A young officer is working late at the Pentagon one evening. As he comes out of his office around 8 p.m., he sees a general standing by the classified document shredder in the hallway, a piece of paper in his hand.
“Do you know how to work this thing?” the general asks. “My secretary’s gone home, and I don’t know how to run it.”
“Yes, sir,” says the officer, who turns on the machine, takes the paper from the general, and feeds it in.
“Now,” says the General, “I just need one copy. . . .”
—Dawn Gebben
My son invested considerable time teaching my grandchildren about “stranger danger.” After extensive instruction, he asked them, “Now, if a stranger stopped his car and offered you some candy, what would you do?”
The response: “Don’t worry, Dad. We would say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
—Rich Kornoelje
At creation, God was talking to one of his angels. He said, “I’ve just made a 24-hour period of alternating light and darkness on Earth.”
“That’s wonderful,” the angel exclaimed. “So what are you going to do now?”
And God replied, “I think I’ll call it a day.”
—Dick Bylsma
On Monday nights I help teach the GEMS girls’ club in Essex, Ontario. We have lots of fun singing, studying the Bible, and doing crafts. One day one of the moms wrote on Facebook: “Not sure what you are teaching the girls in GEMS. Phoebe keeps singing the song ‘Days of Elijah’ with the chorus ‘There’s no God like Jacoba.’”
—Jacoba Hoekstra Doris
I know God won’t test me beyond my capabilities. I just wish he didn’t have so much confidence in me.
—Sam Bosch
Three-year-old Abby was trying to recite the Lord’s Prayer but got a little stuck in the middle:
“Forgive our debts as we forgive, um, our dentists.”
—Gayla Postma
We used to meet our children and grandchildren for breakfast on Saturday mornings at Big Boy. We liked to sit in the corner booth with the round table in the middle. When our food came, we would hold hands, and my grandson would pray. When he said “Amen,” we let go of hands and began our breakfast.
One morning my daughter-in-law had her hands full caring for little Maddy, who was into everything—first one thing, then another. Finally Maddy’s mom grabbed her little hands and held them firmly while she explained what she could not do, and why.
With hands still tightly held in her mother’s grasp, Maddy looked up at her mother and said “Amen.”
—Joyce Eppinga Schram
My 6-year-old brother threw a soccer ball at my mom and yelled, “Cannonball!”
My dad laughed and said, “That’s not a cannonball, that’s a soccer ball!”
—Jacob Doornberg
At school: First I went to English class where I learned “i” before “e” except after “c.”
Then I went to science class!
—A. Whipple
