Good Friday

Can you imagine the despair that Jesus' followers, friends, and family must have felt on this night about 2,000 years ago? Not only was their dear friend, brother, son or teacher gone, but with him died their hopes and dreams. The scoffers laughed, the uninterested shrugged, but the hearts of the faithful broke. We know the end of the story, but they did not. Their sorrow must have been overwhelming. Once the sorrow had fully sunk in, the fear took its place with a mighty rush. We know that the Twelve locked themselves in a back room,  because this was where Jesus found them later. It was a dark time.
     And yet, as they suffered the agony of grieving and of they unknown, the spiritual world was exploding. Something big was happening, something wonderful and too beautiful to describe....

Spilled Blood

At the time that Mark's gospel was written, horrific persecution was assailing the Church. I cannot even wrap my brain around the horrors that Christians suffered under Nero and Titus—the atrocities of the torture and killing is just too much for my cushy-Western-sheltered-American mind to comprehend. It is easy to read things like this academically, and just pass unemotionally over the words on the page, as we do while reading history books about wars we never heard of and never cared about. However, we cannot just read the words and ignore the content. The reality is that Christian persecution is not history; it has been going on for two thousand years and it has not stopped. People today are being killed for their faith. As you read these words, somebody is DYING because they love Jesus. Stop reading and think about that for a moment. Do you get that ? Do you really comprehend that? Someone’s heart just stopped beating. Somebody’s child is fatherless or motherless. There is a widow or a widower whose world just collapsed. A congregation just lost a pastor or a beloved church member. There is a gunshot, an explosion, or a machete. Somewhere, there is a dark red bloodstain. And that blood belongs to someone who is your brother or sister.

      Maybe I am being a little intense. That is actually my point. Did you know that there is a Christian murdered by a Muslim extremist every five minutes? That is over 100,000 every year. And that is not including people killed by other hostile groups. This is a REAL, and it’s going on NOW. Human torches and gladiatorial-style events may be a thing of the past, but suicide bombers and ax murders are a thing of the present. While you and I are sitting in our offices, bedrooms, dens or dorms in our cushy chairs, contemplating whether it is worth risking friendships to talk about Jesus, there are people out there who are dying for their witness. While we are complaining about the amount of homework we have and bemoaning our work schedules, there are people who are suffering the loss of their loved ones in hiding and in silence. I am not saying this to give a guilt trip – we are blessed here, and that is just a fact. Praise God! I am saying this because Christians in Mali, Cuba, Iran, Libya, China, India, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Belarus, Uzbekistan and many other nations need your prayers. They need your support and your awareness. There is nothing more powerful than an intercessory prayer made out of genuine love for a brother in need. Pray for Asia Bibi, who is being imprisoned in Pakistan. Pray for her husband and two daughters. Pray for Gao Zhisheng, a Chinese Christian who has been in and out of government incarceration for years. Pray for the Indonesian church, and pray for Muslims—pray for the small percentage of radicals who are doing the violence, and pray for the peaceful majority, who are hurt by the evil deeds of the few and who have little exposure to the truth of the gospel. Pray that God will break your heart for what breaks His-- let your heart and your spirit be rent and ripped for your brothers and sisters who are persecuted.

Chicken Feather Romance

I say,

How can you not see the

Romance

In scrubby bushes

And chicken feathers?

Isn’t all of life

Romance?

You just have to look at it that way.

Who needs moonlit walks

And candle-lit dinners

When you can find

Romance

In chickens and dirt?

There is a

Big-picture romance

That cannot happen

Without both

The seaside bungalows

And

The dust and bird scat-

Those who love and live the latter

Will taste the romance

Sweeter

And find blessing

Beyond compare.

And what if there

Are two little pairs

Of bare feet

Running in the dust,

Running through the

Scrubby bushes and the

Feathers—

Innocent, dirty little feet—

And one pair is white

And one is brown

And both are scrubbed

By me everyday

And put into little shoes

On Sunday

And run through

 My kitchen

Leaving little

Muddy footprints

That I clean up?

What if I scrub

These twenty toes

And a hundred more

And love every one of them

Because each

Is my precious gift

To watch grow out

Of a dozen shoe sizes

And become the

Beautiful feet

That bring good news.

To touch a heart—

To touch a life—

To touch a people;

This is my dream.

