Stories &amp; Illustrations

The Coach Who Wouldn't Let Her Quit

When Maria Gonzalez showed up at the Back on My Feet running program in Philadelphia, she hadn't run a mile in her life. She'd spent...

Titus 2:11-12Universal

223 words

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The Courage to Keep Beating

In 2012, researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden confirmed something remarkable about the human heart. Using carbon-14 dating — the same method used to...

Universalcourage

236 words

A Father's Arms at the Finish Line

In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, British sprinter Derek Redmond lined up for the 400-meter semifinal. He had trained for years, endured multiple surgeries, and this...

Universaltrust

Singing in the Dark

In 2010, thirty-three Chilean miners were trapped 2,300 feet underground in the San José copper mine near Copiapó. For seventeen days, the world didn't even...

Acts 16:16-34Universal

244 words

The Sailor's Cure Hiding in Plain Sight

For nearly three hundred years, scurvy was the most feared killer on the open sea. Between 1500 and 1800, it claimed more sailors' lives than...

John 8:32Universal

The Lighthouse at Cape Hatteras

On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse has thrown its beam across the Atlantic since 1870. Sailors caught in the treacherous...

James 1:17Universal

259 words

Joy Behind the Wire

In 1943, Japanese soldiers marched Eric Liddell through the gates of the Weihsien internment camp in Shandong, China. The Scottish Olympic champion who had electrified...

Romans 5:1-5Universal

When the Whole World Watched Them Rise

On October 13, 2010, a billion people around the globe sat glued to their screens as a narrow rescue capsule named Phoenix emerged from a...

Psalm 98:1-4Universal

The Prisoners Who Hid from Freedom

On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers pushed through the gates of Auschwitz. They expected to find the dead. Instead, they found seven thousand survivors —...

Mark 16:1-8Universal

The Telegram That Ended the Longest Night

On May 8, 1945, a Western Union operator named Elizabeth Phillips sat at her switchboard in a small Missouri telegraph office when the message clattered...

Luke 2:10-11Universal

254 words

The Prayer He Swore He'd Forgotten

In 1988, a commercial diver named David Wardell was working sixty feet beneath the surface of the North Sea when his air hose snagged on...

Jonah 2:1-2Universal

233 words

Lincoln's Open Door

During the darkest years of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln insisted on keeping regular open office hours at the White House. His advisors begged...

Hebrews 4:16Universal

246 words

The Cross of Nails at Coventry

On the morning of November 15, 1940, the people of Coventry, England woke to find their beloved cathedral reduced to a smoldering shell. German bombers...

Isaiah 2:1-5Universal

1 Corinthians 13:4-7Universal

Love as Solidarity - Liberation (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Gustavo Gutiérrez defined love as "effective solidarity" with the poor. "Love does not insist on its own way"—this applies to nations insisting on policies that harm the vulnerable. "Love is not arrogant"—neither are liberation movements that honor the dignity of those they serve.

Short79 words

The Symphony He Could Not Hear

By the time Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony — arguably the most celebrated piece of music in Western history — he was completely...

Universalpurpose

The Library That Went Dark

In 2004, the city of Sarajevo still bore the scars of the siege that had devastated it a decade earlier. Among the greatest losses was...

Amos 8:11Universal

258 words

The Man Who Fought Back by Not Fighting

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson stepped onto Ebbets Field in Brooklyn as the first Black man to play Major League Baseball in the modern...

Universalcourage

230 words

Dorothy Day and the Unwelcome Guest

In 1933, Dorothy Day opened the first Catholic Worker house in New York City's Lower East Side. The dining room had no reserved seating, no...

Luke 14:1, 7-14Universal

233 words

The Diary That Proved the Mountain Was Real

On August 1, 1838, a young British lieutenant named John Hanning Speke stood at the edge of Lake Victoria and scratched precise coordinates into his...

2 Peter 1:16-19Universal

The Candlesticks He Didn't Deserve

In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, there is a scene that has haunted readers for over 160 years. Jean Valjean, a convict hardened by nineteen years...

Universalforgiveness

244 words

The Telegram and the Hymn

In November 1873, Horatio Spafford received a telegram from his wife Anna bearing two devastating words: "Saved alone." The SS Ville du Havre had collided...

Universaltransformation

239 words

Psalm 89:2-5, 27, 29Universal

The Bridge That Never Closed

On October 24, 1964, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened between Brooklyn and Staten Island. Engineers designed it to last — not decades, but centuries. Sixty years...

232 words

The Painter Who Could Not Go Back

When Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he used a technique called *buon fresco* — applying pigment directly onto freshly spread wet plaster....

Universaltrust

230 words