Inhoudsopgave van October 2020 - Guideposts

I’m extremely proud of the seventy-fifth-anniversary classic, featured on page 46 of this issue, by the great Jackie Robinson, who shares how faith helped him defeat the racial injustice of the so-called color barrier in Major League Baseball, which excluded African-Americans from playing alongside white players. It was his deep faith that imbued him with the extraordinary courage to walk out onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York, on April 15, 1947. Not all of the 26,000 fans that day were happy as Jackie took his position at first base, and the abuse only worsened on the road. Jackie endured the sickening slurs and catcalls throughout that historic season because he understood he was playing for more than just himself and the Dodgers. He knew that until an African-American took…

DOUBLE BIRTHDAY My daughter Brenda called from Virginia. “I’ve got a great way to honor Dad,” she said. “Let’s send some Packers gear to the hospital for a baby born on his birthday.” It was a year after my husband, Eugene, had passed away. Brenda got the idea from a local news story about a woman who donated a special gift for the first child born on the day her mother would have turned 100. Eugene was a huge Green Bay Packers fan, a proud Cheesehead. He was a season ticket holder; the kids had even bought him a brick at Lambeau Field. It read: “Packers play, can’t be late; farm and cows will have to wait.” Brenda ordered some Packers baby items and had them shipped to her sister…

Mom’s favorite color was purple. Most of her wardrobe consisted of shades of lilac and mauve. Every year for her birthday, we’d order a huge sheet cake with purple buttercream flowers to share with the other residents at her assisted living facility. Mom loved a get-together even more than she loved purple. Mom lived a good, long life and died in her late eighties. The entire extended family gathered for her memorial service in Virginia. It was my sister Vicki’s daughter, my niece Laurel, who suggested we ask everyone to wear purple. For those who forgot—or didn’t have anything purple—Laurel made pins out of purple ribbon. A bright, happy color to celebrate the life of a bright, happy woman. A year later, I still missed Mom. Vicki and her husband…

WINGED MESSENGER Taking care of business. That was my motto as a Marine; now it was the motto of my small trucking business. I’m a man of action. But there wasn’t a thing I could do about my current situation. A driver at my company’s Casper, Wyoming, location had gotten into an accident that totaled one of our tractor trailers. Business in Casper had come to a halt. I sat at my desk at home in Washington, helplessly studying an Excel spreadsheet. “The insurance won’t pay out the full value of that truck,” I said to my wife, Catherine. “Profits were already down. How are we going to keep going?” “‘Look at the birds of the air,’” Catherine said, quoting from Matthew. “‘They neither reap nor sow…yet your heavenly father…

“I love serving the players and helping them and their families achieve their goals,” says Troy Vincent Sr. (Breaking the Cycle, page 22). As the NFL’s second-in-command, and the first former player to become executive vice president of football operations, Troy oversees a lot of behind-the-scenes action. He is spearheading efforts to reduce player injuries with rule changes and technology, and he launched a volunteer initiative for players and executives. “As a steward of the game, I see my goal as leaving it better than when I arrived.” He takes the same approach to communities in need through the Love Thy Neighbor Community Development & Opportunity Corporation. The organization provides resources like school supplies and sponsors college visits to help kids realize their potential. “My faith walk commands me to…

HELP WANTED GUIDEPOSTS helped me find a job! Five years ago, I was ready to retire after 40 years in sales. I would need part-time work to supplement Social Security but didn’t want to operate a cash register or manage people or sell anything. I did want to make a difference for others. Then I read Called to Care, by Home Instead Senior Care cofounder Lori Hogan, in your November 2015 issue. Caring for older people who want to stay in their homes sounded ideal. I retired in 2017 and underwent training. Soon I was a professional caregiver. It’s been very rewarding. On my way to see to my clients, I pray that I can be a blessing to them that day. Their smiles tell me my prayers are answered.…

4/9/2016, 11:21 a.m. Dear friends, family and acquaintances, I got some news this week that threw my world out of orbit. I stopped and stared at the computer screen. Since being diagnosed with Stage I invasive ductal breast cancer a few days before, I’d been fretting about how to tell people outside my immediate family. Was Facebook really the best way to share the news? There wasn’t time for lots of phone calls. I’d considered e-mailing, but it was frustrating trying to compile all the addresses. With Facebook, I could reach more than a thousand friends at once, some I hadn’t spoken with in years. I tapped at the keyboard: So send all your good thoughts, encouragement, prayers, jokes, meditations, favorite Bible verses, good karma and funny stories my way.…

