A Word With You

I had the cutest little guy join me on my hike. I was in the country exploring a trail that wound along the creek and at first I just saw this little flash of black and white fur toddling along through the grass not far from me. He was all black, except for a nice white stripe all the way down his back, a big bushy tail, a cute little almost kitten-like face. Yes, it was a skunk! Two problems: one...

I've often awakened in the morning to a local news station. Great way to wake up. Or check your phone for news. It gets your day off to a really cheerful start. You can hear about a war or two, a little terrorism, some of last night's fatalities. Oh yeah, that will get you started! Actually it's not the news I'm actually so interested in, it's the weather I want to hear. And when you hear the weat...

It wasn't my idea to get a dog. But, I did get pretty attached to little Missy. She became a part of the family; a little shih tzu dog. Now, I never called her Missy Hutchcraft. I mean, I didn't make her a member of the family, but she was cute. Getting a dog was my youngest son's idea. He really wanted a dog and I explained we couldn't afford a dog. And he said the magic words, "She's free!" to w...

I never had a sister, but my sons have one, which means I have a daughter. Now, our oldest son is two years younger than our daughter, who is the oldest, but it was interesting to see as I watched their relationship what I had missed growing up. Oh, there was a lot of kidding around; the kids called it "busting." They had some exciting disagreements growing up because, well, they're two very diffe...

John Parker had it made. After two attempts to escape being a slave to a Southern slave owner, he had finally gotten his freedom. He chose to live in Ripley, Ohio, right on the freedom side of the Ohio River. He got a house and he got a good job as a factory worker. In fact, ultimately, he owned a foundry and he invented many processes that were used widely in that industry. He was safe, secure an...

Our preschool grandson at the time? I think he overheard the weather forecast before his bedtime. It went something like this, "Chance of rain, maybe a few snow flurries." I guess that's all he needed to hear, because he began to pray fervently that night, "Jesus, please make it snow tomorrow." I know he's not the first child to pray that. Now, flurries are barely snow, but apparently the mention...

There's that old country song "Country Roads take me home to the place I..." Well, you know. Sometimes I thought that was my wife's national anthem. She grew up in the Ozarks and boy, she had the memories. Most of them were down some country road, unpaved, rutted, rocky and dusty. With a standard rear-wheel drive vehicle, you'd begin to wonder if you'd ever get back from some of those roads, espec...

Back when my son and his friends were going into their sophomore year in high school playing football, they moved up to the junior varsity and the varsity team. And they got word that they were going to have triple sessions in August and September practices. That's exciting... triple sessions meant that you get to go, not for the regular two-hour practice of calisthenics, and running, and working...

I had just finished up a great conference in Canada, and Michael, our Field Director, was there with me. We were walking back to our hotel to pack up and leave. I was really tired and pre-occupied when he handed me this envelope. I noticed a phone message written on it, and I distinctly remember Michael saying something when he handed it to me, but I was concentrating on that message that had been...

If you've flown commercially, you know you have to go through a security checkpoint before you can get to your gate. And for those security personnel who man those metal detectors and X-ray machines, there is a four-letter word they won't tolerate. You know what it is, it's the word "bomb." I mean, you can see signs warning you not to even joke about explosives or bombs or anything. And I'm glad!...

You might just remember turning your television on and there would be Gilligan's Island. Maybe, you can even hear the theme song playing in your brain. It was a big hit when it first came out. Now, here's Gilligan, who's the terminally stupid first mate of the S.S. Minnow. There's the millionaire, his wife (you're probably thinking of the song now if you can go back that far), the professor, the m...

It was Christmas Eve a long time ago, and we got an emergency S.O.S. phone call from a school principal that we knew in Patterson, New Jersey. She actually had promised to supply Christmas toys for some of her students who were burned out families, and I think at that time Patterson was one of the arson capitols of the country. Actually, she had come up short and it was Christmas Eve. So - this em...

