SACRIFICE Hilda Mason served as an active Washington D.C. city council member into her 80's. She didn't serve her city alone. Her husband, Charlie Mason, assisted her in her work for more than twenty years. How did he find the time? He went the second mile and gave up his law practice to be her assistant.…

Middle school student Makenna Finnegan was running to set a new personal best time, when she stopped to help a struggling runner. Finnegan passed the other runner and noticed that she was holding her stomach and struggling to keep moving. Finnegan asked what was wrong and the girl said she had a bad…

Sometimes comfort needs to be more than words. “The New York Times reports that touch is its own complicated, highly accurate, highly effective signaling system.” They interpret that to mean that high fives and sympathetic touches can say more than words. --Reader’s Digest, May 2010, p24 Illustration…

Actor Tommy Lee Jones said, “Kindness and politeness are not overrated at all. They’re underused.” --Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell The Week, October 24, 2014 p. 15. Galatians 5:22 (HCSB) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,

New research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology has found that being rude is contagious. Researchers tracked 90 graduate business school students and found that if they rated someone they interacted with a rude, they were also more likely to be judged as rude by someone else. The researcher…

Tone John 2:3-4 KJV "And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. [4] Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." Do you think Jesus' words are an appropriate way for a 30-year-old son to speak to His mother? I used to take…

An Alabama pharmacist surprised his employees and encouraged an entire community when he paid his employees unexpected bonuses with two dollar bills. Danny Cottrell gave his full time employees $700 and the part timers $300, initiating his own stimulus plan. The only thing Cottrell asked was that the…

Leaders attending the GC2 Summit at a Chicago church urged believers to reach out to those in need such as Syrian refugees. They said that despite anxieties over differences of religion, reaching out to people is an opportunity to preach the Gospel. The GC2 Conferences stands for both the Great Commission…

GIVING Officials at the Louisiana Baptist Convention are used to receiving donations, but a recent gift was unexpected and extraordinary. A group of twenty men from the Island of Sumatra sent a gift of $854 to help those hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. The men experienced the tragedy of natural disaster…

CONFRONTATION In his column for REV Magazine, Charles Lowery writes about a friend that loved him enough to tell him the truth. After complaining about some lower back pain, his friend said to him, “your back isn’t your problem, Charles, it’s your stomach. Your stomach is so big it’s pulling on your…

In his book, The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken tells the story of a Southern Gentleman, “Bubba”, who responded with kindness in a difficult situation. The setting is war-torn Somolia, where Ripken served as a missionary, bringing relief to those caught in the war-famine-refugee-poverty cycle. It was a…

The night before the 2010 election, two political opponents had a unique meeting. Steven Duggar and Steve Holmes were both running for a position on the Henry County Indiana Council in District 3. As he drove home that evening, Duggar stopped to help at an accident scene, to his surprise, one of the…

When Charles and Frances Hamlin celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary, they decided to see if they could recreate everything, including the $8 price. The Hamlins still had the original receipt from the Poinsett from 1947. Today, a room in the hotel costs between $250 and $300, although Hamlin said…

Clinebell & McKeever write, “. . . spiritual support can be crucial in enabling the renewal of purpose, direction, and a robust sense of mission. It can also help people find deeper meaning in the struggles in which they are engaging.” --Basic Types of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 97. 1 Thessalonians…

In the book, Forgiveness and Health: Scientific Evidence and Theories Relating Forgiveness to Better Health, the authors write, “Unforgiveness has been positively associated with psychological disorders including depression, anxiety, and PTSD.” In other words, not forgiving others hurts your mental health.…

Having not being notified of a hospital board meeting, Dr. Edwin West was the only Doctor available near the newborn nursery on a spring day back in 1976. A call went out for him to look at a prematurely born baby who had stopped breathing. He did mouth to face breathing, face because the baby’s face…

Researchers have found that certain types of behavior may be contagious. In an article published in the Harvard Business review, researchers found that when a supervisor is unkind at work, employees have a strong tendency to act the same way. The research encourages business leaders to be as positive…

There is no greater gift than the gift of life. While perusing her Reddit feed last fall, Jennifer Moss came across a desperate plea from 26-year-old Kayla Davis. Davis had been on daily kidney dialysis for three years. She needed a kidney transplant and the wait for a kidney in her portion of the U.S.…

23-year-old Christine Royles of Portland, Maine needed a kidney transplant. Instead of just waiting for a donor she got creative. She put a sign on the back of her car asking strangers to consider donating. Josh Dall-Leighton saw the sign in a mall parking lot and told his wife, “I have to try.” The…

When she turned 38 years old, Robyn Bomar decided to spend her special day doing 38 random acts of kindness for others. She put money in parking meters, rounded up shopping carts in a store parking lot, and gave balloons to children who were shopping with their parents. She had not planned to say anything…

During the heavy snowfall in the Milwaukee area of 2010, three neighborhood boys decided to brave the elements so their neighbors didn’t have to. Rasheed Harris, his brother Koran, and their cousin Rahagee Burns began early in the morning with the wind whipping, and the snow swirling. The boys began…

In the book, Forgiveness and Health: Scientific Evidence and Theories Relating Forgiveness to Better Health, the authors write, “Findings indicate that state forgiveness (i.e., forgiveness of a specific offense and offender) and trait forgivingness (i.e., a general disposition to forgive) are both inversely…

Blake McJunkin, the center for the SMU football team, displays passages from God’s word on his social networking site. Recently, he put one of his favorites in practice by protecting Aggies safety Trent Hunter in a dangerous situation. Hunter intercepted the football during the first quarter of the game,…