When to say yes | Stray Thoughts

Some of the thought-provoking reads found this week:

Euthanizing a Toddler Is Not Compassionate, HT to Challies. “A couple in the Netherlands euthanized their toddler. I read the headline again, sure I’d missed a keyword. I had not. A child with the same diagnosis (and similar disabilities) as my own daughter, Eliza, had died—not from natural causes or a horrific accident but by choice. Her parents, surely overwhelmed by fear and exhaustion, chose euthanasia to end their child’s life. Since 2024, children in the Netherlands ages 1 to 11 who have medical needs ‘without prospect of improvement’ have been legally permitted to have their lives ‘terminated.’ This little one was the first.”

Repentance: Recognizing How It All Went Wrong. “Biblical repentance is also a seismic shift in one’s entire worldview that begins in a moment of honest introspection: How did I get here? Where have I gone wrong? We must stop defending ourselves, recognize our need, and turn whole-heartedly back to God.”

Finding Hope at Life’s Dead Ends. “Have you ever reached a dead end — a situation beyond your control, when your dreams crumble, hopes fade, and others tell you to give up? Sometimes it takes one word to bring everything to a halt. Words like cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, infertility, and unemployment can make the future seem impossible. There is no such thing as hopelessness when Jesus is present and has the last word!”

Biblical Wisdom on When to Say Yes. “Whatever the season of life we are in, we most likely say life is busy. It moves fast, it’s full of demands, and time is often spread thin. The world around us tells us how to spend our time; the culture we live in pulls us in different directions. Work, volunteer opportunities, hobbies, kids’ activities, social media, and more encourage us to say yes to many things. The opportunities can feel endless, and the challenging part is that many of these yesses are for good things. For each of us, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to navigate what is pulling at us and ask what is best for the season of life God has called us to.”

When We Face a Relational Conflict. “It should be simple, but we all know how hard it is to talk directly to the person we should be talking to. When a situation goes sideways, the anxiety can feel like water bubbling up in a boiling hot pot—it needs somewhere to go, and fast.”

How to Forgive a Loved One After Their Death. “When someone we love passes away, we expect to feel sadness over our loss. But as we move further along in our grief, we may not anticipate the anger some memories trigger. Those who faced their disappointments while the person was alive may not feel this as much. But those who tried to ‘believe the best’ or covered their hurts with excuses may find themselves wrestling with the pain of past wrongs.”

Three Ways to Walk with Those Who Grieve, HT to Challies. “Often, we do not know how to step into spaces of loss. There is a beautiful and godly desire to bring comfort, yet when facing the reality of walking with the grieving, we are also confronted with the limits of the comfort we can actually offer. This holy work often brings with it an acute awareness of how easy it is to say the wrong thing and unintentionally add more pain to the one who is already suffering.”