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Category Archives: Christianity
The Snow Man
The snow often fell hard and heavy during the winters I lived in Colorado. It was coming down like crazy one afternoon when my boss closed the office and sent us home. I hurried to my car. I had to stop at the sitter’s house to pick up my two baby boys.
I made it the sitter’s house without too much trouble. “Be careful,” she said, as I strapped Nick, six months old, and Jon, 22 months old, into the backseat of the car.
“You know I will,” I said.
But almost as soon as her house was out of sight, the wind picked up and the snow began to swirl. My wipers fought to keep the windshield clear. I was tempted to pull over, but didn’t dare. With the babies aboard, I couldn’t afford to get stuck.
I kept moving, going slower and slower, trying to peer through the blinding snow. Without any help from me, the car came to a stop. “Don’t worry,” I told the children. “Mommy’s just going out to take a look, to see where we are.”
I opened the door. The wind almost knocked me off my feet. I fought my way around to the front of the car. I’ve driven into a snowdrift, I realized.
I climbed back into the car. What to do? I was half a mile from home, on a little-traveled road, without a cell phone. No way could we sit and wait for help. The babies would freeze half to death. No way could I carry them home. I closed my eyes and silently prayed, Lord, please help us.
I heard tapping at my window and opened my eyes. A big man was standing outside, dressed in denim overalls and a green plaid shirt. “Do you need help?” he asked.
“I have to get my babies home,” I said.
“Good thing I have a truck,” he said. He hoofed back to his old, green pickup, tied one end of a yellow tow rope to my car and the other end to his truck. Then he climbed behind the wheel and started his engine.
He pulled us several streets, even turned down my block and parked right in front of our house! So nice of him to go out of his way, I thought. While he untied the rope, I checked on Nick and Jon. Both were fast asleep. I turned back to thank the man… but he was gone. I looked down the street. Not a tire track in the virgin snow.
It was then that it struck me–I never even told the man where I lived.
How could he have known?
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Mysterious Ways: The Snow Man By Claudia Scott, Carlsbad, California
http://www.guideposts.org/mysterious-ways/mysterious-ways-the-snow-man
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Filed under Christianity, Prayer
Shroud of Turin NOT a medieval forgery!
Click graphic to embiggen.
English language article about the report:
Filed under Christianity
Happy Birthday, Jesus!
Spreading holiday joy
One extremely generous individual man, known only as David, shelled out almost $16,000 of his own money to pay off the layaway items for 1,000 Kmart shoppers.
This man called up the store last week and asked if they would tally up the items on layaway which cost under $100. He then proceeded to write a check to the store for $15,916.61 to cover the bill.
Over the course of the next four days the store manager had the pleasure of calling up customers and delivering the news that their item was no longer on layaway — all thanks to the generosity of a complete stranger.
Inspired by this story of generosity, others have donated an additional $8,000 to the Kmart to pay for more layaway items.
Another woman and her husband paid off tabs at a discount story, then handed out cash and bought items for strangers at Goodwill.
http://www.metro.us/newyork/life/article/1057048–santa-came-early-this-year-generous-strangers-pay-off-stores-layaway-items
Filed under Christianity
Two more Lefties go …
… wherever Lefties go when they die.
I started to title this “A busy week in Hell” but it is my church’s practice not to assume any particular soul is damned, so I thought maybe that title would be tacky. Or sacrilegious.
BTW, that last word is spelled correctly. Sacri-legious (not sac-religious) comes from the Latin sacrilegium, which is sacri (holy place) + legere (gather). Since you cannot gather holiness, which belongs only to God, the attempt to do so is sinful.
It does stretch the imagination pretty darned near to breaking that outspoken atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Kim Jong Il would suddenly decide they’d … OOPS! … been on the wrong team their entire lives.
But miracles happen. I do believe it.
I saw a whole slew of eulogy-style articles about Christopher “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” Hitchens (shown in the Michaelangelo “Creation” cartoon below).
The V with palm inwards gesture means “up yours” in UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Hitchens was born and raised in England. The gesture is frequently used to signify defiance (especially to authority), contempt, or derision.
I suppose there will be more maundering today about the now blessedly deceased little man who considered himself the toast of Pyongyang.
As for me, on both subjects, I’ve got as little interest as this office worker in South Korea:
“The reaction here in my office near Yeoido in Seoul was one of some surprise, but no lasting interest, and unlike the tsunami in Japan which drew attention to the TV for nearly an hour, the pause lasted about 5 minutes.”
What does interest me, though, is the afterlife. I not only believe miracles happen, but also that Heaven and Hell are real places.
I also believe in Purgatory, and not just because I’m Catholic. It makes a lot of sense to me that God provided a place where repentant sinners could work on their issues.
Before God became Man and willingly suffered and died to ransom our souls from Hell, even the teensiest weensiest sin was enough for Satan to claim our souls. Now, it’s the opposite. Even the teensiest weensiest desire for salvation is enough for God to rescue us from eternal damnation.
But Jesus said we must:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matt 5:48 (The Sermon on the Mount)
Ouch.
