On the basketball court, our grandson’s seventh-grade team did their best to score. Offense was their passion. But after each basket, their coach urged them to hurry back downcourt and play defense, which they were sometimes reluctant to do. Ever…

After a company couldn’t meet the specifications for ink pens use in some US government offices in the 1960s, the General Services Administration asked National Industries for the Blind (NIB) to make 70 million pens—despite NIB having never…

Ken avoided the migrant workers in his building. Their habits and way of life, so different from his, annoyed him. One day, however, while Ken was praying, a thought pierced him: They’ve been your neighbors for years, yet not once have you shared…

After the horrors of Auschwitz, Elie Wiesel lost his faith. “Where were you, God of kindness?” he asked, recalling the evil he and others suffered. “In my childhood I did not expect much from human beings. But I expected everything fr…

Trina received a free ticket to a sold-out event and tucked it into her Bible. Later, her son saw her frantically searching through the pantry. When she explained that she’d lost her Bible, he asked why she was looking in the food cupboard. &ldqu…

Not much is known about Adelaide Pollard, and that’s sort of the point. She was a humble servant of God who wanted no recognition for herself. At the age of forty, she felt a strong calling to be a missionary to Africa, but that door was closed t…

In April 2019, a fire broke out in Notre-Dame de Paris—the city’s famed medieval cathedral—destroying the spire and a “forest” of oak beams supporting the lead roof. Almost immediately, plans formed to restore the cathedra…

As I visited a patient in the hospital, I was struck by the actions of a young doctor standing with a team of other inexperienced physicians. The group listened as a more seasoned doctor explained about the patient’s health. Suddenly, the patient…

When Chris McCandless wandered off the grid and into the Alaskan wilderness, he expected to return. But he crossed the Teklanika in April, well before summer ice-melt would swell that river into an impassable torrent. Months later, out of food, McCandl…

Lillian Colón, who grew up in an orphanage, beat out four hundred dancers to win a coveted spot on a world-renowned dance team. She performed with that group, with its tightly ordered synchronized choreography, until her mid-forties. Now teachin…