Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Guideposts

Notice anything? That’s right. We’ve freshened up the look of the magazine. In fact, we’ve implemented these improvements throughout the company, and you may have already seen these enhancements on our digital platforms. Why now? We haven’t done a rebranding in 20 years. Can you imagine not making any improvements to your house for 20 years? Julee has a project for me nearly every week. It’s more than just contemporizing our look. The work we’ve done these past months has aimed to make Guideposts a better, more rewarding experience for you. We’ve made the typeface more readable. The revamped color palette is vibrant and uplifting. Yet nothing excites me more than the new icon we’re using, including on the cover. The icon is an interpretation of a G. But sometimes…

There was a touch on my shoulder. A gentle tap. I blinked awake in the darkness of my bedroom. The clock read 2:55 a.m. Way too early to be up. “What is it?” I asked my husband. He was sound asleep. Like I should be. I rolled back onto my pillow. I’d just started to drift off when I felt it—another tap. Not so gentle. I shook my husband, frustrated. Finally he opened his eyes and looked at me blearily. “You tapped my shoulder,” I said. “What’s wrong?” He mumbled something, then flopped over. He was snoring within seconds. Maybe I’d just had a vivid dream. I lay back down and closed my eyes. This time it was less like a tap on the shoulder and more like a poke.…

I couldn’t find my stocking cap. That’s how it all started. Though looking back on that day, I can see that isn’t what stands out. The weird thing is, I was only an observer to everything that happened afterward. But nothing would ever be the same for me again. December 6, 2007. I’d rushed home from my job as a department manager at Walmart. I’d been there 11 years and, at 37, planned on retiring there. For a guy who never went to college, I felt lucky to have a good-paying job and wanted to hang on to it. I’d always made the safe choice in everything I did. All this talk about God having a plan. I wasn’t sure about that—at least for me. Better not to take chances.…

The call came one September morning, before I’d had my coffee. “Julie, he’s drinking again.” Our family member had relapsed. Not for the first time. I got off the phone and felt myself slipping too. Not by drinking, but by “stinking thinking,” the distorted thought patterns that had made my life unmanageable. Overanalyzing. Obsessing. Trying to control things. Clyde, our four-year-old yellow Labrador retriever, came into the kitchen as I poured my coffee, prancing as much as a 100-pound dog could prance. He knew it was time for a walk. “You’re always happy, aren’t you, buddy?” I drank my coffee, imagining worstcase scenarios involving this family member who’d fallen off the wagon. One phone call, and my 20 years of Al-Anon recovery work went out the window. I didn’t want…

Mama loved to surprise us. A box of her homemade fudge. A recording of a poem she’d memorized. Little gifts she’d brought back from a trip. Even with 10 of us—five boys and five girls—she always found ways to make each of us feel special. Mama passed away in December 1997 at age 93. Two months later, on a cold gray February morning, four of us sisters gathered at our childhood home in Clarkesville, Georgia, to go through her things. Only our middle sister, Jackie, couldn’t make it; she’d stayed in Florida to nurse her sick husband. Years before, Mama had already given each of us the big items she’d wanted us to have. Today we had a system: We each took the gifts we’d given her, then made stacks…

I snuggled closer to my boyfriend, Eric, on the couch that January evening, ready to watch some TV, when a wail came from down the hallway. “Was that Breckan?” I said. Breckan was one of my 15-year-old twin boys. “I think so,” Eric said. “You’d better check.” I went to my son’s room. Breckan was on his bed, sobbing. “Hailey doesn’t love me anymore!” he said, choking out the words. “She just wants to be friends. But I love her. I want to be her boyfriend.” Breckan had met Hailey in eighth grade, the year before. They met in math class, both popular kids, athletic and well-liked. Hailey was a cheerleader. They had gone on a few dates together, to the movies, and he hung out at her house when…

“Life’s the movie. God’s the director.”MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY, actor, father of three and author of Greenlights “It might not happen right away, but trust me, during that time you’re waiting, God is preparing you for what’s about to happen.”RODNEY SMITH JR., whose mission is to provide free lawn care to the elderly, disabled, single parents and veterans “Your greatest sense of fulfillment will come in the service of others, not yourself.”BOB GOFF, from his book Dream Big “My prayers used to be asking God for things, and now my prayers are ‘God, what do you need from me?’”TRENT SHELTON, motivational speaker “Not all storms come to disrupt your life; some come to clear your path.”via the Instagram of TRACY SULLIVAN, author of Small Batch Discipleship “Many men are where we are…

