Besides, I was 39 and Omar was 42. In a few years, our kids would be out of the house. Neither one of us wanted to start over, to go back to sleepless nights and changing diapers, right?

Then my period was late. I’d left Omar and the kids back in Texas to spend a week with family in Massachusetts. A few days into the trip, I got really nervous. What if I was pregnant? What would Omar think?

Anxious, I called him. He was calm and supportive. “When you get home, we can get a pregnancy test,” he said. I felt better, knowing we were in this together. But after we hung up, I couldn’t stop thinking about having another little person to share our love with.

I got my period the next day. Dejected, I texted Omar: “Never mind.”

Instead of texting back, he called me. “Baby, are you okay?” His voice was gentle.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know it’s crazy, and we already said we don’t want kids, but I was kind of getting my kids, hopes up.”

“You’re not crazy,” he assured me. “I was too. I think we had that ‘kids’ conversation too early. Maybe we should revisit it.”

My heart leapt. “I mean…only if you want to.” We talked for an hour about the pros and cons of having another child, who would graduate high school when we were in our fifties. We had plans to travel and enjoy our retirement. That wouldn’t be as easy to do. But the thought of bringing more love into our home—into the world—kept pulling us back to “yes.” We put the discussion on hold until we could talk face to face.

That night I said an extra prayer at bedtime. “God, the thought of having another baby is scary but also exciting,” I whispered. “Whatever your will is, Lord, please give me a sign.”

I woke the next morning to a text from Omar. “I like the name Roselyn for a girl,” it read.

I smiled. “Okay, but I’m gonna call her Rosie for short.”The plane home was full. A stewardess announced that some carry-ons would have to be checked. I had a middle seat. The passenger to my right was already asleep against the window. To my left was an empty aisle seat, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way.

Sure enough, just as the doors were closing, one last passenger came striding down the aisle. She plopped a diaper bag under the seat in front of her and buckled her seatbelt in one swift movement, all while juggling a toddler on her hip. The child tugged at her mother’s shirt with her tiny hands and giggled at me as I gave her a wave.

“She’s precious,” I said.

“Thanks,” the mother said. “She’s a handful, though.”

“Oh, I can imagine. What’s your name, little one?” I asked.

Her mom answered for her. “Rosie.”

The mother smiled, not realizing she was delivering to me the very sign I’d asked for. Our family wasn’t quite complete, and I couldn’t wait to tell Omar!

Our baby girl was born less than a year later. Isabel Poppy Rose.

The post A Heartwarming Sign to Grow Their Family appeared first on Guideposts.

I was here to run. And I was pretty intimidated.

It was November 2019, and I had just arrived at the Ragnar Los Coyotes trail relay race. The annual race is a grueling multiday relay through the rugged beauty of Los Coyotes Indian Reservation in San Diego County.

More than 200 runners were here, camped out in a small city of tents. I knew no one. Everyone looked way younger—and fitter—than I was.

My husband, Tom, thought I was nuts when I signed up.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re going to fly from North Carolina to California, meet up with total strangers, drive two hours into the mountains where cell phones don’t work and there’s no running water. Then you’re going to camp with those strangers while competing in a multiday relay race?”

Now I was asking myself the very same question. I gazed at the sleek, toned athletes setting up their tents and chatting about past trail races they’d run.

I was 58, a former teacher and stay-at-home mom of two grown kids. I’d been a recreational runner for years; I’d even competed in races. But I’d never run a trail race in my life.

Nothing like this. Some runners travel around the world to compete in big-name marathons or off road races in spectacular locations. Not me. Family came first.

The previous year, Kate, our The younger daughter, had gone off to college. Suddenly I was free to try a bigger adventure. When an online moms’ running group advertised this rugged race on the other side of the country, I jumped at it.

My training would be considered a joke by the elite runners here. There are no big hills in my North Carolina town. If I wanted to run up a hill, I’d have to go to a parking garage.

Neighbors watched and wondered as I slogged through two runs a day in the August heat. One pulled up beside me in her car and asked if I wanted to sign up for a text message group she hosted that sent daily Bible verses to members’ phones.

“Sure!” I said. I needed all the encouragement I could get.

Like right now. I felt alone in this remote landscape. I couldn’t even call Tom or the girls. There was no cell service.

I joined my relay team. We were eight women from around the United States selected by the moms’ running group. I was the oldest by far.

We gathered around the tent where we’d sleep during the race. We talked about the course, three loops of increasing difficulty with a total elevation change of nearly 4,000 feet.

Each member of the team had to take turns running each loop. It would take more than 24 hours for everyone to complete the entire course.

Ping!

We looked around. The sound came from my cell phone.

“Did you just get a text?” one of my teammates asked.

“I did,” I said, puzzled.

