Innehållsförteckning för October/November 2020 från Mysterious Ways

“What was it like when you died?” my friend Olivene asked me. Her voice was surprisingly strong, given how frail she looked propped against the stark white pillows of her hospital bed. Her question caught me off guard. I’d never mentioned my near-death experience to her directly. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. In our small, tight-knit church community, news spread fast. Olivene was dying. At age 98, her body was giving out. But she took the news in stride. She had lived a long life, she assured me. If it was her time to go, then she was ready. I was happy to share my story with her. I pulled my chair closer to her bedside. “Well, you remember when my husband, Paul, and I went on that cruise…

Is that you, Lynn? I blinked awake. I was lying in bed in my Texas home. Another dream. For months, I’d been plagued by vivid dreams—wood splitting, things coming apart, visions of my parents and now my cousin Lynn. She’d appeared to me in a flash, like a cameo in a TV sit-com. A beautiful teenager, how she looked when I last saw her. She smiled at me. Then I woke up. Things had been hard since my husband left, and I knew some dreams were God’s way of helping me heal. But the dream about Lynn was puzzling. I hadn’t seen her in decades, and we’d never been particularly close. Her parents divorced when we were both in grade school. She’d moved from Ohio, where I lived, to California…

What is the name of that B.B. King song? I’d been listening to a blues playlist when I suddenly remembered one of my favorite blues songs—one not on the playlist. I hadn’t heard the song in years. I couldn’t remember the title or the lyrics. Just the melody and the performer: legendary blues guitarist B.B. King. I hummed it while I searched for it online. I knew I’d remember it as soon as I saw the name. I looked through B.B. King’s albums but found nothing. I scrutinized my internet search history. No luck. I even reached out to a friend I used to share blues music with in college. He couldn’t remember the name of the song either. I finally gave up for the night. With the song still…

“You can get a kitten,” I prom-ised my seven-year-old daughter, Cali. “As soon as we get settled in our new apartment.” Her life had been uprooted when her father and I divorced, and I wanted to give her something to look forward to. So one Saturday morning, shortly after we unpacked the last box, we headed to North Bay Animal Ser-vices to pick out her new pet. There were plenty of cats to choose from, but Cali had her heart set on an orange-and-white kitten. “Actually, we’ve got two of those,” the attendant told us. “Brothers from the same litter, in fact. A bonded pair. We call them Caramel and Butter.” She brought the kittens to a private room where Cali and I could meet them. For more than an…

When I arrive at the scene, the old frame house on Chicago’s South Side is burning furiously. Smoke and embers dance crazily in the windy winter night. I give the order to unroll the hoses and then dash madly inside. I pull out three people and administer CPR to two of them before the ambulance arrives, rubber screeching on asphalt. When the blaze is finally under control, someone from the department comes up to me. “You did a great job, Captain Cushing,” he says, “but two of those three people you pulled out didn’t make it.” “No!” I cry. “They’re all alive!” “I’m sorry, Cushing.” Suddenly I awoke in a drenching sweat, my heart racing. My wife, Rosemary, was awake too, staring at me. “Honey, what’s wrong?” she asked. “You…

Years ago, after reading a book by a therapist and minister who showed that God can often speak to us in our dreams, I began writing down my own. Every morning, while I still remember them, I make a quick note in a journal about what I dreamed. What I’ve learned through this practice is that our dreams are sometimes just a jumble of inconsequential things—what you ate for dinner, a TV show you watched, an article you read. It can be your subconscious mind reorganizing thoughts. But every once in a while, you’ll have a dream that leaves you feeling as if God really is trying to get your attention. And as long as the message of that dream aligns with God’s will by encouraging positive change and positive…

Do you tend to linger in that liminal state between sleep and wakeful-ness? It’s my favorite part of waking up, which is saying a lot because I need three alarms to get myself vertical in the morning. Still, this transitional state gives me my most vivid and revelatory dreams, the ones I remember most clearly and viscerally. I call them my in-between dreams. One morning, for instance, when I desperately needed a story to pitch for Mysterious Ways, I had an in-between dream about a piece buried deep in my inventory files, something I’d totally forgotten about. I got out of bed and pulled up the story on my computer: My in-between dream was right. I’d found the perfect pitch! I am reminded of a conversation I had with Matthew…

I sorted through some cook-books on the kitchen counter. My husband, Steve, worked next to me in silence. We were going through his parents’ farmhouse near Rock Port, Missouri, trying to decide what to do with everything in it. We were overwhelmed by the 60 years of stuff that had accumulated. I knew this undertaking was hard on Steve. He’d grown up in this house. His parents had built it themselves. After his mother, Velma, had passed away 20 years earlier, his dad, Lyle, had left everything untouched. He’d instead focused his energy on keeping the farm going. Now Lyle was in his late eighties and could no longer work. Lyle resisted leaving the farm, but it was clear his health was deteriorating. Steve and his brothers decided to move…

There are more than 2 million members of Alcoholics Anonymous. I am one of them. And although our fellowship is, in fact, anonymous, I sometimes wonder who else around me is a friend of Bill, as we say, referring to AA cofounder Bill Wilson. We members come from all walks of life. I work at the front desk of a fitness center in a 55-and-up community. I’d just started my shift one day when a guest approached me, holding a medallion. “I found this by the water fountain,” she said. “I think someone dropped it.” She handed it to me. I recognized what it was immediately—an Alcoholics Anonymous sober anniversary chip. This one was for 25 years, every day a miracle. I thanked the woman and put the chip in…

When Luke Perry—best known for his breakout role on the 1990s hit TV drama Beverly Hills 90210—died in 2019 from a stroke, the world was shocked. The actor was only 52. The news brought on an outpouring of love, especially among his young costars. Since 2017, Luke had portrayed Fred Andrews on the CW show Riverdale. Fred was a generous, down-to-earth character. It was a role Luke continued to play even when the cameras were off. According to people on set, Luke was always available to mentor other actors, offering them help and fatherly advice. Lili Reinhart, who plays Betty Cooper, took to Twitter to express her grief. “I just can’t believe it,” the 22-year-old wrote. “I’m finding it hard to grasp that he will no longer be around to…

BEEP-BE-BE-BEEP! A chorus of angry horns blared at me as I sat in my Altima, stalled in the middle of a busy intersection. It was a blazing hot August afternoon. Quite the time and place for my car’s entire electrical system to give out, including the power locks on my doors and windows. Trapped inside without air conditioning, I had to wait for a police officer to arrive to assist. He pried open my vehicle, shifted it to neutral, pushed me to a parking lot and called a tow truck to transport the car to a garage. “It’s your alternator,” the mechanic told me. Really? I’d just had the alternator replaced. Twice. Then I learned my transmission was practically on life support. “You’ll be lucky to get 25 more miles…

It was the week of my last visit with my 10-year-old mentee, Sam. After four years together, he felt like family, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing touch with him. But how could I make sure he remembered me, even after our time together ended? Sam and I had been paired up through a mentoring program at my church when he was a first grader. As a former teacher, I missed making an impact on young people, so as soon as I heard of this program for at-risk school kids, I signed up. At first, it didn’t seem as if the two of us were a good match. Sam hardly looked at me; he barely spoke or smiled. I tried everything to engage him. Nothing worked. Week after…