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Weekly articles, daily Q & A, and a Creation Comic!


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If you enjoy this email service, I encourage you to spread the word
to family and friends that we may bring inspiration to the lives of
many! If you are not on the list and this has been passed along
to you, join the thousands of world-wide readers by visiting:

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Be sure to check out our inspirational list just for teenagers!

http://www.Heart4Teens.com/Heart4Teens


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http://www.hearttouchers.com/books


Looking for a great gift?

Michael's updated book Heart Touchers "Life-Changing Stories of Faith,
Love, and Laughter," is finally here! ($13.95) Visit the link below to
preview the book! Personalized autographed copies are available at
no extra charge and we pay the shipping for you! An E-book version is
also available for just $3.25!

http://www.hearttouchers.com/books


Be sure to let us know who you would like it autographed for and then allow
about two weeks for us to sign it and send it on its way to you.Credit card,
PayPal, Checks, and Money orders accepted! The book is also available
through Amazon.com, Borders.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Booklocker.com


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If you missed Michael's TV appearance on June 10 on the show called "The Morning Blend"
you can watch the episode on their web site at: http://www.themorningblend.com  
or at:
http://www.heart4teens.com


From my family to yours,

Author Michael T. Powers


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LUTHER'S LUMBER
  

By Joe Edwards


Luther had been home from the war nearly four months, now, and worked
at the Carnation Milk plant in Mt. Vernon where his wife, Jenny, worked.

This morning he was in the little Miller cafe next door to the post
office waiting for the mail to be "put up".  Sitting across from him in the
booth was his old friend, Fred Hill.  They were discussing the war which
was still going on in the Pacific Theatre.  Recruitment posters still lined
the walls of the little cafe.

Fred had not been in the service, because when the war started in
1941, his parents had been in very poor health; his father with a bad
heart, and his mother with cancer.  He was needed at home to care for them
and operate the farm.  His parents had since died, and the farm was now his--
his and Maggie's.

When Luther, Fred's best friend since childhood had flown over Miller
in the B-17, and when the bodies of the Hobbs boys and Billie Martin had
been shipped home, and when Perry came home with hooks where his hands
should have been, Fred felt guilty.  He felt he had not done his part for
the war effort, and in his own eyes, he was diminished.

But today, it was Luther who seemed depressed.  Fred asked him what
was bothering him. "You seem down in the dumps, today, Luther," he said.
"I can't see what could be botherin' you.  You came through the war without
a scratch, you got a beautiful wife and a baby on the way, you got a good
job, what's the problem?"

"Jenny's mother is in bad shape," said Luther, "We're going to have to
take her in, and with the baby coming we don't have the room."

"Can't build a room on?" asked Fred.

"No lumber available," said Luther.  "I've tried here, Mt. Vernon,
Springfield, Joplin, and there won't be any more shipments for the
duration. Who knows how long that will be?"

"Tried Will's sawmill?"

"Yeah, but he just saws oak, and it's green. The baby'll be here in
August, and we can't wait for the lumber to dry.  Besides, you can't build
a whole room out of oak, anyway."

"Wouldn't want to," said Fred, "Reckon the mail's up?"

"Probably."

The two young men left the cafe and went into the post office next
door.  Buford Patten, the postmaster, had raised the door to the service
window, signaling that the mail was in the boxes.  Luther and Fred
retrieved their mail and left -- Luther to work at Mt. Vernon, and Fred
back to the farm.

That evening, Fred finished the milking and sat on the front porch
with Maggie.  "Days are gettin' longer," he said, "Man could get half a
day's work done after five o'clock."

"Better put your Pa's car up," said Maggie, "Radio says rain tonight."

Fred's father had bought a new 1941 Ford just before his first heart
attack, and the car was now Freds.  He had built a new garage for it just
before Christmas, and tonight he congratulated himself on getting it built
before the lumber ran out.  He didn't even know it had, until Luther told
him this morning.

Fred drove the car into the new garage and latched the door.  He
walked back around the house to the front porch.  Something was nagging at
his mind, but he couldn't define it.  He shook it off and sat on the porch
with Maggie until darkness fell.  They could see heat lightning in the
West, and the wind started to rise.  They went in the house to listen to
the news of the war on the radio, and shortly went to bed.

The next morning, Fred again drove his pickup into Miller for the
mail.  The air was fresh and clear now, the rain having washed it clean.
The sun was shining, and he felt good.  When he reached the cafe, Luther
was there ahead of him.