I was even more puzzled when I read the message. It was a Bible verse. From Isaiah, chapter 41: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I be will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

”It was my neighbor’s Bible verse group text. How did it show up on my phone? It was evening; she usually sent the texts in the morning. And there was no reception here.

“It’s a Bible verse,” I said.“said.

“Let’s hear it,” someone said.

I read the words aloud.

“Now that is something to think about,” another teammate said.

“Five minutes to start!” our team leader cried. The discussion ended, and we scrambled to gather our things and head to the starting line.

I was runner number five on the team. It was getting dark when I began laboring up the rocky trails of the first loop. I had to walk and grab tree branches to haul myself up the steepest slopes. What if I fell? My headlamp slipped. I kept running.

First loop.

Second loop.

I tried to nap in the tent until the final, toughest loop. Day was breaking as I set out. Oh boy, the first two loops had been a warm-up by comparison. Almost immediately I had to walk, too discouraged to run up trails that seemed almost vertical.

Runners passed on either side. My lungs burned. I wanted to stop.

“Left foot, right foot,” a runner chanted as he zipped by.

I stopped and caught my breath. The verse from Isaiah sounded in my head: I will strengthen you and help you. I wasn’t alone; God was with me. I can do this, I told myself. All I had to do was move my left foot, then my right foot.

I got going again and picked up speed. I pushed onward. All of a sudden, I heard cheering ahead. My teammates were hooting and clapping as I crossed the finish line.

We waited for three more runners on our team to finish. As the last one approached, we ran onto the course and joined her across the finish line.

We hugged each other, our dusty faces streaked with tears. We took photos with our medals, packed up our campsite and headed for San Diego.

As soon as my team members and I got back in cell range, all of our phones started buzzing. Mine lit up with multiple texts from Tom and the girls, asking how the race was going and sending me encouragement.

None of those texts had made it through.

Only one did. The one I’d needed the most.

The post The Bible Verse Text That Gave Her Strength appeared first on Guideposts.

I can still hear Carol’s exasperation after long phone conversations with her mom. Her mother had her own ideas about where the wedding should take place and the reception that would follow, the tent on the lawn, bouquets of flowers, poached salmon, jazz trio…

“Fine, we can have the reception at Mom’s house in Connecticut,” Carol said.

How would we get our guests from Manhattan to Connecticut? “We’ll put everybody on a bus. But the wedding will be here.” “Here” meant our church, the old Victorian pile of stone and Romanesque arches that had stood on its corner of Manhattan’s Upper West Side for almost a hundred years.

Choosing the Right Chapel

The place was named for the archangel Michael, and the big Tiffany windows at the front showed him in armor, girded for the last battle. Just in case you missed the biblical reference, the words were inscribed on the arch above: “There was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.”

But by choosing the side chapel, we were looking for something less bellicose, more intimate. There the windows featured angels at the Annunciation, the Resurrection, and the angel who was John’s guide to the New Jerusalem.

Yes, the church was a little down at the heels, with cracks in the plaster, peeling paint, rickety pews, and wire mesh on the outside of the stained-glass windows to protect them from stones, bricks or bullets. Not too many years back a parishioner had been mugged on the front steps. Perhaps my future mother-in-law wasn’t so far off in declaring that we’d need armed guards at the door.

But Carol and I were part of a young, scrappy congregation determined to bring back the old place, revive it as it was reviving us. We sang in the choir, volunteered at the soup kitchen, put on plays and found our friends among those rickety pews. We believed in the church, believed in its future.

No “Here Comes the Bride”

Most importantly, we wanted our faith firmly stamped on our wedding ceremony. We’d have a homily and communion, because that was how Jesus reminded His disciples He’d be present in their lives and we wanted to be sure He’d be present in ours.

There’d be no dum-dum-da-dum, “Here Comes the Bride.” We’d enter singing a hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation,” with that wonderful phrase “From heaven he came and sought her/To be his holy bride.”

“Maybe you should just elope?” Carol’s mother suggested.

There were some minor skirmishes leading up to the eventful day; we resisted the introduction of armed guards—St. Michael and his winged compatriots would provide protection enough.

Dealing with the Families

We were especially grateful to our minister, who reassured us in our pre-marital counseling. A 60-something bachelor, he said with wry humor, “You are the only sane ones going through all of this. Your families will act out. Think of them as animals in a cage. Throw them a bone once in a while.”

Carol bought a simple wedding dress at a discount shop on Orchard Street, but she agreed to let her mother decorate it with some family lace (“something old, something new”). And her mom could invite as many friends as she wanted to the reception.

On that luminous April day I walked past buses, brownstones and hulking brick projects to the church. The first question the good minister asked, “Have you got the rings?” sent me hurrying back to the apartment. They were on the bureau, right where I’d left them.

Carol looked stunning in her Orchard Street dress. We listened to our friends make music in the prelude, then walked up the aisle together, singing as planned. We wanted everyone else to sing with us, following along in their hymnals, but I can remember them craning their necks and staring at us instead. No matter.

