Table of contents for June 2017 in Guideposts

Father’s Day Gifts That Matter Tired of giving Dad a tie? Try one of these meaningful—and free—ways to show him your love. Whether it’s quality time or a handwritten note, there’s something here for every dad. guideposts.org/fathersday Summer Prayers Ferris wheels. Lemonade stands. Long days at the beach. Beautiful sunsets. Give thanks for the blessings of the season with this collection of prayers by Executive Editor Rick Hamlin. guideposts.org/summerprayers Keep Moving! Be inspired by Tom Lough (page 64), a pentathlete at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. Check out our video where he lauds the benefits of remaining physically active, no matter what your age. guideposts.org/tlough Always By His Side In this moving memoir, Editor-in-Chief Edward Grinnan pays tribute to the dogs in his life, especially his beloved golden…

PAPER LADY What made me give up my couch potato ways? An upcoming four-day hike in the Grand Canyon with my daughter. And the desire to ward off Alzheimer’s, which had struck my mother. I started walking and jogging around my neighborhood to get in shape. One morning I noticed a neighbor struggling to bend down and pick up his newspaper, so I grabbed it to give to him. The next morning, I saw the paper on the lawn. It took less than a minute to take it to his front porch. That was the pattern until the day he caught me in the act. He explained that he has Parkinson’s disease, which makes it hard to get down the porch steps to fetch the paper. After that, I started…

MY CELL PHONE RANG JUST as my husband, Mike, and I were starting the dinner dishes. I tossed my dishrag aside. The dishes could wait! “It’s time!” I said. We rushed to the couch and squished together in front of my phone. This was the moment we’d been waiting for all night. A FaceTime call with our fourmonth- old granddaughter, Grace. I accepted the video call, and a baby with curly red hair popped onto the screen. “Hello there, sweetheart!” I said. Mike and I waved at Grace like paparazzi trying to get a celebrity’s attention. The picture wobbled slightly, and then my son-in-law, Aaron, appeared on the screen too. Looked like my daughter, Kate, was still at work. She was a software engineer, and Aaron was a stay-at-home dad.…

Zach Short: Harvest time. That’s when it gets crazy busy for farmers. We work from first light until dark, not stopping for anything. All that matters is getting the crop in. My family’s been farming for four generations here in Kansas, and I can tell you, it’s not just a job. It’s a life. It’s in your blood, your soul. We raise milo, corn, soybeans, wheat and hay. We also run a shop where we rebuild combines, and we use our equipment to harvest crops for other farmers. On that day, October 25, 2014, we’d been hired to cut soybeans. Our friend John Tinkler was in a tractor hitched to a grain cart, unloading the beans into a semi via a tall metal auger. I was in my combine. Our…

IT WAS A FRIGID FEBRUARY PREdawn morning. I stood on an airfield tarmac, dwarfed by the vast, open landscape around me. I tugged my collar tight against an icy wind and gazed skyward, searching for a blue-white light amid a sea of shimmering stars—the headlight of a plane carrying 170 soldiers home from combat in Afghanistan. I was at a military airbase, waiting with a group of officers. In a few moments, we would be the welcoming committee for those soldiers, the first faces they would see as they set foot back on American soil. It was an awesome responsibility. These soldiers had been deployed for more than a year. They had been dreaming of this moment. What was I doing here? I wasn’t a soldier. I’d never served in…

MY WIFE, POSY, AND I MADE our way around a local track one spring day in 2008. Slowly. I was still rehabbing the leg I’d injured running. That’s when the idea came to me. “You know, this October marks forty years since the Mexico City Olympics,” I said. “What if I organized a reunion? What do you think?” Posy stopped and, for the longest time, just stared at me. “Tom, you have so much going on right now, with your treatments and all,” she said. “Please, can you not do this?” She had a point. When I’d turned 65 the previous year, it seemed as if my body had started falling apart. “I guess my warranty expired,” I’d joked to Posy. First, I’d found myself getting winded climbing stairs to…

