Humourous – The Faith Cafe

Posted on June 16, 2025June 11, 2025 by Lori Cartmell

A Sign From God

Do you sometimes wonder whether something that happened to you is a sign from God?

Maybe you’ve heard the joke about the guy who told God that if the parking spot directly in front of the donut shop was open, he’d take that as a sign that he could go ahead and buy a dozen donuts.

And sure enough, after his eighth time around the block, it was open!

It’s sometimes hard to recognize when something really is a sign from God, isn’t it? We put our own spin on circumstances, and conveniently draw the conclusions that align with our desires.

But there are some things that we can be absolutely certain are signs from God, because they align with His Word.

When you see the following “signs” in your life, take note and obey them:

ONE WAY: There is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

Posted on August 5, 2024July 30, 2024 by Lori Cartmell

Lost In Translation

Sign on toilet door in Chengdu airport, China
Photo by Anne Roberts on Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA-2.0

There’s a real art to translation: zeroing in on just the right words to convey the nuance of what the original author intended.

Done well, a translated work can be a masterpiece in its own right.

Oftentimes, though, a translation can turn out to be a farce, as in the following examples:

A menu item in Chinese for a roasted gluten dish was translated into English as “Sixi Roasted Husband.” (The perfect dish for wives who’ve finally had enough of their mates?)

A hot and spicy chicken dish on another Chinese menu became “Chicken Rude and Unreasonable” in English. (No wonder the chicken met his end—he had it coming!)

Or this Google Translate zinger: “It’s been the goat in the budget, because His raining badly, so quite short, he is on the bucket month out.” (Not sure what this meant in the original Danish, but I hope the goat was able to figure it out.)

Then there’s the sign for a hair salon in China whose English name is “Could Not Connect To Translator Service.” (A bit of a give-away that they didn’t bother hiring a real live translator?)

Sometimes, we have a different understanding or “translation” of what God actually meant in certain Bible verses.

For example, in times of difficulty, we cling to verses such as Romans 8:28:

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.”

However, it can often be hard to see what good could possibly come from our difficult situations. We might be going through health challenges, injustice, hardship or loneliness. Where is the good in any of that?

But maybe we have a limited understanding of what “good” means. Perhaps we and God have different “translations” of what this looks like in our lives.

Posted on June 19, 2023May 25, 2023 by Lori Cartmell

Dressing Up Animals

Image by Robledo Rafael Andrade on Pexels

Do you enjoy dressing your pet in clothes?

I won’t tell anyone if you do.

There’s something undeniably appealing about seeing animals in mini versions of human clothing, isn’t there?

(Your cat, however, might not agree.)

Even if you’re the type to roll your eyes at the idea of dressing up animals, there’s a lesson we can learn about this from the Bible.

Wait, what? The Bible mentions putting clothing on animals?

Yes, it does!

Let’s take a look at one of the more unusual stories in the Old Testament, found in the Book of Jonah.

Posted on November 18, 2021November 17, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Choose The Right Mountain

American aviator Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, who in July, 1938 took off from New York City and somehow ended up in Ireland, even though his flight plan indicated he was headed for California. Image by IMLS Digital Collections and Content via Flickr. CC BY-2.0

Did you hear about the couple who booked a trip to Sydney, Australia, but accidentally ended up on the wrong continent?

Back in 2002, teenagers Emma Nunn and Raoul Christian booked their once-in-a-lifetime holiday online, not realizing that there was more than one Sydney in the world. Unbeknownst to them, their flight was actually taking them to the town of Sydney in Nova Scotia, Canada, thousands of miles from their intended destination.

Apparently, this sort of mistake is more common than you’d think.

Last year, a group of French football fans managed to miss their team’s game against Hungary in the Euro 2020 championship. They ended up in the wrong country, inadvertently travelling to Bucharest (Romania) instead of the similar-sounding Budapest (Hungary).

The next month, the mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team accidentally travelled to Toronto, Ohio instead of Toronto, Canada for a game. It took him quite a few hours before he realized his mistake: seeing an American flag is what finally clinched it for him.

The same thing almost happened to me once. I had boarded a connecting flight at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, on my way to a wedding in Bloomington, Illinois. As our small plane waited on the tarmac for takeoff, however, I overheard some of the other passengers talking about Bloomington, Indiana.

Indiana? You mean there are two Bloomingtons? Which one is this plane about to fly to?

After a few panicky moments, I ascertained that I was indeed on the plane to the correct Bloomington. I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed for the short flight.

When we’re travelling, it’s crucial that we make sure we’re going to the correct destination.

The same applies to our spiritual lives, too: we need to ensure that we’ve got the right direction and headings for our journey.

Posted on October 25, 2021October 23, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Fill Up Your Storehouse

Image by Here and now, unfortunately, ends my journey on Pixabay from Pixabay

This is a busy (and nutty) time of year for squirrels.

The little critters are hard at work storing up nuts and seeds for the hard winter ahead.

Depending on the species, they may either store their nuts in one spot (a stash), or hide them by burying them in multiple locations (known as “scatter-hoarding”). They’ve even been known to shamelessly steal nuts from the stashes of other squirrels.

The jury is out on whether squirrels actually remember where they’ve hidden all those nuts. Some studies suggest they can recall the location of thousands of buried nuts. Other research implies that squirrels fail to recover a good number of their treasures, which allows the nuts and acorns to grow into trees.

One thing is for certain: these little guys are single-minded about gathering up nuts before winter, often using unconventional places to store them.

Like cars.

Just ask Bill Fischer of Fargo, North Dakota. For the past eight years, a red squirrel has been using Bill’s pickup truck to store walnuts. Each year, the poor man has to remove thousands of walnuts from every crevice of his truck, including the engine compartment and bumpers.

