This optimist occupies a human body that just three years ago felt like 25, which has since then taken a…(ahem) "buffeting" [trying not to roll my eyes here]. The optimist makes jokes and laughs about the warranty running out when you turn 50.  Then I stop laughing and look for something deeper. I look for the strength found not in a 25-year old body,...

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.” Over 200,000 miles from Earth, one of Odyssey’s oxygen tanks had exploded, making Apollo 13’s lunar landing impossible. Returning home required nudging Odyssey into the gravitational pull of the Moon—to slingshot the craft around the Moon and back home. A similar maneuver might help faith communities in one of the biggest...

So, it’s another Monday, and as you hit the snooze button for the second time, you find it hard to get out of bed again to go to an occupation that you find mundane and a waste of your gifts and talents. In this economy, it’s all you could get, and you need to put food on the table (let alone pay for health insurance and pay off the school loan!). You...

“Of course, you’ll want to ask me about complications,” Dr. Ellis said. “We have almost none from the procedures done by our doctors—and we have a 99 percent success rate with this type of surgery.” I nodded, my mouth dry. Neck surgery? I wasn’t sure I was on board. Still, this surgeon was one of the best in the country, and God had gotten me in to...