Dedication

In a remarkable story of perseverance and hope, a 47-year-old mother of five from Cookeville, Tennessee, has graduated from Tennessee Tech University after losing her sight in 2020. Despite the challenge of blindness, Amanda Juetten graduated magna cum laude, refusing to let her condition define her or limit her aspirations. “I want people to know that blindness doesn’t have to stop you from pursuing your dreams,” said Juetten.

Throughout her studies, she relied on assistive technology, the support of her family, and her own determination to overcome obstacles. “There were days when I felt overwhelmed, but I kept telling myself, ‘You can do this,’” she said. One professor remarked, “Her dedication to her education and her family is truly extraordinary.” Another classmate added, “She’s shown all of us what’s possible when you refuse to give up, no matter the circumstances.”

Now a proud graduate, Juetten plans to use her degree to advocate for the blind community and help others facing similar challenges. “I want to be a voice for those who feel unseen,” she explained. Her story is a testament to the power of determination and the importance of never losing sight of one’s dreams, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even when we refuse to let our limitations define us, we are called to trust that God’s purpose for our lives remains—He can use our greatest challenges as platforms for His glory.

Nine-year-old Kaden is a Michigan boy undergoing treatment for a cardiac condition at Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. He recently had his dream come true when he met his hero—astronaut José Hernández—through Make-A-Wish Michigan. The emotional and inspiring meeting was the result of a heartfelt wish to connect with the man whose story helped Kaden find strength during his medical journey.

“Everything was amazing! Thank you! Kaden had a blast. My cheeks never hurt so much from smiling so hard,” said Kaden’s mother, Michele, describing the joy the experience brought to their family.

Hernández, a Mexican American engineer and former NASA astronaut, flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-128 in 2009. His life story was chronicled in the memoir Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut and the Amazon Prime Video film A Million Miles Away. Both projects showcase his remarkable journey from farm fields to outer space. That resilience deeply resonated with Kaden, who has adopted “never giving up” as his personal motto.

The special trip included VIP access and a guided tour of NASA. That was where Kaden was able to explore the wonders of space science alongside his inspirational role model. “Wishes give kids the strength to keep fighting and bring joy to their families,” said Make-A-Wish Michigan, the organization that made the meeting possible. Kaden’s wish was also featured at the nonprofit’s Wish Ball Grand Rapids event, helping raise over $652,000—and counting—to fund future wishes for other children across the state.

To date, Make-A-Wish Michigan has granted more than 12,000 wishes, each designed to give critically ill children hope, joy, and the motivation to keep moving forward. For Kaden, meeting José Hernández was more than a dream come true—it was a life-affirming reminder of what’s possible when you refuse to give up.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Encouragement from others can be a divine provision for endurance in trials.

A British man has unintentionally become a viral sensation after undertaking a meticulous repair of a McDonald’s sign that had become a running topic in the Dull Men’s Club Facebook group. The McDonald’s location at the White Rose Shopping Centre in Leeds, England, featured a sign with a missing inner section of the letter "D," leaving it as an incomplete silhouette.

Steve Lovell decided to fix it. Drawing attention from social media users, Lovell carefully researched McDonald’s branding guidelines and used a 3D printer to replicate the correct design for the sign. His initial repair gained traction online, and when he noticed a second sign at the same location with the same issue, he repeated the process.

Lovell’s dedication was widely admired, even as some joked that his actions made him "too interesting" for the Dull Men’s Club. He acknowledged the humor in the situation: "I think it's the whole pointlessness of this that has caught people's attention. Not many people would notice a sign missing bits from it. Fewer still would be bothered by it and practically no-one at all would bother to spend time and effort actually rectifying it."

The White Rose Shopping Centre joined in celebrating Lovell’s quirky mission by naming him their tongue-in-cheek "Employee of the Month." In a post on social media, the mall wrote, "Thank you Steve, our March employee of the month, for your selfless work — we're lovin' it."

Lovell emphasized that his actions were driven by personal satisfaction rather than corporate loyalty or fame. "The fix wasn't even for the benefit of McDonald's as some people claim," he said. "It was for me, and anyone else that would have noticed. Sharing it was just about the mundane absurdity."