Big dreams come

In a thousand little pieces

The ordinary,

The extraordinary,

The miraculous

And the mundane.

If a snapshot of a dream

Is chickens

And children

And dirt

Then

Bird scat

Diapers

Sweeping

Must all be

Very romantic

It’s part

Of the greatest

Romance—

A savior wooing

His bride

Drawing His people

To Him.

And I say,

How can you not see

Romance

In scrubby bushes

And  chicken feathers?

(c) 2012 Breana Franks

Empty Chairs

Did you know that we're the surviving 78 percent of your generation?

Look around you... your church, your school, your neighborhood. There should be more of us here. But they're gone, and we can't get them back.

They were aborted.

They were killed in the womb.

What separated us from them? We didn't get in the right line while they got in the wrong one. We didn't say or do anything to pick pro-life parents or deserve to live while they deserved to die. Knowing this, can we honestly sit back and do nothing? Can we ignore the fact that we missed out on countless friendships? That the missing chairs in our classrooms should be filled? Can we let it keep happening?

No.

We have voices.

The unborn and the dead don't.

It's our obligation to be voices for the voiceless.

It's our obligation to protect the innocent-- the unborn and the mothers, who also become physical and psychological victims when they believe the lie.

I hope you decide to watch this three minute video; it's worth your time.

Http://www.VoicesForTheVoiceless.org

   

We are the 2 Percent






DO.

Today at chapel, we had a guest speaker who grew up as a missionaries’ kid in Liberia and now runs missions to the people there by providing practical needs, like shoes, and showing the love of Christ. He talked about the importance of doing something and being active to make a difference for the poor, the orphans, and other underprivileged. What he said was just tearing my heart out, and I wanted to scream, because meanwhile I was sitting on my rear in a newly refurbished gym at an expensive private university—I was wearing shoes and clothes with plenty of wear in them, I had a nutritious meal in my lunch bag, and I was going home to a functional family, a roof, several hundred dollars worth of electronics, and WHAT AM I DOING ABOUT POVERTY? A little. I do a little. But it’s not on the forefront of my mind, especially since school started. And I know that every one of us college students got out of our plastic folding chairs and went about our business, and probably most of us will not make any life changes based on that sermon.

I am just getting really sick of doing things for the kingdom, but focusing primarily on myself. I am getting really sick of complaining about eating yams instead of tacos. And I am getting sick of our society as a whole. Opulence disgusts me. There is more to life than this. There is more to life than self.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?

Books to Ashes

     Sometimes I wonder, what is the point of reading fiction? I enjoy it, but is there a purpose beyond entertainment? I’ve come to the conclusion that novels have their place in one’s life. A well-written piece of work gives you a window into the world beyond your own life. You gain a new understanding of the world according to someone else, and a new appreciation of other times and places. You can travel to France or Vietnam with your library card as your passport. The cover of a book is an instant time machine or teleporter. Sail the seas with Ishmael and come away with a rudimentary knowledge of ships and whaling. You may never have been on a boat, but as soon as you step aboard the Hispaniola en route to Treasure Island, you almost believe that you have watched the sun rise from the top of a mast, scoured a deck, and braved a tempest. You’ve drifted down an African river into the heart of darkness. You’ve journeyed to the center of the earth. You’ve been to Boston, London, Uganda, and Berlin. You can tell all about the palace of Cleopatra, you can describe the Crystal Palace, you are familiar with the untainted plains full of American Buffalo. You can give report on the sewers of Paris, describe the slaughterhouses of early 20^th Century Chicago, detail of barracks of Auswitch.

