Devotionals

 By Elizabeth Rice Handford “Let’s be kinder,” a blogger recently burbled.  “Let’s love each other more.” Oh, how right she is!  This poor old world desperately needs to see us Christians loving others, caring for the poor, compassionately watching for ways to help...

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford On a Sunday afternoon, when I was 14 years old, I was at my Sunday school teacher’s home, practicing for a Christmas program.  She suddenly burst into the room, her voice shaking.  “Girls,” she cried, “run home just...

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford “I need self-validation*,” a woman said to her friend. “I’m going to confront my mother today.” “What in the world is self-validation?” the friend asked naively. Incredulous, the woman said, “You haven’t heard about...

  A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford “Look down, look down that lonesome road before you travel on, Look up, look up and seek your Maker                    before Gabriel blows his horn.”        ---Gene Austin © 1928 Gene Austin’s plaintive song was...

   A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford In 1936 Texas marked the 100th year of their independence with celebrations the whole year long.  I was 9 years old.  All of us little Texas girls got to wear cowboy boots to school that year.  (You do...

  A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford I lost a hearing aid the other day.  I was sitting on my bed and dropped it as I was putting it in my ear.  Scrambling around—it had to be close by!—I was sitting right there when I dropped it.  I panicked.  “Here...

 A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford A woman, a dear friend of mine, had longed for a new little Shih Tsu.  A breeder she’d worked with before had just the one she wanted.  Her husband had some reservations: if you have a dog you always have to make...

A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford Son John had a brand new moped, and this middle-aged mother thought I’d take it for a spin around the church parking lot behind our home.  I had a wonderful time, for a while, pretending like I was a teenager again,...

   A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford When I was a child, I had a dream so vivid and so frightening that in the middle of the night I ran to my parents’ bedroom and woke Daddy up.  It really was a bad dream; I can still describe it to you in...

  A Word of Encouragement from Elizabeth Rice Handford Walt and I once ran into an old college mate on the streets of our home town.  We’d been acquaintances on campus, but hadn’t seen each other for years.  At our chance encounter, the man exuded prosperity, from his...