THE SOUND IS SEARED INTO my memory. Heavy footsteps. Pounding. Screaming. A storm of violence on the other side of my bedroom wall. More heavy footsteps and a slammed door. Eerie silence. I was just seven years old when my mom’s boyfriend, the father of my younger brother, terrorized our family. He was a jealous, controlling man with a volcanic temper. If another man as much as looked at Mom on the street, she was in for a beating. My brother and I cowered, terrified. When the storm had passed, I crept through the apartment, eventually finding my mom sprawled uncon-scious and bloody. I ran into the hall and knocked on neighbors’ doors. No one dared answer. I had to go to the bar next door to call 911 on…

THE CONFERENCE FLOOR WAS buzzing last May in Minneapolis, where I was speaking as president of the National Organization on Disability, a private nonprofit that focuses on increasing employment opportunities for Americans with disabilities. I wasn’t alone at the conference: My 27-year-old son, Jacob, who himself has disabilities, had traveled with me from our home in New York City. “It’s ability, not disability, that counts,” Jacob proudly told the attendees, despite complaining of feeling sick to his stomach earlier. By the time we landed back in New York the next day, Jacob was in a lot of pain. So as we had more than 40 times before, we rushed to the emergency room at New York University Medical Center, the same hospital where Jacob had been born with hydrocephalus—a rare,…

“I say simply, ‘Learn how to be useful.’ It’ll take a lot of the mystery out of life.” actor HARRISON FORD, on what he tells people when they ask him for advice “I have enjoyed life a lot more by saying yes than by saying no.” entrepreneur RICHARD BRANSON “God uses guilt the way highway engineers use rumble strips. When we swerve off track, they call us back.… In appropriate doses, guilt is a blessing. In unmonitored dosages, however, guilt is an unbearable burden. We cannot carry it. But God can.”MAX LUCADO, from his book Before Amen “The repeated effort to master something you are not good at is what makes champions.”JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY, playwright “We rise by lifting others.” submitted by Guideposts reader JESSICA DEMENNA, of Glendale, Arizona “When you talk, you…

WE ARE LIVING IN FRIGHTENING, tumultuous times. Coronavirus continues its spread across the globe, killing hundreds of thousands of people, its toll of sickness and economic disruption affecting millions more. The poor and people of color have been particularly hard hit. There have been protests and demands for change. It’s hard not to feel helpless. Hard to stay hopeful. But it is important to remember that we have been here before—many times, in fact. As a chaplain and as the national spiritual care manager for the American Red Cross, I have witnessed firsthand how our country has come together in times of crisis, how God works through each of us and how there are ways to give and receive comfort, small yet powerful acts of kindness, even when life seems…

HAD I MADE THE RIGHT DECIsion, getting these horses? I paced in our home near Norfolk, England, waiting for the horse whisperer to pull into the drive. I’d found his information in an equine magazine. He claimed to help people with difficult horses. I was desperate. My two horses ran from me or lashed out. What if I couldn’t make them feel settled? What if I failed with them as I had with so much in my life? My son, Richard, then 11 years old, had convinced me to adopt a small pony, Gus, several months earlier. Richard had a Saturday job tending horses for a neighbor. “Please, Mum, please! I’ll take such good care of him,” he pleaded. We had the land, and Gus had been abandoned. He needed…

I’LL NEVER FORGET the day Branch Rickey, president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, asked me to join his baseball organization. I would be the first Black man to play in organized baseball—that is, if I were good enough to make the grade. Mr. Rickey’s office was large and simply furnished. There were four framed pictures on the wall. One was a Kodachrome snapshot of Leo Durocher, the field manager of the Dodgers. Another was a portrait of the late Charlie Barrett, one of the greatest scouts in the game. A third was of General Chennault. And the fourth and largest smiled down on me with calm reassurance, the portrait of the sad, trusting Abraham Lincoln, who had pleaded for malice toward none…. This was the never-to-be-forgotten day when our Marines landed…

“I’ve subscribed to Guideposts for more than 50 years, but macular degeneration was making it hard to read. I am thrilled it’s offered in large print, so I can keep getting a monthly dose of inspiration.”AJOR-HELEN “JOREE” JOHNSON Redondo Beach, California For more information on Guideposts’ outreach programs, visit guideposts.org/helping-others, write to GUIDEPOSTS FOUNDATION, 100 Reserve Road, Suite E200, Danbury, CT 06810 or e-mail us at outreach@guideposts.org.…