     Reading a novel is wasted time if you get nothing out of it. At the very least, you ought to be able to learn something about the world, past or present. But is should be more than that. Novel reading should color your world, should make it brighter and more vivid. You ought to be able to leave the black and white of the pages and perceive the real world colored in shades of scarlet, gold, vermillion, magenta, ultramarine. The words on the pages should paint your world and teach you to FEEL, to laugh brighter, grieve deeper, love sweeter. To cry poignantly, care passionately.  A novel should steal your shoes and place you in someone else’s. And when you close your book, the characters in its pages should stay in front of your eyes. In the faces of orphans, you will see Oliver Twist and Sarah Crew. In the eyes of young woman who has ruined her life, you see the eyes of Fantine. The bitter woman whose love has been frozen begins to look like Miss Havasham, and the tears of the man who lost everything are the tears of Jurgis Rudkis. You wept for Robert Jordan’s Maria, for Phineas, for Ona. Your heart went out to Heidi and Mary Lennox’s Colin. So be Dicken. Be Jean Valjean Robin Hood and Percy Blakeney. Let your heart be awakened. Care more deeply than you dare, and do something. The whole world is a nonfiction novel. Be the hero; help the helpless. You always wished that someone had saved Piggy or helped the Joads. Your heart cried, “Why? Why didn’t anyone pay attention and make it right?” But these stories are only imagination. They go away when you put the book on the shelf. The cries of pain that sound all around you are real. So find yourself caring. Find yourself seeing and understanding. Otherwise, the time spent reading is wasted; the pages of your books are ash in the wind.

Wish You Could Go Back and Tell Yourself What You Know Now

I want to cry every time I hear Taylor Swift’s song “Fifteen.” The first time I heard this song, I was babysitting an eleven-year-old and her six-year-old sister who only likes to listen to Taylor Swift songs. I took the opportunity as a teaching tool.

     “Fifteen” really is a very good song, as far as secular songs go. Unfortunately, the only words that my six-year-old friend really picked out and understood were the words to the chorus- “When you’re fifteen and someone tells you he loves you, you’re gonna believe it.” I brought her attention to the other lyrics, and explained them in a child-friendly way. She was surprised. After about a thousand episodes of Disney channel shows about teen love, her idea of the world was that it’s all about dating boys and kissing them, and that such things make life happy and rosy. How sad. How absolutely sad that the world of children’s entertainment pounds the chain-dating lie into young kids’ brains. The truth is, fifteen-year-old couples rarely stay together. It happens, but it’s rare. Relationships built solely on physical attraction are doomed. Giving everything you have will make him like you less, not more.  I wish more wildly popular singers would write songs like “Fifteen.” I wish more people would turn off the TV. It takes a lot to undo the damage done by the media.

Take every opportunity to undo.

You take a deep breath and you walk through the doors
It's the morning of your very first day
And you say hi to your friends you ain't seen in a while
Try and stay out of everybody's way

It's your freshman year and you're gonna be here
For the next four years in this town
Hoping one of those senior boys will wink at you and say
"You know, I haven't seen you around before"

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen feeling like there's nothing to figure out
Well, count to ten, take it in
This is life before you know who you're gonna be
Fifteen

You sit in class next to a redhead named Abigail
And soon enough you're best friends
Laughing at the other girls who think they're so cool
We'll be outta here as soon as we can

And then you're on your very first date and he's got a car
And you're feeling like flying
And you're momma's waiting up and you're thinking he's the one
And you're dancing 'round your room when the night ends
When the night ends

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
When you're fifteen and your first kiss
Makes your head spin 'round
But in your life you'll do things greater than
Dating the boy on the football team
But I didn't know it at fifteen

When all you wanted was to be wanted
Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now

Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine
And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy
Who changed his mind and we both cried

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen, don't forget to look before you fall
I've found time can heal most anything
And you just might find who you're supposed to be
I didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

Your very first day
Take a deep breath girl
Take a deep breath as you walk through the doors

A Letter to the Girls

A letter

To a girl who will soon enter high school from a girl who has recently exited:

 Dear you,

You have a new chapter ahead of you. It can be the best time of your life, or it can be the worst. It will be whatever you make it. Make it wonderful! The next four years of your life will be the fullest years you have experienced to date. You have so many things to look forward to: learning new things, making new friends, a chance at your driver’s license, new opportunities. Your brain is still young enough to soak up information almost effortlessly, but you are mature enough to be responsible and make a difference.

      The next four years are designed to make you learn. So learn! Learn to teach yourself and to learn from others. Learn to love to learn! Studying can be enjoyable, I promise. You will need to study, and make sure that you do. Learn facts, and learn lots of them. Learn things that appeal to you as often as you can. It makes life more interesting. Learn life lessons, too. Over and over again in Proverbs, Solomon states that those who are wise are able to become more so, because such people are willing to take advice. Become wise, and behave wise. Listen closely when you are given sound teaching.

