Jeff Cavins* went to the dermatologist for a routine checkup, and the doctor noticed a mole he thought should be removed. Jeff wasn’t too concerned because he had had other moles removed before. But on the day the doctor called to tell him it was melanoma, Jeff had a choice of how to react to the news.

For twenty years my brother Winston Wehrman and his wife were missionaries in Papua New Guinea where he founded Papua New Guinea Bible Institute at Pabrabuk Station. One evening he called saying he had received exciting news in a phone call the previous night.

When I was a girl, mother would occasionally take me to the huge stores in St. Louis for a day of shopping the sale racks.

I heard a father say that there is one time his daughters come to him. Usually, he said, they go to their mother with their questions—like what dress should they wear—but there is one time when they come to him, and that is when they get hurt.

My niece Ruth Ann had a deep desire to win souls to the Lord. Then she discovered the book Prayer Strategy by Ruth Shinness that encourages praying scripture as though we believe it. For instance, Mark 1:17 says, “‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’” Ruth Ann began to boldly pray, “Because I follow after You, Jesus, You have made me to become a fisher of men.”

When I was in a prayer meeting with about twenty others, one of the wonderful ladies of prayer said, “Prayer is hard work. We don’t ‘just pray.’ When it gets hard to pray, we pray on through that. The old-timers called it ‘praying through.’

“Would you pray for me, Aletha?” pleaded a friend on the phone. “I have been sick for several days, and my pain is unbearable.” Remembering her previous disinterest in God, I readily consented to pray for her. It seemed to be providential to receive such a phone call on the day I had set aside for fasting and prayer.

When Dwight L. Moody visited London, a minister invited him to preach for him the next morning and night. Mr. Moody said, “When the time came I began to speak to them it seemed the hardest talking I ever did.” He wished he had not promised to speak again at night.