Faith Archive

While many Americans breathe a sigh of relief that trouble-filled 2020 is behind us, the residents of many coastal communities in Alabama and Louisiana are still cleaning up after last year’s hurricanes.

Two Navarre brothers gave up time during their Christmas break to help with the hurricane cleanup work in Foley Alabama.

Forrest Gump told the lady at the bus stop, “My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get,” then he popped one into his mouth.

Clearly, that was before candy companies put key cards in the boxes because, Forrest, you can know exactly “what you’re gonna get.”

“It was a long labor of love, a lot of late nights,” said lead pastor AJ Rice, his T-shirt spattered with paint.

Rice and a small crew were completing the setup on the new stage in Liberty Church Gulf Breeze campus’ newly expanded worship center.

In seminary, future preachers are encouraged to collect potential sermon illustrations – emotion-packed, real-life stories, a funny joke or a personal life experience.

God must have realized that I would need extra help in this because he gave us Brewster.

On Jan. 21, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) confirmed the first coronavirus case in the United States – a traveler recently returned from Wuhan, China.

One year later, the CDC reports some 21 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and over 350 thousand deaths.

Looking around our home, post-Christmas, I noticed something – we have a lot of empty cardboard boxes.

In addition to a nice collection in our garage, we have a fine display of sturdy, reliable boxes in our dining room, a room we rarely use. I know what you are thinking – somebody got a load of presents this Christmas.

Garret, a friendly and precocious boy, was in the fourth grade, but could not read or write at a first-grade level. He was severely dyslexic. Carol Hale, the author of a series of books on reading techniques for teachers, was asked to help.

“I didn’t know a thing about dyslexia,” says Hale, “so I learned everything I could through books and seminars.”

An essential industry tool back when I worked as an animator was the character sheet. The character sheet displayed sketches of the cartoon character we were animating.

The character designer produced it to show the animator what the character should look from different angles, in different poses and emotions.

A bizarre year that all would love to forget, but none ever will, is behind us. It was a year when two alphabet’s worth of tropical systems assaulted the Gulf states, persistent wildfires scorched the western states, and massive tornadoes ripped through the Midwest.

Seamy political ads and noisy debates assailed our sensibilities and culminated in a hotly contested election.