"Still haven't found any lumber, I guess?"

"No, I asked everybody at work, and nobody knows of any.  I don't know
what we'll do."

Now the nagging in Fred's mind defined itself.  "I found the lumber
for you," he said.

"You did?  Where?"  Luther was delighted.

"Fella I know.  He'll let you have it free, you bein' a veteran and
all.  He doesn't seem to want you to know who he is, so I'll have to haul
it in for you.  It's good lumber, fir and pine, cut different lengths and
got nails in it, but that's no problem.  Tell you what, you get your
foundation poured, and I'll bring you a pickup load everyday and help you
build it.  We'll have it done before the baby gets here."

"That's a friend for you," Luther said to himself, as he drove to Mt.
Vernon.  That evening he came home with sacks of cement in his pickup.

Luther dug and poured the foundation, and when it was ready for the
footings, he told Fred.

"Fine," said Fred, "I'll bring the first load over and be there when
you get home from work."

Fred appeared every evening with a load of lumber, and the two men
worked until it was too dark to see.  Sometimes Maggie came too, and the
women sat in the house listening to the radio or talking about babies or
Jenny's ailing mother, their sentences punctuated by the sound of the
hammers outside.

Over the next few weeks the new room took shape and was finished and
roofed.  "Where did you get the shingles?" asked Luther.

"Same fella," answered Fred.  "He's got all kinds of stuff."

Luther didn't push.  Lots of older folks liked to help out the young
veterans anonymously.  It was common.

It was done!  The women fixed the room up inside, and moved Jenny's
mother in.  The men went back about their business.

At supper one evening, Luther told Jenny he would like to do something
nice for Fred and Maggie, since they had been so helpful with the new room.
"I know," said Jenny, brightly, "Maggie likes those big wooden lawn chairs
like Aunt Birdie has in her lawn.  Why not get them a couple of those?"

"Good idea," agreed Luther, and the next Saturday he bought a couple
at Callison's hardware and loaded them into his pickup.

When he got out to Fred's farm, there was no one home, Fred and Maggie
having gone into Springfield, shopping.  "That's ok," Luther thought, "I'll
just put them in the garage in case it rains."

He drove around the house and into the driveway that led to Fred's new
garage.

The garage was gone.  Only the foundation remained to show where it
had been.

Luther put the chairs on the front porch and drove home, tears in his eyes.

The two men are now in their mid-seventies, and are still the best of
friends.  They never spoke of the incident.  How could they?

There was nothing to say.


Joe Edwards

Joe Edwards was a writer friend of mine who wrote stories about his little hometown of Miller, Missouri. He was one of the first people to order an autographed copy of our book when it came out.

The remarkable thing about Joe is that he was 65 when he died, and he didn't start writing until he was 63. While he was a master of the English language (he was a high school English teacher in his younger years) he never put pen to paper until the last two years of his life, and never submitted his works to a publisher. He was a semi-retired Jazz pianist and played in, and conducted, Big Bands in the 40s and 50s.

 

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Creation Q & A

Q: Could people have lived for over 900 years? 

A: Many people find it difficult to believe that Methuselah lived to be 969
years old. Nevertheless, the Bible teaches quite plainly that the early
patriarchs often lived to be nearly 1,000 years old and even had children
when they were several hundred years old! Similar claims of long life spans
are found in the secular literature of several ancient cultures (including the
Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Chinese). But even a life
span of nearly 1,000 years is sadly abbreviated when we consider that
God initially created us to live forever.
 
According to the Bible, God created the first humans--Adam and Eve--without
sin and with the ability to live forever. God gave the first human couple
everything they needed for their eternal health and happiness in the Garden
of Eden; but He warned them not to eat fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil or they would die, as indeed would all their descendants
after them (Genesis 2:16-17). When Satan's deception prompted Eve to
disobey this command and then Adam willfully disobeyed, their minds and
bodies profoundly changed (Genesis 3). Not only did they become subject
to death, but their firstborn child (Cain) became the world's first murderer.
Truly, the wages of sin is death, physically and spiritually. It is sobering to
think that the Bible would have been only a few pages long--from creation
to the fall into sin--were it not for the undeserved love of God who both
promised and sent the Messiah to save us from sin and death (Genesis
3:15; Isaiah 25:8; Psalm 49:14-15; 1 John 5:13).
 
