THE ONE YEAR ILLUSTRATIONS CLUB

ONE WOMAN WROTE: I AGREE THAT TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE I ALWAYS LOOK THINNER WHEN I STAND BESIDE HIM TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE WHEN IT’S COLD; HE GETS TO LIGHT THE FIRE TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE WHEN THERE'S A SPIDER IN THE HOUSE I DONT HAVE TO KILL IT TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE WHEN THE PRINCIPAL CALLS THEY'RE “HIS KIDS” TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE WHEN I LOOSE MY TEMPER IT’S HIS FAULT, TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE I CAN’T SCRATCH MY OWN BACK TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE BECAUSE I HAVE THE GIFT OF SPENDING AND HE HAS THE GIFT OF EARNING BUT BEST OF ALL TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE; BECAUSE HE PICKS ME UP, WHEN I FALL!

Dr. Andrew Bonar told me how, in the Highlands of Scotland, a sheep would often wander off into the rocks and get into places that they couldn't get out of. The grass on these mountains is very sweet and the sheep like it, and they will jump down ten or twelve feet, and then they can't jump back again, and the shepherd hears them bleating in distress. They may be there for days, until they have eaten all the grass. The shepherd will wait until they are so faint they cannot stand, and then they will put a rope around him, and he will go over and pull that sheep up out of the jaws of death. "Why don't they go down there when the sheep first gets there?" I asked. "Ah!" He said, "they are so very foolish they would dash right over the precipice and be killed if they did!" And that is the way with men; they won't go back to God till they have no friends and have lost everything. If you are a wanderer I tell you that the Good Shepherd will bring...

Mr. Jones, through the advice of a “former friend” once bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WSM in Nashville (home of the Grand Ole Opry) set the volume and station where he wanted it and then made sure to break off all the knobs to make sure his wife couldn’t change the station or adjust the volume to her liking, as he knew she would try to do! It worked like a charm. This idea worked so well he decided rather than to keep fighting with his wife over the temperature in the house, to adjust the air in the home to the temperature he liked and then went on-line and set up a pass code that needed to be entered, each time the temperature was to be changed, in case his wife wanted or thought she would change it to her preference. It worked like a charm too. His wife complained her back was hurting and that they needed a better mattress, they ended up buying a select comfort, deluxe mattress that adjusts ...

You’re a little on the short side, no you’re too tall! You’re a little chubby; you’re a little too thin! You don’t make that much money, do you? You’re all about money aren’t you? You’re accused of being stupid so you study, apply your self  become a “straight A” a student, now you’re a geek & teachers pet! Your teeth are crooked, your eyes are to big! Your eyes are too small; you look high all the time! Do you ever talk? Get a personality! She never shuts up, OMG! She’s sooooo ugly, she’s pretty and oh so stuck up! Loose some weight would you! Gain some weight would you! You’ll find in life, you’re not going to win. You’re either too rich or you’re too poor You’re either too ugly or too good looking! Of course when we come into the Church that all ends or does it? She’s carnal, don’t hang around with her! He’s Mr. spiritual stay away from him! You don’t seem to pray enough. You are told you dress like a slob, so you dress up and you h...

An unknown author once said, "As a boy, I thought of heaven as a city with domes, spires, and beautiful streets, inhabited by angels. Kind of surreal place, not one I envisioned my self living in for eternity. By the time my little brother died, I thought of heaven much more and as before, but now… with one inhabitant, that I knew. Then another died, and then some of my acquaintances, so in time I began to think of heaven as containing several people that I knew. But it was not until one of my own little children died years later and as I healed of that pain and agony, than I began to think I had treasure in heaven myself. No longer a celestial Netherlands inhabited by Angels, but a home that housed many people I loved. Afterward my mother went, who was a devout Christian, and yet another in Heaven. By that time I had so many acquaintances in heaven, that I no more thought of Heaven as a city merely with streets of gold but as a place full of inhabitants, o...

He once killed a man in a road rage incident. Now, he has died in one. The Washington Post © Courtesy of WTVT/Fox 13 Gary Durham in 2002, after he was charged with manslaughter in a road rage killing. Durham died Wednesday following another road rage altercation in Florida . After a traffic mishap in Florida ’s Hillsborough County on Wednesday, Gary Lynn Durham got out of his car and exchanged heated words with another driver. Their argument ended violently, with Durham dying from a gunshot wound on the side of the road, police said.  When investigators dug deeper into the case, they found a sad twist: Durham had recently been released from prison for killing a man in road rage confrontation in 2001. Police say  Durham punched a 48-year-old cancer survivor in the face at an intersection as the two men argued 15 years ago in Tampa . The punch killed the man, Tim Gibbs, and  Durham was convicted of manslaughter. He was sentenced in 2002 and spent...