Once upon a time, I belonged to a 12-step group for female Christian survivors of sexual abuse. It was a really good group; I did a lot of healing there. We all knew how painful the process was, so when the other ladies screwed up their courage to ask me – the sole Catholic – about Purgatory, I decided to explain it in terms we all understood.
“If you visualize Purgatory as a kind of mud room entryway to Heaven where departed souls can do their 12-step work, it’s not against your churches’ teaching that there is only Heaven and Hell. People who are in Purgatory are not going anywhere but to Heaven, so in a sense, they’re already in Heaven.”
I also love how C.S. Lewis put it:
Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, ‘With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.’ ‘It may hurt, you know’ – ‘Even so, sir.’
Besides, if there’s no such place, how do we account for this Scripture passage:
“It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins”
2 Mac 12:46
As for Hell.
Ew.
It’s very unpleasant to think about anyone actually going there, but Jesus told us they do so and in great numbers.
I’ve also been taught that it is not God who condemns souls to Hell, but God who graciously grants these souls their dearest desire, which is to be somewhere He is Not. When you think about the idea of God being NOT somewhere, it kinda boggles the mind. He’s everywhere. He created everything. And He loves each and every one of us so much that He would have died on the cross to save just one of us.
A lot of writers, poets and wags have put in their 2 cents about what Hell is really like, but Jesus and the Scriptures are very clear. It’s horrible.
AND there’s no partying … no special room where the Democrats and Communists etc. can renew acquaintance and have wild orgies.
Being with other people just isn’t going to happen in Hell, because relationships are from God and of God. That’s why He’s a Trinity. The place where He is Not is also the place where relationships are not.
I have a hard time thinking about the fire thing. But I had a vision of Hell myself once. A crack opened in my reality, high up, where I couldn’t see into it, but I could see the red-orange light glaring out, hear the noise and smell the stink. It lasted only a moment, yet made a lasting impression. And it is what the Scriptures tell us:
FAQs about Hell from http://www.soulchoiceministries.com/faq2.html
The scripture is very clear in regards to Hell and Heaven being eternal. The word “destruction” does not mean annihilation, but it generally implies that it is ongoing. The verse in Mathew 25:46 is the same word for eternal life and eternal punishment. If Hell is only temporal, then Heaven would also have to be only temporal since it uses the same word “aionios.” Also, the same word “eternal” is used in 1 Tim 1:17 of our eternal King. So if hell is not eternal, then God isn’t either.
Also, there are all these verses that say eternal, fire not quenched, everlasting fire, fire that shall NEVER be quenched, tormented day and night, forever and ever, shall not see life, resurrection of life and resurrection of damnation. These are the verses:
Mt. 25:41, Mt. 25:46; John 5:29, John 3:36; Rev. 20:10, Rev. 14:9-11; 2 Thes. 1:9; Dan. 12:2; Mark 9:43; Mt. 18:8, Mt. 13:30, Mt. 13:49-50; Luke 3:17; Jude 7; John 4:14, John 5:24; Rom. 2:8-9.
If you think about it, why would God simply annihilate someone? There is no justice in that. God is a God of Justice and Righteous Judgment. (See: Ps. 96:10, Ps. 89, Acts 17:31, Ps. 96:13, Deut. 32:4.) Also God’s wrath is released upon sin (See John 3:36, Ps. 90:7-11, 2 Thes. 1:8, Rom. 1:18, Rom. 5:9, Ex. 15:7, Prov. 11:23, 2 Pet. 2:9, Jer. 4:4) There are many verses regarding varying degrees of punishment. How can you have varying degrees if one is annihilated? Verses – Mt. 23:14; Mt. 23:15; Mt. 10:15; Luke 12:47, Heb 10:28-29.
Filed under Christianity, Heaven
I need to remember this!
Philippians 4:4-9
New International Version (NIV)
Final Exhortations
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Filed under Christianity
An enlightening combo
I’m reading Coulter’s Demonic (2011) with breakfast and Lewis’ Screwtape Letters (1942) at bedtime. (I routinely do non-fiction/fiction like this.) These two make a particularly rich and fascinating combination!
For example, Coulter talks about the characteristics of mobs and how Democrats display these traits. Screwtape counsels his nephew on how the Lowerarchy uses mob mentality to win souls for Hell and warns him to keep his patient away from facts and logic.
There’s a fascinating passage in Screwtape about the two types of religious people who believe in a cause. In his case, the prominent national causes are Pacifism and Patriotism (anti and pro war), since the book is set in WWII England.
But everything he says applies to the Social Justice types today who bleat about human rights and the sanctity of life while holding candle vigils for condemned murderers but refuse to lift a finger for the unborn.
Some believe in the cause because their church’s beliefs tell them it is right. The other type affiliates with the church because it provides support for the cause.
Screwtape tells the nephew it doesn’t matter what cause his newly-Christian patient joins — Pacifist or Patriot — provided he be brought round from putting God’s teachings first to using God as a prop for the cause. I was reminded immediately of people like Fr. Pfleger and Rev. Wright.
Filed under Books, Christianity
More CIVILITY from the Left
Praying for this woman’s salvation is going to test me. Yet she so clearly needs prayer.
Filed under Christianity, Democrats, Pope John Paul II, Republicans
polination.blog 