I knew I should pray more. I tried–I really did. I got up earlier and got in my cozy chair . . . only to find it was too cozy and I was nodding off. Then I got a Nordic Trac and propped my Bible up on the thing so I could pray the scriptures. But my Bible fell off, and I did too one day. Shortly thereafter I was walking down the steps out my back door when one of my knees gave way, and I found myself in a crumpled heap. I knew I needed to do something about my health, but tha

I had a fun unit I did with my students when I was teaching them to write technical language. First, I created relevance for the unit by bringing in appliance and auto instruction manuals. Then I stood in front of the class with a table that had peanut butter, jelly, bread, a bread board, a knife, and a plate. “Tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” I’d say. An eager student would raise his hand. “First, put the peanut butter on the bread.” So I’d pick up th

After a traumatic experience in our family, I wanted nothing more than to move. I didn’t want to live in the fishbowl of my little town in the Sierra Valley. I didn’t want people whispering “She’s the . . .” I just wanted to move on. So, I immediately started looking for a teaching job near my family in the Sacramento area, 150 miles away. And I prayed something would come through so my family and I could leave Dodge. I was pretty confident. I was a strong Advanced Placement

My dad was a man of numbers. After church I could ask him, “How many today, Dad?” And he’d tell you the exact number of people in worship that day. When he came home from his job as a department store manager, he’d have his figures in his hand–the total retail sales for his Liberty House (formerly Rhodes) store location. Birthdates, birth weights and lengths, anniversaries, and more were recorded in little leather-bound books he kept in his suit jacket pocket. All the mysteri

When I walked into the office at Loyalton High, where I worked, I was surprised to see that our son Josh hadn’t signed up for his second year of basketball. When I saw him next and asked him about that, he said, “I’m not playing this year.” When I asked why, he said, “Because of my knee.” It turned out that many months before then he had ridden a four-wheeler at his friend’s house, flipped it, and been knocked unconscious, also damaging his knee. I’d never been told. What his

How long have you lived in your house? This year will mark FORTY years that we’ve lived in our home. Can you believe that? It seems unreal to me. How can that be? The last year Craig was serving in the Army, we took a risk in buying three lots in our little town in the Sierra Valley and hired a contractor to frame our home and separate garage. He was a slow-moving vehicle, so it wasn’t until a year after we’d actually moved back to California from Kansas that we could move in

I have a cousin Roger, who used travel from the central coastal area of California to our family home south of Sacramento to go duck hunting. There are many marsh areas near there–perfect for his sport. But boy, when he came back to our house at the end of the day, he was covered in muck from wading into those tules. Just a silly teenager, I reacted without thinking one day. “Boy, you’re a filthy mess.” He shook his head at me and said something I’ll never forget. “Good thing