing. My pen…