Tag Archives: grief

Laudable Linkage

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Here are some of the good reads found this week:

I Feel an Imprecatory Prayer Comin’ On. “Growing up, I never heard anyone mention imprecatory prayers, which are mostly found in the Psalms. What are they? Imprecatory prayers are prayers in which you ask God to send calamity or hardship upon someone else.”

What Does the Bible Teach About Demons and Spiritual Warfare? HT to Challies. “I haven’t done this, but I suspect that polling our youth groups about whether or not the devil and demons are real would have troubling results. Perhaps a poll among youth pastors would fare similarly. It’s simply something we don’t talk about. And I get it. But it’s also a very important topic, and is far too dangerous to overlook.”

Why We Do What We Do. What the Bible teaches about our desires and the way they can change after we become believers.

“I’d Never Do That!” I haven’t read the book mentioned, but I appreciate the application about offering help with humility.

Praying for Dreams to Come True, HT to Challies. “Dreams and desires are like butterflies in our hands. We cannot hold onto them too tightly or we will crush them. But if we hold them with open hands, at the right time, God will breathe the breath of his Spirit and they may launch and fly.”

How Marriage Vows Work, HT to Challies. “This distinction matters because marriage is sustained by more than warm feelings. When a couple faces challenges—as every couple will—they need the foundation of clear, mutual commitments rather than memories of how they once felt.”

How to Respect the Dignity of Loved Ones with Dementia, HT to Challies. “Contrary to what we might think, the gift of presence is perhaps most significant in the advanced stages of dementia. It is not infrequent at that time for loved ones to feel that their visits do not count for anything. They assume that they won’t be recognized or their visit remembered, which may be precisely the wrong conclusion.”

The Etiquette of Speech, HT to Challies. “There are three grave errors I think we can fall into when it comes to speech etiquette, and we should be wary of each of them.”

Wounds That Cannot Wholly Be Cured. “I’ve never known grief as strong or wounds as deep as I have been through this year. In January, my youngest brother died unexpectedly. It has been a season of loss and heartache that far surpasses anything that I have yet experienced.”

A. W. Tozer quote

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Laudable Linkage

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I don’t want to “laud” my own links here, but I did want to call attention to an older post titled “Christmas Hope, Christmas Grief, Christmas Joy.” Both of my parents, my grandmother, a college friend, and even our only family dog all died in December, though in different years. Every year, someone I know is facing a first Christmas without a loved one who passed away that year. Grief may cast a shadow over Christmas, but Christmas gives us hope and joy to carry on.

All We Have to Do Is Turn. “It’s comforting that it’s all we’re asked to do, no matter how far we may have wandered from God. We’re not called to find our own way back. We’re not called to fix it all ourselves, which is reassuring as there is no way we could ever fix it by ourselves.”

Is There a Place for Ambition in the Life of a Christian Woman? “I began to think carefully about ambition—my own aspirations as well as the place ambition might play in the life of a Christian woman, a servant of God. Was it wrong for me to long for more opportunities for service—wrong for me to long for a broader reach?”

I Need Sundays, HT to Challies. “Jesus loves his Church. It was His idea. The abuses and failures of the church do not negate the commands of Scripture to gather as a body of believers. We will not always get it right, that’s for sure. But that doesn’t mean that we can toss the proverbial baby out with the bath water. The commands of Scripture are still ultimately for our good, our growth, our sanctification. If one of God’s very means of grace for our endurance in the Christian life is the church, then Christians will struggle to flourish in faith apart from it.”

When Going Through the Motions Is the Best Way Forward. “I feel like I’m just going through the motions. Perhaps you’ve heard people say this about a relationship, their work or their spiritual lives. Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself. Chances are, it was presented as a negative. If you’re going through the motions, something is wrong, right? Not necessarily.”

Pain Needs Interpreting, HT to Challies. “Rather than just react to pain, the Bible calls us to act towards it. We’re not to just be subject to our pain, blown about in every direction by it. Rather we’re to respond to it, and subject it to the light of God’s word.”

It’s So Easy, HT to Challies. “The world can be a hard place. We are all the walking wounded at times. The voices around us are not always kind, and many of us can find ourselves on the margins, overlooked. It is these times when even the smallest word of encouragement can turn our hearts from sadness to hope.”

