The Roark family’s Christmas Eve tradition is an at-home reenactment of the first Christmas. They use figures from the nativity scene, light candles and let family members, including the kids, take on the roles. Try their script at your house. READ MORE: The Christmas Story in 5 Bible Passages THE FIRST CHRISTMAS A play in two […]
It was one of the most memorable church Christmas pageants. The young, unprepossessing girl who played Mary was walking down the center aisle and suddenly came into her own. Reciting Mary’s prayer of praise—the Magnificat as it’s called—she didn’t skip a beat. “It must have been the Holy Spirit,” I thought, those matchless words and […]
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…—Luke 2:13 Surely one of the most vivid and beloved passages in the Bible is the one where the heavens themselves seemed to explode with joy on the night when Christ was born. Mary and Joseph had come from Galilee to Bethlehem to […]
Just a few more minutes and school would be over for the day. I packed up my books and straightened my uniform, the same one worn by every girl at Blessed Sacrament Catholic School in St. Louis, Missouri. Finally the bell rang. “Bye, Sister,” I called as I passed her at the door. I followed […]
Clergyman and author Dr. Norman Vincent Peale offers us this beautiful Advent devotion to help us prepare for this holy time of year. READ MORE: What is the True Meaning of Advent? The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream…. —Matthew 1:20 Do you have a guardian angel? Does everyone have a […]
Uncle Peter and I headed down the wooden walkway toward the ocean with our beach towels in hand. “Too bad no one else wanted to join us!” he said. We’d left the rest of the family back at the picnic tables, but there was no way I was going to miss the chance for a […]
My wife Angela and our children were deep in slumber when I arose before dawn and walked down to the lake behind our vacation cabin at Lake Mohawk. I began pulling weeds, one of my favorite ways to unwind — quiet and simple compared to my job as a cardiologist. This was just what I […]
With my husband away on a business trip, I planned to spend a quiet weekend at home. But when my friend Chickie and her husband, Dom, invited me to join them for an afternoon at the beach, I was tempted. “I had an asthma attack yesterday, and it really tired me out,” I warned them. […]
Some time ago, when I decided to preach a sermon on angels, I found practically nothing in my library. Upon investigation, I soon discovered that little had been written on the subject in this century. This seemed a strange and ominous omission. Bookstores and libraries have shelves of books on demons, the occult and the […]
There was no place I’d rather be on a Sunday morning than in a church pew with my wife, Angela, especially when our daughter, Marissa, was sitting between us. But wanting to be there didn’t keep my mind from wandering. Such was life with ADHD. It didn’t take much to distract me, especially during the […]
Back in Biblical times, angels abounded, and when they spoke, they had something important to say! They are evident a lot in the story of Christ’s birth. I wrote in my last post how an angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph in a dream and visited Mary. We find the presence of angels once […]
I admit, when it comes to Christmas, I can be a bit of a curmudgeon. Okay, maybe more than a bit. I can’t stand the rampant commercialization of the holiday. The forced good cheer. The profligate gift-giving. I know Christmas brings joy to many. But I also know it leaves others feeling sad and lonely. […]
Each Christmas my husband, Walter, and I are surrounded by familiar faces from all over. They aren’t exactly friends who’ve traveled near and far. They’re more than that—they’re angels. Really. It started in 1958 when we made a pact to travel as much as we could with our two young daughters. Don’t get me wrong, […]
For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways. —Psalm 91:11 (NKJV) While shopping at the estate sale of a woman who was moving to a retirement community, I happened upon the prettiest gold pin nestled inside yellowed tissue paper in an old, red and gold gift box. […]
In the late 1960s my husband and I were raising four sons. Television news was filled with devastating reports of the war in Vietnam. My heart especially reached out to the children in that faraway country. My husband was a Korean War veteran, and we had always felt drawn to Asian culture. Now, with little […]
Anybody who asked me about babies when I was a little girl got the same answer: I would rather have puppies. I’ve sure changed since then, I thought as I stepped into the pre-dawn darkness one September morning. My job started at 6:00 a.m., so this time of year I made the 45-minute commute in […]
