Innholdsfortegnelse for August/September 2020 i Mysterious Ways

What happens in situations where your deepest desire is to hold on but you’re forced to let go? It’s a question that floated through my mind recently as my family coped with my grandmother’s declining health during the pandemic. My 86-year-old grandmother was suffering from dementia that made her combative. Late last year, she was moved to a care home so she could get the professional monitoring and medical care she needed. Her health was continuing to decline when Covid hit. Thankfully, she never had the virus, but after several hospital stays related to her health issues over the course of just a few weeks, her doctors told us that she wasn’t doing well and had to be moved to hospice. Visitor restrictions meant Mom and her siblings were unable…

Elise Ballard was an actress and film-maker living in Austin, Texas, when she had an epiphany that changed her life. Her experience sparked her own research into these kinds of revelations. Interviewing people from all walks of life—from celebrities like Barry Manilow, Dr. Oz and Maya Angelou to her own friends and family—she asked, “What has been your greatest epiphany?” She collected their responses in her book, Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform. Mysterious Ways asked Elise about what she’s discovered. What is an epiphany? An epiphany, by definition, is a moment of great revelation that usually changes your life. What makes epiphanies different from an everyday realization is their divinely inspired quality. They feel like something deep within. Something greater than yourself. I believe…

I was strolling through Johnson Park in Palo Alto, California, on my way home from a dentist appointment. The dentist’s office had called because of a last-minute cancellation, asking if I wanted to come in for a checkup that day instead of my scheduled visit the following week. I rarely got to this side of town, so I thought I might as well make the most of my unplanned trip. It was a beautiful day, and something was pulling me to take a quick walk next to Johnson Park’s quiet community garden. There were no other pedestrians around, and the solitude was nice. I was coming to a bend in the walkway when I suddenly heard shouting. Ahead of me, I saw two men beating up another man. They pushed…

I was 10 when my mother passed away. She was an extraordinary woman, a loving wife and mother. She loved books. I can still remember her soft voice, reading poetry to me. Four years later, my dad remarried. The only stepmothers I knew were the wicked ones from fairy tales, but Josie wasn’t like that. She was kind. She made sure my older brother and I never forgot our mother. Though not an avid reader herself, she had a beautiful bookshelf constructed for Mother’s treasured book collection. Years later, Josie told me a story about a dream she’d once had. “It was shortly after I married your dad,” she said. “I was so worried you and your brother wouldn’t accept me.” In the dream, Josie was throwing a tea party.…

I headed out for my daily walk one August morning, but the back road behind my house was muddy. Too muddy for me. At 66, I couldn’t risk slipping. I’ll take the main road today, I thought. That should be safer. The walk from my house to my neighborhood’s entrance and back was three and a half miles, all paved. There weren’t many houses in the area. There wasn’t much of anything. The open, flat land around me was peaceful and quiet. I made it down to the entrance and looped around to head home. A half mile later, I felt someone’s eyes on me. I glanced over my shoulder. A big dog stared at me from my neighbor’s property. I knew the dog—he wasn’t friendly. I picked up my…

My father-in-law, Jim Matis, was a natural storyteller. He loved regaling his friends with tales, drawing them in with quick jokes and easy conversation. His favorite stories were about his time in World War II. Like so many young men of his generation, he’d enlisted in the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor and shipped out to Europe. He spoke of adventure, camaraderie and bravery. I myself experienced the devastation that had engulfed Europe. My family was living in the Sathmar region of Romania when the war broke out. We spent the next few years struggling to survive. Looking back, it is incredible to think that my future father-in-law was a part of the Allied forces, fighting not 30 miles from where my family sat huddled in a ref-ugee…

Helen Abrams Valentine’s Day, 1997. Many of my coworkers had received flowers. I was happy for them but couldn’t help but feel lonely. I was a single mother and not seeing anyone. The day passed just like any other. That night, after putting my son to bed, I prayed. “Lord, thank you for all you do. You watch out for my son and me. But it would have been so nice to get flowers today, to know someone cares.” The next morning, I hurried to get my son and myself out of the house. I strapped him into his car seat, then went around to the driver’s side. I felt my foot brush against something. Lying at my feet was a single red rose. A sign that I was always…

“When you have constant communion with God, a constant receiving from within, there is never any doubt; you know your way.”—PEACE PILGRIM (1908–1981) Mildred Lisette Norman was an American activist, mystic and spiritual teacher. In her thirties, a period of spiritual unrest led her to call out to God, “Please use me!” Peace overtook her, and she became devoted to something beyond herself. She gave away belongings and dedicated herself to serving others. In January 1953, she embarked on a cross-country trek by foot to promote peace and unity. By 1964, wearing a PEACE PILGRIM tunic, she’d walked 25,000 miles. After 28 years advocating to overcome “evil with good, falsehood with truth and hatred with love,” she died during her seventh cross-country walk.…

My Dear Granddaughter, Congratulations on your high school graduation. I wanted to get you something special for the occasion. I came across the enclosed hand-painted feather in a gift shop on a recent trip to Arizona. It felt like the right gift because it also comes with a story. One I haven’t told you before. It’s about your biological mother—my daughter, Missy. You know she loved you, and that is why she gave you up. It was a difficult choice, but it was the right one. Missy was so young when she got pregnant. Her life was unstable. She was struggling on and off with drug addiction. And I was too old to raise another child. We both wanted you to have a big family, with parents, siblings, cousins, aunts…

When people use the word hell, what do they mean? They mean a place, an event, a situation absent of how God desires things to be. Famine, debt, oppression, loneliness, despair, death, slaughter—they are all hell on earth. Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth. What’s disturbing then is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now. As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth.Rob Bell, AUTHOR AND FORMER PASTOR Hell was never God’s intention. It is man’s invention.Carlton D. PearsonMINISTER AND AUTHOR OF GOD IS NOT A CHRISTIAN, NOR A JEW, MUSLIM, HINDU… Heaven is real and hell is real,…

The great Donald Sutherland is known for his acting roles in The Dirty Dozen and M*A*S*H—but his career was almost cut short back in 1968. The actor fell ill while shooting the film Kelly’s Heroes in what was then Yugoslavia. He developed bacterial meningitis. The nearest medical center lacked the antibiotics he needed. Sutherland’s condition worsened, and he slipped into a coma. That’s when he suddenly saw a bright light. Sutherland describes leaving his body and watching himself slip away. “Standing behind my right shoulder, I’d watched my comatose body slide peacefully down a blue tunnel,” he wrote in a Smithsonian Journeys article. “That same blue tunnel the near dead always talk about. Such a tempting journey. So serene.” But in that moment, Sutherland turned away from that comforting light…

In July 2017, visiting Israeli scholar Yoram Meital came across a priceless manuscript while exploring the Karaite Moussa Dar’i Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt. Wrapped in white paper and sitting on a dusty bookshelf was a 1028 A.D. copy of the Ketuvim, the third and final section of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible. This piece of Jewish history was thought to have been lost to time. The 616-page manuscript had been made by the scribe Zechariah Ben ‘Anan. It is considered one of the most complete copies of the Ketuvim from that time period. The nearly thousand-year-old text appears to be missing one page but is mostly undamaged—a miracle considering its age and storage conditions. Notations by the scribe allude to two other sections of the Tanakh, showing that this was…