What began as a simple desire to correct a minor visual flaw has turned Lovell into a symbol of endearing dedication to detail — and maybe, just maybe, a bit too exciting for the club that celebrates life's most uneventful pleasures.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Dedication; Humble Service; Perseverance – Many Christians work quietly behind the scenes – living for God's glory and eternal gain, not for recognition.

Che Guevara is known internationally as a Marxist revolutionary. As he recruited for his guerilla operations in Cuba, the Congo, and Bolivia he often encountered the half-heartedness of his volunteers.

Author John Lee Anderson quotes Che’s sarcastic evaluation of the freshly trained recruits who had just arrived to fight in the Congo:

In a ludicrous sideshow, the captain had also brought over forty new Congolese rebel ‘graduates,’ fresh from a training course in the Soviet Union. Like their Bulgarian and Chinese-trained predecessors, they immediately requested two weeks of vacation, while also complaining that they had nowhere to put their luggage. Che wrote, ‘It would be a little comic if it weren’t so sad, to see the disposition of these boys in whom the revolution had deposited its faith.’

Possible Preaching Angle:

The church also faces the same issue with those who are called to follow our Savior. We are not called to be part-time disciples looking for a life of leisure. Jesus calls for us to “take your cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). He also promises to give us immense rewards stored up in heaven for the sacrifices we make for his cause (Matt. 19:29).

From boyhood, Davy Lloyd dreamed of nothing else but dedicating his life to the orphanage his parents had operated in Haiti since 2000.

He had grown up in Haiti, spoke Creole before English and had helped his parents run their mission, which had grown into a bustling operation that educated 450 children, with 50 living on the compound in Lizon just north of Port-au-Prince.

“He had said from the time he was little that someday he was going to be a missionary in Haiti,” his father, David Lloyd Jr., recounted in a phone interview from Oklahoma. “He just knew that that’s where he was supposed to be his whole life, trying to make a difference in some people’s lives who needed a lot of help.”

So, when Davy and Natalie Lloyd, then Natalie Baker, married in June 2022, they decided to make a life together in Haiti—even as the country of 11 million was descending further into political dysfunction and gang violence. … That notion was shattered in May of 2024, when two gangs breached the compound in succession, killing the young couple, along with the Haitian director of the group, Jude Montis.

Davy Lloyd’s father said, “We felt that in our hearts that’s where we were supposed to be and what we were supposed to be doing with our lives. I just kind of felt that with us being there it gave the community some hope because we hadn’t cut and run.”

If you’re on the operating table, you don’t want your surgeon to say to a nurse, “Hand me one of them sharp thingamajigs.” You want him to have a specific name for a specific tool to perform a specific job.

Words matter. The medical field has distinctive terminology by which it carefully defines diseases, medicines, instruments, and the like. When it comes to our bodies, we have very high expectations of our doctors. They better know what they’re talking about.

We should expect no less—indeed, far more—when it comes to pastors, priests, and teachers of the Word of God. They handle the word of truth. They minister to body, soul, and mind. They better know what they’re talking about. We don’t want to hear from them, “Now that divine power is doing some religious stuff in you.” Precision in language is necessary. We want God’s Word unapologetically, lovingly, and carefully proclaimed to us.

Pastor John Yates III once worked for the British scholar and Bible teacher John Stott. Yates reflected on the time when Stott’s aging and disability started to slow Stott down. Yates says:

Stott spent the last 15 years of his life going completely blind. It began with a small stroke that knocked out the peripheral vision in his left eye, forcing him to surrender his driver’s license. And over the years that followed, this man who wrote more books during his lifetime than most of us will read in an average decade became unable to see the pages in front of him. But that wasn't all. His body grew increasingly weak. He needed more sleep. He was eventually confined to his bedroom.

I spent three years working closely with John when he was in his early 70s. I was in my mid-20s. It was absolutely exhausting. I've never been around another person with a capacity for work as fast as his. He was the most disciplined and efficient man I've ever known. But there he was, years later, now in his 80s and into his early 90s, with his mind as sharp as ever. But then he was unable to do much of anything, except to sleep, eat, and listen out his bedroom window for the call of a familiar bird.

