Mary Stevenson was a woman too familiar with pain. At age 6 she lost her mother, leaving her father to raise all his eight children by himself during the time of the Great Depression, one of the most difficult periods of American history, where millions lost their jobs and plunged into poverty. ...

The late Ruth Graham, wife of Evangelist Billy Graham, was known to be a collector of quotations.  One of them that became one of her favorites was one by George MacDonald, the Scottish pastor, writer, and mentor to C. S. Lewis, “It’s only in Him that the soul has room.”  It’s only...

LA Times columnist, Mark Z. Barabak shares an interesting story of Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader from Nevada who died four years ago. During his tenure as senator, Reid had a poor relationship with Jon Ralston, Nevada’s most prominent and highly esteemed political journalist. The r...

Being married to a musician exposes me not only to music but also musical artifacts, such as a plaque hanging on our kitchen wall that has this inscription on it, “Life is a song and love is the music.”  It is true, isn’t it?  As a song without music is incomplete, so is life with [&...

As we start the new year we might be asking, “What will I do?”  We might think about traveling or visiting friends and relatives or even going on a mission trip.  All of them are good; we should do them; but we do them with this in mind: In a bigger scheme, life is about […]...

On October 15, 2025, Jim Morrison became the first person to have skied down the north face of Mt. Everest.  The nine thousand feet slope is supposed to be the steepest, hence, the most dangerous part of Everest’s thirty-thousand feet high.  Jim Morrison did it in four hours!  When ...

Only a handful of people knew who Lettie Burd was; even to this day only a few know who she is.  But many know or at least have heard of the name Mrs. Charles E. Cowman through the devotional book she compiled, Streams in the Desert.  Lettie was married to Charles E. Cowman; felt called [&...

Next Sunday will be the last Sunday of the year!  Yes, not month but year.  I feel like I haven’t written enough of 2025, but now I’ll have to write a new year, 2026. I am sure we will look back on 2025 with mixed emotions; some will look back favorably, but some not so […]...

Patricius was just a 16-year-old boy when raiding Irish warriors took him from his native England.  He was sold to an Irish chieftain who, then, sent him to shepherd his flocks.  There in the hills, alone, he thought of the Christian God his parents believed in, and there he began to pray ...

Starting from today till the last Sunday of the month, we will shift our attention to Christmas-themed messages.  I give the title of our new series, “His Name is Jesus.” I hope these messages will speak to us as we celebrate the first coming of Our Lord Jesus to the world. As I write this,...