For 1,500 years after creation, men lived such long lives that most were
either contemporaries of the first man, Adam, or personally knew someone
who was! The ten patriarchs (excluding Enoch) who preceded the Great
Flood lived an average of 912 years. Lamech died the youngest at the age
of 777, and Methuselah lived to be the oldest at 969.
 
To read more about the extrabiblical and biological evidence for long life
spans, see Did People Like Adam and Noah Really Live over 900 Years of Age at:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2008/06/04/did-people-live-over-900-years

Source: AnswersInGenesis.org

 

http://www.hearttouchers.com/Creation_News


Creation News

Click on the Bible above or visit the web site listed below!
http://www.HeartTouchers.com/Creation_News

This new addition to our web site will give you an article on the leading news in the
Creation/Evolution controversy each day.

This section also includes a rotating Question and Answer feature and a weekly
Creation Comic strip from the people at AnswersInGenesis.org.

Be sure to come back and visit each day for an informative article that will
help you keep up to date on the latest news in this controversial area!

___________________________________________ 

  

Thought For The Day

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."
--Booker T. Washington


Verse for the Day

"The man who sets a trap for others will get caught in it himself."
--Proverbs 26:27 TLB


Kid's Thought For The Day

"Never smart off to a teacher whose eyes and ears are twitching."


Parent's Thought For The Day

From Happy Days (The Popular TV show of the 70's and 80's)

Howard: Well then. How are you gonna support my daughter? How
are you gonna live? How are you gonna eat?

Chachi: Mr C., after we're married something is bound to come along.

Howard: Yeah! Then you're gonna have to feed that, too!


Creation/Evolution Thought For The Day

"I would rather believe in fairy tales than in such wild speculation. I have
said for years that speculations about the origin of life lead to no useful
purpose as even the simplest living system is far too complex to be
understood in terms of the extremely primitive chemistry scientists have
used in their attempts to explain the unexplainable. God cannot be
explained away by such naive thoughts." --Sir Ernst B. Chain, Nobel Laureate
(Medicine, 1945), as quoted by Ronald W. Clark, The Life of Ernst Chain
(London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1985), pp. 147-148.


Coach's Thought For The Day

"The athletes you are privileged to coach are all
different in what they need and how they should
be instructed. The universal factor is that you
have to love them all." --Bill Greer


Writer's Thought For The Day

"Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas
are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep."
-- Catherine O'Hara


Deep Thought For The Day

"Don't wait for 6 strong men to take you to church."

 

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http://www.hearttouchers.com/Inspired_Audio

Inspired Audio -- Inspirational Audio Message of the Week!

Inspired Audio is a brand new offshoot of HeartTouchers.com. Every week
we will offer a different audio message that you can listen to right on
your computer as you are surfing the net or just getting things done around
the house. Be sure to come back and visit each week!

This Week: "When Your Fears Become Reality" by Jeff Williams

http://www.HeartTouchers.com/Inspired_Audio


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http://www.hearttouchers.com/

Over 135,000 people have listened to popular Chicken Soup Author Michael T. Powers'
free inspirational message entitled: "Breathing Life into Others". If you aren't
one of them just visit:
http://www.HeartTouchers.com  and click on the link to
listen to the free streaming audio message.

____________________________________________


http://www.videoimagery.net/Video_Imagery


Video Imagery --Michael's Video Production Business

http://www.hearttouchers.com/video_imagery


Dear Michael,

"I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the beautiful video you made for me!
It was so special to see both of my parents in tears as they watched their children
grow up in pictures before their eyes! I loved the way you made Estania's part set
aside from the rest--that was the part that really got them! The music was beautiful.
My mom kept blubbering, "What song is that?" I don't know how you did such a
beautiful job with the video in such a short time. I really appreciate your doing it so
quickly. You have a wonderful gift, and I thank God that you are using it to create
such sentimental memories. I hope that I can find my niche like that in an area that
I love. Your video gave us one of our most lasting Christmas memories! I hope yours
was filled with moments to be treasured forever!"


Love,
Trisha
Silverhill, AL

Let me make you a video from your photos!
Check out my video production business by visiting:

http://www.hearttouchers.com/video_imagery


____________________________________

Do you feel as if life has no meaning for you?

http://www.HeartTouchers.com/Life_Purpose


____________________________________

Transfer your photographs or old home videos over to DVD or MP4 files! Give the gift that will touch your family's heart and soul.

You can join the 15,000 followers on his Facebook Nature Photography by clicking on the link above!

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