Category Archives: Christian Living

Large Doses of Blessing

By Nancy Ann | Filed under Affliction, Christian Living

FullSizeRender(1)One of the things we regularly hear is how wonderful our Christian community is here in our little town. And it really is. We have many faithful churches, a Christian college downtown, Logos School,  home-school groups, Canon Press, and many flourishing businesses owned and operated by Christian people. We have many opportunities to celebrate together at weddings, showers, potlucks, prayer groups, book groups, Bible studies, psalm sings, and women’s fellowship gatherings. And when a need arises through illness or loss, meals are made and varieties of help are sent.  And I only know the half of it. Most of this happens from the ground up. It is not always “organized” by the church proper, but rather the saints are simply active, engaged, and hungry to give and serve one another. It is such an outpouring,  it is hard to believe unless you have seen it with your own eyes. God has clearly blessed our community in a remarkable way.

Not only has God blessed us with rich fellowship, but He also blesses us with an occasional outburst of slander against our church. Back in the 1980’s, it was confined to the front page of our daily small-town paper and the letters-to-the-editor section. (Nothing like slander to sell papers when there’s not much else happening.) Then as the years went by, the internet provided an easy way to sponsor a slanderous outburst (no editors to deal with, so everyone can participate in spreading lies and venting bitterness, even with bad spelling).And so it goes.

I haven’t kept track, but it seems to erupt every few years. In fact, this is the second time I have had a beautiful grandchild born in the midst of “public calumny” against  my husband. (I couldn’t keep the news out of this post that Moses Henry Jankovic was born two days ago!) I have come to believe that this strange phenomenon is a significant part of the reason for the rich blessings of our community life that I described above. Here’s why I believe this: Jesus said so.

“Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11).

In other words, when our church and pastor are lied about, we are blessed. And so our church community benefits from these large doses of slander every so often because they are actually large doses of blessing. Our job is to rejoice and be extra glad during these times because a reward for us is accumulating in heaven. I believe this Read More

Ready for Good Works

By Nancy Ann | Filed under Christian Living

photo(80)  I love this picture. It is a little volunteer snap dragon that showed up in my retaining wall, and it is happily doing what God has called it to do in the toughest of places. And it keeps blooming! This is what good works are all about.

The short book of Titus has quite a bit to say to us about good works, and I think we women need to be encouraged that so much of what we do in our homes for our families, as well as what we do for the broader Christian community, falls under this category of “good works.” We are all capable and qualified for everyday good works, works that flow out of our calling, whatever that might be. We don’t have to look for “designer” good works, but rather we should be content to offer our talents and time and energy to God to give ourselves away to the people who need us. The people here, right now. Not the imaginary people who live far away, but the ones in our lives now. That means the little people, the old people, the hungry people, even the grouchy people who don’t say thanks.
God has set us apart as “His own special people, zealous for good works” (2:14). He gave Himself for us, redeemed us, purified us for Himself, and now He has given us good things to do. We are to be eager, enthusiastic, and passionate about this business of good works. Not half-hearted, not willy-nilly, but seriously devoted.
In chapter three he tells us to “be ready for every good work” (verse 1). We are to be on our toes, looking out for Read More

The Receiving Department

By lizziejank | Filed under Christian Living, Mothering

IMG_1087(Photo of my son, Shadrach – now a hearty three-year-old. Our #anotherboy is not due for another 8 weeks or so.)

Once upon a time, more than three years ago, I found out I was pregnant. I had been pregnant before of course, (and I am pregnant now too), but I remember this time as being particularly hard. I had five busy children all over the house, and this pregnancy thing is no little commitment. We love babies in this house, but we are forced to greet their arrival with a lot of realism. The hopeful mist of sweetness is very quickly dispelled by a period of really serious darkness. Because when our babies are the size of a poppy seed they upset the entire freight train of our household flow. I get sick. So sick. I can’t walk in the kitchen, think about food, hear about food, or eat food. I try to eat it of course, and I lose most of it right after. For my husband it means a few months of constantly trying to find things to feed me, feed the children, trying to handle the other essentials of life, picking up my part of carpool, etc. etc. Read More

Washed in the Blood

By lizziejank | Filed under Christian Living

I am sure that most of you are well acquainted with the Planned Parenthood sting videos by now.  And while there are so many things that I keep meaning to write about, this subject is just so heavy right now that it seems silly to write about anything else.

So here I am again, wanting to express how deeply grateful I am for this opportunity. So thankful for the heaviness. For the angry responses we see from friends who don’t agree with us. So thankful for the mercy of this opportunity. Thankful to see other Christians emboldened to speak out. To name this wickedness for what it is , an offense against a Holy God. Read More

Tell Your Story

By Nancy Ann | Filed under Christian Living

With each new video of the Planned Parenthood atrocities, though I find myself stricken speechless, I thank God that I have a greater sense of the tremendous guilt that rests on this country. The blood guilt stretches from sea to shining sea. And I wonder about all those millions of individuals who are living under this load of personal guilt. You know, they are everywhere. “Another boy” (you know, the one on the petri dish) has a mother somewhere, and God knows her name. And she is guilty. And that little dismembered child has a father as well. And God knows his name and will hold him accountable.

You can’t have millions upon millions of abortions without there being millions upon millions of the guilty. And I wonder if that might be one of the reasons (maybe) that so many Christians haven’t yet spoken up. Is it because they have had some share in this sometime, some way? Maybe you are one of those. Maybe you have had an abortion. Or two. Maybe you encouraged a friend or a sister or a daughter to abort their child. Maybe you even paid the bill, made the appointment, promised not to tell.

Each time we see more of the carnage on the videos, the more real the Read More

Victims and Perpetrators

By rebekah | Filed under Christian Living
Another view of this scene that was taken from the back of the theater.
Nazi soldiers watching videos of the death camps after the war – how weirdly ironic is the PP on their shirts?

So. These horrific Planned Parenthood videos. As I’ve been watching this all unfold, there are a couple things I keep noticing – just a jumble of thoughts, really.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that this entire horror show is run by women. It’s startling actually. The abortion doctors, the nurses, the baby-part-wholesalers, the corporate bureaucracy, and obviously every mother who turns up at a Planned Parenthood chop shop to have her own baby executed and sold for parts. Clearly, the entire situation is built on the premise of men’s sin . . . but the fact remains that this grisly, depraved, monstrous assault on human dignity is being conducted by women. I’ve seen a lot of “this is a war on women” and “women betrayed” kind of language lately . . . and it’s completely true. But the thing I continue to find odd is that it’s a war on women which is being conducted by women. Everyone (rightly) keeps noticing parallels between America’s abortion mills and Nazi Germany, but I think there’s another similarity besides the gruesome nature of the problem and the massive body count. Read More