I have a vivid memory of two back-to-back nights in Chicago. One evening I met with a good friend who informed me she was leaving her husband, also a close friend. "He doesn't meet my needs," she said. "I know he tries to be a good husband and good father, but I've...
I know a hand surgeon who specializes in reattaching fingers that have been partially or completely severed in accidents. When he enters the operating room, he knows he will be squinting into a microscope for six to eight hours, sorting out and stitching together the...
My wife leads a weekly "Christian circle" at a nursing home. An Alzheimer's patient named Betsy faithfully attends, led there by a staff worker, and sits through the hour. Betsy is slender, with snow-white hair, blue eyes, and a pleasant smile. Every week Janet...
A youth pastor in Colorado, had just learned his wife and baby daughter were dying of AIDS. The mother had received a contaminated blood transfusion just before her delivery date. "How can I talk to my youth group about a loving God?" He asked me. "How can I tell them...
Prayer meetings in the U.S. often focus on illnesses and requests for healing. Not so elsewhere.I asked a man who visits unregistered house churches in China whether Christians there pray for a change in harsh government policies. After thinking for a moment, he...
Once a week or so my church schedules a "Mom's Night Out," with free babysitting for single mothers who need a night off or mothers who simply want to spend an evening with their husbands. Our pastor's wife once happily took advantage of this programme to go out to...
The British novelist and playwright David Lodge was watching one of his own creations, a satirical revue, the evening of November 22, 1963. The theatre audience chuckled as an actor in the play showed up for a Job interview with a transistor radio clutched to his ear,...