How is Israel , a 60 year old nation with a population of 7.1 million was able to reach such economic growth that “at the start of 2009, some 63 Israeli companies were listed on the nasdaq more than those of any other foreign country. How is it, that a country only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources, produces more than large, peaceful and stable nations like, Japan, China, India, Canada and the united kingdom. Israel is a very small country. It is smaller by half than San Bernardino County in California . It would sink in Lake Michigan without a trace. It has barely 8 million citizens. It has been in existence for just 60 years, but it is an economic powerhouse. In contrast to its Muslim enemies, who have virtually no indigenous industry, whose people are largely illiterate, but who have natural riches through their almost limitless petroleum resources, Israel has virtually no natural resources. But ye...

Little Johnnie’s mom came home from work and saw cookie crumbs on the counter that were not there earlier that morning before she left for work. Mother cried out to her son, “Johnnie, I want you to come downstairs now”. He came down the stairs, his head down, looking guilty as charged, she new little Johnnie had probably come home and ate a bunch of cookies and spoiled his appetite for dinner. The mom looked at Johnnie, she said, “you know what you did, don’t you!”  “Yes, mommy”, replied little Johnnie. The mom said, “go on now, get out of here and do right”.  “Yes mom”, replied little Johnnie. Later, after dinner, the mom went to her room and found $25 stuffed in her purse. She wondered, “what’s this?” she asked her husband, he said it wasn’t him. She asked her teenage daughter, maybe it was her. The daughter said it wasn’t her so finally she called out “Johnnie, I want you to come downstairs right now”. Little Johnnie came down the stairs, head down, looking guilty as charg...

In his book “Saddam’s Secrets”, General George Sada One of the questions frequently asked to Sada was what was it like to stand before Saddam Hussein and actually hear him say, “George, I’ve decided that the air force will attack Israel and wipe her out with chemical weapons”. ​ I was thinking of it in two ways, he told me. One, as a Christian, as a believer. Second, as a national officer that belonged to the IRAQI FORCES… .as a Christian, I could not accept this order to send two waves of fighters to attack Israel , one wave through Jordan and one through Syria . I knew the capabilities of the Israeli air force and their air defenses and their plans to destroy all aircraft coming from the east before entering the Israeli borders. So this means that bombs were mostly going to drop on Jordan and Syria …but with 98 aircraft, some of them would still penetrate to Israel ; just imagine as a Christian, the deaths that would result as all three countries were going to be hit by chemic...

It was not that King Henry VIII had a change of conscience regarding publishing the Bible in English. His motives were more sinister… but the Lord sometimes uses the evil intentions of men to bring about His glory. King Henry VIII had in fact, requested that the Pope permit him to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. The Pope refused. King Henry responded by marrying his mistress anyway, (later having two of his many wives executed), and thumbing his nose at the Pope by renouncing Roman Catholicism, taking England out from under Rome’s religious control, and declaring himself as the reigning head of State to also be the new head of the Church. This new branch of the Christian Church, neither Roman Catholic nor truly Protestant, became known as the Anglican Church or the Church of England. King Henry acted essentially as its “Pope”. His first act was to further defy the wishes of Rome by funding the printing of the scriptures in English… the first legal English Bible… just for spi...

Founded 1971, by Howard  Schultz , with its first store at Pikes' Place Market in Seattle , now operates or licenses more than 8,000 retail coffee shops, know as Starbucks Coffee. Howard  Schultz …Vision: Put a Starbucks in every city in the world. Working a minimum of 65 hrs per week! Howard  Schultz  has a vision; we see it coming to pass right before our eyes, in cities we live in all around the world. This is what Howard  Schultz  believes in and he has given his life to it.  Christians for all we claim to believe and preach, the question remains, have we given ourselves to what we believe? If you look around, unlike Starbucks, we are not seeing the vision we preach, effectively actualized in the lives of those who claim it. Statistics shows that Churches who had the traditional 3 day services a week have had to shut down their Wednesday and Sunday evening services, simply because people are not coming. Where is our vision?  A visio...