Stop Calling Them Names, HT to Challies. “[T]he Bible teaches us to directly confront theological error. It even has a category for using harsh speech with wolves who pervert a church’s fidelity or lead people into eternal destruction (cf. Acts 13:8–11). But neither should Christians engage in the worldly practice of name-calling or employing theological slurs, especially when speaking of brothers and sisters in Christ.”

This is really cool: a graphic showing where things in the Bible are mentioned in more than one place. The bottom line lists the chapters from Genesis to Revelation, with Psalm 119 in the middle. Though the Bible was written over hundreds of year by several authors, it’s a coherent whole

Occasionally someone will ask me what the “HT” in some of my listings means. I used to see that abbreviation frequently, but not so much any more. It means “hat tip,” meaning I saw that link at someone else’s site that I want to acknowledge.

Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world. C. S. Lewis

Once in our world, a Stable had something in it
that was bigger than our whole world.
C. S. Lewis

Laudable Linkage

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I found a lot of good reading this week:

A Comforting Resource for People Who Have Lost Parents. My friend, Lois, lost both parents within five weeks of each other a few year ago. Some of her blog posts since then have been about processing their loss and working through grief. She found a lot of resources for losing a child or a spouse, but not much on losing parents. That seemed to be treated as just a normal part of life. Though the death of one’s parents is inevitable, grief still runs deep. Lois has just pulled these posts together in one resource page. She tells about it and links to the Help for Parent Loss page there.

How Can I Cultivate a Listening Life in a Noisy World? “Do we demonstrate through our choices that we truly believe that we NEED God’s Word? Are we still ‘the people of the Book?'”

Can a Christian Have Mental Illness? HT to Challies. “Some Christians believe that Christians cannot have mental illness. If a professing Christian is depressed, anxious, or bipolar, they think it’s because they are not a real Christian, or that there is some terrible sin they haven’t repented of, or that they need to repent of the depression or whatever the problem is. Nearly half (48 percent) of evangelicals believe that serious mental illness can be overcome with prayer and Bible study alone. The result of this condemnation of mental illness as sin is that many Christians do not admit they have a mental illness, they don’t talk about it, and they don’t reach out for help.”

We Need Every Word, HT to Challies. “I want to feast on the Bible passages I love, the ones that make me feel some note of pleasure or comfort. I want the reminders that I’m loved, the encouragements to hold fast, and the songs of praise that remind me of God’s faithfulness. I don’t always want the lists or the history or the stories that don’t seem to affect me.”

Why We Are Tempted not to Pray, HT to Challies. “Prayer should stupefy us. ‘You mean, this all-powerful God who keeps galaxies spinning is interested in you telling him about your day and might alter the course of the entire cosmos because you asked him if you could have a parking space?’”

Being Involved in Church as a Teen, HT to Challies. “But being born into a church as a baby, and then growing up through Sunday school and youth group, can often make it hard to be taken seriously. Even older Christians with the best intentions can miss the mark. It can feel a bit awkward when they ask you the same questions every time they see you in church. It takes time and effort from both sides to help and encourage one another, and ultimately, have more meaningful relationships.”

Is the Lord’s Day the Christian Sabbath? HT to Challies. “At the outset, I need to say that this issue is one that I think Christians should not divide over. The view I present below is not the one I grew up with, but I have no particular ambition to convert people to my view — except that, with regard to those who have the duty to teach God’s word, it is important to do so properly, ‘rightly handling the word of truth’, preaching the full counsel of God with all His authority, but never giving human ideas that same authority.”

The Ritual of Rearranging Books, HT to Linda. “Taking all the books down was a chance to organize and cull, but primarily, it was an experience in simply remembering what was there, how it got there, and why. You can look at shelved books until the cows come home, but it’s not the same as actually taking them off the shelves.”

Seeing the Light on Religious Fiction, HT to Linda. “As I complete my 40th year working with books, I’ve changed my mind about an entire publishing genre that I once held at arm’s length at best, and treated with something akin to critical dismissal at worst. I feel like the proverbial old dog who has suddenly learned a new trick. The genre? Religious fiction.” I especially loved this one!

Routine leads to devotion, especially in Bible study.

