Joseph and Julianna Burdon know all about that. Kids need food. Clothes. Furniture, for cryin’ out loud. And when teen son, Daniel, starts thinking about college? Well, might as well lop off an arm and leg and try to sell them on the secondary limbs market.

Joseph loves his family, and he does his best to provide for them. Why, he’s working on an account that just might move the family financial ledger in the right direction. More than that, he believes passionately in what he’s developing: a campaign to support the National Association of Firefighters. Joseph’s father had been a firefighter for decades. So for Joseph, this campaign is important on a host of levels. In a way, it’s about family.

And if that means ignoring his own family members for a few days—or weeks, or maybe months—well, that’s the price a dad must pay right?

No, wife Julianna says. She’s had it up to her eyeballs with Joseph’s job. It’s not like she doesn’t appreciate his work ethic. She knows that on some level, he’s doing it for her and the kids. But fatherhood’s about more than putting meat on the table: It’s about meeting your wife and kids at that table. It’s about going to soccer games and school plays. It’s about going fishing and taking long walks filled with conversation.

And it’s especially about engaging in a small family reunion with Joseph’s mom and dad on the family ranch. It’s especially about spending Easter weekend with each other—particularly when it might be the last Easter they ever have together.

Joseph’s dad, known as Poppa to the grandkids, sick. While no one talks about it much, Joseph and Julianna know he might not have much time left. To spend one last glorious Easter weekend together—boating, fishing, maybe playing a game or two of charades—that’s what’s important, Julianna believes. This is time the family won’t ever get back. The job can wait.

Yeah, yeah, Joseph says. But he’s on the home stretch with this all-important project. He’ll just work a few more hours Easter weekend. Just a few more phone calls. A few more finishing touches on his presentation, scheduled for … Saturday.

The same Saturday that Poppa was going to take the boat on the lake with everyone—maybe for the last time.

Joseph could use a little help with his priorities. Everyone else in the family sees that clearly. But how can they help him see it for himself?

Maybe a little book that Poppa wrote can help—one about a man who always had His priorities straight. Poppa called it Forty-Seven Days With Jesus, and Joseph loved hearing it when he was young. Maybe it’s time that Joseph passed the story onto his own kids. Maybe it’s time he internalized the story’s deeper messages himself.

The post Forty-Seven Days With Jesus appeared first on Plugged In.

“Every adventure has perils and pitfalls,” Helen Smallbone tells her six children and husband, David, as they huddle on the faded carpet of their “modest” new rental home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Indeed.

Adventure is one word to describe what’s happened to the Smallbone family. And a bravely charitable word at that. Others might have looked at the family’s dire surroundings and desperate situation and chosen another, arguably more honest word: nightmare.

Not long before, Helen’s entrepreneurial husband, David, had been on top of the world. The CCM market was booming in early 1990s, and the Australian Christan concert promoter seemingly could do no wrong, promoting hugely popular bands such as Stryper, for instance.

Life was good for David and Helen and their six kiddos, as they enjoyed a lavish home with a pool table in the living room and a pool to swim in out back. And now, David has the opportunity of a lifetime: overseeing and promoting Amy Grant’s forthcoming concert tour down under. Sure, it will take a lot of money. More than a million dollars, actually, to pull it off. But that figure likely pales compared to the windfall David hopes to bring in.

Helen’s not so sure. “It’s just a lot of money,” she tells her husband. “I feel like we’re putting our lives on the line.”

She continues: “And it’s not just the finances. The kids miss you. I miss you.”

“It’s a two-week tour,” David says as he loads up the contract on the fax machine. Two weeks that, David hopes, will change everything for the Smallbones.

And so they do.

When a recession decimates concert attendance, David’s on the hook for a half-million-dollar shortfall.

“Helen, I’m sorry. No one anticipated this economy. We’re going to lose everything.”

David feels he has no choice but to uproot his family and move to the epicenter of the Christian music industry: Nashville.

Nothing—not one single thing—goes as planned. But in the end, the Smallbone family bands together to trust God, to love one another and to cling to hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s an adventure unfolding that’s bigger than they could have dreamed.

The post Unsung Hero appeared first on Plugged In.

When Jesus cured the blind man in John 9, all He needed was a little mud.

Dr. Ming Wang requires more.

