It was a day of bees in the clover and bolls on the cotton. While heat radiated from the asphalt, the constant drip of the outdoor facet kept the fresh mint alive into the autumn. Windmill blades creaked overhead, and two orphaned goats kicked in the stall. It was an Indian summer in West Texas, and I was determined to delight …
By: Kandy Persall Ever since I can remember, Ray Tinney has been in my life. He married my sister the autumn after my first birthday, and my devotion to him began. When I was eight, a little event lifted that devotion to pure infatuation. It happened one Saturday morning after my friend Scarlet spent the night with me. At that …
“Have this attitude… which was also in Christ Jesus, who… emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant” (Philippians 2:5,7). Very few people bother to truly live this command. Sure, it’s memorized, rationalized, and compartmentalized, but it is hardly ever actualized. As I think about it, there is one person I know who has been emptying herself for …
Even by age five, he was tall, good-looking, and could easily pass for a grade-school boy. While in Texas with his cousins, he was a boisterous risk-taker, constantly conniving new antics on tree limbs and livestock. But, during the move to California he turned introspective. Guess starting over without your daddy can do that to you. His mama’s friends …
“Good grief! When it rains, it pours.” It was my sister’s seventy-third birthday and she was celebrating with out-patient surgery. Four weeks prior, Kay had toppled off her front porch with a simple misstep. Although Kay had visited her local clinic, the first X-ray showed no sign of break. When the “bad sprain” seemed to get no better, a persistent …
(Continued from yesterday) Moments after my brother-in-law’s single engine plane hit the ground, Ray fought for his life, suspended upside-down in a burning crop duster. By now, the flames had engulfed the cockpit and Ray’s hands and chest were in such agony that unfastening the hot metal buckle was proving impossible. Realizing that the fire was reaching his face, …
Even at nine years of age, I knew better than to call the church during the worship. So when the telephone rang at our tiny country service, my eyes turned with the other 40 members to watch our secretary slip into the office. Within moments, she motioned for my mom. The news was not good: my brother-in-law’s plane had …
