Life was beautiful growing up on our farm in Oklahoma. My six siblings and I did chores, played and laughed together. I got married, and we had an active and happy life, raising our daughters on our family farm. The nightmare began when our youngest daughter was a teenager. It started as a tiny injury under my right ankle. It didn’t heal and it spread up both legs and beyond. I was diagnosed with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), which is characterized by progressive severe

My 13-year old daughter came to the kitchen door and said, “Look at this.” She showed me how when her right foot was on the floor and she held her left foot straight, it didn’t even come close to touching the floor. “This leg is too short,” she said patting her left leg. She said she had been having back, shoulder, and neck pain and now she knew why. Her leg had never been shorter, and I assumed it was a cock-eyed growth spurt. My mind starting racing to the possible solution

Lying in bed, my blood suddenly ran cold. Fear and panic flooded me from out of nowhere. It’s Dan! I was a junior in college and my older brother was a full-time flight instructor and a part-time commercial pilot for a local corporation. Growing up, he was my buddy. Although my parents loved their Methodist church, from a young age I rebelled about going and it was a rare occasion for me to attend. If there was a God, I didn’t think I needed Him. But suddenly laying there des

May is glorious in Maine. Winter is over. The sky is blue, the flowers are blooming, leaves are sprouting. And the black flies are everywhere. Depending on where you are, they range from a minor nuisance to a complete hassle. On this day, I had hiked Maiden’s Cliff, a mountain that has a beautiful view of Megunticook Lake below, as well as the Penobscot Bay in the distance. It all would have glorious had I not been surrounded by a cloud of black flies. God said, “Let them hav

The chickens had flown the coop. It started with the white one. Dusk came and instead of heading back inside the coop, she chose instead to fly into a nearby tree. It didn’t take long before the entire flock would fly into the tree every evening. But winter was coming. I needed to get them back in the coop, and I needed a new bale of straw for bedding. Locating a single bale of straw is one of those things that lingers on the To-Do list; an irritant. It would pop into my mind

pulled up to the man at the corner, rolled my window down, and held the $5 bill out for him. He stumbled off the curb, nearly falling. He h