Oh, sure, some might say that Ming is a miracle worker in his own right. But the good doctor knows that curing someone’s sight takes more than mud. It takes knowledge. It takes skill. And Ming (he might say with all due modesty) has plenty of both. You’d expect nothing less from the country’s best eye surgeon.

That knowledge and those skills didn’t come through any sort of miraculous intervention, either—at least not in Ming’s thinking. He earned both. Boy, did he earn them.

Ming grew up in China during its brutal Cultural Revolution, when activists shut down schools, tried to sweep away millennia of history and repaint Chinese society in red. It’s hard to learn medicine when no one will teach you. It’s hard to become a healer when the country’s powers would rather turn you into a killer.

Ming’s journey to Harvard, MIT and, ultimately, Tennessee contained plenty of twists and turns, dips and dead ends. But after decades of work and study and sacrifice, he made good on his promise to his parents and himself. He became a doctor, the sort of doctor that people from all over the world ask—sometimes beg—for help. And when the surgery is successful (as it so often is), he poses with his grateful patients as the cameras flash and the people applaud.

But Ming knows that even he has his limits.

Take Kajal, a young girl from the slums of Calcutta. Those who are blind there make better beggars, we learn. So Kajal’s stepmother intentionally poured sulfuric acid into the girl’s eyes.

But Kajal’s life took a turn for the better. Now in the care of kindly Sister Marie, she’s in the U.S. to see if Dr. Wang just might be able to find what she lost: Perhaps he can help this little blind girl see again.

Ming takes a look at Kajal’s eyes and doesn’t see a lot of hope for her. Might Ming do something? Perhaps. But it’s a small chance. And if the surgery fails, there will be no applause.

But something about the girl reminds him of another he used to know, long, long ago. Ming’s touched by her story. And even though he tells Sister Marie how slim the chances are for success, Marie reminds him how much Kajal has already been through.

“She has traveled across the world for a chance,” Marie says. “Even a slim chance.”

Ming works miracles, some say. But he’ll need more than mud to bring sight to this little girl. He’ll need all his knowledge, all his skill—and even then, it might not be enough.

The post Sight appeared first on Plugged In.

When Mother Cabrini tells this to New York Times reporter Theodore Calloway, he doesn’t believe her. So she takes him there.

It’s a bold act on Cabrini’s part: She’s been forbidden by the Archdiocese of New York to solicit American citizens for funds to help the dying Italian children. But she figures if she can get New Yorkers to care about the immigrants on their own (since many of them were children of immigrants themselves), then she won’t be in defiance of the church by accepting donations.

Of course, Archbishop Corrigan doesn’t quite see it that way. Neither does Mayor Gould.

What Cabrini doesn’t understand—or rather, what she refuses to accept—is that nobody cares about 19^th century Italian immigrants. They see Italians as having inferior intelligence (since many are illiterate and don’t speak English), fit only for menial labor.

And while Corrigan feels for the suffering of the Italian people, they aren’t the only members of his proverbial flock. He needs the cooperation of Gould and city hall to provide for other immigrant groups, such as his native Irishmen.

But Cabrini won’t be swayed.

Her entire life she’s been told that she doesn’t belong. Doctors told her mother that the girl would be bedridden forever after nearly drowning as a child. Three different orders of the church rejected her for her “weakness of constitution.” And even the Pope was hesitant to send her on the first female-led mission overseas.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Mother Cabrini overcame her illness. She founded her own order within the church. She established schools and orphanages in her homeland of Italy. And she convinced the Pope that if God would entrust the mission of informing the Apostles of Christ’s resurrection to Mary Magdalene, a woman, then the Pope should allow Cabrini to start building her “Empire of Hope”: a worldwide network of orphanages, schools and hospitals to serve the poor.

Again, it’s a bold act. Cabrini doesn’t have the funds, the political support or the immune system to conquer Five Points, the first stop on her worldwide campaign.

But she does have faith.

Cabrini knows she can do all things through Christ, who strengthens her. And she believes that if she can just begin the mission, the means will come.

The post Cabrini appeared first on Plugged In.

Dawson Gage has loved London Quinn, well, practically forever.

But London—effervescent, free-spirited London—has never requited her “best friend’s” plain-for-all-to-see adoration of her.

