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The Last Mile of Life
Everyone faces life and death crossroads. And everyone’s experiences differ. This year in particular has impacted many of us as we or a loved one walk the last mile of life. Today my emotions remain raw while this season of incredible loss for me and my family wears on. I don’t have facts and figures to try to make sense of it all. Instead, I’d like to share a few thoughts from my heart.
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Preparing Our Hearts for Advent: Hope Has Come, Hope is Coming
By Victoria Monet* Even though Thanksgiving has yet to come, many people are already putting up their Christmas trees and decorations. Christmas decorating before Thanksgiving usually happens, but this year, it seems that people are trying to get in the Christmas Spirit even earlier. And can we blame them? It’s been a rough year. In addition to facing a global pandemic that’s affected many people’s physical, mental, and financial health, we’ve also had to process the tragic reality of police brutality against African Americans, the surfacing of racial tensions, and one of the most intense, heated elections in American history. We’ve felt anxious, scared, sad, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Many of…
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The Humanist Manifesto, the Religion of Leftism and Progressivism
“Children, it is the last hour, and just as you heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have appeared” (1 John 2:18). Few seem to realize that much of the division in the United States and the West is a clash of religions: It is the clash between the remaining vestiges of the Judeo-Christian worldview and the rise of godless Humanism. I will not try to argue that America is a Christian nation; it is not. If it were, we would not have aborted 60 million of our own children and sacrificed them to the gods of self and sexual “freedom”.[1] If America were a Christian nation,…
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The Many Emotions of Miscarriage
October is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month. This post was written two years ago in honor of those precious little ones we grieve, including two of my own. “So, do you have any kids?” It’s an innocent question, a social norm about as common as the handshake. Yet for over two years, this question was one I dreaded anytime I would meet a new acquaintance or strike up a conversation with a stranger. How in the world should I answer? Well, I have two in heaven I never got to meet… and a longing so deep that just you asking about children almost knocks the breath out of…
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Life in the Rearview Mirror
There’s nothing normal as we head toward the end of 2020. We long for “normal.” We want things to go back to the way they were in February 2020, or October 2019, because no matter how hard things were then, at least we understood our known normal.
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Please, no more!
I thought this fall would usher in the return of normal work hours in offices and schools, eating in restaurants, and gathering with friends. But COVID-19. It feels like we’ve lost so much this year. How can we move forward into fall when we continue to grieve the loss of so many aspects of our used-to-be “normal” life?
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Above All Else––A Message for Weary Souls
As this over-the-top-difficult year wears on and hopes for a summer reprieve or a maskless fall fade, my mind can struggle to muster up positivity. I’ve heard I’m not alone. Apparently many of us wrestle with the lack of normalcy, inability to plan a way forward, and uncertainty of how long “this” will last.
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Hope Even in Suffering
First Peter 3:13–22 is part of the lectionary readings for the sixth Sunday of Easter, May 17th. In verse 9, the apostle alluded to the fact that his readers were being persecuted for their faith. Then, in 3:13–4:19, he dealt more fully with the issue of suffering as believers. Peter observed that, as a general rule, a devotion to “do what is good” (3:13) should not result in “harm” or punishment. Yet, even if the exception to this rule prevails and undeserved suffering results from doing good, those who belong to the Messiah are “blessed” (v. 14) for being virtuous. One interpretive option is that Peter’s mention of adversity was…
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Called to Be Holy
First Peter 1:17–23 is part of the lectionary readings for the third Sunday of Easter, April 26. In this passage, the author summoned us to cultivate hope, holiness, and love in our lives, especially during trials. Many Bible scholars consider this early Christian letter to be part of the persecution literature of the New Testament (which also includes Hebrews, Revelation, and possibly James). The epistle would have been written during one of the three periods of Roman persecution endured by early Christians—under emperors Nero (AD 62–64), Domitian (AD 90–97), and Trajan (AD 111). If one holds to Peter’s authorship of the letter, the only period that fits would be the…
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The Week After Easter
The Easter message––that Jesus came to set us free and give us new life––does not change. Even in the confines of a pandemic. No one could have foreseen the magnitude of coronavirus strife. Except Jesus. Jesus knew that days like these were coming.