Getting the Big Things Right

So much of what we hoped for and believed in has come true. That church grew, and when our kids came along they raced to Sunday school classrooms and choir rehearsals, finding lifelong friends. The dicey neighborhood became more settled, the wire mesh came off the windows and they were restored. The walls were repainted and cracks repaired.

Not long ago I was showing someone the chapel, saying, “This is where Carol and I got married.” I looked again at the angels. Perhaps they weren’t just artful figures in glass but images of help and comfort that had sustained us through the years, their light illuminating us, their wings shielding us.

What I was sure of and what I would tell any young couple planning a wedding today: Get the big things right. Make very clear what is important to you and declare it to each other and to the world. Be sure you’re happy, then step out in faith with jitters or not. Do that and the angels of God’s mercy will carry you through the rest of the way.

Read More: 10 Wedding Prayers and Blessings

The post Wedding Day—How to Have the One You Want appeared first on Guideposts.

On Palm Sunday in our church, the gospel account is reenacted by members of the congregation. You can be there in your pew and suddenly discover that the friend sitting next to you is playing the role of Peter or Mary Magdalene or even Jesus. The familiar story comes alive.

READ MORE: 8 Prayers for Holy Week

Before entering Jerusalem, Jesus sends two of his disciples into the village of Bethany, where he has told them they will find a colt. They were to untie it and bring it back to him. If anyone asks them why they’re doing that, they are to say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”

Did those disciples ever ask themselves, “How does he know we’ll find a colt?” or “What if someone accuses us of stealing it?” In fact, they do find a colt in the street, tied near a door.

When bystanders accost them, asking what they’re doing, they say exactly what Jesus told them to say. And it works. It’s as though Jesus is training the disciples to trust him in the small matters so they will be able to trust him regarding the wonders to come.

The disciples throw their cloaks onto the colt, and Jesus sits on it. On his way into the city, the people throw their cloaks down on the ground or spread leafy branches cut from the fields. “Hosanna!” they cry, just as we do in church, waving palms to honor this new King.

READ MORE: Palm Sunday in the Bible: 15 Palm Sunday Scriptures

But what does this King have to offer his people? A second miracle tells us: That same busy week, Jesus passes a fig tree that has borne no fruit. He addresses the tree—as though it might hear him: “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” By the next day, the fig tree has withered and died. What does it all mean to his followers? Jesus is illustrating the power of prayer. “So I tell you,” he says, “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). Believe that you have received it. What an astounding promise to come from a king.

Later that week, when an unnamed woman pours an alabaster jar of expensive ointment over Jesus’ head, there is a muttering of disapproval. What a waste. The ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor. (I find myself having the same thought.) But Jesus says the woman has done a good thing, preparing his body for burial ahead of time. Though he is young and his ministry only beginning, his response assures us that the Son of God already knows what is to come. A close listener in the crowd might get the hint as well.

You can feel Jesus’ exasperation with the disciples, who don’t get it. At the same time, you can also see Jesus’ compassion for them.

READ MORE: A Devotion for Holy Week

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus sends two of his disciples into the city. He has told them they would meet a man carrying a jar of water and should follow him to a house where they would be led to an upper room. The room would be furnished and ready for the Last Supper. And so even this setting is found by way of another of Jesus’ mystical revelations.

During the Last Supper, Jesus tells Peter, the most committed of his followers, that he will deny him three times before the cock crows at sunrise on Good Friday. Peter passionately swears that he won’t. And fails. Jesus didn’t have a spy among the group; his Father had shown him every detail of the Easter story. Jesus is preparing his disciples just as Scripture is preparing us. Like I say, I hear the story with a combination of dread and wonder.

Good Friday is a three-hour service at our church, and it is always the hardest for me to sit through. The betrayal, the desertion, it is all there for us to witness, including Jesus’ own trepidation. He prays in the Garden for the cup of suffering to be taken from him. And only after that honest, all-too-human outburst can he come to any acceptance: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

READ MORE: Why Is Good Friday So Important?

As Jesus had foreseen, none of his disciples has stuck with him to the end. They aren’t there on the hill at Calvary when he is crucified. Afraid, no doubt, of what would happen to them. It can only have added to Jesus’ sense of abandonment, not just by his followers but by God. There, on the cross, Jesus utters the opening verse of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” As he spoke those words, he would also have known how that psalm moves into verses of praise: “My soul shall live for him….”“him….”

It all does end triumphantly, with the Resurrection. We celebrate the first stirrings of it on Easter Eve, Saturday night melting into early Sunday morning. Near midnight, the lights of our church all come up, revealing a sanctuary filled with fragrant lilies and cherry blossoms. The choir bursts out with a “Hallelujah!”

