Subscribe  

May 28, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Ahhh, Nantucket! My wife and I had some wonderful, romantic times on that picturesque little island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The little village of Nantucket is just full of colonial charm. And everywhere you look you find reminders of its glory days in the whaling industry. I was surprised to learn, though, that during those glory days most of the town actually burned to the ground, right to the docks. It was a tragedy that nearly put Nantucket out of business. But it was a tragedy that never had to happen. It was an ugly, four-letter word that ultimately destroyed Nantucket, and the word wasn't fire. It's a word that's still destroying things.

May 27, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Back when my sons were young, they were watching Saturday morning television. One morning I walked by the living room and they were watching Superman. I'll tell you, I got hooked! It brought back memories.

May 26, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

It's a well known fact that men are never lost, right? We just find alternative routes - scenic routes. I've found more than my share, but my choice of a wrong road has never led to deadly consequences. It did for Comair Flight 5191 out of Lexington, Kentucky some years ago. Somehow, the pilot went down the wrong runway; one half the length of the runway from which he'd been cleared to take off. He ran out of runway, he hit a row of trees, and tragically, 49 of the 50 people aboard died in that crash. As the investigation of the crash unfolded, we found out that the one flight controller in the tower wasn't looking when the plane turned onto that fatal runway. He had what was described as "administrative duties" to tend to, and he turned his back, and moments later - disaster.

May 23, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

If someone is a champion in sports, we tend to make them an automatic hero. Now, not every champion lives like a hero or necessarily deserves to be one. But Wilma Rudolph? Oh, she was more than a champion. She really belonged in the hero category. See, she began her life with a bout of polio.

May 22, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Sometimes when we travel to Indian reservations in North America, we end up on roads that go where not many go. Our Director at the time, our Ojibwe brother, Craig Smith, was on one of those roads. His destination was a remote reserve in Northern Canada. At one point in his 140-mile journey, he noticed a van coming from the other direction, proceeding very slowly. Craig decided to slow down, too. That's when he saw what the van driver had already seen - a beautiful deer by the side of the road. Sadly, one of his rear legs was broken and just kind of dangling limply when he moved. At that point, he saw the rest of the picture that had caused the van to stop in front of the deer. On the other side of the road was a wolf, stalking the wounded deer. It was obvious all the van could do was postpone the inevitable. There was no happy ending for that deer.

May 21, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

We have had a wide variety of people come to our front door. The salesmen - oh they're basically asked to stay on the front steps and give us their little pitch. And then there were those neighborhood kids who, well, they were raising money. Well, they usually got inside the door - we'd let them into the welcome mat, and we'd deal with them there. And there were a lot of acquaintances and friends of course. Those people you just immediately invite into your living room to sit down and stay as long as they want. And sometimes at the door is a relative or real close friend, and they come in and they go straight to the refrigerator and help themselves. If they want to make a call they go ahead and do that and they feel very free to use the bathroom. So you can tell how close we are by how far a person is allowed into the house.

May 20, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

The late, great Kobe Bryant decided to set off some fireworks for his final game in the NBA. Sixty points carried his team to an unlikely and dramatic victory! That's a pretty good way to wrap up 20 seasons and five championship rings! Kobe Bryant finished that career well, and he went out of professional basketball in a blaze of glory.

May 19, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

I guess it was just the way the light reflected off the building, but it set the stage for one of the more unusual boxing matches I've ever seen. It was night, and there was one large floodlight that illuminated the front of the chapel in this conference center where we were. There were two teenage guys standing out in front of the chapel. One stood in just the right place to cast a giant shadow of himself on that building. It looked like some monster up there on the building. The shadow must have been at least like five times the size of the guy, and of course you know what the other guy was doing. He was boxing with a giant shadow. It didn't look like he was in his weight class, that's for sure. Well, needless to say, you can never win if you're just boxing with a shadow.

May 16, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

I kept telling my wife that I expected Tarzan or George of the Jungle to come swinging through our house at any moment. She had set up a corner of the house as her own personal little jungle to accommodate the new guests in our house - our orchids. She found some sources for orchids that were pretty reasonable, and she really enjoyed collecting them. They were very stately and lovely flowers.

May 15, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

There was this plant in my office that had seen some good days and some bad days. It had really seen some pretty bad days for a while, and it looked like it was about to be a memory and there was going to be a little empty spot in the corner of my office. But one of our staff very lovingly took a knife to that plant. That doesn't sound very nice, but the plant was on its last legs and so she went and pruned out some of the dead or dying branches.

