Subscribe  

Monday, October 24, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Sylvester Stallone's been in the ring for a lot of rounds. Even though he, a few years ago, hit the big 6-0 birthday, he was still doing Rocky-Rocky 6. It was called, "Rocky's final round." Sylvester Stallone is one of the millions of Baby Boomers who have hit a challenge for which some have not been prepared – aging. I was intrigued with what Stallone had to say about people he knows. He said, "You see billionaires who have everything, yet inside they're still the same lonely, insecure people." You think you've got it all figured out, but when you turn 60 or, you know, whatever age seems to make you feel like you're getting older, there's this little hole inside you. You realize you're always going to be somewhat half full…or are we.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Okay, I don't mind winter. It's a good thing since God seems to have assigned me to the North most of my life. Also, I don't mind snow. It's beautiful! It's even driveable if you know how to handle it. But ice-I can't think of anything nice to say about ice. Looking back on the winter of '98, neither could the folks in New England and Canada. They got walloped with a mega ice-storm that left two inches of ice on everything. In Montreal, for example, power lines and poles and trees just collapsed under the weight of the ice, and thousands of people were without power for days; which means many were without heat in the middle of a Montreal winter. In one neighborhood, one man got pretty resourceful after shivering for five days. He marched across the street with a lot of orange extension cord and asked his neighbor if he could plug into their outdoor outlet. The people on one side curiously were without power and very cold. The people on the other side of the street had power and were very cozy.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

The idea of building a Headquarters as a base for our ministry's mission sounded exciting – and overwhelming. It took amazing financial miracles and the help of people who know a lot more than I do. I did some building with Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs when I was little, but apparently that experience did not prepare me adequately for the first real building project of my life. An architect drew the blueprint for what we needed the Headquarters to be, and that was great. But there I stood with this very big, very detailed drawing – having no idea of where to start with what was on that paper. Thank God for the contractor that He brought into our lives! He knew what to do!

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Our daughter's got this thing about lighthouses. Thanks to her family indulging that passion at Christmas and birthday time, she's got lighthouses all over her house. She's got lighthouse stationery, lighthouse rugs, and lighthouse books; sad to say, even a lighthouse on the cover of her commode. In many places, real lighthouses are mostly reminders of the maritime past when lives actually depended on seeing the light that marked the shore and the rocks. Sometimes, lives still depend on them; as in the case of a Greek ferry called the Express Samina.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

What do you call it when your dog has eight puppies? Octuplets? Ocpuplets? I don't know. Years ago, our Radio Production Manager, well, he probably would have just said you call it a handful. His dog was Sister. No, not a relative; that was her name-had eight puppies. He got to look after them until he could find homes for them. Apparently eight can be a challenge. He told me about one day when he was just trying to get them back into their pen. He said, "I was doing all I could to push those puppies back in. I'd get two or three in. Then while I was reaching for another one, one or two would kind of wiggle back out." (You can probably almost picture this can't you?) After a lot of pushing and shoving, he finally gave up for a while. He said, "You know, here's the funny part"-actually, I thought the picture of him losing to those puppies was the funny part-but he said, "within 10 minutes, guess where those rambunctious puppies were?" All of them were inside by the pen, without any pushing from him! They chose to do what he couldn't force them to do!

Monday, October 17, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

He's a baseball legend. Cal Ripken, Jr. played all 21 years of his Major League career with the hometown Baltimore Orioles. He holds several defensive records and he is only one of seven players who got 400 home runs and 3,000 hits. But as the sportswriters reflected on his career when he retired, what many considered his most significant achievement was that for 16 straight years he played in every single game, setting the all-time record of 2,632 consecutive games played. When the ill will from the 1994 players' strike was still in the air, he tied and passed Lou Gehrig's long-standing record for consecutive games played. The fans cheered loud and long. As one magazine said, "This wasn't Joe DiMaggio hitting in 56 straight games or Hank Aaron's clubbing 755 homers. This was a record that required a talent all mere mortals could display – faithfully showing up for work every day."

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Telephone etiquette is usually one of the last things children learn-if they ever learn it! In fact, I sometimes kind of cringe when a child answers the phone. You never know if they're going to hang up, or if they're going to yell into the phone, "Hey, Mom!" or if they're just going to put down the phone and forget to tell anyone that you're waiting. Ah, but the daughter of a friend of ours...oh, a pleasant exception. The family visited our office a while back, and when they got home, I called and the little girl answered. Very polite, very coherent, very competent. I said, "Hey, girl, how would you like to be my secretary?" She must have seen how crazy that job is when they were in our headquarters, because she answered immediately...oh, not with a yes-not with a no. She just said, "Uh, how about my brother?"

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

My wife and I were traveling with our daughter and son-in-law and our two dynamite, at that time, little grandsons. We were in adjoining motel rooms for a couple of days – and that's what occasioned our son-in-law's amusing comparison of our rooms. See, our rooms were basically identical – when we moved in. We moved our stuff into our room. They moved in themselves, their children, their children's world, and some "office on the road" stuff. Well, on our second day, our son-in-law plopped down in a chair in our room and he made this bemused observation, "You know, your room is three times bigger than our room!" Not true. See, our room was the same size. It was just one-third as crowded!

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Over the years, one of my areas of giftedness has been in the area of sleeping. Well, I mean, the Bible says you do whatever you do with all your heart, right? And that should apply to sleeping. Right? Now, I'd give our kids a time to be in, but I didn't always remain conscious that long. And they could ring the doorbell because they forgot their key, they could stomp upstairs, they could stomp over our bed, for that matter, and I would probably barely stir. Oh, but not my wife. Oh, no, no! I think there's something about the way many mothers are wired. They sleep real light (Is that right?)-if at all-until everybody's home safe. It's a mother thing. They just can't rest until all the kids are in.

Monday, October 10, 2016

Download MP3 (right click to save)

Moving day! Good news, bad news. The process of moving is horrible. The result, once you find everything you packed, is wonderful. Years ago, my Administrative Assistant got to experience all that good news and bad news. Actually, the bad news turned out to be not so bad. It could have been bad. She was just one woman with some heavy stuff to move; refrigerator, stove, piano, plus lots of smaller things. Now, I was out of town when she moved, which was good planning. But I talked to her a few days after the big migration. And all she could talk about was the difference her friends had made. The guys pitched in on the especially exciting things like the piano. The women carried some of the other items. And even her little nephews joined the team. They carried the little nephew sized stuff. Each person carried what he or she could. Gayle said, "You know, when I look at each piece of furniture in my apartment, I think of a person; the one who helped carry that particular burden." The burdens turned out to have a lot of blessing in them because of friends who helped her carry what she could never carry alone.

Subcategories

Your Hard Times

Your Relationships

Page 193 of 424

A Word With You Categories

                

GET IN TOUCH

Hutchcraft Ministries
P.O. Box 400
Harrison, AR 72602-0400

(870) 741-3300
(877) 741-1200 (toll-free)
(870) 741-3400 (fax)

FIND OUT MORE

Home / About

What We Do / Resources

News / Blog / Store

Contact Us / Privacy Policy

Donate

STAY UPDATED

We have many helpful and encouraging resources ready to be delivered to your inbox.

Please know we will never share or sell your info.

Subscribe

rhm-logo-white Copyright 2024 - All Rights Reserved - Hutchcraft Ministries

Back to top