Now I found this personally incredibly difficult to understand. Why would God allow a man like John to suffer the loss of precisely those faculties that made his life so meaningful and has worked so successful, if it just seemed cruel? It would have been better, I thought, for him to die or to suffer from Alzheimer's, because at least then he wouldn't have known what he was missing.

But then I finally begin to understand why John never seemed to complain. That's because God was giving him the gift of absolute dependence. God was showing him that he delighted to offer Stott a dependence on him.

These are dark days for military recruiting.

The Army, Navy, and Air Force have tried almost everything in their power to bring in new people. They’ve relaxed enlistment standards, set up remedial schools for recruits who can’t pass entry tests, and offered signing bonuses worth up to $75,000. Still, in 2023 the three services together fell short by more than 25,000 recruits.

Military leaders say there are so few Americans who are willing and able to serve, and so many civilian employers competing for them, that getting enough people into uniform is nearly impossible.

Tell that to the Marines. The Marine Corps ended the recruiting year on September 30th having met 100 percent of its goal, with hundreds of contracts already signed for the next year. The corps did it while keeping enlistment standards tight and offering next to no perks.

When asked earlier this year about whether the Marines would offer extra money to attract recruits, the commandant of the Marine Corps replied: “Your bonus is that you get to call yourself a Marine. That’s your bonus.”

In a nutshell, that is the Marine Corps’ marketing strategy: Dismiss financial incentives as chump change compared with the honor of joining the Corps. Brush off the idea of military service as a steppingstone to civilian career opportunities. Instead, dangle the promise of the chance to be part of something intangible, timeless, and elite.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians aren’t called to elitism, but we are called to a life of adventure and challenge.

A landmark study by researchers in the UK found that simple health habits, such as eating a piece of fruit with lunch or running for 15 minutes before dinner, took an average of 66 days to form. Behavioral researchers say two to three months is a safe bet on average, but the more complex the behavior, the more difficult it is going to be to put on autopilot.

Recent research is uncovering how long it takes to cement different kinds of habits—and gives fresh insight into how to make them stick. According to a recent study, simple health habits like handwashing, for instance, take a couple of weeks to develop, while more complicated ones like going to the gym take four to seven months. “You can’t mindlessly go to the gym the way you mindlessly shampoo your hair,” says Katy Milkman, co-author of the study.

One big lesson if you’re trying to establish a new healthy habit: You will have better luck if you can simplify the process and repeat it often. Finding ways to make it fun and setting realistic expectations about how long it will take to establish the habit will help too.

Forbes Advisor commissioned a survey of 1,000 Americans who are divorced or who are in the process of divorcing to discover why marriages fail. A total of 689,308 divorces occurred in 2021 and approximately half of all first marriages end in divorce with subsequent marriages failing at higher rates.

To understand the causes of divorce, it’s helpful to understand the reasons people marry:

• 42% - Financial security
• 39% - Companionship
• 36% - Love
• 34% - To start a family
• 28% - Convenience
• 25% - Medical Insurance
• 07% - Societal and family pressures

Only five percent of divorcees say there was no way their marriage could have been saved, the survey says. A whopping 63% said that having a better understanding of commitment prior to marrying could have helped them avoid divorce.

You can access the entire detailed survey here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is important to keep in mind that this survey was taken of society as a whole. With proper guidance in premarital counseling and personal growth toward spiritual maturity a believing couple would be much more likely to establish a solid marriage for life upon the proper foundations.

In the 2023 South East Asia 500-meter race, one runner showed what it really means to run the race well. Despite the pounding rain and her last place finish, Bou Samnang refused to give up. Cheering fans encouraged the native Cambodian as she finished the race on behalf of her country, six minutes after the race was decided.

Despite knowing that she would not finish first place, Bou Samnang was determined to finish well. According to one news source she said, "I tried to reach the finish line because I wanted to show people that in life, even though we go a bit slow or fast, we will reach our destination all the same."

