While coping with the effects of chemotherapy one winter, I asked my son to purchase and plant a new rose bush in my garden. He went to the garden center and...

In 2003 I donated a kidney to someone I had never met. I didn’t begin with that outcome in mind. Initially I was tested for compatibility with a colleague who needed...

My family and community usually let Christmas pass by without any acknowledgment. To comfort myself and appreciate the meaning of Christmas, I usually watch a Christmas concert or go to church...

When I was ten, I had never given a Christmas gift. My family barely had enough money for my parents to buy presents. But that December, a neighbor came to our...

In the silence of my infant daughter’s room, I finally understood Mary’s pondering. In those precious moments after my daughter had fallen asleep in my arms, my thoughts flitted from the...

We have a Chief Joseph lodgepole pine growing in our front yard. This unusual conifer attracts much attention and is the subject of many comments because of its seasonal change from...

My mother was 52 when she died of a heart attack. She had not been a heart patient and had been healthy, so her sudden death came as a great shock...

As a freshman in college, I enrolled in a physical education course titled “Winter Survival Skills.” One activity was to learn how to use a compass. One afternoon, the entire class...

Every Christmas I get a little depressed. In this season, Christians do many things to make life brighter for others. But I can’t do the majority of them since my age...

On the last day of the school term, I went to my daughter’s class. The teacher had turned on a radio to entertain the children. Most of them were sitting and...