May 14, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Someone said the best cure for the population explosion would be if men had to have every other baby. That would slow it down considerably! I'll tell you, there's something that women know about that process, though, that leads to life. A woman, particularly in her first pregnancy, is introduced to a long, sometimes very difficult life process. She knows she wants the baby; there's no question about the results, but it's the process she has some questions about sometimes: nausea, discomfort, her body's doing things it never did before. And the months sometimes feel like years. And last but not least, there are the labor pains. That day alone can seem like one of the longest in her life. But then...then the baby comes.

May 13, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Beware of the third generation! Yeah! That's an intriguing phenomenon that often takes place in a family business. The first generation starts it with nothing but a dream. They work long hours, they sacrifice, and they keep their vision alive. Then, the second generation starts to take over the business, and well, they may improve it a little; they might expand it a little bit, but they basically tend to maintain the vision of the founding generation.

May 12, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

I was speaking for an Easter Sunrise Service in the Ozarks, and I saw something that seemed strangely out of place. In front of this church, there's a ten-foot section of a brick wall with a sign in front of it that says, "Berlin Wall." I was thousands of miles from Berlin, but here was a chunk of what used to be the most famous, and maybe the most infamous wall in the world. Many of us remember how the Berlin Wall represented for decades the Cold War division of our world into Communists on one side and free on the other. The Communists built it on the border between East Berlin and free West Berlin. In spite of that wall, many people still risked everything to scale it and escape to freedom. A few made it. Many died trying.

May 9, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

I keep finding these notes and cards I wrote my wife. The love of my life since I was 19! She's been with Jesus for nine years now and I never stop missing her but these notes are great. All these things I wrote to her came from all the stages of our life. There's the predictably mushy love letters from our courtship and engagement. The little notes I left for her in the morning over the years. The things I wrote in holiday cards, for birthdays and anniversaries. Lots of different seasons, lots of different ages - before kids, with kids, after kids. Everything from fancy cards to stationery, yeah, scraps of paper too. Many shapes and sizes - but always the same unchanging message. "I love you, baby!"

May 8, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

The Department of Homeland Security is a fairly new idea in American history. Of course, we live in pretty dangerous times and we need an agency that coordinates our efforts to keep our country safe from growingly hostile forces that could hurt us. But "homeland security" is hardly a new idea. It's been the job of every parent since children were invented. It's a sacred assignment - guarding our family from the things that could hurt them, and the job's never been more difficult.

May 7, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

One summer our daughter had the privilege of participating in a musical team that traveled to the Philippines. One of the highlights for them while they were there was to sing the Gospel on national television. They actually went into one of the big television stations to do it.

May 6, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Lori Piestewa was the first woman killed in the Iraq war. She was a Native American and a single mom with two children. She died in an Iraqi ambush, and her good friend Jessica Lynch was wounded, captured and rescued. You might remember that. She was determined to help fulfill Lori Piestewa's dream - to have a house for her parents and her children. Jessica Lynch contacted the TV program, "Extreme Makeover," to see if they could make it happen. Their popular program showed them doing amazing makeovers of people's homes in a very short time, re-creating them into houses that were far beyond anything the owner's ever dreamed. They did it again for a war hero's family, moving them from their deteriorating trailer home into a wonderful new home. Given the good TV ratings of the show, apparently a lot of people loved to watch those amazing transformations.

May 5, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

So, what can you do when you realize there's an accident about to happen and you can do nothing to avoid being part of it? Well, your best bet is to try to limit the damage.

May 2, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Marty McFly met a strange scientist with a machine that promised interesting results - the ability to go back in time. And he did. He went, as the title of the movie about it said, "Back to the Future." He had a most amazing experience getting to know his mother and father when they were teenagers. His dad, George McFly, was a milquetoast, bossed-around kind of guy, afraid to stand up to anybody. Marty always knew him to be that kind of a guy, until he was transported back to the night that would determine the course of the rest of his Dad's life - and his Mom's. One decision - whether or not George McFly will stand up to the bully who is attacking his girlfriend - who is to become Marty's mother - is the turning point of George's life. And Marty is there to help his Dad make the right and courageous choice. It totally changes the course of George McFly's life. He steps up, defends his girl, and neutralizes the bully who wanted her. So instead of the life Marty has known with a pretty unsuccessful, wimpy dad, he returns to his life with a strong and successful dad because of that choice. A very different life because of one decision that changed the future.

May 1, 2025

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Sometimes when I'm in a store and it's time to pay up, I'll say to the cashier, "Listen, I want to show you something from a museum." And I pull out some cash. I say, "Do you accept cash?" You should see the look! I get this bewildered kind of look, and they're like, "Well, of course we accept cash." Well, it may be the first cash they've gotten in several transactions though. It's probably a given that they see more 'plastic' money than 'paper' money these days.

Subcategories

Your Hard Times

Your Relationships

Page 2 of 217

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 2025 - All Rights Reserved - Hutchcraft Ministries

Back to top