It would have been easy for her to stop running, especially as she was dealing with anemia which prevented her from running as fast as she would have liked. But her determination and endurance has led to her inspiring fans around the world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Paul wrote that our faith journey resembles a race. Running the race well doesn’t always mean finishing first. It does mean, working hard for something outside of yourself, persisting with a goal, and enduring hard times for Christ. We are encouraged to be like Bou Samnang, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, endure to the end.

In their book The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath describe an experiment in which participants underwent three painful trials. In the first, they submerged a hand for 60 seconds in a bucket filled with frigid, 57-degree water.

In the second trial, the time was increased by 30 seconds. For the first 60 seconds, the water was still 57-degrees. But in the final 30 seconds, it was raised to 59-degrees. In neither trial were participants told how long the experiment would last.

Before their third and final bucket, they were asked if they'd prefer to repeat the first or second experiment. A whopping 69% chose the longer trial! Think about that for a moment. In both of the first two trials, their hand was placed in frigid water. The second trial was 30 seconds longer and only slightly less uncomfortable in the end. Yet, more than two out of three people asked to repeat the second trial. Why?

Psychologists tell us it's because when people assess an experience, they rate the experience based on its best or worst part (that is, the peak) and the ending. They call it the "peak-end rule."

Whether you like it or not, people will tend to remember you for when you were at your best, or worst, and for the way you were in the end. It's impossible for any of us to always be at our best. Our worst selves will sometimes slip out no matter how hard we try to hide them. But the ending is something we can better control. Knowing that it's the end, we can devote more time and attention to getting it right.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Christian Life; Discipleship - Right now, your life may be average by most standards, with all of its highs and lows, but if you make an effort to end well your every encounter with other people, you'll leave them with a good impression. There are no second chances for making a good first impression, but there's always the chance to end well. 2) Pastor; Minister - Overall, a sermon may be so-so; but if the conclusion is memorable, it'll likely be remembered fondly weeks later.

Australian Erchana Murray-Bartlett completed 150 marathons in 150 days, running 6,300 kilometers (3,900 miles) from the country’s northern tip to the southern city of Melbourne in what could be a new world record. The 32-year-old runner crossed the finish line on Monday after a feat that, if confirmed, will beat the previous world record of 106 consecutive marathons set by British national Kate Jayden last year.

While Jayden sought to raise money for refugees, Murray-Bartlett completed her run to raise awareness of the threats to Australia’s biodiversity. She said, “Australia is fantastic, it’s so beautiful, and that was one of the key things I wanted to get out of this run, it was to showcase Australia’s beauty to the world.”

Murray-Bartlett raised more than 118,000 Australian dollars ($82,130) for the Wilderness Society, with all profits going towards conserving Australia’s native animals.

Australia, which has one of the world’s worst records on extinctions, last year announced a 10-year plan to try to prevent any more species from dying out in the country. The country’s wildlife has suffered the effects of natural disasters and the climate crisis, including catastrophic bushfires in 2019-20 that killed or displaced nearly three billion animals.

After setting off from Cape York in Queensland in August, Murray-Bartlett ran 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles) each day, enduring scorching heat and storms as she crossed dirt roads, rivers, and beaches. She said, “It’s very exhausting, I’ll give you that but I feel very blessed have been out to get to the finish line.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Christians have our own marathon to run with perseverance. Our race begins anew every day, and also has purpose - to please the One who calls us and to share our testimony with the world.

Outside magazine featured Kurt Steiner, currently the world’s greatest stone skipper. Over 22 years, he has won 17 tournaments. In 2013, he threw a rock that skipped so many times it defied science.

Steiner has dedicated his entire life to stone skipping. It helps him deal with his depression, and he even claims it can help us achieve “inner balance.” But his quest (like every idol we worship) has cost him dearly. In part, his dedication (or worship) left him broke, divorced, and, since the death of his greatest rival, adrift from his stone-skipping peers. Now, in middle age, with a growing list of aches and pains, he contemplates the reality that he throws rocks not simply because he wants to, but because he has no choice.

