Table of contents for Feb/Mar 2025 in Guideposts

Once, in line at the butcher’s counter of a small market in western Massachusetts, I realized I was behind Al Roker. He’d recently appeared on our cover for the first time—this issue marks his third appearance—and I badly wanted to thank him. I restrained myself, though. Why annoy him while he was picking out a roast? I didn’t want to impose. Had I known somehow what he would write about this time, I might have wrapped my arms around him and shouted, “I love you, Al!” Al’s new piece tells how a near-death health crisis taught him the urgency to express his love to the people who loved him back to health. Al had always loved them, but expressing that love didn’t always come naturally. Why is it that some…

WARMHEARTED In 2018, when my husband, Army Staff Sergeant Casey Raines, our kids and I were stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York, we were searching for a way to help homeless veterans and other people we saw in need in our area, especially during the long, cold winter months. We started the Warm Up Project, which has grown from a group of community-minded individuals into a nationwide program that collects gently used gloves, hats, scarves and coats to put in outdoor locations where people who need them can find them easily. Want to join us? Check our Facebook page for a place where you can donate, or you can simply leave the items outside in your own community, at places such as bus stops, outdoor shelters and food…

My husband, Bill, and I drove slowly down a gravel road that Sunday afternoon 10 years ago. With no destination in mind, we were exploring the countryside within an hour of our recently rented condo in Allen, Texas. We’d both grown up in the general area, moved to El Paso after our marriage and since to Allen, but neither of us had ever been in this neck of the woods. Yet somehow that day we had both felt gently drawn. Hay bales dotted the landscape. A tractor kicked up dust in a field. “It’s beautiful here,” I said to Bill, pointing out the wildflowers. The road turned abruptly, revealing a quaint down-town with an old-fashioned general store, a weathered train depot and a small white-steepled church. We drove a bit…

On that August night 15 years ago, I raised my glass to Gino, the handsome lawyer I’d been dating since moving from New York to Boston to research my novel. “Here’s to our six-month anniversary,” I said with what I hoped was an alluring smile. He looked nervous, a little sweaty, unlike his usual composed self. Wait, was he going to propose? As a long-divorced woman this side of 40, I wasn’t desperate to remarry, but if I were going to make that leap again, it would be with Gino. He was kind and smart and made me laugh. But instead of lifting his glass, Gino set it down. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work.” “What isn’t going to work?” “This,” he said, gesturing. “You…

Sundays used to be my favorite day of the week. I would pop out of bed and get ready for church. I loved worshipping alongside my husband, Robert. It was a chance to grow closer to each other and to God. I used to leave church feeling renewed. Excited for the week ahead. Used to. As in, no longer. For the past two months, ever since I’d been laid off from my job as a preschool teacher’s aide, church was the last place I wanted to be. The idea that God was looking out for me personally—well, I wasn’t buying it anymore. I dreaded talking to people after Mass, with their questions about how my job search was going and their assurances that “it will all work out.” I would…

HELD TOGETHER My suitcase lay open on the motel bed, the few clothes I’d brought scattered around it. When my husband, Landy, and I arrived at the regional heart center, we had hoped he’d only have to be there overnight. But tests revealed six of his coronary arteries were occluded. As a nurse, I knew how serious that was. Landy might not even survive today’s surgery. I was due at the hospital at 6 a.m. It was still dark as I slipped into my red buffalo plaid dress. It was shirt-waisted and fell to mid-calf, with a wide belt and an embroidered yoke. A little fancy for heart surgery, but it was Landy’s favorite. There was a real chance this would be the last time he ever saw me. I…

“A mindset I have for most things I do—because you know, you get anxious—I will do a form of prayer.… I’ll remind myself, ‘Be open and look for the direction.’”JEFF BRIDGES, actor “I still go to bed every night with a smile on my face, gratitude in my heart and love in my soul.”SISTER JEAN, 105, beloved chaplain for the Loyola University Chicago menʼs basketball team “We tend to get so submerged by the noise in life that we forget to stop, take stock and, especially, be grateful. Soon you’ll see your whole day as suffused by God’s presence, and it won’t seem very noisy at all.”FATHER JAMES MARTIN, Jesuit writer “What’s the worst that can happen? You make a mistake. You learn. Mistakes can be the best thing in…

It might sound strange, considering I make my living on television and have been the weatherman and cohost on the Today show for 29 years, but in my personal life, I shy away from the spotlight. I’d much rather celebrate someone else, make a big deal out of their birthday instead of my own. Which is why I tried my best to dissuade my wife, Deborah Roberts, from throwing a party for my birthday last August. But I knew I couldn’t stop her. It was a milestone birthday, after all—my seventieth. The truth was, I was feeling a little melancholy about turning 70. My dad never made it to this age. He passed away at 69. Dad was my role model and inspiration for being a good husband and father.…

“You’re sure?” CJ asked. “You can’t come to the lake?” “Positive,” I said. A gritty breeze brushed my face. The spring winds in Wichita always seemed to carry the topsoil of western Kansas along with them. “Let’s see,” she pressed, “finals are over, so you can’t be studying. You were doing your laundry two days ago when you couldn’t go to the movies.” CJ softened her voice. “It wasn’t your fault, you know. There was nothing you could have done.” I avoided her eyes. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I have other plans.” “There’s room in my car if you change your mind,” she called as I hurried away across the college parking lot. CJ was a good friend, but even she didn’t understand. Winfield Lake was the last…

