Devotionals
2021
I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day
And in despair I bowed my head: “There is no peace on earth,” I said. Finding New Joy in Christmas Carols with Elizabeth Rice Handford My daughters Margi and Ruth and I had a delightful time the other day, singing and playing Christmas carols with a wonderful group of...
O Little Town of Bethlehem
“The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight” Finding New Joy in Christmas Carols with Elizabeth Rice Handford Was Bethlehem really so quiet that first Christmas night as described in “O Little Town of Bethlehem”? If you visited it today, you might...
Whatever Your Need, God Yearns to Meet It
Each week, as I prepare a devotional for you, I ask God to please help me know what your spiritual needs are on this day. I grew up in a godly home, was given wonderful Bible teaching, and more important, I had godly examples. These were marvelous gifts I didn’t earn...
Give Thanks in Everything?
Thanksgiving was not just a November holiday in the Rice home when I was a child. Daddy and Mother found reasons to praise the Lord every day, all day. Even when they encountered major setbacks, when the church they had sacrificed so much for burned to the ground,...
What Are You Listening To?
Every day we are assaulted by voices—colleagues, radio, television, newspapers, educators, famous people, even friends. What we listen to and whom we listen to can shape our beliefs, our actions, even our destiny. Sobering thought. A friend of mine believes the earth...
The World’s Record for the Oldest Human Being, And Why It Matters
Guinness World Records says the oldest living human being is Kane Tanaka of Japan, aged 118 years. However, there is an incontrovertible record of a man, Methuselah, who actually lived until he was 969 years old! His name in Hebrew could translate, “When he is dead it...
A Flat Tire, A Dead Cell Phone, and Two Disguised Angels
Today I think I saw two angels. You might have thought they were two middle-aged, average Americans stolidly on their way to shop for groceries. But Hebrews 13:2 says “Some have entertained angels unawares.” I often travel alone. I try to be prepared for automobile...
Who Gets to Throw the First Rock?
When I was four years old, I decided that by the time I was ten years old, I would be able to be good. I wouldn’t steal the neighbor’s baby rabbit from its cage again. I wouldn’t hide change from the quarter when Mother sent me to the store for a loaf of bread again....
Your Truth, My Truth, or The Truth?
We’re talking about heavy stuff today, heavy but important. Please stick with me, O.K.? Adele Rogers St. John, a cub reporter with Hearst Newspapers, rode one night with an EMS crew to a home in San Francisco. They found a father and mother and several children dead,...
Hang on 15 More Minutes
The air traffic controller could see our future, so he asked, Can You Hang on for Fifteen More Minutes? It should have been a routine flight, late one night as Walt and I were flying back to Greenville in our sturdy little Rockwell Commander. The weather briefing had...
