Guideposts Aug/Sept 2024

My friend peeked into my bedroom and frowned. “All those books stacked on your nightstand. That would stress me out,” he said. I smiled and quoted Cicero: “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” I’ve long made peace with the idea that I probably won’t finish half the books I have on my nightstand and throughout my house. I grew up in a family where someone always had a book in hand. Really, what is more hopeful than a book? Books show us life from different perspectives. They engender empathy and understanding. They ignite the imagination. They take us places far and wide, in space and time. Books give us the world. I spent a fair amount of time confined to bed as a kid—asthma, a…

“Words [were] flowing through me, and I’m just taking dictation. That’s happened to me in the past, but not to this degree.”PAUL SIMON, 82, on the lyrics that came to him in dreams and led to his latest album, Seven Psalms “We often believe it’s our strengths that make us great leaders, but it is our weaknesses that push us to grow, to heal, to move out of the way and to let God be God…. We should embrace our weaknesses as an opportunity to learn and become what God intends for us to be.”AMY L. WILLIAMS, youth minister for some 30 years, who works with teens involved in gangs and the criminal justice system “I also tell myself that every season—whether it’s good or bad—has an expiration date. And…

Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and joy are in his dwelling place.—1 CHRONICLES 16:27 (NIV) There is one sound that can manifest pure joy in our household: the ice-cream truck rolling down our street. The kids leap up, snatch their piggy banks, sprint for the yard and chase down the slow-moving truck. It’s a cause of much jubilation for our whole family. Once we get our ice creams, we grab spots on the lawn and watch the sun dipping into the treetops. In those perfect moments—the thin space where I can almost feel heaven on earth—we talk about our days, our troubles and the things in our lives we’re thankful for. It’s in those thin spaces that I most like to talk about Jesus’ love for us. “Think…

BIG RIG BLESSINGS In August of 2021, my older brother Rocky Garza died from Covid-19. We had been so close. Losing him was heartbreaking. Rocky was an over-the-road truck driver, a job he loved. He always joked that I should join him in his cab. I never did, but I know that if I had, Rocky would’ve made it fun. He made everything fun. One day, I was out walking, thinking about Rocky. A semitruck drove by, and I had the impulse to wave. I waved at the next truck I saw. And the one after that. When one of the truckers waved back, it brought me such comfort. The trucker’s wave reminded me how happy Rocky had been behind the wheel of his big rig. I started waving at…

Lake Forest, California Since you were a small child, you’ve dreamed of how your life could be different. You’ve dreamed of what you could become, what you could accomplish, where you could live and what you could own. Dreaming of the future is one of the many things that separates humans from animals. Animals can’t dream of creating music, building a career, solving social problems or having grandchildren. Your ability to dream was given to you by God. You dream because, as the Bible says, you were “created in God’s image.” God dreams. Everything created in the universe was first a thought in the mind of our Creator. The reason you exist is because God first dreamed of you. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. You…

Nine years ago, I was at the end of my 40-year marriage and the beginning of my recovery journey. I started attending AA meetings at a recovery center where I lived in Virginia Beach. A group of us would go out for coffee afterward, and that’s how I got to know Sam P. After 24 years of service in the Navy as a meteorologist, he had just retired. He too was going through a divorce after a long marriage. I was moved by the honest way Sam shared in meetings. It was clear he was passionate about helping others in their sobriety. We became good friends but didn’t start dating for two years. We had both been hurt in our marriages and didn’t want to ever go through that pain…