It was another one of those tragic shootings that killed four students (and the shooter) at Marysville High School in Washington state. It shocked everybody. When the identity of the 15-year-old shooter was revealed, it was all the more shocking. Because he wasn't the typical loner, the bullying victim, the outsider. He was the Homecoming prince, a football player, the popular guy. But, as it turn...

I don't think this is going to come as a news flash to anybody who's been around very long, but the differences between men and women aren't just biological. For example, the difference between how a man and woman tell a story or relate an incident. The man sort of skims the surface; gives you the 30,000 feet view of things, and usually he can't even remember a lot of details. I often had to ask m...

Not long ago, someone told me about a pastor who stood at the pulpit one Sunday and announced this to his people, "Folks, I have some bad news, some good news, and some bad news." He had everyone's attention. "The bad news is that the roof on this church is shot. We have to replace it. But the good news is - we have the money. The bad news is - it's in your wallets!" I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want...

"Wake up, kids!" We were in this campground - 3:30 in the morning. You ask, "What were you doing to your kids?" Well, I had planned a trip up Cadillac Mountain. I had been told this was the first place you could see the sunrise on the East Coast. I wanted to see this. I thought this would be a great adventure for my wife and my kids. Well, they weren't as enthused as I was, especially when I woke...

We had a home of our own! The ministry I was working with in the New York area that is. We rented a facility for many years, and then God provided this rambling old home that we called our headquarters and the home of our ministry finally. And, it was a great gift, but it took a lot of work to get it in shape, like most old homes do. So, a lot of friends came in to help us with painting, and wallp...

Centuries ago, Tyre was one of the great cities of the Middle East, strategically located on the Mediterranean Sea...until it was leveled by a foreign invader. Actually, there was an ancient Biblical prophecy that Tyre would not only be leveled, which was unimaginable at the time, but that the site would be so swept of Tyre's rubble that fishermen would one day lay their nets there to dry. The cit...

Because I travel so much, I watch the Weather Channel, or something like it, a lot. I just sat back, this one time, in amazement as I watched them track this monster low pressure system moving across the country. By the time it reached the Eastern United States, that low pressure system stretched on the Weather Channel map from the Maritime Provinces in Canada all the way to Mexico! I mean, it was...

Well, I watched three of our children run on this track that they call "high school senior." Oh we know about the disease. It's a creeping disease called senioritis. I've seen it for years with other teenagers, and then finally we got to watch it in our own home. It begins with the sense of "Okay, I'm a senior now! High school is my past. I don't care about high school any more even though I have...

Jerry and I were best friends in high school, and then we didn't see each other for several years. But we were able to get together again when we found out that he and his wife had moved to an apartment in New York City. He was training to become a 747 pilot for a major airline back when that was a brand new plane. Karen and I went in to have dinner at their apartment, and we realized that Jerry a...

It was one of the dumbest things I'd done in a long time. It was years ago. I was involved in this intense ministry on a Native American reservation. That was not the dumb thing. What was dumb was, I was missing a lot of sleep but I decided to drive. That was dumb. One day we had our longest drive; seven hours to an Apache Reservation. My wife, knowing how tired I was, said, "Would you like me to...

Few people captured the American imagination like America's first astronauts. That's why, for many of us, names like John Glenn are on a list of 20th Century heroes. John Glenn was, of course, one of the first men to ride a rocket into space. Then, as a "senior citizen" he amazed the world by doing it again. So when John Glenn gave advice to modern space shuttle astronauts, he's got credentials! I...

My wife and I were out for a Sunday afternoon drive, and we saw a very strange contradiction. There was this church, and there were long stairs leading up to the entrance, and one lady, all alone, at the door. She was trying every door to get in that church and they were all locked. She was frustrated. Now, what was the contradiction? Well, the name of the church - Our Lady of Perpetual Help. My w...

One of the more special opportunities I've had over the years has been to speak for professional football chapels. I spoke a lot for the New York Giants, and when I was with them, of course, it looked like about 30 New York Giants and one New York Dwarf (that would be me). You can tell who is the speaker in the room, believe me! I did stand out in that group. And people will often say, "Well, what...