Subscribe  

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.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

My wife and I like Mexican food. Actually, I just like food, but she likes Mexican food much hotter than I do. She likes the salsa, the hot sauce - the really hot stuff. I like wimp sauce on mine actually. But not even she can handle what our friend from Mexico goes for. He doesn't just like hot sauce on his food. He likes molten lava. Even the candy he eats has chilies in it. It brings tears to our eyes, but he pops it like we do M&M's. Recently, he told me about a Mexican pepper that he had never tasted before. Some friends recommended it to him. He took a big bite out of it and really enjoyed it. It wasn't hot, it was actually mild. He enjoyed it so much, he ate some more. No fire, no burn, just a nice taste experience - until a few minutes later. Here's how he told it - "Suddenly, my mouth burst into flames!" Now, when he thinks something's hot, it's on fire, man! But there was no hint of the fire when he was biting into it. I loved what he named this particular pepper. He calls it "The Liar."

Thursday, March 24, 2005

You can have some say in what seat you get on an airplane. In fact, I usually reserve the kind of seat I want in advance. But you don't have any say in who your neighbors will be. Like the children who were in the seat behind me on one flight. My first clue that it was going to be an interesting flight was their squealing and crying before we ever took off. Mom just didn't seem to have her young daughter and her younger son under control, but she was trying. As we took off, I heard her tell her daughter loudly, "Don't squeeze your brother's head!" That sounded like a reasonable request to me. Then she gave a reason, "You know he's got a fever and he keeps throwing up!" Oh, great! For some strange reason, I instinctively ducked. The way I figured it, a straight trajectory would carry anything that came from that boy's mouth right to my head. I looked at the passenger next to me and we both just kind of shrugged and bent our heads down. Well, nothing terribly gross happened, but all during the flight, I kept thinking about those flu germs flying all around me and I hoped I'd taken enough Vitamin C that morning!

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Our sons both played linemen positions on their high school football team - which means they had to take their share of jokes about being big and dumb. Linemen's numbers are usually like 70-something, and they were number 75 and 76. So the word was that linemen wore their I.Q. on their jerseys. It's probably a good thing most of us were never told what our Intelligence Quotient is and really a good thing it wasn't advertised on our jersey! But after all is said and done, there's a measurement of your capabilities that's far more important anyway.

Subcategories

Your Hard Times

Your Relationships

Page 368 of 424

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