When NASA sent the little Ingenuity helicopter to Mars, the plan was modest. It was a test, designed to make up to five experimental flights over 30 days. Nobody knew whether a helicopter could even fly in the thin Martian air. Ingenuity became the first aircraft to fly on another world. Then it just kept going. It operated for almost three years, made 72 flights, and flew more than 14 times farther than planned. On January 18, 2024, during its 72nd flight, it had a rough landing that damaged its rotor blades, and the mission came to an end. A small machine meant for a short test did far more than anyone dreamed. Never despise small beginnings when God is in them.
Malaria is caused by a tiny parasite spread by mosquitoes, and it has killed millions over the centuries. In the 1970s a Chinese scientist named Tu Youyou took an unusual approach. Instead of starting from scratch, she studied traditional herbal medicines. Her search led her to sweet wormwood, and from it she managed to extract a substance called artemisinin, which attacks the malaria parasite. Drugs based on artemisinin have helped millions of people survive and recover. In 2015 she shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Sometimes the answer we need is not something brand new. It has been there for a long time, waiting for someone humble enough to look. God’s Word is like that for a searching heart.
Rocky Bleier finished his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1968, then was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam. After only three months his platoon was ambushed in a rice paddy. A bullet hit his left thigh, and a grenade sent shrapnel through his right leg, taking part of his foot. Doctors said he would never play football again. In the hospital ward, a young triple amputee stopped at every bed each day to encourage the others. Bleier thought, if he could do that, what about me? He decided right there he would walk again. He went on to win four Super Bowls with the Steelers. One encourager can change a man’s whole direction.
Bessie Coleman grew up in Texas and later worked as a manicurist in Chicago. When her brother came home from World War I talking about women flying airplanes in France, she decided the sky would be her arena. She applied to almost every flying school in America and was rejected because of her race and gender. So she took advice from newspaper publisher Robert Abbott, learned French, took a better paying job, and sailed for France in November 1920. She completed a ten-month course in a fragile, dangerous era of flight and in 1921 earned an international pilot’s license. When one door slams, look for the one God may be opening somewhere else.