      Now is the season of life when one’s character becomes more pronounced. You will begin to see those around you for what they are. To your sorrow, you will have to let old some friendships die. But if you ask God for godly friends, He will send you dear friends to grow in faith with. You will discover that you can relate to all ages now; your friends may range from eight years old to ninety. You will have to be discerning, however. It is inevitable that you will meet people who are not interested in being a true friend. Never grow too close to someone. You cannot trust anyone on earth except your parents. They should be your confidants. You can trust them to keep your words to themselves, and you can confidently act on their advice. You cannot trust your friends completely; even the most pure-hearted friend will let you down. You cannot even trust me, much to my sorrow. I am quite certain that although I will try to always build you up and bring you joy, someday I may unintentionally hurt you or disappoint you. I, like anyone else, am only human. No, do not grow too close to anyone. Be on your guard, for there will be girls who pretend to be your friend to their own ends and who may discard your feelings and your reputation like so much trash. There will be boys who pretend to be your friend because they find you attractive, and then forget all about you when someone else catches their eye.

     Ah, yes the boys. Let me tell you about the boys. You may discover that boys find you interesting, but don’t let it flatter you. It is very flattering to receive attention, but you are still too young to think about boys and marriage. Don’t base your security and self-image on boys and their flighty fancies. Make sure that the way you behave and dress reflects a girl who tries to please her God, not the boys. Any boy who likes you only because you are physically attractive should be avoided. This kind of boy will only hurt you in the long run, even if he never means to. He is selfish if he tries to persuade you to have anything more than a friendship with him. The kind of man you want to marry begins with a boy who does not constantly focus on girls. The kind of man you want to marry wants a modest, godly wife who has character. Don’t flirt, and do your best to reign in your crushes. A little prayer goes a long way when it comes to this! I could write all day about this subject, but suffice to say that your high school years are not the time to engage in romantic relationships with boys. Wait until later. Your life will be far more pleasant, this I promise.

     The standards for teenage success are incredibly low. You don’t have to live according to the world’s expectation that you will be silly, flighty, and care only about the short-term. You can make a difference now. You can do big things! Don’t be afraid to try. Remember, with God, all things are possible. If you want to create a new charity, organize a concert, write a book, start a website, manage a campaign, receive your associate’s degree, whatever, you can do it! It will be work and you may have to jump through a few hoops and scale a few walls to get there, but if it is God’s will that you do it, you will succeed. Maturity, success and godliness do not have to begin once you hit the magic age of eighteen. It can, and should, begin before that. Keep your ideas and dreams in sight.

    Listen to advice and accept instruction and in the end, you will be wise. This is Proverbs 19:20, and it should be tattooed on your forehead. Not really, but you know what I’m getting at! You know more than you ever have before, but you know the least that you will ever know from now on. Your parents have been around the block a few times and you have barely made it to the corner. They are smarter than you are, and listening to their advice will save you a lot of trouble. Trust me, I know. I tell my dad that I should buy a t-shirt that says, “MY DAD IS ALWAYS RIGHT!” because every time I ignore his advice, I run into problems. In the same way, I know that I can trust my mom and talk to her about things because at one time, she was my age and she understands the way I think. The book of Proverbs is very clear when it repeatedly states that scoffers and fools ignore advice from wise people, but smart people heed advice, rebukes, and learning. Don’t be a silly foolish scoffer, be smart and learn from people who are wise and knowledgeable. Be respectful. Someday you are going to be thirty or forty or eighty, and I can guarantee you will want to be treated with respect.

     Get ready, high school is just around the corner! It will go faster than you expect, so grab these years as hard as you can and squeeze them for all they are worth. Good luck, and have fun!

Love,

Breana

Becoming Like Francis

Today I am inspired by Francis of Assisi. I used to see St. Francis as the chubby monk statue that my grandma has in her garden… a man poor by choice who loved animals. That might be true, but there is so much more to him!