Until, maybe, the night she realizes that maybe her lifelong best friend could be more than that. A lingering look, a handhold on the way to ice cream, a sweet smile as she gets out of Dawson’s car and starts across the street.

London never saw the truck. And the driver didn’t see her.

It’s hard to say whose heart is rent more by London’s terrible, senseless death, Dawson or London’s parents, Larry and Louise.

Tears, mourning and the bittersweet possibilities of what could have been haunt them all. The loss is amplified by the fact that London had been set to donate a kidney to Louise, who is slowly succumbing to a kidney disease that will eventually claim her, too, if no donor steps forward.

In the days that follow, a secret slips out. “We should have told her,” Louise tells her husband and Dawson.

“Told her what?” Dawson asks.

London, it turns out, was an in vitro baby.

And there was another embryo. One that Larry and Louise donated to a fertility doctor they knew, agreeing never to seek information about what happened to it.

But Dawson never made such an agreement. And, driven by his own grief and curiosity, he’s determined to find out what happened to this other embryo, this other person—London’s long-lost sibling.

It doesn’t take long. Her name is Andi Allen.

And she looks a lot like London Quinn.

The post Someone Like You appeared first on Plugged In.

Life can be cruel.

It doesn’t matter how good a person you are—how conscientious a spouse, how devoted a dad. We can talk about how “blessed” we are, and it’s true. And yet, it’s also true that disaster can visit us all. Tragedy plays no favorites.

Ed Schmitt feels that truth with a sharp, bitter clarity. Theresa—his beautiful, caring wife—died all too soon from a rare liver disease, leaving behind Ed and their two wonderful little girls. But now the youngest daughter, 5-year-old Michelle, has the same rare condition. Ed has spent a fortune on doctors and hospital visits and medication, money the Kentucky roofer just doesn’t have. But even if Ed had millions in the bank, it doesn’t change the awful truth: Without a new liver, and soon, Michelle will die.

Sharon Stevens doesn’t have a liver to spare. Honestly, she’s overusing the one that she has.

More often than not, you’ll find her at the nearest Louisville bar or saloon—slamming down shots, popping tequila and maybe, on a good night, dancing on the bar.

But then one day, Sharon sees a notice for Theresa’s memorial service and learns about Michelle’s condition. She crashes the service and introduces herself to Theresa’s daughters—little Michelle and her older sister, Ashley. And when Ed sees this stranger in the church’s fellowship room—talking to his little girls—he walks over to find out what’s going on.

Sharon introduces herself.

“I just wanted to come by and say I’m sorry,” she says. “And if there’s anything I can do to help—”

How many people say those same words and find them empty? How many times are phrases like, “I’m sorry” and, “If I can do anything” the farthest we take things? We mean what we say—and then we go on. We say, but don’t do. We can’t. Under the weight of disaster, the need feels just too overwhelming. The questions seem too unanswerable.

Well, Sharon’s not one of those people. In fact, she’s not going to wait to be told if she can help Ed and his little girls.

She’s going to help them—whether Ed wants her to or not.

The post Ordinary Angels appeared first on Plugged In.

In the decades since her death at age 87 in 1997, however, unexpected details have emerged to flesh out this recently canonized Catholic saint’s secret struggle with spiritual darkness.

Mother Teresa & Me tells the story of this woman’s selfless service and her inner battle with searing spiritual doubts.

Mother Teresa’s dramatized biographical story is interwoven with a purely fictional one in the present. Here, we meet Kavita, a young British Indian woman who discovers she’s pregnant and who subsequently experiences an existential crisis of her own.

And it’s a crisis that’s ultimately reshaped by her own encounter with Mother Teresa’s legacy.

The post Mother Teresa & Me appeared first on Plugged In.

Option 1: Go back to his own world, where he constantly fought with his wife, where his son had been kidnapped, where he was about to get fired and where he’d just gotten into a bad car wreck.

Option 2: Work for the Benefactor. Shift people out of their own realities in order to make them miserable but have all his dreams come true.

“Let me lift you out of that embarrassing farce you call life and give you something glorious,” the Benefactor whispers.

Every other version of Kevin from every other reality had already agreed to the Benefactor’s terms. They were all living it up.

But this Kevin was different. This Kevin didn’t want another version of his wife, Molly. He didn’t want another version of his son. He wanted his Molly, the one he fell in love with. And he wanted their son.

