Indice dei contenuti per May 2020 in Guideposts

My mom loved The Waltons. She didn’t otherwise care much for television—except for the news—but she rarely missed an episode of her favorite show, about a tight-knit family living through the Depression and World War II in small-town Virginia. The Waltons exemplified homespun, traditional American values. Mom wasn’t a crier. She came from a strong-willed Irish-Catholic clan in Philadelphia, but something about the Walton family and their bygone world brought out her latent sentimentality…and an occasional tear. I never quite understood it. It was a generational thing, I concluded. Mom and her family had lived through those twin cataclysms. The world of the Waltons was long gone, if it had ever existed at all—except in the idealized portrayal of that weekly TV drama. It was Mom’s battle with Alzheimer’s that…

SOUL SNACKS My mother ended up in the hospital several years ago. My family camped for hours in the intensive care waiting room. We didn’t want to leave in case the doctor came to speak to us or allowed us to visit her, even for just 10 minutes. And we weren’t alone—the room was full of worried people. Then my cousin Barbara walked in. In her hands was a giant basket filled with fresh fruit, granola bars, peanut butter crackers and other snacks—enough for everyone in the room. What a blessing she was! We shared the basket of goodies with the other folks and got to talking. We learned about their sick loved ones, which enabled us to pray for each other, rejoice together at good news and show compassion…

I got to my feet, brushing the dirt from my hands, and surveyed my garden. It was early spring, and so much was in bloom—the marigolds, the impatiens, the ivy climbing the trellis. But my pride and joy had to be my rosebushes. I had cultivated many varieties, with blooms that ranged from white to scarlet. All of them were thriving, their buds just starting to open…. All except one. It was my latest addition—a yellow rosebush. Yellow roses are my favorite, and this little plant had looked so hale and hearty at the nursery. I planted it, but within weeks it had started withering. It became a scraggly, pathetic thing. The leaves turned brown and began to shrivel. Roses are notoriously finicky. I watered my new purchase carefully, fed…

Q: Tell us about your dad. A: My parents divorced when I was one. Even though we weren’t under the same roof, Dad and I were close. I’d go to his house every other weekend. When I got older, we’d go to lots of movies together. Maybe that’s how I got my love for acting. He cheered me on when I moved from East Cleveland, Ohio, to Los Angeles to pursue acting. We’d have long phone calls every Sunday. Between TV show rehearsals, I’d go home. It was on one of those visits, about nine years ago, that I first noticed a big memory decline. Q: What happened? A: I was at my aunt’s. Dad could drive to her house in his sleep. Yet he kept calling me. “Yvette, I’m…

Moments of grace. We can find them anywhere, but it’s only by God’s grace that I came to Guideposts and have the privilege of doing what I do now. Would you like to hear about my journey? After graduating from college, I was determined to become a business person. I got a job at a big corporation in New York City and went on to get my master’s in business management. Then I got the call to ministry. I didn’t know exactly what I was meant to be doing, but I found a great school and studied there while working full-time. All the while, various people both inside and outside my church would say to me, “You should be preaching, Ty’Ann. You’d be really good at it.” No way, I…

HAPPY TRAVELER I opened my October 2019 Guideposts and was delighted to see a story by Elizabeth Sherrill, one of my favorite authors. I was even more thrilled to see that she had written about the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona and its architect, Antoni Gaudí. I had just booked plane tickets to Barcelona to celebrate my fiftieth birthday. I didn’t know much about the city and was quickly drawn into Elizabeth’s account of the twists and turns of Gaudí’s life and work. I read all I could about Gaudí before my trip to Spain and planned a tour of Sagrada Familia. Still, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. All the pictures and video clips seemed to depict a rambling building with additions constructed at random. Then…

Remember the Fallen Memorial Day honors the women and men who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Learn the history behind this solemn holiday. guideposts.org/memorialday Home Sweet Home In our exclusive video, home-improvement expert Amy Matthews (page 28) talks about how volunteering with her church inspired her career. guideposts.org/amymatthews Never Alone Diana Aydin (page 56) shares her best advice for confronting loneliness in this exclusive video. guideposts.org/dianaaydin Celebrate Your Mom Check out what the Bible has to say about mothers in this uplifting slideshow. guideposts.org/mothersdayverses Keep Your GUIDEPOSTS Coming We make it easy to renew your magazine, check on the length of your subscription or manage book series shipments. guideposts.org/ecares…

HAVE YOU ALWAYS DREAMED OF becoming a writer? Do you have a great story to tell? Do you want to inspire millions of people? Now’s your chance! Send your story to our Writers Workshop Contest. Don’t forget to tell us about yourself and your life and writing experience. If you have a blog, vlog or social media following, let us know. The workshop class of 2018 (shown at left) is already contributing to our publications and website. Make this the year you join them! The Writers Workshop is sponsored by best-selling author Debbie Macomber. “I’ve kept journals all my life,” she says. “Not long ago, I found a spiral notebook from 1977. On the first page, it said, ‘Since the greatest desire of my life is to become a writer,…

I LOOKED AROUND THE OFFICE, waiting to audition. Of all the TV shows to be called for! Bathroom Renovations on the DIY Network. I was an actor, a trained opera singer, a musician. By now I’d played myriad roles in my career: from commercials, voice-overs, films, plays, operas, cruise ship entertainment…but no reality television. The producers were looking for a host, someone who could show people how to get it all done: redo the tile, fix the plumbing, paint the walls. An acting teacher in college once told us, “Your job is to audition. To show up. To give it your all. You won’t book every job you want, but you’ll book the jobs that are right for you.” I was a shower-upper. I always brought my A game and…