A few years ago, after a particularly rigorous week of worship, I came away with an astounding feeling of transcendence. Nothing could harm me. Earlier in the week, we had sung the spiritual “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?” I had been there with my fellow parishioners. And I knew what it was to experience the miracle of the empty tomb, because I had been prepared for it, just as Jesus had.

READ MORE ABOUT HOLY WEEK:

• What is a Palm Sunday Parade?
• 5 Palm Sunday Devotions
• 4 Powerful Good Friday Devotions
• Good Friday Reflection: The Message of the Cross

The post How The Miracles of Holy Week Fortified His Faith appeared first on Guideposts.

There’s no telling what any of us would do, but fear might have easily overwhelmed me. Like Peter, I could have denied Him three times. I could have pretended I didn’t even know Jesus.

“Sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble…” go the lyrics. It does make me tremble. Even if I had heard—like the disciples—of the promise of Resurrection. It must have been hard to believe Jesus’ return was possible after witnessing the gruesome torture of death on the cross.

Sometimes I’d prefer to skip it. Skip the Good Friday service, skip Maundy Thursday. Forget it all until Easter.

Then I remember why Good Friday is so important. It led to the Resurrection of Jesus. Without it, we would be be unable to receive the joy of Easter.

I remind myself of something our pastor once said. She observed that at the Resurrection, Jesus showed Himself first to those who stuck with Him at the last.

“There were also many women there, looking on from afar…” goes the Gospel of Matthew, “among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph…”

Only a couple verses later we read that “toward dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher.” They were there. To discover the empty tomb.

They rush to tell the disciples, but even before they reach them, Jesus appears to the two women. They were there at the worst. They are here now to experience the amazing, stunning good news first hand.

Sometimes we have to stick through the bad times, face our own sorrow and suffering without running away, to have the greater truth revealed.

Remember the importance of Good Friday and stick with it. Easter is right around the corner.

To buy a copy of Rick’s latest book, Prayer Works, click here.

READ MORE ABOUT GOOD FRIDAY AND HOLY WEEK:

• 4 Powerful Good Friday Devotions
• 8 Prayers for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday
• 6 Holy Week Prayers
• A Devotion for Holy Week

The post Why Good Friday Is So Important appeared first on Guideposts.

Well, not quite.

The real Saint Patrick—or Patricius, to use his given name—proved far more interesting. I learned about him in my friend Tom Cahill’s bestselling book How the Irish Saved Civilization. Contrary to myth, Patrick did not rid Ireland of snakes—the Emerald Isle never had any—and though he might have used the three-leaf clover in a sermon, the greatest miracle he ever performed is what God made of his life.

READ MORE: St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Families

Patricius wasn’t even Irish by birth. He was born into a British Christian family sometime in the late fourth century (though it is hard to know when). It was in England that he learned his rudimentary Latin and, during the waning Roman Empire, lived in prosperity and security. Then as a teenager, he was kidnapped, whisked off to Ireland and sold as a slave to a chieftain there, who made him a sheepherder. He lived in the cold, unforgiving, damp climate with little more than the skin on his back.

Young Patricius turned to prayer to sustain himself, as he later recounted in his memoir, Confession. He forged a deep relationship with God while tending the flock. “In one day,” as he later wrote, “I would say as many as a hundred prayers and after dark nearly as many again, even while I remained in the woods or on the mountain. I would wake and pray before daybreak—through snow, frost, rain.”

For six years, Patrick persisted in his prayers and his work. Then one day, a mysterious voice spoke. “Your hungers are rewarded. You are going home.” Home—back to Britain. “Look, your ship is ready.”

Patrick was inland, nowhere near the sea. Where would he find a ship? Yet he trusted the words that he’d heard. He immediately set out by foot on a journey of some 200 miles, an escaped slave in unknown territory. It was a miracle he knew where to go and was not caught. He arrived at an inlet to find a ship—his ship?—full of sailors traveling to Gaul, a region in present-day Western Europe. They were transporting Irish hounds to sell there.

The captain eyed Patricius suspiciously. “You’re wasting your time asking to sail with us,” he said. What would Patrick do? There was no place to hide. It was only a matter of time before he’d be caught. All he could do was pray. Soon enough, the sailors called him back. “Come on board—we’ll take you on trust.”

Trust, faith, following God’s lead without knowing where it will take you and, most of all, a love for one’s fellow beings—all these qualities continue to make Saint Patrick resonate today, so many centuries later. In a time when Christianity was still defining itself, with monks retreating to the desert in self-denial, Patrick offered a different model for the faithful: goodness sustained by prayer and love.

When Patricius and the sailors landed in Gaul, they were surprised to find a desolate landscape—the result perhaps of the Germans wreaking havoc on the usually fertile terrain. His men starving and hopeless, the captain asked this Christian why he didn’t just call on his so-called God for help. Without hesitation, Patrick turned to the sailors and said, “From the bottom of your heart, turn trustingly to the Lord my God, for nothing is impossible to him.”

