A Series of Fortunate Events
She has made a magic so that it is always winter in Narnia—always winter, but it never gets to Christmas. – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis Do you ever wonder what the world would be like if you had never been born? What would your family have been like? Your neighborhood and office, your spouse and friends? From 1939 to 1943, Philip Van Doren Stern worked diligently on a short story, The Greatest Gift, loosely based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas
This Thanksgiving—Give Thanks!
We want the holidays to be happy and merry, but this isn’t always the case. In fact, the Cleveland Clinic cited some of the below as factors that tend to make the holidays not very glad: • Connecting the holidays with family problems or painful memories • Expecting that you should feel happy • Dealing with the loss of a loved one, or spending the holidays away from friends and family • Developing unrealistic expectations, or thinking about negatives that have occurred during the
Despair: Bleached Bones in the Desert
O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. 3 My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long? 4 Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love. 5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise? 6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my
Pornography in the Church
Pornography isn't just something unpleasant going on in the world; it's right at the heart of our churches. -Martin Saunders _________________ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. -Genesis 2:24 Sexuality is one of the best and most powerful things God ever gifted humans. He created it to glorify his name and to illustrate how human life was to be lived—a beautiful expression of love and intimacy, male and
Bad Religion Leads to Bad Times
Toxic religion (or bad theology) leads to bad times! We need to get our theology back on track. In ministry, besides all the wonderful positive loving persons I've been privileged to call friends, I also have encountered about every form of negative emotions and habits, unhappiness, and utter joyless people present in the church and the world. Since the culture has a way of thoroughly penetrating the life of the church, the two are often too similar to each other even
