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In: Faith, Family and Friends, God's promises, Lament, Prayer and Devotions, Suffering

November 27, 2014 is Thanksgiving in the US. It is a day when Americans gather around a big turkey feast, thus it is also known as Turkey Day to those who forget this day is about more than food and football. It is about remembering the first settlers’ difficult fight to survive a harsh winter, one many of them lost. The first settlers managed to bring in a successful harvest the following autumn and celebrated this by holding a traditional English harvest festival. It is that event which the Thanksgiving feast commemorates. The original community who gave thanks to God for their life-saving harvest had buried over half ofRead More →

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In: Family and Friends, Prayer and Devotions, Suffering

  I joined the Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month Blog Tour due to personal experience. In my teens, my grandfather suffered a form of Alzheimer’s combined with dementia and ended up losing his home and much of his possessions before anyone realized he was unable to take care of them and defend himself from con artists. It was a terrible time and as he was living with my family we continued to be baffled by his odd behavior. Like many families who don’t understand the disease and/or don’t recognize the symptoms, my family operated under the mistaken idea that Grandpa could be persuaded to “buck up”Read More →

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In: Abuse, Family and Friends

This one is especially for folks who experienced sexual harassment from family members as kids. I’ve been adopted into the family of God out of an abusive family culture where the preferred weapons were words. One of my male relations, we’ll call him Henry to protect the guilty, liked to use sexual words no one should ever hear from a relation. I believe he only pulled this stuff while drunk. The farthest Henry ever took it was the time he groped my breast briefly—and I slapped him hard. When I told a therapist about this stuff in detail, the therapist took it far more seriouslyRead More →

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In: abuse, Bible and Theology, Children, Family and Friends, Fatherhood, God's Character, God's love, Prayer and Devotions

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:13) Sadly, some of us can’t relate to this verse. Our fathers weren’t compassionate, and we certainly didn’t associate the fear our fathers produced leading to him being gentle, kind, and loving toward us. Verses six through twelve give us insight into what this creature called a compassionate father is supposed to be like, however. Elsewhere we learn God’s people are also the bride of his son, and the son does what he sees his father doing, hence all of this applies to husband-wife relationship, too. TheRead More →

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In: Bible and Theology, Family and Friends, Prayer and Devotions

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5) Often when we say “I love you” we mean “I like you. I think you’re a nice person and it is usually pleasant to be around you.” When someone questions our love for them, however, they mean, “You have been impatient, unkind to me, envious of me, boastful, arrogant, or rude towards me. You probably have also have been insisting upon your own way or have been irritable or resentful towardsRead More →