“ My true passion is using the arts to help erase the stigma of subjects like mental illness,” says Danita LaShelle Jones (A Silent Prayer, page 54). Her company, Productions by Danita Jones, is preparing for the August debut of The Color of GREEN, a show that will use dance and spoken word to discuss schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, personality disorders and PTSD. “I hope it opens up a dialogue so people affected by mental illness, even caregivers, get the help they need.” Find out more at iheartsmartart .com. While Danita will be busy helping set the stage, her kids—Ethan, 10, Layna, 7, and Hope and Caleb, 5— just plan to relax. The Joneses might travel to a family reunion, and though the twins will be getting ready to start…

You’ll love the cover story this issue. Typically we feature a single person, often a celebrity but not always. This month we feature a story we’ve bylined “The People of Saline County, Kansas.” How can that be? Two years ago, a young man named Zach Short, who has a family farm in Assaria, Kansas (that’s Zach with his wife, Jodi, and their daughter, Brynlee, on the cover), suffered a 7,200-volt electrical shock that should have killed him. As it was, the doctors did not hold out much hope for Zach to live, never mind to farm again or even walk. Worse, the accident came at the beginning of harvest, a critical time for a farmer. The people of Assaria and Saline County pitched in with their muscles and their prayers.…

IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW ANY BETTER, YOU MIGHT MIStake Heidi and me for sisters. Let me explain. My twin sister, Sandi, died last February. When that earthly bond was severed, it left a terrible void in my life, something that perhaps only a twin could understand. I took to walking my little dog, Buddy, near the Cuyahoga River while I prayed. I asked God to fill that void. Then I met Heidi through DogVacay, a service that links up dog owners with sitters. My husband and I were going away. We needed someone to watch Buddy and hired Heidi. When I came to pick him up after the vacation, I could see that she and Buddy had hit it off. Heidi and I did too. I liked how her face…

THERE’S AN OLD SAYING, “IF you have a heart and a shirt, sell your shirt and go to Italy.” At age 22, with not much more than a shirt—money I’d earned from painting my sister’s house and doing odd summer jobs—I’d had enough to buy a ticket to Italy and stay there for a little while. I had just finished college and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I figured whatever it was would be more interesting in Italy. I packed a portable typewriter in my Scotch plaid suitcase, kissed my parents goodbye and made my way by jet, boat and train to Florence, where I assumed I could live cheaply in a rented room and on mounds of authentic Italian pasta. I dreamed of…

They’re going to find out. I traveled a lot for my job as CEO of Caron Treatment Centers, one of the largest and most respected addiction treatment programs in the country. Usually alone, which was how I’d managed to keep my secret for so long. THEY’RE GOING TO FIND OUT. This time, Caron had a full week of events scheduled in Florida. Strategic planning sessions, meetings with potential donors, fund-raisers… Almost every hour of every day, all eyes would be on me. They’re going to find out. There was no way I could keep up the façade the whole time. Or was there? My wife, Frances, had mentioned that our daughter Teresa would be on spring break from college that same week. So I invited Teresa to join me. With…

I’VE ALWAYS CONSIDERED MYSELF the sort of person who gets things done—a mom, wife, playwright and worship manager at our church. Need a drama for church on Sabbath? No problem. One of my kids up all night with a flu bug? I can handle that. Husband’s job takes him out of town for a week? We’ll manage. No challenge is too big for me as long as I depend on my “call and answer” relationship with God. I’ve always called on God. There was a time, though, when I thought he’d stopped answering. It started when I was expecting twins. My husband, Paul, and I had two children already, five-year-old Ethan and one-year-old Layna. I figured twins would be a challenge, but I hoped they’d be a double blessing as…

Nonstick cooking spray, for coating pint jars 3 cups granulated sugar 1 cup vegetable shortening 6 large eggs 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 container (8 ounces) sour cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 teaspoon lemon or almond extract ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon baking soda “For bountiful sunshine, For nourishing grace, Dear Lord, For thy goodness we thank thee.”DANIELLE ELISKA LYLE, Editor Jar Cakes Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray inside 9 widemouth pint jars with cooking spray, wipe off rims, and set aside. Using an electric mixer at medium speed, cream together sugar and shortening in mixing bowl until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Using mixer at medium speed, mix in remaining ingredients until well incorporated, scraping bowl as needed. Fill…