I have here just a short version of Francine River ’s testimony Meanwhile, our marriage was falling apart. We thought being closer to family would help, but the only way to move to Northern California would be for Rick to start his own business. So we sold our home and gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in a small rental. Rick headed north and moved in with his parents while looking for an office. I stayed in Southern California until the children finished the school year. Only one rental was available, and Rick grabbed it. It didn’t take long to find out we had landed in between two Christian families. A boy of about eight was waiting to help us move in. We saw him as a pest; he turned out to be an evangelist. “Have I got a church for you!” he said. Neither of us was eager to go, but with the stresses of starting a new business, moving, and our marriage crashing and burning, I was desperate enough to try anything, even a small church unattached to a denominational hiera...

I have here just a short version of Francine River ’s testimony ...Meanwhile, our marriage was falling apart. We thought being closer to family would help, but the only way to move to Northern California would be for Rick to start his own business. So we sold our home and gave away everything that wouldn’t fit in a small rental. Rick headed north and moved in with his parents while looking for an office. I stayed in Southern California until the children finished the school year. Only one rental was available, and Rick grabbed it. It didn’t take long to find out we had landed in between two Christian families. A boy of about eight was waiting to help us move in. We saw him as a pest; he turned out to be an evangelist. “Have I got a church for you!” he said. Neither of us was eager to go, but with the stresses of starting a new business, moving, and our marriage crashing and burning, I was desperate enough to try anything, even a small church unattached to a denominational hi...

Rodney Sumter and Tim Tebow were high school teammates at Nease High in Ponte Vedra ( Fla. ). Tebow would go on to win two national titles and the Heisman Trophy. Sumter would play at Jacksonville University and then move to Orlando , working as a dancer and bartender, according. Sumter was tending bar at Pulse nightclub on the night of the massive shooting and has been recovering at Orlando Regional Medical Center after being shot three times and breaking both his arms, according to the  Florida Times Union  and what he has posted on his Instagram account. Among those who came to see him  in the hospital was Tebow. On his Instagram account, Sumter wrote: “My high school quarterback left the Bahamas to come and see me. Tebow has always been an awesome person.” According to The Orlando Sentinel , Sumter also posted a photo with  Orlando City captain Kaká, former baseball star Johnny Damon and Florida Gov. Rick Scott. A number of sports stars and ot...

Today thousands of Muhammad’s followers are having dreams and visions of their own—experiences that rock their world. While political revolution avalanches throughout the Middle East , tremors of spiritual change are also being felt on a widespread scale, especially within countries hostile to Christianity. Ironically, thousands of stories are emerging from around the world of Muslims being awakened to the gospel, literally from their dreams. Karima, a Muslim, dreamed she was in a car when it crashed. She was knocked out, but when she opened her eyes (in her dream), she saw that Jesus was the driver. “Come to me,” He told her, “I am with you. I love you.” That experience led her to seek out a Christian church, where she responded to the gospel. Omar had been locked up and tortured for years in a jail cell in a nation ruled by a dictator. One night a messenger visited him in a dream, telling him he would be set free. Within days he was released from prison and traveled to America wher...

Having God's Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church's income and power would crumble. They could not possibly continue to get away with selling indulgences (the forgiveness of sins) or selling the release of loved ones from a church-manufactured "Purgatory". People would begin to challenge the church's authority if the church were exposed as frauds and thieves. The contradictions between what God's Word said, and what the priests taught, would open the public's eyes and the truth would set them free from the grip of fear that the institutional church held. Salvation through faith, not works or donations, would be understood. The need for priests would vanish through the priesthood of all believers. The veneration of church-canonized Saints and Mary would be c...

"My Dad.....he preached to me his whole life....on occasion, he even used words".  Often, you will find that the kids that go on to embrace the Faith of the Father are the kids who were not preached to and yelled at, through out their child hood, but those who had a Father who lived out his faith before their eyes, loved their mom and love them, that's a faith that is contagious. For kids that grow up in the home of a Pastor, the same is true, one young man wrote, "The greatest sermon I ever heard my father preach, was the one he lived".