VALENTINE TREASURES The week after Valentine’s Day, I hit the clearance aisle at Walmart. It had kids’ valentines that came with pencils, stickers and other little treasures for just a dime a box. I spent $10 on 100 boxes. Mom will be thrilled, I thought. My mom had taught kindergarten and bought clearance valentines with trinkets to fill her classroom’s “treasure box.” Although she’d left teaching to stay home with my siblings and me, she still got the valentines for her teacher friends. This time I’d bought more than Mom needed. Who else could use the cards and trinkets? How about the food pantry where I volunteered? I dropped off the valentines and, a few days later, got a text from another volunteer. They’d used some of the treasures to…

My old friend Rita, my daughter, Wynn, and I were sitting at the top of Big Spring Falls in Wisconsin in early June, watching the water pour over the falls, topple onto rocks and churn into rapids, pushing into the Eau Claire River. How could anyone deny Mother Nature’s glory? I’d been raised Catholic, but the great outdoors was my cathedral, where I felt closest to God, most connected to the wider world, though I’d lapsed in recent years. Ever since my husband’s drinking got out of control. Five-year-old Wynn dipped her toes into the sparkling, clear water. In spite of everything she’d been through—her father’s alcoholism and abandonment, the coronavirus quarantine, her preschool closing, my temporary unemployment, the upheaval in the Twin Cities—Wynn remained a spectacular little girl. Funny,…

Hawija, Iraq, June 2004. Clack! Clack! Clack! Bullets whizzed by. Everyone ran for cover. The gunfire had come out of nowhere. I ducked behind a concrete wall and looked for the rest of my unit. They were more than 45 feet away, too far for me to get to. “Hold position!” my sergeant yelled over the gunfire. We were in a bad spot. We needed backup and couldn’t move until another unit got to us. I took a deep breath and reloaded my gun. BOOM! The ground exploded, shrapnel blasting through the air. Pain seared through my side. I was flat on my back. Was I hit? Breathing fast, I ripped open my body armor and stuck my hand inside. When I pulled it out, it was covered in blood.…

WRAPPED IN LOVE Joshua 1:9 commands us to be strong and courageous. That verse, along with the support and prayers of my friends and family, had gotten me through two weeks of radiation treatments for MALT lymphoma near my thyroid. Then my oncologist ordered a PET scan for my six-month follow-up, and my courage seemed to leave me completely. “We need to make sure the tumor is still shrinking,” the doctor had said. I texted everyone I knew for their prayers. One reply stood out from the rest. My sister sent me a photo of an infant swaddled in a cozy blanket. “This is how I picture you, Paula,” she wrote. “Wrapped so tightly in God’s love that nothing can touch you without going through him.” I loved that image…

“Life has been beyond busy for us!” says Colleen Radke (67 Waterfalls, page 30). After visiting 67 waterfalls in Minnesota and Wisconsin during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, Colleen and her young daughter, Wynn, are ready for another adventure. The duo joined the Minnesota Hiking Club, which will take them to 68 trails throughout the North Star State. They’ve also adopted a four-year-old German shorthaired pointer named Dyna. Before becoming a part of Colleen and Wynn’s family, the dog had been returned to her breeder by a former owner and then trained until she was ready to be placed again. It was around the same time that Colleen began her search for a full-grown German shorthaired pointer, the same breed of dog her dad used to…

TREASURE EVERY MOMENT I had the privilege of working with Gerry Sowards on his Guideposts story, The End of the Line (April 2019), about finding his freedom from addiction. At the time, I had no idea the prescription opioids I was taking for chronic pain had me in their grip. Recently I called to check on Gerry [shown below]. I found myself telling him about my own addiction, saying, “I wasted 63 years I can never get back.” With wisdom beyond his 38 years, Gerry said, “Life for both of us is wonderful now. We couldn’t be the people we are today without those yesterdays.” Gerry’s video on guideposts.org shows him at a cemetery, where the first grave he dug (at his post-rehab job) was for a friend who’d overdosed.…