A few years after these spiritual experiences, our oldest son and his wife had their first baby. We watched as our son and daughter-in-law went from being elated new parents to being devastated three days later when he learned their newborn son had multiple heart...
We lived in a variety of places. Sometimes we lived in very nice homes while at other times we lived in very humble surroundings. One of the biggest contrasts in our housing occurred during my freshman and sophomore years of high school. When I was about fourteen...
We are puppets on a string, jerked around by other people. “No way,” you say. “Nobody controls me. I am the master of my fate.” Really? Be honest. What happens when someone pushes your buttons? Think of the last time you were upset or did something you regretted. What...
Married life was great! Even though we did not have much money, we made do. We rented a small apartment. Our furniture consisted of a bed and two old buckets we turned upside down to use as chairs to sit on while we ate our meals, which Jean placed on an old worn-out...
I loved JELL-O as a young child. We didn’t have much money, so treats were a rarity. Consequently, JELL-O became an affordable luxury we looked forward to. I liked cherry flavor the best, but lime and raspberry were close seconds. I didn’t much care for lemon flavor,...
True to form, over the next two years when we lived in the Redding area, we moved four times. However, I was able to attend only two high schools, a different one each year. That made a total of seven separate high schools I attended before I graduated near the top of...
After I felt God touch my heart and heal my soul, I looked at many things differently. I could see more clearly how my life experiences affected my desires and relationship with others. I realized that just as a black hole’s gravitational pull distorts space and time...
The solar company’s bankruptcy was a disenchanting introduction to the legal system. It felt like being in the midst of a feeding frenzy, watching dozens and dozens of sharks thrashing about as they gorged themselves on the remains of the dead company, and once they...
While I was serving a mission in South America, my family moved to north San Diego County, California. So I joined them there when I returned home from Ecuador. I opened up my own insurance agency and became very involved in our church’s young single adult program....
I always liked to build things. One of my first memories is sitting on our basement floor with my older brother, “building” something with the miniature tools our parents gave us. I was hammering away on some piece of wood when my brother, across the room, asked me to...