BOOKLET BONUS My church has a ministry called Prayers in the Park. Every Sunday afternoon, we take lunch and prayers to our neighbors downtown. We meet people from all walks of life, including many who are homeless. Thanks to January’s Family Room, we now also take Guideposts inspirational booklets like “Spirit Lifters” and “Hope.” Reader Lisa Brom had said her church’s homeless program gave away Guideposts booklets with its bagged lunches. With one email to outreach@ guideposts.org, we got a generous supply for Prayers in the Park. The booklets are a big hit. One of our regulars gives extras to friends. Another was glad to see some in Spanish. Our prayers for our ministry to have a greater impact have been answered. KEN KEETON Greensboro, North Carolina PEN PALS I…

“ My two mottos are: ‘If you empty the cup every time, it will come back twice as full’ and ‘Love, laugh, live and give.’ That’s how I live my life.” QUINCY JONES, music legend and humanitarian “The only way I know to be successful is to take what everybody else is doing and do a little bit better.” CHRIS ARCHER, Tampa Bay Devil Rays pitcher “Happiness grows from the inside—water it.” message on the side of a Polar seltzer water bottle “Love keeps us going, and hope moves our feet.” MARIA GOFF, from the book Love Lives Here: Finding What You Need in a World Telling You What You Want “To know God is to need God.” ESTHER FLEECE, from the book No More Faking Fine “Help is a…

IF YOU KNOW MY BOOKS, YOU KNOW that knitting weaves its way into my writing. It all goes back to when I was a girl. I wasn’t a good student. My thirdgrade teacher told my mom, “Debbie will never do well in school.” I didn’t learn to read until I was in the fifth grade, and math might as well have been a foreign language. I prayed for something I could be good at, and I became drawn to knittin Apparently, I had yarn in my genes. My grandmother was a whiz at crocheting. But she died when I was young. My mom was clueless when it came to knitting. So she took me to the yarn shop in our town of Yakima, Washington, and asked the owner, “Could you…

I sat on my front porch, the letter in my hand, staring at my burgundy five-speed Pontiac Grand Prix and wondering what to do. The car had been in and out of the shop lately. One week a computer chip fried; another week it was the steering column. I held my breath every time I turned the key. And now this. I read the letter again. The major manufacturing company I worked for was shutting down our plant for retooling. I’d been offered a temporary job at our facility in Baltimore, a seven-hour round-trip drive from my home in New Jersey. I was a single parent. I couldn’t afford to move or pull my daughter out of school, but I needed that job. The only choice would be to leave…

SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF Idaho, far from the comfort and safety of our home in upstate New York, my daughter was probably huddled in the grass beside her bicycle. No roof over her head. No one to take care of her. How could I have let her do this? I wondered. Six months earlier, I’d been scrolling through Facebook when I saw that my youngest daughter, Deborah, had updated her status: Should I delay grad school to go on a cross-country bike trip? Was she joking? She’d just graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in geology. Graduate school was the next step. Obviously. My eyes widened as I scrolled through the comments: “Go for it, Debz!” “This might be your only chance!” Even our pastor chimed in. “This…

OUR DAILY BREAD Two eggs. Half a jar of pickles. A jar of strawberry jam. A slice of cheese. Butter. That’s all the food we had in the house. Not enough to make dinner for my husband, David, our one-year-old daughter, and me. “Let’s pray,” David said. I would have suggested going to my parents’ house. Except we’d been having a lot of dinners over there lately and David hated feeling as if he were relying on them to take care of our family. He was a good provider. Still, because we were farmers, our lives were never completely secure. We had dairy cows in the barn and corn to plant in our fields the next day. But some unexpected expenses earlier that month had left us short. We didn’t…