The quote here is from “Just Not Feeling It”: How Routine Awakens Devotion.

Laudable Linkage

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It’s been a super-busy week, so I have just a few links for you. But I think they’re good ones.

Why We Follow Some Old Testament Laws But Not Others, HT to Challies. “Critics accuse Christians of conveniently picking and choosing from Old Testament laws. We’re quick to ‘clobber’ gay people with verses from Leviticus, they say, yet we don’t keep kosher ourselves. The complaint, though, is based on a misunderstanding about the Mosaic Covenant that even Christians fall prey to.”

“Where Is Your Faith?” HT to Challies. “How do you cling to belief amidst such turmoil of the heart? How do you survive the death of a child? I can tell you, it is not what happens in that moment of complete darkness or even in the months and years that follow. Survival is forged in the pew every Sunday. It is built on the truths of Scripture that you fill your mind with day by day. It comes through knowing Who God is.”

We’re Missing It. “He wants time to love us that way and it can’t happen if He is a ‘to do’ list item, or in sound bites only throughout our day, or only while we grab coffee on our way out the door.”

Well-Worn Boots. Lessons from a pair of faithful old work boots.

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Here are some of the good reads found this week:

Do You Want to Be Well? “Jesus specialized in asking simple, straightforward questions.  They weren’t designed to trick people and went straight to the heart of the matter.  They invited people to pause and look deep inside at their aching spiritual poverty. John 5:6 says, ‘would you like to get well?’ or ‘wilt thou be made whole?’ Well, of course we want to be well.  Why would He even ask?” Plus, Linda links to this printable of verses that share Who Am I in Christ?

How to Transform Your Personal Bible Study with an Easy Perspective Shift. “I tossed my Bible aside in frustration. What on earth did Jeroboam, Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa, Nadab, and a series of other kings whose names I couldn’t pronounce have to do with me?“

How Can We Avoid Putting a Band-Aid on Others’ Grief and Pain? “A reader recently asked me a searching question about this scene from Mark’s Gospel: ‘Mark describes Jesus as greatly distressed and troubled, sorrowful to death. If Jesus felt this way, why do we, as Christians, often just try to put a band-aid on others’ grief and pain?'”

Learning a Lesson from Scandals Close to Home. “Though we would never wish for a scandal to take place and make its way into the headlines, and while we should always regret the circumstances that bring one about, a scandal does offer the opportunity for personal introspection. A wise man will heed its lessons, for it inevitably provides the context to consider whether sin is sneaking up on us as it has on someone else, to practice the biblical admonition ‘let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall’ (1 Corinthians 10:12).”

“No Celebrities Except Jesus”: How Asbury Protected the Revival, HT to Challies. Interesting article about how school officials responded and some of the behind-the-scenes logistics.

More Than Music: How the Congregation Plays a Part in Every Element of Worship, HT to Challies. “We equate worship with music because we have been trained to think that singing is the only way in which congregations actually participate in worship. But Scripture is clear: corporate worship encompasses much more than music. In fact, every element of Christian worship involves the active participation of the entire congregation.”

Weaknesses: Our Unlikely Ally, HT to Challies. “If you want to turn the world’s wisdom on its head completely, this is it. The Apostle Paul says he will boast about his weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9). We do not boast of weaknesses; we hide them because they hold us back from being who we should be. They threaten our competence. They are faults and defects. Instead, we boast of accomplishments, skills, talents, and abilities, but biblical wisdom says this is backward.”

Thoughts on Lent. I appreciate the balanced approach here.

Split or Stay: Encouragement for Anglican Pastors, HT to Challies. Though the context here is Anglican pastors, the principles about considering separation from one’s denomination or church are very helpful.

This as as good a time as any for my occasional reminder that a link here does not mean 100% endorsement of everything on the site.

Seasons of Sorrow

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One November day in 2020, Tim and Aileen Challies learned the stunning news that their 20-year-old son, Nick, had suddenly died. He had not been ill. There were no known congenital health issues. He was playing a game with his sister and their friends at college when he suddenly collapsed. Efforts to revive him failed.