Kurt split from his wife in 2017. He said:

I like to solve puzzles. My marriage was the biggest puzzle of all … Everything good was there, for a couple of [messed]-up people. But she ultimately couldn’t cope with my particularities of being [messed]-up—and it was mutual. I couldn’t be that somebody who was deserving of some kind of normalcy and love, I couldn’t be that. I tried. But I couldn’t get it the way she needed without damaging myself further.

The article concluded with Kurt’s longing for the real source of his quest:

I’ve had to accept that there are things about myself I’m never gonna get right … I don’t want to say I am never happy, or that I don’t know what that is. Stone skipping does reward me, in the way it makes me forget, in the way it gives me hope … Skipping stones makes me happy, because there are hints of happiness writ large. That happiness is not dead.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It’s easy to judge Kurt for the obsession which hasn’t healed his brokenness. But we should ask ourselves: What are the idols of my heart that prevent me from worshiping the true God?

Claire Wineland was born with cystic fibrosis and given about 10 years to live. Despite the illness, she was always optimistic and full of life. At the age of 13 her lungs collapsed, she was in a coma, and doctors gave her a 1% chance to live. After 16 days she came out of the coma and "the near-death experience” had radically transformed her understanding of what mattered most in life.

At the age of fourteen and knowing that she had limited time, Claire started a foundation called The Clarity Project to raise money for other terminally ill children with cystic fibrosis. She then spent the rest of her teenage years giving inspirational speeches filled with insights such as:

• “The quality of your life isn’t determined by whether you're healthy or sick or rich or poor. It’s determined by what you make out of your experience as a human being.”
• “The moment you realize it’s not about avoiding suffering, it’s about making something from your suffering, you’re incredibly free.”

When you listen to Claire deliver these insights, it’s hard to believe that she was just a teenager at the time she said them. Although Claire only lived to the age of 21, so many would say that her awareness of her mortality combined with the near-death experience accelerated her understanding of who she was and what she wanted to do in the world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

While many of us spend our entire lives without any sense of meaning, faced with her own mortality, Claire was able to live meaningfully with the knowledge that she might not have as much time as everyone else. As Christians, adversities and calamities can happen, but our meaning and mission come from Christ. Even when life is good, the calling remains.

Before he met Jesus, Ravan worked as a paid assailant for the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization in India. For seven years, Ravan relished his role as a hired thug. After the death of his father when Ravan was 15-years-old, he was ripe for the RSS’ recruitment to persecute Christians. The RSS trained him to find Christian farmers, beat them, and hand them over to police. Ravan says he felt powerful and happy for the sense of purpose, national pride, and camaraderie.

But the Lord was preparing his heart for a much deeper purpose. His mother, who had become a Christian years earlier, earnestly prayed for her son to meet Jesus. Ravan said, “Ever since I was small, I used to tell her to pray quietly. Sometimes I would wear headphones to drown out the sound of her praying.” But after a near-fatal motorcycle accident, his RSS friends abandoned him. His mother was the only person who stood by him. When his mother invited him to church, he balked, especially considering the suffering he had caused the Christian community. But the pastor surprised Ravan with gentleness and love.

Ravan soon trusted in Jesus, married a Christian woman, and together they planted a church. He said, “I saw how I had been in my old life and how I lived now. I felt a burden within me to do something in return for God.” Six months after his newfound faith in Christ, his former RSS friends started persecuting him.

Ravan expects more persecution in the future, but he also says,

There’s a lot of zeal within me that no matter what comes. We face a lot of persecution, but when I read the Bible and pray, I have experienced God speak to me. I have learned that persecution is a part of the Christian faith. But I am determined to never turn back from my ministry. God gave me new life, so it doesn’t matter even if I die.

Tim Keller said he would never forget the story about one of his mentors, a college professor named Dr. Addison Leach.

Two young women at the college were both bright and their respective parents wanted them to get Master’s Degrees and go on to careers. But, instead, they both became Christians. Both decided that they were going to become missionaries. Their parents had a fit. One of the mothers called Dr. Leach, thinking that Dr. Leach was one of the reasons that the girls had become (in the mother’s words) “religious fanatics, rather than pursuing the course they had hoped, getting a career and having security. Instead, they were going to go wildly off into the blue.”

