When I was growing up, we had a melon patch each summer where we grew watermelons and cantaloupes. This was a large plot with a fence to keep groundhogs and deer out. One day we noticed that something was eating our melons. Dad woke me up, the next morning before the sun came up. To […]
Carolyn and I recently were in Harrisonburg and while there we bought a pair of shoes. The clerk was a school teacher who worked at this store in the evenings. She loves her students and told us that the school population within Harrisonburg High School includes students from 54 countries. We were amazed at this […]
My mother died with Alzheimer’s. It started when she was only 59. She was a brilliant nurse and mother of five. This disease got worse and worse, and she at times didn’t even know our names. I prayed for a miracle but didn’t get the miracle I was looking for. I wanted her to be […]
George Vanderbilt visited Asheville, North Carolina, for the first time in 1888. Vanderbilt bought 125,000 acres near the small town and built a 250-room mansion on the site. Construction of the Biltmore started in 1889 and took six years to complete. The finished home was opened on Christmas Eve 1895. The mansion contains more than […]
The Roman emperor Constantine lived from 272 to 337 A.D. Emperor Constantine is an important historical figure because he implemented reforms that stopped the persecution of Christians. He also instituted the calendar dividing all of history into B.C. (before Christ) and A.D. (anno domini, in the year of the Lord). The move to secularize this […]
When I was pastor at Ivey Memorial UMC, we had a tradition. After church, if the children would let me pick them up – they could ring the church bell. They loved to ring the bell, and this tradition would often keep me at church a long time. Many of the children would cry if […]
I like to watch old Westerns. It’s a way of life that has long since passed us by. Can you imagine sleeping on the ground and taking a trip with only beans and coffee packed in your saddlebag? You would build a fire to cook the beans and boil the coffee. You would ride your […]
When I was growing up, my grandmother was the organist for Leesburg United Methodist Church. Her idea of a good time was to have my brothers and me gather around the piano and sing hymns. We would sing and sing and sing. We boldly would say to others that we knew every hymn in the […]
Researchers say that people who give their money and time to others are happier than those who don’t. While giving can make us happy, I wonder if happiness should be our goal. Giving can make us feel good, but there are difficult situations that require our support. In I Chronicles 29:1-5, King David invited the […]