Though grief never goes completely away, it is probably at its most intense the first year. Like many of us who write, Tim processed what he was thinking and feeling by writing. Some of what he wrote was published on his blog. But much was not. He gathered his writings from the year into a book titled Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. The book is laid out across seasons, beginning with fall, when Nick died, through winter, spring, summer, and then fall again on the first anniversary of Nick’s passing.

Nick was a young man training for gospel ministry. This is not the first time I have wondered why would God take someone with so much potential to heaven instead of allowing them to do His work here. We don’t know all the answers. But we do know our times are in His hands. Anyone’s death, but especially that of one so young, reminds us that we’re not guaranteed a certain number of years. By all accounts, Nick used his time here well. May God give us grace to do with same, with a heart fixed on eternity.

Even though the book deals with the recent loss of an adult child, much of it can be applied to any loss. I found help and comfort in dealing with the seventeen year loss of my mom, who died seemingly (to us) too early at 68.

One of the things I appreciated most about Tim’s testimony was his desire to honor God in the midst of his grief. There is nothing wrong with grief and tears. Jesus wept with his friends at the loss of Lazarus, even while knowing He was about to raise him from the dead. We don’t go off on a season of grieving and then come back to faith in and peace with God. Tim demonstrates that we can trust Him through and in the midst of grief.

Tim wrestles honestly with what he knows of the goodness of God in circumstances that don’t seem good.

One aftermath of loss is fearing more loss.

I, whose son collapsed and died, cannot fall asleep in the evening until I have received assurance that both my daughters are still alive and cannot be content in the morning until I am sure both have made it through the night. Nick’s death has made us face mortality and human fragility in a whole new way. My children may as well be made of glass. I’m just so afraid that if Providence directed I lose one, it may direct that I lose another. If it has determined I face this sorrow, why not many more?

How, then, can I let go of such anxiety? How can I continue to live my life? The only antidote I know is this: deliberately submitting myself to the will of God, for comfort is closely related to submission. As long as I fight the will of God, as long as I battle God’s right to rule his world in his way, peace remains distant and furtive. But when I surrender, when I bow the knee, then peace flows like a river and attends my way. For when I do so, I remind myself that the will of God is inseparable from the character of God. I remind myself that the will of God is always good because God is always good. Hence I pray a prayer of faith, not fatalism: “Your will be done. Not as I will, but as you will”  (p. 76).

Another section that particularly spoke to me was when Tim found his longings for heaven mixed up with seeing Nick again as much, and sometimes more, than seeing Jesus. He confessed this to a friend, ending with the thought that he must sound like a pagan. The friend replied, “No, you sound like a grieving father” (p. 122).

And I’m content to leave it there. It was God who called me to himself and God who put a great love for himself in my heart. It was God who gave me my son, God who gave me such love for him, and God who took him away from me. The Lord knows I love the Lord, and the Lord knows I love my boy. I’ll leave it to him to sort out the details (p. 122).

Ecclesiastes 7:2 tells us, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” God doesn’t condemn feasting and gladness: He incorporated such into Israel’s calendar year and tells us the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). But we do tend to learn deeper lessons through mourning. I appreciate Tim’s sharing what he experienced and learned with us.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

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I don’t want to “laud” my own link. But I did want to share a post I’ve shared many times before. My mom passed away 17 years ago today. It seems like every holiday season, someone else I know has lost a loved one that year. So I have shared Christmas Grief, Christmas Hope, Christmas Joy at intervals as an encouragement to those whose loved ones have passed on and who especially miss them this time of year.

I’m once again behind on some blog reading during this busy time, but here are a few posts I enjoyed this week:

What Does It Mean to Enter Into Temptation? HT to Challies. “Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Watch and pray, so you won’t be tempted.’ There is no way you can get into a place in the Christian life where you are no longer tempted. He says, ‘Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation.’ Literally it says, ‘so that you will not enter into temptation.'”

Do You Hear the Bells of Christmas? HT to The Story Warren. “Henry Longfellow was one of the most widely known American poets in the 19th century. What’s not as well-known is a poem he wrote called, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day which was eventually put to music and has since become a cherished Christmas hymn. What’s beautiful about this Christmas melody is the incredible story that led him to put his pen to paper on Christmas morning, 1863”

Grammar Crash Course: Clauses. “Distinguishing dependent clauses from independent clauses may seem like an obscure and academic thing to do. Not the most thrilling way to occupy one’s morning. But this is perhaps the most important grammatical skill to master for your Bible study.”