Joe Theismann enjoyed an illustrious 12-year career as quarterback of the Washington Redskins. He led the team to two Super Bowl appearances--winning in 1982 before losing  in 1983 the following year. When a leg injury forced him out of football in 1985, he was entrenched in the record books as Washington 's all-time leading passer. Still, the tail end of Theismann's career taught him a bitter lesson: I got stagnant. I thought the team revolved around me. I should have known it was time to go when I didn't care whether a pass hit Art Monk in the 8 or the 1 on his uniform.  When we went back to the Super Bowl, my approach had changed. I was griping about the weather, my shoes, practice times, everything. The Raiders defeated the Redskins by the score of 38–9. The Raiders' 38 points and their 29-point margin of victory broke Super Bowl records; it still remains the most points scored by an  AFC  team in a Super Bowl.   Today I wear my two rings--the winner's ring...

Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer. "It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild and Julie was scarred for life.

I’ll never forget the day I just found out my husband was having an affair; I was cut to the heart like never before. This came only two weeks after finding out my 15 year old daughter was pregnant and then found out my husband was leaving me. And in the middle of that mess, I got myself fired from my job, can you blame me? How could anyone concentrate at work with all hell breaking loose in their life; like, what I was experiencing! I didn’t know what to do or who to turn too. I finally thought I would call my best friend Samantha. I just needed to talk to somebody, someone who could listen, someone who I could cry with. We sat down at the café where we regularly met, on the corner of Van Buren & Metcalf, unfortunately before I could speak a word, she started, “oh you won’t believe the week I've had, a week from hell, let me tell you", she said, “1st my hair dresser, Jean Pierre, I don’t know why I go to him, he over streaked my hair, “I told him, you fix it, and now loo...

Aaron lee Raiston In 2003 aaron while canyoneering, Aaron found himself caught under a large boulder. The boulder rolled onto his arm and trapped him. After many days of no rescue, Aaron was on the verge of starving and dehydrating to death. His option was, lay there and die or sever his arm off and live. Aaron made the decision to sever his arm off and live. With a pocket knife Aaron had on him, he methodically cut his way through his arm. Unbelievably, after he freed himself, he had to make his way through the remainder of the canyon, then rappel down a 65 foot cliff. He was trapped in Blue John Canyon Utah , for 5 days and 7 hours. Unfortunately we don’t see sin the way Jesus does, we don’t see it as clearly as Aaron Ralston, cut it off or die!

 1n 1994 Don Calhoun, lived in Chicago, and worked at a five dollar an hour job. He decided one night to go to a Chicago Bulls game -- only the second or third game he'd ever gone to in his life.  On his way into the game, he was stopped by someone from the Bulls organization in the lobby. She said, "We're doing a promotion during the third quarter. Would you want to participate?" He agreed. During a time-out in the third quarter, they called Don Calhoun onto the court, gave him a basketball, and positioned him by the free throw line of one of the baskets and pointed him toward the other basket. This would be almost a full court shot. They said, "You have one shot. If you make it, we'll give you a million dollars." They called this promotion: "The Million Dollar Shot."  Calhoun took the ball and threw it towards the basket. Just after he let it go, Phil Jackson, the coach for the Chicago Bulls said out loud: "It's going in." And...

It's Sunday morning at 6AM, and Dutch Hoorenbeek rolls out of bed to check on his strip club and do some renovations to an outside party deck. He then fires several tenants in his mall for not paying rent, signs up four new ones, and transports to his office to spend some time with his wife, Tenaj Jackelope. The thing is, in real life, Dutch Hoorenbeek is actually Ric Hoogestraat, a call-center operator making $14 an hour. He's also married to Sue Hoogestraat, not Tenaj Jackelope. Confusing? It should be. Turns out that Ric and Sue's marriage is on the rocks. She contends that he spends more time online in HIS Second Life, a virtual universe currently home to 30 million players, with his online wife. Sue spends her days in front of the television, while Ric is in the other room running a virtual night club and consorting with his online wife, sometimes for as long as 14 hours at a time on weekends.   Although Sue Hoogestraat has attended "gaming widow" support gr...

The term 'escapism' is reserved for those who take excessive time away from real life to the point at which they seem to be trying to escape from it. Traditionally regarded as extreme, escapism is in fact increasingly the norm for many people. In Japan , for example, the average household watches over 8 hours of television per day.  Escapism is not defined by the behavior itself but the motivation behind it. Anything from sport to fashion to sex can become escapist activities.  Certain escapist options are socially accepted, such as consumerism celebrity worship, others are not, such as recreational drug use. Modern technology has brought digital culture - television, films, increasingly realistic computer games and virtual realities that provide escapist experiences with huge degrees of immersion. Means of escapism have become increasingly varied over the past few decades, but fascination in details remains a popular one.  We interpret the popularity of escapism as a...