The little town in which I grew up, Kensett, had about nine hundred people when I was born. Today, Kensett and the much larger town of Searcy share a common border. However, their respective city limits used to lie two or three miles apart.

Growing up in a small town in Central Illinois we were blessed to enjoy the presence of a Carnegie Library. At one time the town of DeLand was the smallest community in the country that was awarded such a prize.

Our family likes to watch a show that is on the History Channel, "Forged in Fire." It is a competition between four blacksmiths to make knives out of various metals. Sometimes the metals are dirty or not pure.

Just breathe! Did you pause? Sigh? Take a deep breath? Often, we have to make a conscious choice to rest and reflect. Let’s take a few moments to reflect on preserving God moments.

Love. It’s a word, right? It’s an interesting word, and we seem to use it all the time, but what is it?

Indulge me as I tell a story. There once was a man, and he loved cars. He particularly loved roadsters. They were his passion. But there wasn't anyone else around who had the passion for roadsters that this man had.

Friday is Groundhog's Day. If it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow, then the spring will arrive early. If it's sunny, the groundhog will see its shadow and retreat back into its den, and winter will continue for six more weeks. The groundhog mistakes its own shadow for something real. What is reality?

There was a little boy in a village in northern Ghana, West Africa. He was wearing the only piece of clothing he owned, a scruffy pair of cotton underwear. They were dirty, at least the part that remained of them was dirty.

“The lightning struck a Transformer.” Those were the words I heard my dad say to my mom as the power went out. We didn’t often have storms where I grew up, and even when we did, they were short-lived and mild. But not this one.

I need to preface this article by stating that the title, "Beauty, the Invisible Embrace," is not original with me. The book by that title was written by John O'Donahue, an Irish poet, author, priest, and philosopher.

Grandma Shelton was raised near the tiny White County town of Sidon. Across the hills to the east was the settlement of Clay where my Grandfather Shelton grew up. Grandma once said the only thing she used to know about “that Shelton bunch” was that they “drank and made music.”

On a recent Sunday afternoon, from my vantage in Sue's sofa in her joyously-festooned den, I reveled in the comforting rise and fall of familiar women's voices. I admired golfing Santas frozen in mid-swing on her mantel.

Take a few minutes and go on YouTube and listen to the song “Mary Did You know”. The second verse ends with the last two lines,

Did you know

that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?

When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

The man in the eighteen-wheeler pulled into the parking area of my dad’s restaurant. He had gotten into the habit of parking his big rig there over the weekends. Dad went out and asked him to move his truck, explaining that his customers needed the area for parking.

There are many movies and shows about time travel. There's "Dr. Who," "Back to the Future," "Star Trek," "Harry Potter," "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Groundhog's Day," "Quantum Leap," "Gravity Falls," and the list goes on and on. Where did this concept come from?

Testing. It is a word many of us do not like. Why do we have such a distain for testing? It may be we don’t like to know that we don’t know everything we should. Or maybe we dread testing because we feel like it is a trial by fire.

Wenchiki is the name of the first village we drilled a water well in. It was very remote and the road into it was not much more than a path. Wenchiki had a population of over 2,000, and the folks there were all farmers and all very poor.

Harry Tate was quite unlike any man I have ever known. He was a genuine Ozark product. He was a farmer by occupation, but a country philosopher at heart. He witnessed a lot of change in his eighty-five years, and he liked to discuss how it “was a sight on earth what the mind of man can conceive.” He was also an artist.

Wouldn’t you like to hear some good news? We all would! Bad news brings fear, pain, and sorrow; but “good news refreshes the bones” (Prov 15:30). “Like cold water to a thirsty soul,” declares another proverb, “so is good news from a far country” (Prov 25:25). Isn’t it time for some good news?