Three Biblical Ways to Pray for Your Adult Children. “Prayers for strong marriages, safety on the job, or wisdom in college selection are all good requests from the heart of a Christian mum, but Paul’s three-verse, single-sentence outpouring to God challenges me to lift my sights to motivation and to pray about the drive behind my adult children’s following lives — and to take a careful look at my own.”

African Christianity Thrived Long Before White Men Arrived, HT to Challies. “Crudely put, Christianity is the white man’s religion and has no place amongst true Africans. In an era where forming an African identity aside from Colonialism is high on people’s agenda, it’s a compelling argument to some. Except that it’s not true. For Christianity was present in Africa 1000 years before the first European Colonialists arrived on African shores.”

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Here are a few posts that especially caught my eye this week. Maybe some with catch yours, too.

What to Do When Your Resolutions Start Dissolving. “We’re officially two weeks into 2022. And two weeks also happens to be the average life span of a new year’s resolution. So, even if you’re finding your big plans for “new year, new me” are already floundering, I’d like to offer you a few notes of encouragement.”

Spiritual Covid and Losing Your Taste for God, HT to Challies. “Through the pain of suffering or the false promises of sin, we can come down with a case of Spiritual COVID. We’re fatigued and grumpy, and even worse, we can’t taste anything anymore. We eat to survive, not because the food has any taste. We become sluggish in our service, bored with the Bible, less committed to the church.”

Everywhere Spoken Against, HT to Challies. “There may be a time to leave the local congregation but never a time to leave the church. I’ve compared her to an ugly bride, stumbling down the aisle toward glorification. That’s me, and that’s you.”

Our Escape Room, HT to Challies. “Finding out that you’re not the cream rising to the top is only traumatic if you thought you should be. And who are you to think you should be? A friend once told me, ‘Your problem is not that you think you’re not as good as other people; your problem is you want to be better than other people.’ Ouch.”

3 Simple Ways to Flatten Your Neighbor, HT to Challies. “Unfortunately, many in our society seem to be reverting to fourth-grade categorizations for just about everyone, and often doing so with the zeal of a crusader for a righteous cause.”

When Aslan Wept, HT to Challies. “While it is within God’s power to remove our suffering and make us feel better again, sometimes He does not. We can only trust that He’s grieving alongside us while working things out behind the scenes for our good and His glory.”

Whose Purpose Will Prevail in Your Suffering? HT to Challies. “Satan intends your suffering for evil; God intends it for good. Whose purpose in your suffering will prevail? Whose purpose are you furthering? Satan attempts to destroy your faith, while God invites you to draw near to Him and draw upon His sovereign grace to sustain you.”

Discipline: What If Scripture Isn’t Politically Correct? “Scripture has always been countercultural and while the world remains in its sinful state it always will be. This also means that faithfulness to the Biblical text will lead to cultural conflict. If some texts are ‘troubling to modern readers,’ we shouldn’t be surprised.” Beyond the subject of discipline, this article shows the problem with wrongly interpenetrating Scripture.

End of Year 2021 Book Lists. If you like adding to your ever-growing TBR list, Sherry looked through a lot of end-of-year book lists to get some great ideas.

Temperance and Play: The Weird and Wonderful Word of Wordle, HT to The Story Warren. If you’ve seen those tri-colored grids of cubes on social media and wondered what they were all about, this article explains.

And to end with a smile:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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I don’t want to “laud” my own link, but I wanted to share once again a post from a few years ago about grieving over Christmas. My mother, father, and grandmother (as well as a family friend and our only family pet) all died in December, though in different years. The first few years after my mom passed away were the hardest, especially with how much she loved the season. It seems like every year, someone I know is facing their first Christmas without a certain loved one. So I hope these thoughts will be helpful: Christmas Grief, Christmas Hope, Christmas Joy.

Now, on to some good online reading and listening found recently:

Losses of a Prayerless Christian, HT to Challies. “Though God is sovereign over all things, He ordains the means of prayer. There are some things He will not do unless we pray, though He always does all He purposes (Psalm 135:6). The mystery does not change this truth: You do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2).”