This mother said, “We wanted our daughter to get a master’s degree, start a career, and get something in the bank, so she could have some security. Dr. Leach responded:

Please just let me remind you of something. We’re all on a little ball of rock called earth, and we’re spinning along through space at zillions of miles per hour. Even if we don’t run in to anything, eventually we’re all going to die. Which means that under every single one of us there’s a trap door that’s going to open one day and we’re all going to fall off this ball of rock. And underneath will either be the everlasting arms of God or absolutely nothing. So maybe we can get a master’s degree to get some security.

But the biggest savings account in the world cannot stop cancer. It can’t stop traffic accidents. It cannot stop broken hearts. It can’t give you anything … any of the things that only God can give you. He’s the only significance you can have. He’s the only love that you can get and can’t lose.

Many professional athletes have their trademarks when it comes to celebrating their wins. Tiger Woods has his legendary fist pump. The eight-time Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt has his signature "lightning bolt" pose.

Once in a while, athletes celebrate prematurely, which has proven costly. Cyclist Luka Pibernik from Slovenia sprinted to the finish line and raised his arms in triumph. Unfortunately, the race was not over and another lap remained. After a grueling 3.5 hours of cycling, Pibernik's reserves were empty and slipped from 1st place to 148th.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The Bible encourages us to persevere to the end. The Apostle Paul uses the metaphor of a marathon to illustrate the perseverance of the Christian life. We are to fix our sight on the prize and to finish the race (1 Cor. 9:24-27; Heb. 12:1-2).

The largely unknown Franz Mohr once claimed, “I play [the piano] more in Carnegie Hall than anybody else, but I have no audience.” Mohr, was the Chief Technician for the world-famous piano makers, Steinway & Sons. A New York Times obituary from Sunday April 17, 2022, described how Mohr worked:

Sometimes a string would snap or a pedal would need adjusting during a concert, and he would step into the spotlight for a moment. But he did much of his work alone, on that famous stage and others around the world. He might have been mistaken for a pianist trying out a nine-foot grand for a recital — until he reached for his tools and began making minute adjustments, giving a tuning pin a tiny twist or a hammer a slight shave.

For years he went where the pianists went. He played before presidents and foreign dignitaries. He also attended to the world’s most famous performers’ personal pianos.

But he never begrudged taking a backseat to the stars. His boss, Henry Steinway, once said, “To understand Franz, one must understand … that his Christian faith is at the core of his being and affects everything he says and does.” Mohr claims that he loved being a “faithful plodder” who strove, in the words of Jesus, to be “faithful in little things.”

On Sunday, May 15th, 2022, an assailant opened fire at Geneva Presbyterian Church, resulting in one death and five injuries. Authorities are crediting the quick actions of Dr. John Cheng as the factor preventing more deaths. Cheng sustained fatal injuries while tackling the shooter, a tactic that allowed others to quickly subdue the gunman afterward.

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said, “Literally the meeting of good versus evil, between Dr. Cheng and the suspect in this case. Without the actions of Dr. Cheng, it is no doubt that there would be numerous additional victims in this crime.”

Barnes was effusive in his praise for Dr. Cheng, particularly in that his actions suggested premeditation and forethought. “I don't think that was a spontaneous act. I think he had thought this through in his mind, if something were to happen, 'What would I do?' And he acted on it. He saved the lives of probably upwards of dozens of people the way this individual was prepared."

Cheng lived in nearby Laguna Niguel, and served as sports medicine physician for the South Coast Medical Group. According to officials from Aliso Niguel High School, Cheng also volunteered as team physician for the football team and made several generous donations to the football program.

In a statement on the school’s website, they lauded his contributions to their community. “Dr. Cheng was a great man, a proud father, husband and always genuine. He always had a smile on his face. Hearing the news of his death is devastating as he just performed our annual athletic physicals last week. He is gone too soon, and we will miss him dearly.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Modeling the unconditional love of Christ means there are times when we might be called to put ourselves in harm's way for the benefit of others who might not be able to defend themselves.