My husband, Jean-Claude, and I sat down to dinner. Our nightly conversation started up. “What did you have for lunch today?” I asked. “Pasta,” Jean-Claude mumbled. He looked glum. “Hmm,” I said. “You need more fiber than that. Maybe you should supplement with a bean burrito tonight.” Jean-Claude shrugged. “Did you exercise this morning?” Another shrug. “I walked to the office,” he said. Jean-Claude is an architect. His office is a half-hour walk from our apartment. “You need to ride the stationary bike each morning,” I said. “Remember what the doctor said?” A few months earlier, a routine colonoscopy had revealed that Jean-Claude is at high risk for colon cancer. His doctor recommended a health makeover. High-fiber diet. More exercise. Cut out the sweets and processed foods. I was already…

My beautiful daughter is having a baby. I have been praying for her to find someone to love who would love her. She has found him, and they are starting a family. My heart is full. Thank you, God, for answering my prayers.—MAXINE Thank you, our Heavenly Father, for keeping us safe on our airline flights.—DONNA God has answered our prayers to give us strength and wisdom to find an assisted living place for our folks.—JANICE Thank you, Lord, for the solace and peace I recently found in my life.—ANONYMOUS From our readers and website visitors. Send your answered prayer to submissions@guideposts.org.…

It takes time to make new friends. That’s what I told my 12-year-old son, Jimmy, when we moved to Rutherfordton, North Carolina. But at home by myself one rainy afternoon—with Jimmy at school and my husband, Jack, at work—I was the one who longed for a friend. We’ve been here a whole month now, Lord, I thought, looking out at the rain. And I still don’t know anyone. I’m so lonely! The new neighborhood outside my window was pretty but barren. Like a garden where nothing grew. Maybe we just didn’t belong here. Jack was a counselor—one of the first therapists in the area. That made some people leery of him. We went to a different church than most folks around here. Another barrier. Then there were our Yankee accents—Jack…

AI Roker’s (Letting My Feelings Show, page 12) oldest daughter, Courtney Roker Laga, is a trained chef and recipe developer, so when she came to him about doing a cookbook featuring their family’s favorites, he knew she’d be the perfect collaborator. “My mom didn’t write anything down. My grandma didn’t write anything down,” Al says. “So Courtney had to be a recipe detective, interview people and try to get them to describe flavors and scents and then come up with the recipe.” The result is Al Roker’s Recipes to Live By: Easy, Memory-Making Family Dishes for Every Occasion, which is filled with mouthwatering dishes like oxtail stew and dumplings, bacon waffles, and his mom’s macaroni salad. “Family memories often revolve around a meal or something that happened before or after…

GODʼS UNFOLDING STORY Our refrigerator hadn’t been working well, and the repairman said it wasn’t worth fixing. We ordered a new one, which would take a week to be delivered. All that week, I kept wondering if we’d done the right thing by replacing it. My husband, Tony, and I felt sentimental about the old fridge. We’d had it for our entire marriage, and it was covered with nostalgic magnets and drawings. At last, the delivery people arrived with the new fridge. I picked up the Guideposts issue I’d just received in the mail (Aug/Sept 2024) to read while they were doing their work. Imagine my surprise when I turned the pages and saw The Marble Track, by Julie Lavender—about her reluctance to get rid of an old, nonworking fridge! By…

I set my paper plate of tacos on the folding table in our church fellowship hall and smiled at the woman who’d made them for the six families in our life group that Tuesday. “Thanks for cooking dinner tonight,” I said, hoping my words didn’t sound forced. “Fall is such a busy time.” My husband Eric and I had gone to this church for eight years now. We felt comfortable here. Yet we’d never joined any group, Bible study, nothing. We’d kept our distance in that respect. Or at least I had. My 15-year-old son, Nathan, sat at a table with the other teens in the group. I overheard one of them say, “You have brothers and sisters?” I held my breath, wondering how Nathan would respond. But he simply…

How countless are your works, Lord! In wisdom you have made them all.—PSALM 104:24 (CSB) The first droplets from the watering can had just splashed onto the leaves of my hot, thirsty flower-box flowers when something leaped up and out. I stepped back, startled. At my feet was a big brown toad. Scooping it up, I carried it to my garden. “It’ll be nicer for you here,” I said, setting it in the shade. The very next afternoon, the toad was back! I hoped this time it would stay in the garden after earning a second trip. Instead, I found myself toe to toe with the toad again when it leaped out of the flower box for the third day in a row. What was going on? A piece of…

We’d barely begun the hike to Maui’s Waimoku Falls, and already Morgan, my 20-year-old son, seemed as if he might ruin it. He strode ahead on the trail, keeping 10 feet away from my husband, Greg, and me. “Come on—this is what you wanted to do,” he said, widening the distance between us. So much for family togetherness. I had made no secret that for my fiftieth-birthday trip to Maui—dubbed Hawaii 5-0 by Greg—the crown jewel of the itinerary would be hiking the Pipiwai Trail to the falls. We’d already driven the Road to Hana, famous for its more than 600 hairpin turns, to get here. All part of the experience. For the past week, it had been the only thing I could talk about. We’d woken this morning to…

Lisa Brom of Monterey, California, had lost her older brother, Steve, to alcoholism and was looking for something to do with her grief and the love she used to give him. “Steve was a really good guy. He tried so hard for so long to stop drinking,” Lisa recalls. “At last, he got sober, but then he had a seizure and died in his sleep.” He had just turned 50. Lisa was on her way to work one day when she spotted a shuttle bus, one she’d been noticing lately. It stopped in the same spot at the same time every day and picked up a group of men who were homeless. They reminded her of when her brother had stayed at a live-in Salvation Army recovery program. On the…