They did and, soon enough, spotted a herd of pigs coming in their direction—the most substantial food the hungry crew could hope for.

Patrick eventually returned to Britain and was reunited with his family. But once there, he realized he was not quite at home. He’d become a man without a country. He’d spent a lot of time with the people of Ireland and grown to love them—astounding considering his enslavement by them. One night, he had a vision. A man he knew from Ireland named Victoricus appeared to him, holding a stack of letters. He handed one to Patrick. Its heading read, in Latin, vox hiberionacum, or “the voice of the Irish.” Then Patrick heard the voice of the multitude, crying, “We beg you to come and walk among us once more.”

Patrick would heed the call—and return to Ireland. But first, he wanted to learn more about the faith that had sustained him in Ireland so that he could better help the people once arrived. Like someone today whose call for ministry leads to seminary, he headed to southern France, most likely to a monastery off the coast, where he underwent grueling studies and was eventually ordained a bishop. I wonder if he was tempted to stay there—there would certainly have been plenty of opportunities for him. But he’d been called to Ireland.

Patricius’s journey was the first example of a mission to people outside Greek, Christian or Roman civilizations. “In truth, even Paul, the great missionary apostle,” as Tom writes, “never himself ventured beyond the Greco-Roman Ecumene.”

Aware of the dangers, Patrick headed for Ireland. “Every day I am ready to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved—whatever may come my way. But I am not afraid of any of these things because of the promises of heaven,” he wrote. He stayed in Ireland for the next 30 years, baptizing, preaching, ordaining and teaching.

Notably, Saint Patrick was the first person in history to resolutely condemn slavery. When some of his new converts were stolen by British pirates and sold, he hurled invectives against the horrors of enslavement, a state he knew all too well. It would be more than a thousand years before anyone else spoke out so forcefully against it.

Patricius’s influence on Ireland was transformational. In time, the petty warring stopped and monasteries were established—places where Scriptures would be saved, preserved and copied. As the Roman Empire disintegrated and the Dark Ages descended, chaos disappeared from the Emerald Isle, a land changed by the work of one man.

Theories on who Saint Patrick really was abound. Some say there must have been two Patricks—it’s impossible to ascribe so much to one man. Never mind. What’s important is his legacy: lessons in the power of love, goodness, courage and indomitable faith.

READ MORE ABOUT ST. PATRICK’S DAY:

• How Saint Patrick Was a True Hero
• A Devotion for Saint Patrick’s Day
• 15 Irish Quotes and Proverbs for St. Patrick’s Day
  
• 8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About St. Patrick

The post St. Patrick’s Miraculous Life Journey appeared first on Guideposts.

READ MORE: St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Families

1. “You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace… It’s lovely to know that the world can’t interfere with the inside of your head.” —Frank McCourt
2. “People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” —Iris Murdoch
3. “And happiness…what is it? I say it is neither virtue nor pleasure, nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.” —John Butler Yeats
4. “Your feet will bring you where your heart is.” —Irish Proverb
5. “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”—George Moore
6. “Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.” —Irish Proverb
7. “The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.” —Elizabeth Bowen
8. “The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.” —Colum McCann
9. “May neighbours respect you, trouble neglect you, the angels protect you, and Heaven accept you.” —Irish Proverb
10. “A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.” —Jonathan Swift
11. “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.” —George Bernard Shaw
12. “May the wind always be at your back.” —Irish Proverb
13. “When you fall in love, it is spring no matter when. Leaves falling make no difference, they are from another season.” —Edna O’Brien
14. “There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.” —James Joyce
15. “God spreads the heavens above us like great wings, And gives a little round of deeds and days.”—William Butler Yeats

READ MORE ABOUT ST. PATRICK’S DAY:

• How Saint Patrick Was a True Hero
• A Devotion for Saint Patrick’s Day
• St. Patrick’s Miraculous Life Journey
• 8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About St. Patrick

The post 15 Irish Quotes and Proverbs for St. Patrick’s Day appeared first on Guideposts.

Historians trace its origins to various nineteenth-century American cookbooks, but for a more heavenly source I turn to the Bible. The Psalmist once said, “So mortals ate the bread of angels…” (Psalm 78:25), a reference to the manna that sustained the Israelites as they fled Egypt. Tasty enough, and so filled with nutrients that they never went hungry.

Moving ahead in biblical history a century or two later, we learn the story of a heavenly cake. This one coming directly from an angel.

At the time, the Israelites were straying once again from their true calling, worshipping false gods, such as Baal, instead of the one true God. Something had to be done, so God sent the prophet Elijah to the kingdom of Israel, where he’d speak truth to power.

The power he had to address was the dastardly King Ahab and his corrupt queen, Jezebel. Yes, that Jezebel. She had invited a host of pagan prophets and priests into the land, giving them free rein. Elijah spoke out, warning that if the false prophets weren’t banished, a fierce drought would come into the land.

