Subscribe  

Friday, May 13, 2005

When my wife gets a headache I tease her that pain always attacks at the weakest point. What a sensitive guy I am! Actually, a while back she was having headaches every day and burning eyes and stinging eyes. And she attributed it to the long hours that she was working. She barely even noticed that her vision was slowly becoming worse. Well, after some time went by, she did take some time to see the optometrist and he said, "Lady, you need glasses!" That was the day her eyes stopped burning, the headaches stopped, and the road signs suddenly cleared up. She only had one regret. She said, "Why did I wait so long?"

Thursday, May 12, 2005

We have a hummingbird feeder and those busy little guys are fascinating to have as back porch visitors. You've probably seen them. Their wings go so fast you can hardly even see their wings. They're God's original helicopters! They hover, they fly backwards and sideways. I love to watch them, and do they love sugar! My wife mixes up this red liquid that's basically sugar water and they flock to it. Then they'll fly off in this burst of acrobatic energy only to return a few minutes later for a refill. Now, I've been told that if they go very long without some sugar, whether it's the natural kind they get from flowers or from our backyard potion, they become sort of catatonic or maybe "birdatonic." If hummingbirds could talk human talk you'd probably hear them sing as they come back for their 47th consecutive drink, "Must have sugar, must have sugar!"

Monday, May 9, 2005

Sometimes during pro football games the camera focuses on a single player on the sidelines, the guy who just made that great play. And he'll look at the camera and he'll say those two words they almost always say, "Hi Mom!" See, it's just and indication of the debt that a lot of people owe to the love of their mother.

Friday, May 6, 2005

She must have been scared to death. She wasn't a public speaker, but that day she agreed to speak to 70,000 people in a football stadium in the Northwest. It was the last day of Billy Graham's Crusade in her city. And he had asked her to read a letter she'd received from her son. It was the end of the first Gulf War, and the troops were coming home; except for a relatively few American soldiers who weren't coming home and her son was one of them. He had died in a helicopter crash on the last day of the war. He had written a letter to his mother and given it to a good friend with instructions to mail it only if he was killed. Now she shared that letter with the masses in that stadium, knowing that her son still had something to say by way of what he had written. His letter said: "Mom, if you're reading this letter, it means I didn't make it. But that's OK, Mom. Because now, for the first time, I'm smarter than you are! Because Mom, I've seen heaven. I've seen Jesus!"

Thursday, May 5, 2005

They just had the battle of the Little Big Horn again, and Custer lost this time too. Actually it was part of a movie on the life of the great Oglala Lakota chief Crazy Horse. My Lakota friend, Jerry, was asked to be one of Crazy Horse's warriors in the movie. Now, one challenge was riding bareback. They had to do that full speed in the battle scenes, and of course, the big scene was the portrayal of Custer's last stand. Now, interestingly enough, Jerry can't even find himself in those scenes because the warriors were going by so fast in a cloud of dust. Someone asked him how many warriors they needed to reenact a battle that involved so many Indians. He said, "Oh, about 80." Hollywood of course is all about illusion, so they just had these 80 guys charge up to the soldiers, turn their horses sharply and circle around again and again and again. There weren't nearly as many warriors on the other side as it looked like in the movie. Custer might have wished that the real odds might have been that even.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

It was one of those unrehearsed Presidential moments that capture America's Chief Executive in situations you might never otherwise see. After George W. Bush's Second Inauguration, there was a prayer service at the National Cathedral, and an offering was taken for which the President was apparently unprepared. What the camera captured was his Father, Former President Bush, reaching over his son's shoulder from the pew behind him. He was slipping the President of the United States some money to put in the offering plate. It all happened pretty quickly and pretty skillfully, but the camera got it, and you just had to smile.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

It was early last February, and we had just gotten several inches of snow - that wet, heavy kind. As you probably know, February is about the time that cabin fever starts to set in for those of us who have something called winter, and we're really ready for the cold to be over. Well, it isn't at that point; usually for a few more weeks. But I saw something so amazing that day of the February snow that I went for my camera to take pictures of it. On the south side of our shed, I saw something just barely peaking out from the snow. It was the shoots of our yellow daffodils! I brushed off the snow and I captured it on film - the promise of a coming spring in the middle of a very wintry day!

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

It was Moving Day! If you've ever moved from one house to another, across the street or across the country, you know how much fun it can be. And if you think it's fun, you've obviously never done it. Our daughter and son-in-law and their two boys had moved a lot of their belongings to a temporary house while major repairs were being done on their house. A few weeks after they hauled a lot of their life into their temporary home, they got to move it out again and back into their real home. We all pitched in, and there were a lot of trips back and forth with armloads of boxes and bags, and loading everything into several family vehicles. Our three-year-old grandson was watching all the work going on, and as he heard some of us discussing what was still left to do, he quickly volunteered his personal perspective. We hadn't yet asked him to do anything, but he still turned to walk away with these words on his lips: "I'm not available right now."

Monday, April 4, 2005

I don't think I've ever "teared up" during a President's State of the Union Address to Congress - until one unforgettable moment during President George W. Bush's State of the Union early in 2005. For me, it had absolutely nothing to do with politics. It was an intensely human moment that almost transcended politics. At one point in his speech, he paid tribute to the Iraqi people for their courage in going to the polls in the face of incredible danger. Then, the President introduced a guest that was sitting in the gallery next to the First Lady - a woman who has been an Iraqi freedom activist for 11 years - since Saddam Hussein had her father executed. She stood with her index finger in the air, still tinted with that identifying purple dye of one who had voted. She was very moved by the standing ovation from everyone in the chamber.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Lots and lots of marble steps - that's one thing I remember from our family trip to Washington D.C. when the kids were little. In fact, our youngest was about two years old the first time we went there. In fact, he told me at that time that he was very interested in seeing the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government firsthand. Oh, but those steps! Have you ever been to the U.S. Capitol building or the Lincoln Memorial? You may remember feeling new feelings in your legs by the time you reached the top. Imagine our little guy. He looked up at those stairs and he knew there was no way with those short little legs. So was he stuck at the bottom with no hope of reaching the top of the steps? Hey, wait a minute. That's not true. He had me! And I had one of those child carriers on my back which he got in. And he made it where he never could have gone himself, because someone bigger carried him.

                

GET IN TOUCH

Hutchcraft Ministries
P.O. Box 400
Harrison, AR 72602-0400

(870) 741-3300
(877) 741-1200 (toll-free)
(870) 741-3400 (fax)

STAY UPDATED

We have many helpful and encouraging resources ready to be delivered to your inbox.

Please know we will never share or sell your info.

Subscribe

Back to top