Subscribe  

Thursday, September 8, 2005

Some friends of ours are involved in a ministry whose offices are out in the country. The setting is beautiful and far enough out that it even has some interesting four-legged neighbors. Like the mountain lion several workers and neighbors have spotted. There's not supposed to be a mountain lion in their area, but someone forgot to tell the mountain lion. I understand this has caused the folks who work there - especially if they're around after dark - to be just a little more vigilant when they're coming or going from their car. Personally, I think it's better for the person to see the lion before the lion sees the person.

Wednesday, September 7, 2005

Man, did our one-year-old granddaughter look happy! It was a milestone day. You know, ever since she started riding in a car with her parents, she has been in the back seat in her infant seat, facing backward - just like the safety folks recommend you should do. Well, her Mom and Dad travel a lot of miles, and she's seen a lot of country after it's gone by. Oh, but not anymore! She crossed that magic threshold - she weighs twenty pounds. By the way, I'm not surprised. I have seen this girl eat. She's definitely her father's daughter. But when you get to twenty pounds, you reach that great milestone - Mom and Dad turn your seat around and you get to see where you're going instead of where you've been.

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

My cell phone died. I wish I didn't need one, but I'm traveling so much and there's so much going on in our ministry, I just have to be able to stay in touch while I'm traveling. So we had to get a new cell phone. The old phone served us well for a long time, but now the buttons just refuse to work anymore. Like the button that says "power." Oh, you can press it many times, you can hold it down for a while, and probably not have it come on. And if it does and you enter a phone number you want to call, you will not enjoy what happens when you push the button that says "send." Actually, nothing happens usually. It is very hard to place that call. And if the "send" button finally works, then you'll have a lot of fun when your call is done and you push the "end" button. No response - and a very big bill. It's really frustrating when you push the buttons you've always pushed and you don't get the response you've always gotten.

Monday, September 5, 2005

There were many dramatic images from the military action known as Operation Iraqi Freedom - but few more dramatic than the middle-of-the-night rescue of prisoner of war Jessica Lynch. As Coalition forces advanced quickly from the Kuwaiti border to the capital of Baghdad, Pfc. Lynch's unit of Army maintenance troops made a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of an enemy ambush. No one knew Jessie Lynch's fate - she was listed as missing in action. But acting on the tip of Iraqi sympathizers, a Special Operations Force fought their way into the hospital where she was imprisoned, found her, and quickly carried her to a waiting helicopter. And then, they had to fight their way out, too. But Private Lynch was safe - saved by rescuers who risked it all to bring her out.

Friday, September 2, 2005

Allison, her daughter, and two friends were out for a trail ride in a remote area recently. They were to rendezvous later, actually, in the afternoon with other family members at their overnight campsite. When it came time to head back, they were somewhere on the side of a mountain, picking their way through very rocky ground. No matter which way they went, they could not find the main trail that would take them back down the mountain. They could see where they needed to be, but the terrain was too rugged to get down any other way. Hours wore on, dark began to fall, and Allison's two friends finally made an attempt to get to a cabin they could see but not ride to down below. Well after dark, Allison and her daughter finally saw flashlights moving up the mountain. Her friends returned with the man from that cabin - a man who knew this area like the back of his hand. He helped them pick their way to a point where they could actually get right back on the trail. And much to their surprise, while they had been lost, they had been very close to the trail all along!

Thursday, September 1, 2005

I was teaching at a training school for people entering youth ministry when I learned about a call home that must have been heartbreaking for the dad who made it. The school was three weeks long, and dad had already been gone for over two weeks. He was seriously missing his wife and two-year-old son, and they were missing him. After waiting patiently in the long line that formed every day after classes at the lobby pay phone, he finally got to talk to his wife. When he asked how his son was doing, she said, "Not too well, honey. Yesterday he came up to me and said, 'Mommy, is Daddy dead?'" Ouch!

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

As each of our kids has fallen in love, I have had what sounded like a strange piece of advice for them. I've said, "Make sure you make a good 200-year choice." Needless to say, that's been greeted with an expression that says, "You doin' okay, Dad?" It turns out none of our kids expects to ever celebrate their 200th wedding anniversary. But that's not what I'm talking about anyway. I'm talking about the impact the choice of a mate will have for a long, long time - along with a lot of other family choices.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Over the years we've lived near the ocean, and we were blessed to have a friend who was a veteran sailor. He'd been sailing the East Coast since he was a boy. And he was generous enough to allow us to go sailing with him sometimes and to watch a master at work. I tried to apply for "first mate," but he always said, "Don't call us, we'll call you." Which he never did. But I was a grateful, and I was a curious passenger. He told me some great stories of sailing adventures. He showed us how to do some of what he did, and he related times that he had seen one sailboat after another fall over as they were unprepared for a shift in the wind. You don't have to be a seasoned seaman to understand a fundamental law of a successful voyage: It's the set of the sail, not the force of the gale, that determines the way you go.

Monday, August 29, 2005

When you're little, your parents seem immortal. They're not. Sooner or later, most of us get the kind of call I got not long ago - a parent is gone. In my case, the hospital called to say my Mom had been admitted due to a medical emergency, but her body gave out and she was gone. No matter what the circumstances, the death of someone you love is always a shock. When you're the only living child and your other parent is already gone, there can be a numbing list of arrangements that you suddenly have to make. Thankfully, that wasn't the case with my Mom. Mercifully, funeral arrangements had been made and paid for years ago.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Senior year in college - somehow our son had maneuvered himself into a coveted on-campus house for his senior lodging. About a dozen guys set up their own little universe there (not necessarily an orderly universe, of course). He told me that one day he and several other guys were talking about a student leader who was a friend of theirs. We'll call him Marty. And in the "talk, then think" atmosphere of college guys in a room, our son was reviewing some of the dumb things (that was his opinion) Marty had done in his leadership choices. As he was finishing this little barbecue, someone drifted into the room from the kitchen - the room right next door. It was, of course, Marty with his cup of coffee in his hand. He'd been right next door making himself some coffee - no doubt listening to this critical review of his leadership. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Our son felt about an inch tall when he realized who he had been hurting.

Subcategories

Your Hard Times

Your Relationships

Page 361 of 420

A Word With You Categories

                

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)

FIND OUT MORE

Home / About

What We Do / Resources

News / Blog / Store

Contact Us / Privacy Policy

Donate

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

rhm-logo-white Copyright 2024 - All Rights Reserved - Hutchcraft Ministries

Back to top