Even after Elijah’s words came true, with the earth as dry as a bone and the crops ruined, Ahab and Jezebel had no intention of changing. Something more had to be done.

Elijah set up a contest between the prophets of Baal and God’s true prophets. Each team was given a bull to burn and sacrifice. The trick: Each team had to wait for a fire to spark on its own. You can guess what happened. Nothing for the prophets of Baal, whereas fire descended from the heavens for Elijah’s group, igniting not only the bull but the trench surrounding it, sending all up in flames. As a stunning ender, Elijah had the false prophets killed before fleeing for his life into the wilderness.

There he settled down under a shrub, afraid and hopeless. What possible future could be ahead of him? How would he survive in this parched land, with no food or water to sustain him? He was sure to starve to death on his journey out of the wilderness. Tossing and turning, he tried to sleep. An angel touched him, and there near his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.

Voila—the first cake made by an angel. “Get up and eat,” the angel said. “Otherwise the journey will be too much for you” (1 Kings 19:5–8). Elijah dutifully complied. That one cake gave Elijah enough nourishment to last for 40 days of travel and travail.

I doubt that Mom’s angel food cake could do as much, but then I was never allowed more than a slice. Elijah ate the whole cake. Still, the next time our family celebrates a birthday with the tradition Mom started, I’m likely to quote the Bible and tell all, “Get up and eat!”

For more angelic stories, subscribe to Angels on Earth magazine.

READ MORE BIBLE STORIES:

• What Is Palm Sunday in the Bible?
• Angels in the Bible Stories of Joseph and Zechariah
• What Does the Shortest Bible Verse Tell Us?
• What Does the Bible Say About ‘Welcome the Stranger’?

The post The Story Behind the First Cake Made by an Angel appeared first on Guideposts.

The post Heaven-Sent Angels in Art appeared first on Guideposts.

by Roberta Messner from Huntington, West Virginia

Ding dong! I looked up from the couch. Who in the world could that be? My body wracked with debilitating illness, I’d hidden myself away, isolating from everyone and everything. Friends telephoned, texted, emailed, sent cards. I didn’t respond, telling God in my prayers that I had nothing to offer anyone in the sorry shape I was in.

I reluctantly got up and opened the door to a flower delivery. As I put the bouquet on my dining table, I was struck by its uniqueness. It was comprised of solitary blossoms of many varieties that shouldn’t really go together yet somehow did. The mystery bouquet had come in a blue Mason jar, without a card.

Instead of retreating to the couch, I telephoned the florist. He told me some of my friends were behind the delivery, anonymously. “They wanted to get a message to you,” he said, “through the language of flowers.”

The group had followed him from cooler to cooler and picked very specific stems after consulting an old book. “I learned some things,” the florist said, then explained. The red carnation meant, “Our hearts ache for you.” The daisy announced loyal love; the jaunty sunflower, adoration; the iris, faith and hope. The yellow tulip wanted to see sunshine in my smile again. The blue hyacinth recalled my constancy. The pink carnation had a few words to say about never forgetting me.

The more I understood what the flowers were saying, the more I started to remember the woman who might have earned them before I hid myself away. My friends knew I was still that woman, with value beyond my health.

Fresh Start

by Cynie K. Murray from Patagonia, Arizona

I turned over the brown bag I’d found outside after our move. “Grass Seed,” it said in big black letters. My husband and I spread the seeds all over the dirt yard in front of our new house. “I have no idea if the seeds will root,” I told him, “but it’s worth a shot.”

Kind of like our decision to move onto the large property in rural Arizona. The main house, a beautiful cottage, was rented out by the landowner to visitors. Our modest home sat nearby, so that I could look after the cottage and upkeep on the whole property. I’d worked in hospitality for years, so when I was offered the job, we jumped at the chance. Still, it was a big change. I prayed that it would turn out to be the right decision.

While we waited for our grass to grow—or not—we settled in and slowly got used to the routine. Our house became a home, even if the front yard left a lot to be desired. A bunch of the cottage guests became regulars, and we got to know them well. I took a lot of pride in my work to make their stays memorable. Perhaps I was better at that than growing grass.

But after a summer monsoon moved through, I woke up to a beautiful morning and looked out the window. There was no grass growing in the sunlight. Instead, our yard was covered in a rainbow of zinnias. Our front yard had turned out even better than I could have imagined, just like our new life.

Special Arrangements for Every Occasion

by Elaine Scott from West Chester, Pennsylvania

I stood in the door of our flower shop, watching the staff work on arrangements and talk with customers. Among the employees was Emily, my 25-year-old daughter. Together, my friend Colleen and I had truly created an amazing space.