     I recently read a Catholic book on the Crusades, called  The Crusaders  by Regine Pernoud, that my friend loaned to me. It was interesting because it was told from a very different perspective than secular and even Protestant history books. The Crusades surely is a multi-faceted subject filled with heroes and villains on both sides. It is so confusing and I really don’t know what stance to take on the subject! I came to a chapter on Francis of Assisi. In the middle of a bloody war against the Muslims, this brave man walked unarmed across Christian borders and into Muslim territory. He asked to be taken to the Sultan of Egypt. He was. This is a miracle for two reasons: firstly, because he was not killed on the spot, and secondly, because he was actually allowed to see the sultan. He witnessed to the Sultan, and the Sultan actually said that he would like to become a Christian, yet could not because of politics and fear of assassination (oh, how our human affairs cloud out the glow of eternity! It is tragic).  In the darkness of warfare and bloodshed, St Francis was a shining example of how God wants us to deal with our enemies; with love and concern. This man risked his life to bring Christianity to the Muslims, while many of his fellow Christians were only interested in killing and fighting them over a single city.

     Application: What in your life seems so important that you neglect what really is important? Are you fighting a personal “crusade” over your “Jerusalem?” In other words, are you so focused on something (even if it is something good) that you neglect to fulfill the Great Commission? Be a Francis of Assisi and not a Richard Coeur de Leon!

A Fire Kindled Inside

I have a wonderful missionary friend who told me all about the years she spent with her husband ministering to the people of Thailand. A few months ago, she told me about her time in Asia and allowed me to write about it! I learned a lot from the interview. She also has godly wisdom to impart as someone who has walked with the Lord for many decades. Click to read "A Fire Kindled Inside."

It's a Thaiger!

My Own Little World

Here's a great video to the amazing song, "My Own Little World." Please watch it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP5mYOzOvCs

5-29-10 "When I was Naked, You Clothed Me, When I was Hungry, You Gave Me Food..."

Hello! J

 I’ve joined “Dress A Girl Around the World.” This organization is a sub-organization of  Hope 4 Kids International, an missions organization which helps Americans sponsor the education of foreign impoverished children. Dress A Girl is an organization which sends home sewn pillowcase dresses to impoverished girls in other countries. If you like to sew (or can sew J ) and if you’d like to help a girl in need, get involved! You don’t have to join the site to help out, but if you do join, look BGM up.

Happy stitching :)

5-11-10 "Carpe Dium"

Always live in the moment- never for the moment. Seize the day now to make a better day for then. Don’t live for this moment- live for the next moment, and for tomorrow, next week, next year, twenty years in the future, and Eternity. It’s when you master this mindset that you begin to create the kind of legacy that you dream of leaving behind.

1-26-10 "Sometimes it can be HARD-- that's good

 

  

   A couple weeks ago, I was browsing through one of my favorite bookstores with, happily, $20 to spend. I don’t know about you, but it takes me forever to decide with books to purchase. My mom found me after we had been there for about a half hour and was surprised to see me with about $80 worth of hardback books stacked in my arms. I was having a very hard time deciding which of the several books I chose, including The Last Mohican, Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes, Two Histories of England (Dickens and Austin- yum!) The Count of Monte Cristo, and a few others. 

      My personal opinion on books is that classics cannot be beat and the older the publication date, the better! That’s part of the reason that I avoid the “teen lit” section. The other part of the reason that I avoid the said category is because I am thoroughly disgusted with the cruddy books offered there. Nearly every book is written well below a high school reading level and contains a weak romance, a gory murder, a nasty hero, or all three. Books for modern teenagers are goopy junk compared to what young people of past eras spent their time reading. However, there is one book written for teens that I find to be one of the best books ever written.

      Many of you, I am sure, have read the popular book by Brett and Alex Harris, Do Hard Things. Hopefully, you’ve also read it, and if you haven’t I encourage you to do so. It’ll be the best eighteen bucks you’ve ever spent on a book. I’ve been loaning my copy out to other teens I know because I think they should read it, too. One on the major points that the Harris twins make in their book is that we should find hard things that we can do for God and them DO them- thus the title of the book.

     Rewind five days form the day I was in the bookstore. It was Christmas Eve, and I was visiting my grandpa, who was in the rehabilitation wing of a nursing home after having surgery (He’s out now and home- thank the Lord for that!). My sister and I were going to play a couple of pieces on the piano for him. As he was taken into the dining hall, where the piano was, another gentleman who is a permanent resident of the home expressed a desire to listen also. We went into the dining room and my sister opened her music and played a breathtaking piece.

     My sister is one of those people to whom music comes as naturally as breathing. For me, it's a different story. I love to play- by myself. I get extremely nervous when I have to play for other people. I don't know why. I can stand up and give a speech in front of people easy as pie, but playing the piano stresses me out.

