The sounds of rolling grocery carts, overhead music, and the occasional loudspeaker announcement are all you hear at this Tom Thumb grocery store in North Dallas. A majority of shoppers have masks covering their noses and mouths, so there’s little talking, even among employees. Red squares on the floor mark the proper “social distance” customers should observe, and yellow fliers remind customers to limit their quantities of certain items: eight yogurts, two dozen eggs, and one package of toilet paper. 

Christian apologist and prolific author and broadcaster Ravi Zacharias died Tuesday, his family announced. He was 74. 

In early May, his family announced Zacharias would suspend treatment for metastatic cancer—sarcoma—on his spine. Doctors discovered the cancer in March.

Come springtime, Logos Bookstore in Dallas is typically hopping. 

For 45 years, Logos has sold Christian books out of its storefront in a cute, candy-colored shopping center in the heart of Dallas, just across from Southern Methodist University. Customers filter in from the sidewalk to browse, while regulars chat up longtime owners Rick and Susan Lewis.

“For us, Easter is almost as big as Christmas,” Susan Lewis said. “And usually we’re packed, and we do a lot of business. So it was very, very different this year.”

Standing in front of a wall-sized mirror, Taylor Shelnutt looks every part the cake-topper bride. Her blonde locks fall past her shoulders in waves over a lacy white gown. But even though at her dress fitting she appears ready for her mid-April wedding day, she doesn’t feel it. 

“Really just it’s heartbreaking that we would be at this point, three-and-a-half weeks out from our wedding, and not be hopeful for it, and not be filled with joy or excitement,” Shelnutt said. “We’re excited to get married, but at this point, kind of the, the happiness from the season is stolen.”

The Walnut Hill neighborhood of Dallas looks less like a cluster of 1960s ranch homes and more like a war zone. Downed power lines drape across brush-strewn roads, and treetops are lopped clean off—where trees are left standing at all.

Shea Sumlin, pastor of Northway Church, recalled the aftermath of the violent tornadoes that struck the Dallas metro area on Oct. 20. “All the power’s out. It’s dark. All you could hear is chainsaws and tears. You could smell the gas leaking as firefighters tried to turn off the gas lines,” Sumlin said. 

On Friday nights during football season in Richfield, Minn., half a dozen 16-year-old boys sporting grass-stained uniforms, still sweaty from practice, filled every chair around the Childs family dining table. They wolfed down whatever food Kristin Childs set on the table: In 40 minutes, they had to be back at school to watch the varsity football game. In those brief 40 minutes, Kristin and her husband Patrick saw an opportunity to show hospitality and Christian love to their son Eastman’s teammates.

The sun is rising over south Fort Worth. The tinny “clink” of soda cans hitting the pavement, jettisoned from trash in a dumpster, and the thundering sound of trash bins rolling across asphalt make it hard to hear Nicole, the litter crew supervisor for Clean Slate. Nicole is quiet, serious, and reserved—no nonsense.