Normally, I write a devotional in parable form.  A parable is an earthly story with a Heavenly meaning.  I will give an opening story either from history, the National Day calendar, or some life event.  Then, I will spin it into the spiritual significance.  Well, today, I just don’t have time for that or the… Read More »

In studying for these devotionals, I often learn something I never knew.  Such was the case today.   Let me set this up. My two youngest grandkids are local which means we are able to have them at the house for extended periods of time and enjoy them on a regular basis.  Their ages are three… Read More »

On October 27, 1659, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson were executed by hanging in the Boston, Massachusetts colony.  Their crime? They were Quakers. “The Quakers, or the Religious Society of Friends, began when people within the Church of England saw corruption and false doctrine rise in that body in the 1650s. With Puritanism also came… Read More »

By proclamation of the 2019 United States Senate, October 28th of each year is designated as National First Responder Day.  There are approximately 4.6 million first responders serving the 342.6 million Americans.  These include firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical technicians, paramedics and 911 dispatchers.1  While this seems like a lot, the math demonstrates otherwise. … Read More »

Happy Monday!  Let me step right into the proverbial hornet’s nest this morning by introducing a celebration that happened yesterday.  On March 5, 1934, the first recorded celebration of this individual occurred.  In the 1970s, the American Society of Florists made it official.  The last Sunday of October is National Mothers-in-Law Day.  Did you remember… Read More »

Man has pursued joy in every avenue imaginable. Some have successfully found it while others have not. Perhaps it would be easier to describe where joy cannot be found: Not in Unbelief — Voltaire was an infidel of the most pronounced type. He wrote: “I wish I had never been born.” Not in Pleasure —… Read More »

WHY?  That was probably a predominant question asked on October 24, 1901.  WHY would you do this?  WHY would you chose to celebrate your birthday this way?  WHY – at your age – would you even consider doing something like this?  WHY at any age would you consider doing something like this? Annie Edson Taylor… Read More »

Let’s step back to October 22, 1965 and acknowledge an 18-year old named Milton Lee Olive III.  To look at him, you would see a meek, baby-faced, thin black man who wasn’t particularly muscular or possessing any obvious machismo.  The one picture I saw of him looked like a little boy playing dress up in… Read More »

On this day in 1941, Disney released a silver screen production that was intended to help recoup financial losses from Fantasia and Pinocchio.  The movie released was a classic:  Dumbo. The plot is pretty simple.  Mrs. Jumbo the circus elephant had a baby that was delivered by an exhausted stork.  The baby’s name was to… Read More »

On this day in 1797, André-Jacques Garnerin accomplished something that some had attempted but none had succeeded.  Garnerin made the first successful jump with a parachute. “Frenchman Louis-Sebastien Lenormand fashioned a kind of parachute out of two umbrellas and jumped from a tree in 1783, but André-Jacques Garnerin was the first to design and test… Read More »