Posts by Anna Porter (Page 18)

I will

Franciszek Gajowniczek was a Nazi prisoner in Auschwitz when a fellow inmate escaped. The standard discipline when anyone escaped was to select 10 men at random and place them in a cell where they were left to starve to death. When Gajowniczek heard his name read, he sobbed, “My wife and my children.” At that…

Truth

The truth of God is a wonderful asset to a Christian. Joni Tada likened the value of God’s truth to an experience in her childhood. She wrote, “At four, I was too young to have my own horse, and I’m not sure a horse fit for a four-year-old could have kept up with my father…

Keep your shirt on!

In 1952, President Harry Truman appointed Newbold Morris to a very important post. His duty was to keep a close check on crime and mismanagement in government affairs. On one occasion, however, Morris was called before a Senate sub-committee to answer questions about the sale of some ships by his own company in New York.…

The power of prayer

The story is told of a man who got a permit to open the first tavern in a small town. The members of the local church were strongly opposed to the bar, so they began to pray that God would intervene. A few days before the tavern was scheduled to open, lightning hit the structure and…

A big step

When Apollo 11 neared the moon in July 1969, the editors of the New York Times felt their coverage of the first step on lunar soil should go beyond headlines and photos to embrace an achievement shared by all humanity. So they asked Pulitzer Prize-winner Archibald MacLeish to write a poem. The day after Neil…

Riches or poverty?

An elderly woman in Scotland lived in abject poverty. Many years earlier, her son had left to live in America and had not returned to visit. One day a friend inquired, “Does your son ever help you?” Reluctantly she admitted, “No, but he writes me nice long letters and sends me interesting pictures.” The friend wanted…

How much are you worth?

All America waited anxiously. Many people prayed. Captain Scott O’Grady’s F-16 had been shot down as he was flying over Serbia. Had he been killed or captured? Was he seriously injured? The hours ticked by. Five days passed. On the 6th day another pilot picked up a faint message from O’Grady’s radio. He was alive,…

Coincidence?

“When a team of Christians visited Stavropol, Russia, in 1994 to hand out Bibles, a local citizen said he recalled seeing Bibles in an old warehouse. They had been confiscated in the 1930s when Stalin was sending believers to the gulags. Amazingly, the Bibles were still there. Among those who had showed up to load…

Be kind

“The book “In His Steps” may have earned less money for its author than any other bestseller in history. Charles M. Sheldon wrote it in 1896, and it was first published by a religious weekly magazine. The magazine’s publisher failed to meet copyright regulations, so Sheldon lost legal ownership of the book. Scores of publishers…

Stretched

The Thought for the Day is from Psalm 66 v 10. “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.” A talented violinist was scheduled to play before a very critical audience. Although she had a fine instrument, she was not satisfied with the quality of its sound. So, she said to her father,…