You are probably aware that Corrie ten Boom, along with her sister and father, were sent to Ravensbruck, a Nazi concentration camp, for hiding Jews. Her sister and father died there, but Corrie was released, due to a “clerical error.” And the Kingdom of God is better off for it. Corrie ten Boom likened…

Years ago I read a moving story about a young man who had quarreled with his father and left home. He continued to keep in touch with his mother, and wanted very badly to come home for Christmas, but he was afraid his father would not allow him. His mother wrote to him and urged him to come home, but…

\\ Restoring Joy to Your Life by Michael Zigarelli The quote is attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a member of the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty years. At one point during his term, Justice Holmes was asked about his choice of career and whether he had considered other vocations. He responded…

Are you allowing your hurts to turn into hates? If so, ask yourself: Is it working? Has your hatred done you any good? Has your resentment brought you any relief, any peace? Has it granted you any joy? Let’s say you get even. Let’s say you get him back. Let’s say she gets what she deserves. Let’s say…

In a cemetery not far from New York City is a headstone engraved with a single word: FORGIVEN. The message is simple, unembellished. There is no date of birth, no epitaph. There is only a name and the solitary word FORGIVEN. But that is the greatest word that can be applied to any man or woman, or written…

A mother’s decision to forgive the boy, who murdered her only son, has had a bigger impact than she could have imagined. In 1993, a 16-year-old killed Mary Johnson’s son Laramiun during an argument at a party. Mary wanted justice and said the killer, Oshea Israel, deserved to be caged because he was…

A new App called Confession is available for the iPhone and iPad. With it, a Roman Catholic can confess their sins remotely, without visiting a confessional or a priest. A Roman Catholic bishop has approved its use. The App allows them to type their sins into a confessional box and receive instructions…

Communion For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. [27] Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. [28] But let a man examine himself, and so let…

Imagine that you are running in a race, and you’re trying to reach the goal and ultimately win the prize. But as hard as you try you can never get to the finish line because there is a heavy weight tied around one of your legs. You struggle to pull it along, but it slows you down and causes you to be…

The events of December 7, 1941 changed the world forever. That day also marked the beginning of a change for one of the men who attacked Pearl Harbor. Mitsuo Fuchida was hand selected by Admiral Yamamoto to lead the Japanese attack, and took great pride in the devastation his forces inflicted. Fuchida…

CONFESSION Estelle Fusco couldn't believe what her cousin was saying. Her cousin's husband is a Naval officer with a new duty station in Italy. When the movers delivered their belongings to their new quarters they smelled a terrible odor. Finally, after opening several boxes they found the source of…

There's a Spanish story of a father and son who had become estranged. The son ran away, and the father set off to find him. He searched for months to no avail. Finally, in a last desperate effort to find him, the father put an ad in a Madrid newspaper. The ad read: Dear Paco, meet me in front of this…

Simon Wiesenthal lost 89 relatives in Hitler’s death camps. One day he was yanked out of a work detail and taken up a back stairway to a dark hospital room. A nurse led him into the room, then left him alone with a figure wrapped in white, lying on a bed. The figure was a badly wounded German soldier,…

You are probably aware that Corrie ten Boom, along with her sister and father, were sent to Ravensbruck, a Nazi concentration camp, for hiding Jews. Her sister and father died there, but Corrie was released, due to a “clerical error.” And the Kingdom of God is better off for it. Corrie ten Boom likened…

Are Your Potatos Heavy ? by: Author Unknown, Source Unknown A teacher once told each of her students to bring a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes to school. For every person they refuse to forgive in their life's experience, they chose a potato, wrote on it the name and date, and put it in the…

Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Jew spent four-and-a-half years in various Nazi concentration camps during WWII. Wiesenthal, one of the few to survive the atrocities of the Holocaust, recounts a harrowing story in his memoir, The Sunflower. While working to clear rubbish from a make-shift hospital, a nurse…

God's Autograph in the Sky Have you ever watched children build a "castle" out of Lego blocks? They don't develop architectural drawings or do structural analysis, instead, they just start sticking blocks together. On rare occasions, they cooperate, usually the play time ends when one child gets frustrated…

man pardoned by then-Gov. Edwin Edwards after serving six years of a life sentence for his role in the 1973 killing of a Baton Rouge drugstore owner said Thursday he will appeal a state judge’s refusal to erase the murder conviction from his record. Forest Hammond said he first will file a motion asking…

Shortly after the turn of the century, Japan invaded, conquered, and occupied Korea. They overwhelmed the Koreans with a brutality that would sicken the strongest of stomachs. One group singled out for concentrated oppression was the Christians. When the Japanese army overpowered Korea one of the first…

FORGIVENESS On November 12, 2006, Frank, a follower of Christ, and his wife Becca were walking in Denver with their two children, Macie, four years old, and Garrison, two. Mom and Dad were pushing Macie and Garrison in a side-by-side stroller. As they crossed an intersection, a drunk driver named Lawrence…

FORGIVENESS A Grinch of sorts was busy in South Florida this past holiday season. On Christmas Eve, Ron and Helen Meijer found a ransom note in their front-lawn nativity scene. The plastic baby Jesus had been kidnapped. The kidnappers did not demand money. Instead, they made a demand the Meijers refused…

One of the main characters in the movie Seabiscuit is a broken-down, unemployed cowboy named Tom Smith. Millionaire Charles Howard, who is about to engage in a horse racing enterprise, has a campfire interview with Smith, and asks why he bothered rescuing an old, lame horse that was sentenced to death…

Stephen "And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Acts 7:60 Stephen preached a gospel message to those who gathered to hear him speak, but unlike his friend Peter, he did not see three thousand people saved.…

There are some secular organizations that are just giving up. They are charged to help people out of bondage, but, apart from the gospel, they are finding it impossible, so they are just giving up. That’s what Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Services Center is doing. It's spending $11 million on permanent…

Millions have seen Nick Ut's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc (pronounced "fuke"). On June 8, 1972, a napalm bomb was dropped on her village. Phuc, who was just nine-years-old at the time, ran crying from her hiding place in the village temple in Vietnam. Ut's picture shows Phuc's arms…