This month, the critter set a new record, stashing 348 pounds of nuts in Bill’s vehicle. And this was all the work of one tiny squirrel.

These crafty little animals might exasperate us, but we can learn something from them:

They make sure they’ve “squirrelled away” provision for hard times to come.

I think we should do something similar:

Store up the Word of God in your heart, because you never know when you might need a certain verse to sustain you in a tough situation.

Posted on July 29, 2021July 24, 2021 by Lori Cartmell

Bad With Names? God Isn’t!

Photo by EvelynGiggles on Flickr CC BY-2.0

Are you one of those people who is terrible with names?

I must confess to belonging to this group as well.

When being introduced to someone new, somehow their name starts to slip my mind’s grasp only a few minutes later.

This failing bothers me, because I know that people appreciate it when you remember their names.

My late father hit on a mnemonic device to solve this problem: You should come up with some sort of image to associate with the person’s name. That will help fix it in your mind.

He figured this method was foolproof.

Until the day he was in a camera store and met an employee there named Royce.

When you hear the name Royce you naturally think of Rolls Royce, a maker of luxury British cars. So my Dad decided the best way to remember this man’s name was to picture him driving an expensive British car.

The next time my father saw Royce in the camera shop, he confidently greeted him with, “Bentley, good to see you!”

(For those who don’t know, Bentley is another maker of luxury British cars.)

So much for mnemonic devices!

Aren’t you glad that we have a God who is perfect with names?

God not only knows your name, He knew you before you were even given a name.

Posted on April 22, 2021April 5, 2021 by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

Call G-O-D For Help

Sometimes in life we just need a friendly ear, don’t we?

911 dispatchers have certainly found this out.

People call the emergency line for the darnedest of reasons, either to vent about some minor injustice or just to get some advice.

Like the fellow who called 911 to ask what last night’s sports scores were.

Or the little girl who needed help with her math homework.

One guy called 999, the UK version of 911, at 4am on a Saturday morning to ask, “Where is the best place to get a bacon sandwich right now?”

A Halton, Ontario, boy recently called the emergency line in an outrage when his Mom changed the password to his Xbox.

Some have been known to dial 911 when their pizza delivery wasn’t ready on time.

We get consumed with anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, or anger and think, “There must be someone I can call about this!”

Needless to say, 911 should be reserved for actual emergencies only, please.

But sometimes we just need someone to talk to, even if it’s about random things.

It’s good to know that no matter how big or small your concerns, God is interested in hearing from you.

Posted on August 24, 2020August 22, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Lost In Translation

There’s a real art to translation: zeroing in on just the right words to convey the nuance of what the original author intended.

Done well, a translated work can be a masterpiece in its own right.

Oftentimes, though, a translation can turn out to be a farce, as in the following examples:

A menu item in Chinese for a roasted gluten dish was translated into English as “Sixi Roasted Husband.” (The perfect dish for wives who’ve finally had enough of their mates?)

A hot and spicy chicken dish on another Chinese menu became “Chicken Rude and Unreasonable” in English. (No wonder the chicken met his end—he had it coming!)

Then there’s the sign for a hair salon in China whose English name is “Could Not Connect To Translator Service.” (A bit of a give-away that they didn’t bother hiring a real live translator?)

Sometimes, we have a different understanding or “translation” of what God actually meant in certain Bible verses.

Posted on June 25, 2020June 24, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

Don’t Just Sit There…

I received an alarming notice in my mailbox from my neighbourhood association recently.

It informed me that there was an infestation of “dog-strangling vine” in the area. Dog-strangling vine is an unwanted, invasive plant that can choke out native species. The leaflet told me what steps to take if I saw this plant in my yard, and who to report its presence to.

Inexplicably missing from the notice, however, was the answer to a crucial question:

Will the dog-strangling vine actually strangle my dog?

I’ve conducted some research on this vital issue for readers of The Faith Cafe and can assure you that this crafty vine likely won’t strangle your canine. Unless, of course, he sits next to the vine and keeps perfectly still for several weeks. But if your dog isn’t in the habit of sitting motionless next to murderous flora, he’s probably safe from this vicious plant.

I’m being facetious, of course, but perhaps there’s a lesson here for us when it comes to sin:

If we just sit there and take no action to avoid the temptation, we’ll get into trouble.

Posted on June 22, 2020June 20, 2020 by Lori Cartmell

What’s in a Name?

As a gardener, I must admit that I prefer using the common or folk names for flowers. These sometimes-ancient names are often whimsical and enchanting, like “Miss Willmott’s Ghost,” whose origins we explored last week.

Who wouldn’t love calling flowers by such names as cherry pie plant, lady’s slipper, love-in-a-mist, baby blue eyes, bachelor’s button, quaker ladies, whirling butterflies, johnny-jump-up, busy lizzie, or candytuft? It makes the heart sing to use endearing names like these.

The scientific or botanical names for flowers, on the other hand, can seem daunting. They’re usually derived from Latin, and while they can give a more accurate description of what a plant’s nature is, they can sound a bit intimidating to my ears.

In fact, some botanical names actually sound like a disease:

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve got Scabiosa again.”

“That’s nothing! You should see my sister’s Myosotis: it’s rampant.”

“You don’t say! But did you hear about Kelly? She’s got Nepeta nervosa.”

“No! Is she seeing a psychiatrist for that?”

(In case you’re wondering, Scabiosa is the botanical name for the pincushion flower; you might know Myosotis better as the little blue forget-me-not; and Nepeta nervosa is a type of catmint.)

I’m so glad that we have the opportunity to use informal names for the flowers we cherish.

In the same way, believers have been given the great privilege of using a remarkably intimate name for God: “Abba Father.”