Foreword

A skillful musician places her fingers upon the keyboard and from the organ come the whispering of the wind, the crash and thunder of the storm, the tramp of armies, the chiming of the bell and even sobbing as from a heart torn with grief—all arising from a musical score.

In The Difference Jesus Makes, Gloria Stargel captures in print the drama of people who have experienced the depth of despair and the heights of joy: concert violinist, plumber, military pilot, truck driver, registered nurse, gospel singer.… Their experiences take place in Yugoslavia and Vietnam, Texas and New York, Atlanta and Alaska—even the South Pole.

How does the Prisoner of War in isolation for five years retain his sanity? What set a juvenile delinquent on the path to recovery from drugs or a mother to find her two-year-old daughter lost overnight in a mountainous forest?

In these slivers of true adventure lies the drama of the abundant life that Jesus promises. Ordinary people experience these encounters while taking a walk, while portraying an angel in the Nativity Scene at Christmas, while weaving kudzu baskets.…

Gloria Stargel, a victim of cancer who experienced healing under the good hand of the lord, reveals Him not “in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps” but as divine surprises in the tedium of the routine and the smallest acts that give His Truth luster and make divine wisdom smile.

—Norman B. Rohrer
Author, Founder, Christian Writers Guild