I first met Colleen 15 years ago, at an event for the Chester County Down Syndrome Interest Group, right after her daughter, Katie, was born. The group helped other families like ours navigate the life of having a child with Down syndrome. “It’s such a challenge to help our daughters find employment,” I said to Colleen one day. She agreed. When we learned that only 20 percent of adults with special needs have jobs that pay a typical wage, we were determined to make a difference. And not just for Emily and Katie.

In January 2021, we were approached by an organization that owned a flower shop, hoping we could use it to further our goal. It was a dream come true. We created the Kati Mac Education Foundation and reopened the shop as a nonprofit. Ten out of our 14 employees have special needs.

As I watched the bustling flower shop around me, I listened to the spirit-lifting playlist Emily had picked out herself. She greeted customers and answered their questions, while Katie worked with her mom to create a stunning arrangement for a customer’s special occasion. The aroma of roses and freesia, peonies and lilies was heavenly, but it was our employees who made the flower shop a place for angels.

Birds and Blooms

by Linda P. Varela from Kuna, Idaho

My friend Victoria called me early one Saturday morning. I wandered the quiet house while we made small talk. “How are you really doing?” she finally asked.

“I’m okay,” I said. Victoria knew that my canary, Lada, had recently died. She’d managed to live two years after the death of her brother, Enchi. I’d owned birds all my life, but these two were special. Enchi and Lada were completely white, with soft, snowy feathers like angels. They were happy birds with playful personalities, and I could hear them from any room in the house. “I would give anything to know they are near again,” I said.

As Victoria listened to me reminisce, I wandered over toward the balcony, where I kept potted plants. “Remember that clipping you gave me from your cactus?” I said. “I see that it’s sprouted two beautiful flowers, whiter than white.”

“How did you do that?” she asked. “The mother plant has never flowered for me.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “It must be a gift from Enchi and Lada.” I had a good friend who was always willing to listen and two white flowers from my angel-birds that now seemed very near.

A Sprig of Relief

by Cynda Gray from Stratford, Connecticut

My eyes were red, my nose stuffy, my throat sore. And I was stuck in a crowded, overheated subway car, standing between two New Yorkers in giant puffy winter coats. This was the last place I wanted to be when I was feeling crummy, but I had a big meeting at work.

Help me, Jesus. I need to relax! I closed my eyes, pretending I was anywhere else. The eucalyptus steam room at a fancy spa, perhaps? I actually inhaled. If only…

The subway lurched to a stop. A few people got out. About a million more got on, including a woman with an enormous plant. She headed my way, then crammed herself into a space by me, the plant slapping me in the face.

Oh, come on! I was about to make a snarky comment when I got a whiff.

Even with only one working nostril, I realized there was no mistaking it. Eucalyptus! The woman smiled and handed me a sprig. I pressed it to my nose. That eucalyptus steam room? Right here.

For more angelic stories, subscribe to Angels on Earth magazine.

READ MORE ABOUT ANGELS IN BLOOM:

• A Collection of Stories of Angels in Bloom
• 5 Flourishing Stories of Angels in Bloom
• 5 Angelic Stories of the Magic of Flowers

The post 5 Inspiring Stories of Angelic Flowers appeared first on Guideposts.

Sometime around midnight, Silas and Paul were singing hymns and praying, the other prisoners curious as to how they could be praising God at a time like this. And what was the result? A powerful earthquake that rocked the earth and flung the prison doors wide open. The chains came loose.

Singing…an earthquake…and a miraculous answer to prayer. Why did that bring back to memory something that had once happened to me?

As a kid, I loved to sing. (Still do.) In sophomore year at my suburban California high school, I yearned to be in the spring musical. But not just as a member of the chorus, as I’d done in my freshman year. I wanted to play one of the leads. To sing a solo. To have a starring role. The show selected was Brigadoon. We’d do four performances in May, rehearsing for months.

Auditions began in February. I knew the musical well, having grown up listening to the record over and over, learning all the songs. That was another impressive thing about being in the musical. The school recorded the whole thing on an LP. It would be like hearing myself on one of those original Broadway cast albums I treasured.

I auditioned for the second male lead, Charlie Dalrymple. As the tenor, Charlie sang the upbeat “I’ll Go Home with Bonnie Jean” and the lyrical “Come to Me, Bend to Me.” He even got to get married on stage. A dream role in my eyes.

Brigadoon, if you don’t know it, has , a magical, mystical plot. An American tourist, Tommy, stumbles upon a Scottish town, the so-named Brigadoon. The town appears out of the Scottish mist once every 100 years—and for only 24 hours—because a towns person had prayed it would be hidden to keep it safe from evil. On that magical day of the town’s appearance in the twentieth century, all of Brigadoon is celebrating the wedding of their own Charlie and Bonnie Jean. Meanwhile, the American Tommy falls madly in love with Fiona, one of the residents of Brigadoon. What will be the couple’s fate when Brigadoon recedes, with Fiona, into the fog for another 100 years?

