http://elderscrollsforjustice.tumblr.com/post/144961585539/girlactionfigure-bishop-chrysostomos-the
Bishop Chrysostomos, the spiritual leader of the Greek island of Zakynthos, stuck his neck out to save all 275 of the island’s Jews during the Nazi occupation of Greece….
Amazing. Read about it here.
Very good read, written by a wife for wives, but, men, the same truth applies for us in our speech toward & about our spouses.
My mind flashed to a recent conversation with a friend about the common problem of husband-bashing in Christian women’s groups. I remembered a “Bible study” I once joined, excited for a chance to grow and make friends. I went for three weeks, each time hoping I was wrong about the women there, each time being proven right. Every Thursday morning this group of wives and mothers would gather, leave their children with the sitter, pour themselves coffee and put donuts on napkins, then they would sit next to each other and rip their husbands apart, one at a time.
Read her whole post: How Your Words are Creating the Husband You Can’t Stand — The Purposeful Housewife
In addition to all the celebrations here…
This happened as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blGbeXHMBaA&rel=0
So, I was one of many who enjoyed this (thanks, Randy Mocaby, for sharing):
SO… one of how many though? Try 145,000,000+ viewers! So, yeah, and THIS happened!
And…. then this happened too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_7LWCFH5Gc&rel=0
This process can happen whether or not we are in real danger or whether or not someone really hurts us or we simply perceive that they did. Unforgiveness can keep our bodies and brains in this state of high alertness and leads to these unhealthy results. When the amygdalae are activated, a series of bio-chemical processes begin. The adrenal glands that lie on top of our kidneys release the stress hormone cortisol into our bodies and the brain releases neurotransmitters into the brain. Those in turn activate part of our nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system. When this system is activated, among other things, our attention gets highly focused on survival, our digestive system stops, our pupils dilate, our saliva glands slow, our blood pressure and heart rate increases, and our muscles are readied for action. Our body prepares itself to fight, flee, or freeze.
Read more: What Unforgiveness Does to Your Brain – Charles Stone
Many of you are frustrated at Micro$oft forcing Windows 10 on you against your will. This is no exaggeration. They are silently downloading 3 gigabytes of Windows 10 installer files without consent (which is practically theft since it robs you of bandwidth and storage space you pay for), and they are insisting (via pop-ups that leave you no way out) that people with Windows 7, Windows 8.1, etc, upgrade to Windows 10. This new OS drags many PCs to a crawl. If you were forced into an “upgrade,” there is a way to downgrade, going back to your earlier version, but you must do so within 30 days of the upgrade. Settings –> Restore –> (Google is your friend here). There is also a freeware program that will delete the unwanted Windows 10 installer files and stop the merciless pop-ups. Again, Google is your friend. I am not a Windows user (I use Mac), but again, I am your friend. The freeware I installed on a church computer to stop the madness, is called GWX Control Panel from Ultimate Outsider (link below). http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/
One day a killer sneaked into heaven.
How? By the mercy and grace of God, of course.
But why would a forgiven soul ever need to sneak in? Because a forgiven soul knows the forgiveness, knows their trespass which required it, and knows the price that was paid to grant it. The very last thing a forgiven soul would ever do is stroll into heaven like one who “owns the place”—like one who did not need mercy and grace to get there.
As I was saying, one day a killer sneaked into heaven.
Oh, the meetings with saints of ancient ages! Samuel, the prophet, was so wise and so careful with his words! Mordecai was so inspiring with his faith and stories of determination! Peter and John and all the disciples of the Lord Jesus practically glowed. Maturity and wisdom emanated from them with such love. Yet the chance to meet King David was particularly welcomed. What a balm it was to meet a fellow killer, one who had likewise inflicted wrongful death, yet was granted mercy and grace, and through forgiveness managed to hobble along fairly successfully through the remainder of his earthly life, writing songs (psalms) and seeking to regain the place with God he once had and lost.
Then the killer encountered an unexpected class of people: Joyful souls of aborted babies. Millions upon millions of them played and laughed on a velvet verge of grassy meadows beneath solemn mountains and serene skies. There, playing among them, was the precious girl this person had killed, in a signally selfish yet “safe and legal” procedure.
The forgiven soul (the formerly selfish soul) longed to hold the girl, longed be with her. Just as that longing foot was lifted in the girl’s direction, a voice spoke up nearby.
“You can’t,” said the voice, with both authority and anguish melted together in love. “Not until you realize that she cannot know.”
“But…” the forgiven soul stammered.
“These little ones have been spared the agony of being unwanted. They don’t know. She has never known that her life on earth was extinguished. She has never known that the precious gift of life—her intended life on earth—was once counted as less than convenience and culture and campaigning and coy sloganeering. You may only approach her once you are committed to not infecting her with the agony of her having been unloved.”
“So, I cannot tell her who I am? This is hell then, not heaven! I’ve not yet been forgiven,” said the forlorn yet forgiven soul. “I somehow feared it couldn’t be true.”
“No,” said the voice. “If this were hell, you would be freely permitted to inflict all manner of suffering in her heart, and then suffer in your own heart over having made her suffer. She would eventually retaliate. It is because this is heaven and not hell that such a thing will not be permitted. Because this is heaven, you may go and be with her, but only as a stranger, at first, with no past. For her there is no past to be forgotten. The past you would seek to bring her is buried beneath The Blood, and unworthy of the bringing. Leave it behind, and then you may be with her.”
After a long pause (while considering all the ramifications with a clarity that was seldom possible back on earth) the forgiven soul finally asked, “Will there ever be a time, a thousand years from now, or a million—will there ever be a point when she might finally know and yet not suffer? Will there ever be a time when a billion years of me loving her would finally empower her to hear that painful past spoken without suffering over it?”
“If such a day were to ever come…” said the voice. “Yet on such a day, you would most likely have left that past buried for so long and be so far removed from it, that you will have lost all the want to drag it up from the depths of forgetting. You will most likely no longer wish to tell it.”
“I understand.”
“Then you may go to her.”
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Proverbs 18:21 KJV).
A personal note from the author, Pastor Doug Joseph:
Today, January 17, 2016, is this year’s Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. During this annual event (on the third Sunday, the one nearest on the calendar to the anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision by the US Supreme Court), we set aside time to mourn the millions and millions of human babies lost via abortions, to pray for an end to abortion, and to reflect on and teach about the sanctity of human life, which, as a godly principle, goes deeper even than just the issue of abortion, affecting how we stand on everything from opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, to advocating for compassionate love for children facing handicaps and for people facing various challenges and limitations. Being Pro-Life is about much more than opposing wrongful deaths. It is about loving life, and upholding the dignity of human life as a sacred gift from God. I hope you will join with me today in a generous donation to West Virginians For Life or your state’s affiliate of the National Right To Life Committee.