     In the middle of my sister's piece I realized- Uh-oh, I had left my sheet music at home. Ah, well. I knew a few pieces from memory. But I needed to use the pedal on the piano for those… and it appeared that the out-of-tune player piano had no working pedal. I only know two and one-half songs that do not take pedal. I decided that I really did not want to play- it was not going to sound very good at all, and I didn’t want to follow my sister’s precise Chopin (although a bit clunky without a pedal) with my rusty memorized tunes. Then as she got up form the piano bench and I saw the joy that it brought to my grandpa and especially to the other gentleman- a lonely man whose family he had not seen in many years, I later found out- I realized that it didn’t matter what the playing sounded like to this man. Right then, he was receiving his Christmas gift and this was the closest thing to family that he was going to experience that season. The realized that this was a Do Hard Things moment. 

     What is the next hard thing YOU can do? It could be a simple as playing the piano when you don’t want to, or it could be far more difficult. Whatever it is, take a deep breath and DO it.

 

 

1-18-10 "Our Brothers in Asia"

As Christians, we must expect to face some level of persecution. Jesus himself said that we would. I’m sure you’ve encountered a bit of this or at least have seen it happen- maybe someone you know ridicules you for following Christ. Maybe your friend or brother got a bad grade on his English class in college because the professor was angry at the way he spoke openly about his faith. However, there are very few cases in the US where persecution has risen to level that we can see in other countries. Persecution is particularly bad in northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Here is the story of one event:

Before dawn on Sunday, September 13, 2009, a band of 400 government officials, police and hired ruffians launched an attack on Linfen-Fushan Church in Shanxi. With no warning, members who were sleeping at the church construction site were mercilessly beaten, with more than 30 left in critical condition. Bulldozers razed the factory and church building to the ground, and the mob looted any valuables and smashed the remaining property. Following the brutal attack, the Fushan governing officials arrested more than ten Linfen church leaders.

Esther, the daughter of two Linfen pastors, called home frantically in October, after learning about the attack on Fushan Church over the internet. The phone rang and rang, but no one answered. She later learned from a relative that her father and mother had been arrested in a sweeping backlash against house church leaders on October 11, 2009.

In the trial held on November 25th, Esther's father Yang Xuan was convicted of "unlawfully occupying agricultural land" and sentenced to 3 1/2 years with a 20,000 Yuan fine. Her Aunt Yang Rongli received a maximum sentence of 7 years in prison and 30,000 Yuan fine, and her Uncle Wang Xiaoguang received 3 years in prison with a 10,000 Yuan fine. Esther's mother, Yang Caizhen, was arbitrarily sentenced to two years Re-education through Labor in the brutal Laogai (labor-camp) system. Already fearing for their safety and health, Esther learned in December that her mother had been severely beaten in prison.

 Thank the Lord for religious freedom in North America and Europe! Let us fight to keep that liberty and defend it above all other rights.

But let’s not forget the persecuted. This is a huge problem! How can YOU help? You can donate, and it will be a great help. But the most important thing for you to do is PRAY! Here are a couple of sites to keep you informed as to what the greatest prayer needs are:

Persecution blog from Voice of the Martyrs

China Aid- the site from which the above story is taken

 

1-15-50 "Haiti"

I'm sure you've all heard about the Haiti earthquake and the havoc wreaked on that island. There are tons of orphaned, widowed, and injured people in Haiti right now who need your help- you could SAVE A LIFE by donating a few dollars. Literally, you could feed a child for a month by giving $5. That's as much as a footlong at Subway costs. So, give up one lunch out and feed a kid for a month! Maybe you could feed a few people. Do you really need another t-shirt or a new soccer ball? Do you need it more than these people need to live? 

Couple of sites:

https://www.fmsc.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=416

http://www.fh.org/

 

 

10-2-09 "poodle skirts and marijuana"

      America began to decompose in the 1950’s. As the dawn of the teenage era shone on the horizon of the new decade, anxious adults and enthusiastic young people watched as America’s view of adolescence was changed forever. A new philosophy that had never existed in the past was born: the idea of the “generation gap”.

