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The Precious Name of Jesus

The precious name of Jesus is all I can say. How many of you can say that name and mean it. He’s God all by himself. Tonight, like no other night, God is yanking on me. My tears will not stop flowing because when I think of His goodness I ...

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With the Drop of a Hat

Who knew that the drop of a hat would lead the way to the creation of  America’s favorite chocolate bar?  At age 14, Milton Hershey had left school for good and was working as a printer’s apprentice. He was quite bored with the position, as most young boys of his ...

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Take Heart! God Will Wipe Away Every Tear

Early death in Victorian America was an experience few families escaped.  The grieving heart was often susceptible to the superstitions of the day. With most deaths occurring at home, mirrors were draped in dark cloth so that no one could see their reflection for a time and be taken along ...

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God’s True Love

Bessie Pease Gutmann’s illustrations graced the covers of many of America’s early magazines such as McCall’s and Woman’s Home Companion. Bessie painted lovely images of babies and young children, capturing their innocence and purity in soft shades of blue and pink. Her own dear children, Alice, Lucille, and John, were ...

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What Power He Holds in His Hands

Think of everything our hands do.  Some hands create beautiful art with a paintbrush, others prepare delicious foods that bring others joy, and some take yards of fabric and turn them into lovely dresses or fine suits. Whatever someone’s hands can create, God is the Giver of the gifts that ...

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When Eleanor Thought of the Children

During the summer months of the 1940’s and 50’s many towns were filled with empty swimming pools and deserted playgrounds. These rites of passage for American children were still there, waiting to be enjoyed.  But something else was there, too.  Polio was an invisible enemy that targeted mostly little ones ...

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Tiger Lilies and True Prosperity

At the edge of the yard on my dad’s property grew a large bed of vibrant orange tiger lilies. Every year as early summer came, they popped up and opened toward the sky. They were not just another patch of old-fashioned flowers; they had been planted 60 years before by ...

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“Ode to Joy”

Happiness bubbles up quickly when things are going well, yet it is a fickle feeling that plummets just as quickly. Joy is something deeper– an assurance of what will be,  because God has promised it. The tides of life that sweep happiness away cannot steal true joy from the soul. ...

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Don’t Ration Your Gratitude!

My dad really saved things—old gas receipts from 1960, the bill for my sister’s birth in 1968 ($160), his yearbook from 1947, and a war ration booklet from 1942 that belonged to my grandfather.  Ration booklets held stamps that Americans had to shop with to purchase rationed items such as ...

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