I’d done well enough in my audition to make it to the callbacks, but there my nerves got the best of me. My voice seemed to get lost in a fog of its own. The director, our drama of teacher, went into a snit fit, something he was famous for doing. He declared that the show couldn’t go on. It was impossible under the circumstances. We didn’t have the talent, he said. We had no male leads good enough to play the parts.

I went to bed that night feeling utterly disheartened and said a few prayers of my own. I didn’t have the problems of the imprisoned Silas, but this dejected high schooler saw no way out of his situation. All seemed hopeless. Would I ever get my big chance on stage? My surfer brother in the next bed wouldn’t have understood, so I kept my disappointment between God and me.

Shortly before dawn, I woke to the earth’s tremble. My bed shook. I sat up and watched a tennis shoe bounce into the air. My brother sat up just as the other shoe took flight. “Cool!” he shouted. “An earthquake!” Which was as exciting to him as catching a monster wave.

The tremor lasted about a minute, at which point my mom poked her head into our room. “Did you feel the earthquake?”

Yes, Mom, we did. As it turned out, we weren’t far from the epicenter.

School was canceled that day. Fortunately, there was no apparent damage in our town, but it was certainly a reminder of how fragile life could be. Some of my drama friends and I gathered at the coffee shop for lunch, all of us in dismay about the show. We wanted to do it.

Back at school, the director surprised us. He was willing to give us another try. Maybe the earthquake had put things into perspective for him, softened him a bit. This time I sang my heart out, quelling my fears and giving the performance my all. In the end, I was cast as Charlie, a lead role in my sophomore year!

In the play, Charlie and Bonnie Jean’s isn’t the only love story. Everything works out for Tommy and Fiona, his one true love of Brigadoon. The town schoolmaster gives the final message: “When ye love someone deeply, anythin’ is possible. Even miracles.”

Someday I’ll sit and watch Brigadoon with Silas, and maybe he’ll even sing along. Silas was quiet during the hymn singing when we took him to church on his first birthday. He was mesmerized by the stained-glass windows, staring at the worshippers who were enchanted by him. But soon he’ll be ready to talk about miracles, like the big earthquake that freed his biblical namesake and the little earthquake that led me to my breakout role on the high school stage.

The post Silas: A Miraculous Connection from A Biblical Namesake appeared first on Guideposts.

Steve and I had been together for 24 years before we separated. At that point, divorce had seemed the only solution to resolving our differences. Though not everyone in my life felt that way. “I know you two will get back together,” one of my friends had said after the divorce papers were signed.

“That will never happen,” I’d scoffed.

Well, never say never!

Three years after the divorce, our children wanted to throw me a big party for my fiftieth birthday. Of course they wanted to invite their father. I agreed. The split had been amicable, after all. But I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed his company at the party. I realized how right we seemed together. How much I’d missed him. How much I still loved him.

We started seeing each other more frequently, spending time together, just talking freely without old hurts and defensiveness getting in the way. After some deep soul searching and prayer, we decided to give “us” another shot.

We remarried in a small ceremony with only our grown children in attendance. Afterward, Steve and I took off to our favorite spot, Cape May, New Jersey. We had vacationed there with our family going back 20 years. It felt like a return to old times…but different too.

As the sun rose on our first full day, I prayed that Steve and I would get everything right this time, and for good. We walked along the shoreline, our feet in the water. We weren’t walking for long when I spotted something in the sand, just out of reach of the waves. It was a seashell! A whelk with a shiny, smooth interior. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen on this beach before. I was used to finding clam, oyster and mussel shells in the past. Nothing this big. And the shell was perfect—no chips or imperfections.

“Look!” cried Steve, pointing. Just a few feet away was another whelk shell. Like the first, it was whole and unblemished but a little smaller and pinkish in color, in contrast to the other shell, which was larger and darker. But they seemed like they belonged together. A perfect match. We took them back to our room, amazed at our find.

The next morning, we got up early and hurried out to the beach to catch the sunrise again. “What if we find more shells today?” Steve asked, teasing.

I laughed. “That will never happen.”

Well, never say never!

We strolled in the opposite direction that morning, toward the cove, the early morning sun warming our backs. We had been walking for only a few minutes when I saw them up ahead. I blinked in disbelief. Two perfectly formed whelk shells. As we got closer, I could see that they closely resembled the pair we’d found the day before—one larger and dark in color and the other smaller and pinkish, just a few feet apart.

I stood there, stunned. The probability that they were there in the first place, that Steve and I had been the beachcombers who found them—two sets of shells—on the honeymoon of our second marriage was…well, infinitesimal.

But I don’t believe in coincidences. I know it was a sign that Steve and I were on the right track. And whenever I look at the whelk shells that sit in our happy home, I’m reminded of love and second chances. And to never say never!

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