True, sourced stories for sermons and lessons. Search by keyword, theme, or Bible book.
68 illustrations found
Gertrude Ederle Swam the Channel Anyway
In 1925 Gertrude Ederle tried to swim the English Channel. After eight hours and 46 minutes her coach made her stop because he feared she was swallowing too much saltwater.
Gladys Aylward and the Hundred Orphans
Gladys Aylward had worked as a London housemaid since she was 14. The China Inland Mission turned her down after she failed their exams.
Harriet Tubman Never Lost a Passenger
In 1849 Harriet Tubman learned that she was about to be sold, so she escaped slavery in Maryland and made it to freedom. Most people would have stayed safe up north.
Hudson Taylor on Brighton Beach
Hudson Taylor carried a burden for the millions in China's interior who had never heard the gospel. But he was terrified of sending men and women unprotected into the unknown.
In the Beginning, from the Moon
On Christmas Eve 1968, at the end of one of the most painful years in American history, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders became the first humans to orbit another world.
Irena Sendler’s Children
When World War II broke out, Irena Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker in Warsaw. After the Nazis sealed some 400,000 Jews inside the ghetto, she got a permit to go in and inspect sanitary conditions, and she used it to help.
Jackie Robinson Didn’t Fight Back
Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers didn't just want Jackie Robinson for his talent. He wanted him for his character.
Jim Abbott’s No-Hitter
Jim Abbott grew up in Flint, Michigan, born without a right hand. He became a left-handed pitcher anyway.
Jimmy V: Don’t Ever Give Up
In 1993, college basketball coach Jim Valvano, who had led North Carolina State to the 1983 national championship, was dying of cancer. At the first ESPYS awards, he received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
John Snow Took the Handle Off the Pump
In 1854 most people believed cholera spread through bad air. Dr. John Snow held the unpopular view that it spread through water.
Kerri Strug’s Second Vault
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics the U.S. women's gymnastics team was on the edge of its first-ever team gold, but the Russians were closing fast.
Lasse Viren Got Back Up
At the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Finland's Lasse Viren was one of the favorites in the 10,000 meters. Then on the 12th lap, he got tangled up with Tunisia's Mohamad Gammoudi and both men went down on the track.
Lipscomb Stayed Through the Cholera
In the summer of 1873, cholera swept through Nashville. Close to 1,000 people died, roughly one in every 25 residents.
Make Seeing Eyes Blind
Andrew van der Bijl grew up poor in the Netherlands and lived through the 1944 famine, when he ate tulip bulbs to survive. After he gave his life to God, he began reaching believers behind the Iron Curtain.
Malala Kept Going to School
When Malala Yousafzai was eleven, she started writing an anonymous blog for the BBC's Urdu site. Under the heading "I am afraid," she wrote about her nightmares of being too scared to go to school because of the Taliban in her Swat Valley.
Mamoudou Gassama Climbed Four Floors
In May 2018, a 22-year-old undocumented migrant from Mali was walking down a Paris street when he saw a crowd staring up at a four-year-old boy dangling from a fourth-floor balcony.
Marie Curie Kept Working
Marie Sklodowska was born in Warsaw in 1867, the daughter of a schoolteacher. She married Pierre Curie, and together they took up the study of radioactivity.
Mary Slessor Went Forward
Mary Slessor grew up in Scotland and sailed for Calabar in West Africa in 1876. In that region twins were often feared and killed, and Slessor became a champion baby-saver.
Pandita Ramabai Translated for Forgotten Women
Ramabai was born in India in 1858. Girls had no schools, but her parents taught her Sanskrit.
Patrick Went Back to His Captors
When Patrick was 16, Irish pirates raided his village in Britain and carried him off. He was sold as a slave and forced to herd pigs.