So rather than give in to the devil, he prayed to God.

Of course, that made the Benefactor furious. Instead of returning Kevin home, the Benefactor left him stranded in a twisted dystopian world with no hope.

But Kevin’s diabolical nemesis may have underestimated him. Sure, the Benefactor may have taken Kevin’s health, wealth, wife and child, but there’s one thing he can’t take away: Kevin’s faith that God will deliver him from evil.

The post The Shift appeared first on Plugged In.

It wasn’t Paris. Or Rome. Or Tokyo. It didn’t have the glamour of the Riviera or the adventure of the Australian outback. Sure, it had mystery—plenty of that. Jonathan wouldn’t say, exactly, where they’d go or what they’d do.

But Jonathan Brandt sold the trip as a life-changer.

“When my dad took me on this trip, it ignited me for adventure,” he tells his high school-age son, Jesse. “This is once in a lifetime … one last hurrah with your old man before you head off into the real world.”

But Jesse wasn’t ready to commit. He promised to talk with his father about the trip later—after Jonathan got back from another book conference or some such.

But Dad didn’t come back. Neither did Jesse’s mom. Their lives claimed by a car crash. There would be no trip of a lifetime, no one last hurrah.

Or so it seemed.

Then Jesse and his friends find a mysterious, symbol-covered compass locked away in his dad’s desk. And a map. A cryptic poem. Seems like Jonathan had wanted to go with Jesse on a full Hobbit-like quest, minus the dragons and dwarves and moonlight runes.

“We’re getting peak Goonies vibe, right?” says Billy, Jesse’s social media-obsessed pal.

The quest will apparently take them to a mysterious Oklahoma site called Zion’s Point, just in time for a meteor shower. Jesse—grieving the loss of his parents and knowing how important the trip was to his father—decides he’s going to make the journey. “I’m watching that shower, no matter what,” he says.

But he’ll have company. Billy’s coming, toting along his thousands of followers for good measure. The Jones siblings, volatile Zack and talented Reena, agree to come, too. And even though the perfectionist planner Eli thinks it’s a bad idea to go before school’s out, he reluctantly agrees to join his friends. After all, someone’s going to have to keep the crew in line, right?

For Jesse’s friends, the quest to find Zion’s Point feels like a grand adventure. But for Jesse, it’s more than that: It’s a way to connect with his father, a way to grieve, a way to process all the hurt and anger and despair inside.

And Jesse hopes that, once he reaches the end, he’ll find a reason to live again.

The post What Rhymes With Reason appeared first on Plugged In.

Yep, Clarence and sidekick Elijah were doing just fine in the chariot race, ‘til Mary took the contest straight into Jerusalem’s notorious gypsy district. (Mary never played fair.) One poison dart and one crash later, and Clarence lost the race, his coat, his horse and his chariot.

Worse yet, the horse and chariot weren’t technically his to lose. They belonged to a brothel owner named Jedediah the Terrible, who loaned him both for 30 days. That was, oh, about 29 days ago. And if Clarence can’t pay Jedediah back, he’ll be crucified.

That’s not just a figure of speech, either. Yeah, Clarence will be, quite literally, crucified.

Well, he’d rather not bear that particular cross (or have that cross bear him). And that means he needs to find either some money, or some protection, fast.

But maybe if he could find religion, he just might be able to buy some time.

Clarence has heard all about this guy in town named Jesus of Nazareth. Why, Clarence’s own twin brother, Thomas, is part of Jesus’ crew. And the whole lot of ‘em are as popular as all get-out in Jerusalem these days. Maybe if Clarence could get in good with Jesus and his gang, Jedediah might just leave him alone.

‘Course, becoming an apostle requires faith. And that’s something that Clarence just doesn’t have. So when the apostles laugh him out, and Thomas once again scolds him for being a no-account nobody, Clarence gets an even better idea:

If Jesus can pretend to be the Messiah, why not Clarence?

All he needs to do is pretend to heal a few folks, bring a couple of others back to life, crib Jesus’ teachings and parrot them as his own and voila! Instant messianic credibility. What does he have to lose?

Turns out, he could lose quite a bit: His life. His soul. His whole world. But if things go really south, Clarence just might find something, too.

The post The Book of Clarence appeared first on Plugged In.