Contributed by Terry Barnhill on May 11, 2010
Here’s a story about a woman who was standing at a bus stop. She had just cashed her tax refund check, so she was carrying more money than usual. She glanced around and noticed a shabbily dressed man standing nearby. As she watched, she saw another man walk up to him, hand him some money, and
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Imagine with me for a moment, if you had a beautiful picture in your home that was worth over a hundred thousand dollars because of the artist who had painted it. It was a one of a kind masterpiece. The artist had put excellence into every stroke of his work The colors were awesome. The depth
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 14, 2010
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FAILURE TO DISEMBARK
There was an important business executive who boarded the New Orleans to Washington train. He had a very important business engagement and he needed to be awakened in order to get off the train in Atlanta about five o'clock in the morning. Since he was a heavy sleeper he found
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 14, 2010
ACCEPTING THIS PART OF THE PLAN
Years ago, the church I was serving did a cantata, during which one of the choir members gave a brief testimony. He was a beloved man who had been battling cancer. After acknowledging that he had asked all the questions and experienced all the emotions he simply
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 7, 2010
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CARRYING US BACK TO OUR ROOM
In a home of which I know, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month, the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctor's diagnosis...the little boy
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 7, 2010
IT MATTERS WHICH WAY YOU GO
In Lewis Carroll's classic story Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, "Which way do I want to go? Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where" says Alice.
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 30, 2010
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A PLEASING AROMA
There was a factory in northern France where lavender for use in perfumes was produced. Each evening as the workers would head for home and walk the streets the little town, the whole village would be filled with the sweet aroma of lavender that had clung to the workers.
That's
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 30, 2010
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THE BIGGER MIRACLE
Pastor Steve Yeschek lost his sister, Judy, after a five-year battle with cancer. She was a woman who, as Steve described her, was a party animal—-a big drinker with a self-contented lifestyle. She was someone everybody loved, because she exuded excitement and a thrill for life.
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
The psychoanalyst Victor Frankl and his friends were imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. It was winter. They had been marched off to work in the morning, spent the day at hard labor, been given only a little thin soup to eat, and then staggered back to camp in the late
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
"Consider Cornelia, a woman imprisoned in a work camp in Romania during the hard years of Communist occupation. One night, being too tired to undress, she fell exhausted on her bed and immediately went to sleep. She began to dream of a beautiful field full of flowers. There was a soft humming sound
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
TABLE PREPARED ON 9/11
Will and John were firefighters called in to do battle with the Twin Towers on that terrible day we call 9-11. They were in one of the towers when it collapsed. After being buried alive under debris all day and into the night, Will had a vision. He saw a bright light and a
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BUECHNER'S UNIQUE LOOK AT FORGIVENESS
Frederick Buechner is a Presbyterian minister and an author, and he has delightful little book called The Alphabet of Grace. It is somewhat like a dictionary of terms that people of faith commonly use, only Mr. Buechner offers some very uncommon reflections on
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NO REST FOR THE UNFORGIVING
Somewhere in the recesses of my memory is the recollection of a movie. It’s a Western; I know that much. I can’t remember the title of the movie, but I remember the story line.
The hero is a law man, and he is transporting a convicted murderer across the treacherous
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REVENGE: A LAZY FORM OF GRIEF
In the 2005 film, The Interpreter, Nicole Kidman plays the role of Sylvia Broome, a United Nations translator who overhears an assassination plot. In one scene in the movie, Sylvia talks about revenge and mercy. She speaks of a primitive tribe and a tradition they
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 16, 2010
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DARK AND STORMY NIGHT
In the Peanuts comic strips, Snoopy often tries to be an author. In one particular strip He's shown on his doghouse typing a novel. He begins his story with, "It was a dark and stormy night." That's the way he always begins his stories. Lucy comes and bluntly shouts, "You
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 16, 2010
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"SO YOU WON'T BE AFRAID"
In one of the Nazi death camps, Solomon Rosenberg lived and suffered with his family. It was a work camp, which meant a person had value and stayed out of the ovens as long as he or she could work. Solomon’s parents, aged and broken, were already gone. Now he feared his
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 9, 2010
A young Ensign, after nearly completing his first overseas cruise, was given an opportunity to display his capabilities at getting the ship underway. With a stream of commands he had the decks buzzing with men, and soon his ship was steaming out of the channel en route to the states. His
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 9, 2010
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RUNNING
Herb Caen wrote, "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 9, 2010
GUI--DANCE
Robert Smith wrote in "Doctrine That Dances":
"When I meditated on the word 'Guidance,' I kept seeing 'dance' at the end of the word. I remember reading that doing God's will is a lot like dancing. When two people try to lead, nothing feels right. The movement doesn't flow with the
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N. T. Wright is the bishop of Durham and a New Testament scholar without equal in my judgment. Bishop Wright describes the kingdom as God’s “ultimate future and urgent present.” What does he mean?
He means what so many others mean when they say the kingdom is both now and not yet. There is a
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