Gentleness Is a Christian Virtue, HT to Challies. ‘Christians should be the absolute opposite of mean and angry. Jesus’s people are to be kind, gentle, joyful, patient, peaceful, good, and self-controlled. None of these character traits define American culture today, but they must define Christ’s church.”

Must You Remain Silent on Abortion Unless You Adopt a Baby? HT to Challies. Perhaps you’ve heard the argument that unless a pro-life person is willing to adopt babies (supposedly babies that would be saved from abortion), then that person has no voice in the abortion debate. This article explains what’s wrong with that reasoning.

Gospel Parenting During the Little Years with Melissa Kruger and Jen Wilkin (one of my favorite authors). This is an almost 50-minute video, but well worth a listen. I wish I had had this when mine were little, though I think I came to many of the same conclusions over time.

Jen Wilkin on Women in the Church with the Gift of Leadership. Jen speaks from a complementarian background, but encourages that there is a place for women to exercise their gifts. Different ones of us will fall on different places in the spectrum of this discussion, but the issues are worth contemplating.

People’s Choice; Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2021, HT to Laura. These are always so fascinating.

If you need a good laugh this morning, try this “12 Days of Christmas” skit, HT to The Story Warren.

This is as good a time as any for my occasional reminder that linking doesn’t always indicate 100% endorsement with everything and everyone linked to. But the links contain food for thought.

Happy Saturday!

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Here’s my latest collection of good reads online:

Seeing God’s Sovereignty in Our Suffering. “But in seasons of suffering, we have hope. Our hope is not some kind of wishful thinking that things will magically get better. Our hope is rooted in the bedrock, Bible-based truth that our God is sovereign and is orchestrating all of the events in our lives to accomplish His wise, good, and gracious purposes. ”

Calming the Soul in a Culture of Fear. How to combat fear arising from headlines and media.

Are You Storm-Tossed And Weary?, HT to Challies. “I just want them home safe—God wants to conform them to the image of his Son. I want them to be shielded from harm—he wants them to be holy. So, in prayer, I lay them at his feet, entrusting them to his care, and asking for wisdom for them and myself.”

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief, HT to Linda.

4 Things You Can Do For Your Mental Health During the Covid-19 Virus, HT to Linda

How Do I Overcome Comparison? The True Woman blog of the Revive Our Hearts ministry is doing a series called “Ask an Older Woman.” This is the second in the series, with some good advice.

How Do We Do Church Now? We Can Start With Prayer. Several things to pray for in connection with the coronavirus and it’s affect on us.

How the World Worshipped on One of the Most Unusual Sundays in Church History. This was neat: pictures from across the globe of people doing church remotely.

Ferdi, HT to Challies. While most of us appreciate the technology that allows up to “do church” to some degree virtually, we realize its limitations. But for some, this is the first time they get to meet with other believers.

What Will We Teach Our Kids About Trusting God? “Will we trust Him with the path ahead? Will we teach our children to trust even when things get dark? Or are we offering them a faith that is contingent on whether God does what seems right to them?”

The Gospel Is Worth the Embarrassment. There’s one odd sentence here I am not sure I agree with, but overall this is a good reminder that Jesus bore embarrassment for us. For whatever reason we feel a bit embarrassed to share His truth sometimes, it’s worth it.

I’ve mentioned Ron Hamilton several times on the blog. My kids grew up listening to Patch the Pirate, and I know and love several of the songs the Hamiltons have written and performed for years. Ron and his wife, and Shelly, were grad assistants when I was a college freshman. They were active in music ministry, so they were well known. A few years after they married, Ron lost an eye to cancer. That experience resulted in one of his most well-known songs, “Rejoice in the Lord,” his Patch the Pirate ministry to children (portions can be heard on BBN Radio on Saturday mornings), and his Majesty Music ministry for forty years. Ron and Shelly also experienced the mental illness and suicide of their son, Ron’s early-onset dementia, and Shelly’s auto-immune disease. I just watched these two videos with Shelly and was blessed to hear more of the story of God’s grace in their lives and news about how they are doing now. The videos are a bit longer than what I usually share here, but I thought some of you might be interested whether you were familiar with them before or not.

Hope you have a good Saturday.