The last thing I remembered, I was sitting in my hospital room, recovering from the birth of my second child, a daughter. It was February, 1971. After a long, difficult delivery my husband and parents had gone home to rest. The baby was in the hospital nursery. I was ready to sleep too. Then my […]
It was 2:45 a.m. according to the clock radio on my night table. I strained my ears for the sound of my son David’s car pulling up to the house, but heard nothing. Will this be the night he doesn’t make it home at all? Of my five children David had always attracted the most […]
I was celebrating with friends in our apartment complex on New Year’s Eve, 1986, when the turn in my life took place. It had been a good year. Only 26 years old and selling photographic equipment, I was doing just what I wanted with my life. Or so I thought. I was also doing a […]
The weather report explained the record-breaking cold this Friday as a polar vortex. With the wind-chill factor, it was minus 45 degrees outside. Snow was on its way. We won’t be able to bring Suzan home this afternoon, I thought, looking sadly out the window. Our daughter had started her freshman year at Kent State […]
My wife, Arbutis, and I graduated high school in May 1960 and wed that June. We couldn’t wait to start our married life! We set up house in Knoxville, Tennessee, enjoyed a newlyweds’ summer and watched the fall leaves change together. But that winter, on our first Christmas Eve as husband and wife, I was […]
One summer evening when I was a little girl, I sat with my grandmother on her big front porch, listening to her stories about long-ago cotillions and balls. I could hear lively music coming from the apple orchard nearby. “Is someone having that kind of party now?” I asked. “Not exactly,” Grandmother said. She explained […]
“The Lord will give her twice as many blessings….” —Isaiah 40:2 (TLB) My daughter dealt with a multitude of serious issues after the abrupt end of her marriage. Along with the pain of a shattered family, Rebecca had to relocate and give up her job of ten years. She found an affordable apartment, a good […]
Just a generation ago, near-death experiences (if acknowledged at all) were usually dismissed as chemical or anesthesia side effects, or products of a vivid imagination. Today, due to the research of professionals such as Raymond Moody, we now know that a person can go through a “death,” meet angels, saints and even Jesus during this […]
With some free time on our hands before the Thanksgiving kickoff to the holiday season, my husband, Tony, and I took an afternoon drive. The trees along the winding streets were lit up in brilliant oranges, reds and golds that made me think of the sparkly Christmas decorations we would soon be hanging. We went […]
Of all the television series I have produced in the past 12 years, none has affected me more than the one that came to my attention in the spring of 1994. That’s when CBS asked me if I would be executive producer of a new show called Touched By An Angel. “We’ll send you a […]
Boxes filled the bedroom. We had only days to go before my daughter, J.J., and I had to move. But I was having second thoughts. Downstairs, the front door slammed and J.J. called up to me. “Mama,” she said. “Guess what? I saw another angel today!” I wasn’t too surprised. With all the time J.J. […]
Hagar worked as a servant for Abraham and his wife Sarah. Sarah was unable to have children, and as was a common practice of the time, Sarah offered her servant, Hagar, to Abraham in hopes she would conceive. Hagar became pregnant, but Sarah grew jealous and upset about the situation and threw her out of […]
This morning I walked in to a bunch of New York Times newspaper clippings scattered across my desk, each one from a different coworker, every one the same story—about an angel with a cellphone. It seems a Dutch sculptor won a 1997 competition to create new statues for the ancient St. John the Evangelist Cathedral […]
I didn’t go to Grace Church in Manhattan with angels on my mind. I was there to talk about prayer, leading a class before worship. It was only later that I caught sight of the stained-glass window in the back of the nave, the angels ascending and descending on Jacob’s ladder, seeming to fly right […]
“Jordan! Julia!” I called, pouring orange juice so fast that it splashed on the table. “Get dressed right away—we’re late!” I hadn’t been a single mom for all that long, but I’d been optimistic about the new year. For my children’s sake, I’d sworn I was going to be the best I could be, and […]
Sports have been part of my life ever since I was a little girl in Gloversville, New York. I was in the pool at the Y every chance I got. I begged my parents for a bike like the big kids, but I was five and had to start with training wheels. It was a […]