     Significant changes in young peoples’ outlook on life and the media’s outlook on young people had serious lasting consequences. Trendy clothing for the newly-christened “teenagers” in the 1950’s laid the foundation for today’s practice of tossing all modesty to the wind. Skirts began to get shorter as the popular poodle skirt made its debut, girls’ shirts became tighter in order to show off their feminine contours, and some fashionable boys’ clothes shot up to three-figure amounts. The initial general disgust for fast, touchy-feely dances evolved into wild popularity as rock ‘n roll stepped into the scene. Singers and movie stars enjoyed popularity as more people idolized celebrities than ever before. Elvis Presley, popular even today, shocked and fascinated viewers with his suggestive dances, and meaningless romantic songs flooded the airwaves. Dating, which had begun in the nineteen-twenties as (believe it or not), a parent-mediated event to keep young adults out of trouble hurtled into a casual, parent-free “romantic” sport. Teenagers were informed by the media, their peers, and even many adults that they were misunderstood individuals who ought to be independent, irresponsible, and live for fun. Society became blind to the inescapable fact that the youths of the present are the leaders of the future. The erosion of morality in the adults of the ‘60s and 70’s was a direct result of the rebellion that was encouraged in the ‘50s and our twenty-first century culture still suffers from the repercussions of that era.

    

 In the early 20^th century and centuries before, the idea of “teenagers” did not exist. Those individuals between the ages of twelve and twenty were considered “youths” or “young adults”. They took responsibility for large portions of the household duties, took life seriously, treated school as a privilege and an opportunity, and showed respect to their elders. As a result, our culture was a healthy, proactive, successful society.  I have often wondered: how did so many people graduate college before age seventeen? Why are young people in other countries fluent in two, three, four, or even five different languages? Why is it that so many women of years past married before their eighteenth birthdays, and yet were so much more adept at managing a household and a marriage than most women in their late twenties are today? The answer is how they lived life in their teen years. When young people had high standards and responsibility, our society received capable adults.

 

     If you believe I am overreacting, if you have bought into the ideology that “teens will be teens”, please reconsider your views.  Look at the statistics! Although poverty levels in the early 2000’s (it has taken a leap since 2008) were lower than they were before the 1950’s (www.census.gov), the crime level has risen significantly (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm )! I am convinced that the dramatic increase in crime is directly linked with the irresponsibility that is encouraged and the disrespect and misbehavior that are allowed to go on with teenagers. I have heard the phrase “teens will be teens” countless times. Allow me to disagree! I am ashamed that such a negative word as “teenager” must stigmatize every person of my age. Young people can adopt the behavioral patterns of “teens”, but only if there are trained to do so by this perverse culture and their parents. If children are not allowed to behave in a disrespectful manner, they will not grow up to be disrespectful “teenagers”, and ultimately disrespectful adults who, very often, are useless to society and the kingdom of God. I will reiterate: this is a serious crisis!

    Dear friend, how can you and I escape becoming entrapped this swirling vortex of self-destruction? How can we live our lives now in a way that will benefit us, and those around us, in the future? The answer is simple. We must live out our faith is a vibrant way. We must take responsibility for our lives and for our actions. We must begin to take life seriously and pull away from the destructive attitudes of our culture.

~Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world…”~

1-13-09 "Who wants to change thw world?"

I was reading Ecclesiastes today. I need to read it again; so much of it was written with me in mind. There are some parts I do not really understand; 11:2 for example, but I really want to. The book is a bit depressing, but there are so many wise sayings to commit to memory! It makes me want to do something that will make people remember me after I am gone. Or at least want to change the world. But I want to do that already. You'll see; I am going to change the world, one heartbeat, one step, one word, one person, one action at a time. I can't do it alone. Sometimes I feel like I am fighting a battle against the whole world. I am all alone and an army is waiting to crush me. How will I ever do even one thing for the glory of God, when the devil is waiting to thwart my plans?  "For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the authorities of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms", says one verse. From Ephesians, I think. But God said he will "Never leave you, I will never forsake you" we must "be strong and courageous! For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." "If God is for me, who can be against me?" "Whom shall I fear?" It's times like these when discouragement invades the mind when Its good to recall scripture and dive into the Word. And, after all, like Patrick Henry said,  "For we do not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us."

   Come along beside me!  If one plus God equals a majority, what does one thousand plus God equal?

Let's change the world!