Although it can be one of the most challenging and heartrending experiences anyone can face, caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s or another dementia can also be rewarding. “Being there for a parent with Alzheimer’s is a loving, selfless act,” says Ruth Drew, director of information and support services for the Alzheimer’s Association. “Caring for a parent who once cared for you can be devastating, but many adult children tell us they consider it a privilege to help a parent navigate their final journey.” You can take important steps to ensure appropriate care for your loved one, while also reducing the physical, mental and emotional stress that accompanies the demands of caregiving. The Alzheimer’s Association offers these tips: Become an educated caregiver. Understand the disease, its progression and typical behavioral…

I WOKE WITH A START ONE NIGHT last February when my husband, Bill, came into my room at mid-night. He was leaning weakly against the doorway. “I need to go to the hospital,” he said. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?” Bill had attended a piano concert with friends near our Seattle home that night. I’d stayed in and gone to bed before he got home. “The last thing I remember is getting out of the car and Dean driving away,” Bill said, his face ashen. “Then I woke up lying on my bed, still dressed.” I called 911 and pulled on my clothes. I was worried sick. Why had Bill blacked out? When we went outside to the ambulance, I saw Bill’s hat and glasses lying on the icy…

“She taught me the importance of following rules, finishing what I start, never giving up, leadership skills, teamwork, staying positive and motivated, and how to pack the military way when I’m traveling.”LAURIE HERNANDEZ, Olympic gold medalist gymnast on lessons her mom, an Army reservist, taught her “Being positive won’t guarantee you’ll succeed. But being negative will guarantee you won’t.”JON GORDON, author and motivational speaker “When I stop to pray, I realize God is already 10 steps ahead of me, waiting for me to catch up.”submitted by Guideposts reader ELGIN JOHNSON, of Blaine County, Montana “The more beauty we find in someone else’s journey, the less we’ll want to compare it to our own.”BOB GOFF, author of Everybody, Always “Knowing something doesn’t change your life. Doing something does.”MARIE FORLEO, author of…

“MOM, WE NEED TO TAKE YOU TO THE emergency room.” I’d rushed to my mother’s apartment at the assisted living facility with my husband, Kevin, after one of the nursing assistants had found Mom on the floor beside her bed, dazed. My 92-year-old mother pressed her lips together in a thin line—an expression of defiance I knew all too well. “I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said. “I just lost my balance.” I tamped down my frustration. I wanted so badly to be a good daughter. Patient. Kind. Full of grace. But oh my goodness! Could anything be easy with her? Mom behaved like a stubborn middle child even as an adult. Sandwiched between a favored older sister and an adorable baby brother, she’d learned to push…

I WALKED INTO MY MOTHER’S SOFTLY lighted room at Clausen Manor, where Mom was an Alzheimer’s patient, to find her bed surrounded by people I took to be strangers. The night before, my sister had called me from Michigan. “You’d better come,” she said, and I didn’t have to ask why. Not after these last few heartbreaking years. I got on a flight from New York the next morning, feeling guilty as always for living so far away. Mom looked unimaginably frail and parched. A woman with blond hair held Mom’s hand in both of hers while an aide dribbled sugar water from a dropper onto Mom’s lips, making rivulets of the deeper wrinkles on her chin. I noticed Mom’s buddy and fellow resident Pat standing vigil at the foot…

Asked how they feel, many family caregivers mention their stress and sadness—but not the resentment, impatience and anger that can build up. Caregivers tend to do what Caroline Conklin did: hide the feelings they think are negative. The fact is, most caregivers experience a wide range of emotions, all of which are valid and natural. Burying emotions takes a toll on your mental and physical well-being. Research by Home Instead Senior Care shows that caregivers who hide their feelings are more likely to experience fatigue, high blood pressure, difficulty sleeping and depression. Here are some tips for coping with caregiver anger: Forgive yourself. Who hasn’t lost their temper and snapped at their loved one at some point during the caregiving journey? Don’t beat yourself up. Give yourself credit for all…

MY HUSBAND AND I WERE NEW empty nesters. Our twins, Annie and Tyler, were leaving home after graduating from college. I was excited for them—and worried. Would they be okay on their own? Had we prepared them for the challenges out there in the world? I was thinking about Annie and Tyler one day while pruning a huge nandina by our back door, when I discovered a nest with one little egg. How sad it didn’t hatch, I thought. The nest was tattered—and abandoned, I assumed—so I moved it to a table. An hour later I noticed a beautiful male cardinal flyingback and forth to the bush, chirping, and realized he was looking for his nest. I returned it to the bush and put it between some strong branches. The…

COMIC RELIEF I was a successful commercial illustrator for decades. Then computer graphics took over and my career went down the drain. It seemed as if nobody had use for an old-school artist anymore, the kind who drew by hand instead of on a machine. I decided to go on a church retreat in the hope I might receive guidance. “Lord, whatever you want me to do with the rest of my life, I’m willing,” I prayed. “I feel as if God is telling me to trust him on this,” I told my wife, Kaye, when I got home. “I had the same feeling,” she said. We both felt optimistic about what would come next. God would lead me to the job he had planned. In the meantime, we would…

Amy Matthews(Building Dreams, page 28) is not only a home-remodeling, repair and renovation expert. She’s also an activist who is passionate about helping other women enter the construction trade. The Minnesota-based nonprofit she cofounded, And Now She Rises(andnowsherises.org), has established a scholarship program with vocational schools to help women who have survived domestic abuse pursue careers in the trades. Amy and others at ANSR intend to take the effort national—and with good reason: The Labor Department projects that construction will be one of the top employment growth sectors in the next eight years. “It might get hard to find good people to do the work you need done on your home,” Amy says. “This is an incredible opportunity for this country to support women.” Amy shares home-improvement tips on social…