All posts filed under: z24

Photo: Justin K./Flickr/Creative Commons

It doesn’t have to be a life sentence

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I lost my eldest son Graham in 2004 to suicide. Six years later my grief took me to a five-day seminar to help deal with the emotional upheaval in my life due to his death. I had filled out their forms, answered questions, shared my story and the reasons why I wanted to attend the seminar. On the first day, we all received a name tag. One facilitator came up to me and gave me mine. I glanced at it as I took it from her hand. The words “life sentence” we’re neatly printed on it.  It caught me completely off guard.  It took a few days into the seminar to face the cold hard facts. As  judge, juror and prosecutor, I had sentenced myself to a life-time of guilt and shame  for the death of my son. Death from suicide carries a stigma with it and the grieving is more complex. I could not understand why my son took this drastic measure. He willingly left us. I did something wrong. My husband and I …

Crucifixion by Dutch painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669)

Some say Easter is early this year, one ancient scholar says it’s right on time

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I have heard a few comments that Easter is early this year, which leads to the obvious questions why is it early and why do the dates fluctuate so much? Well you can blame the council of Nicea, held in 325 AD, for this. During that meeting the early church leaders laid down the calculation used to determine the date for Easter. At the time, there were two camps with differing opinions as to when Easter should be celebrated. There were those who felt it should be held at the same time as the Jewish Passover when the Romans crucified Christ. Since the Bible describes Jesus as the Paschal lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7), this seemed the logical choice. However there was a second group wanting to separate it from the Jewish Passover, since the Jews had rejected Jesus as their Passover lamb. This was only partially true as thousands of Jews did accept Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. It was this latter group that won the day at Nicea. Easter would be separate from the …

Cappadoina home of the fairy chimneys. Photo: Benh Lieu Song/Wikipedia

Preaching the gospel among the fairy chimneys

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When writing his first epistle, the Apostle Peter addresses it to the elect living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1). The Apostle’s second letter was also written to these same groups of people (2 Peter 3:1). But in this list, there is one very strange place — Cappadocia, home of the fairy chimneys. Located in modern Turkey, the area is composed of a unique landscape made up of a thick layer of tufa, a soft stone made of volcanic ash from nearby volcanoes that mixed with mud and lava. Because the rock is soft, it is easily sculpted by wind, rain and water run-off forming a bizarre landscape more at home in a science fiction movie than on earth. With a landscape filled with an estimated 50,000 spires, turrets, cones and pyramids, Cappadocia is Turkey’s most famous tourist attraction. Some, because of their unique caps, have been given the name fairy chimneys. (At the end of the article there is a small slide show of the area.) Over the centuries people …

Jennifer Garner at the opening of The Invention of Lying at the Toronto Film Festival in 2009. Photo: Reza Vaziri/Flickr/Creative Commons

Was actress Jennifer Garner impacted by a miracle?

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Actress Jennifer Garner, 43, recently announced that she and her three children are starting to attend church as a direct result of Garner’s starring role in the Christian movie Miracles from Heaven. Garner said they have rarely missed a Sunday since. Jennifer who  separated from her husband Ben Affleck comes from a Christian background and growing up lived for a few years in Calgary, Alberta. Garner made her big break playing a CIA officer in the ABC spy-thriller Alias where she won a Golden Globe and received three Emmy nominations for her performance. She has also shown up on the big screen acting in movies such a Daredevil, Juno, Dallas Buyers Club and recently Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day. Miracles made from Heaven, produced by Affirm Film that lists popular pastor T.D. Jakes as one of its producers, is scheduled for release March 16, 2016. In the movie, Jennifer plays Christy Beam, the real-life mother of a young girl named Annabelle who was miraculously spared serious injury after falling down …

A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4

A safe place to grieve

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My first-born son, Graham, died when he was eighteen years old. He took his life while stranded on a country road in his vehicle. A few months after he passed away my grief counselor advised me to find a place where I could go and “let it all out and cry hard to release my painful emotions.” At that time I was not able to speak about my son’s tragic death to anyone.  My heart felt like it was frozen. Even when I was alone the tears would not come. I didn’t trust myself or anyone else enough to talk about it and expose my raw emotions. I was too hurt to do that. I have always found great comfort in writing.  It was easy for me to pour out my thoughts and feelings on paper. I missed my son terribly so I wrote him a letter to tell him things about myself and how his family was coping. I wanted to share it with him! “And God will wipe away every tear from their …

Selena Gomez in concert. Photo: Ronald Woan/Flickr/Creative Commons

Selena Gomez surprises crowd with a performance at Hillsong concert

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I sometimes get a bit gun-shy writing about the faith of celebrities because invariably something hits the media that can taint their testimony. But then I ask how any of us would fare if we were faced with media and others watching, listening, photographing and videoing everything you said and did, day and night. So my tendency, right or wrong, is to give them the benefit of the doubt. If in this growing anti-Christian climate a person is willing to step up and profess their faith in Christ, I say God Bless. Former Disney star Selena Gomez is latest to come out publicly about her faith in Jesus. Selena, 23, is a singer and actress who was the one-time girl friend of Canadian pop star Justin Bieber. She just released an album in October entitled “Revival.” It debuted as #1 on the Billboard 200 and went on to earn a Gold rating. On February 25th, Selena surprised a Los Angeles crowd attending Hillsong Young & Free Revival concert, when she stepped on stage, and joined …

Rwanda refugee camp Photo: Elisa Finocchiaro/Flickr/Creative Commons

Lies and Refugees

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World news everywhere is about refugees and migrants. Millions of people are leaving their homes and travelling to better places. In France the “Jungle” camp for migrants who want to break into Britain is being moved, with tear gas and rock throwing. Police in Macedonia are keeping migrants out, with tear gas and rubber bullets. Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the Mexican border, where organized crime cartels smuggle people, and kill the surplus. And the list goes on. I live in Canada where the government promised, in October 2015, to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees by Christmas. They achieved the number by March of 2016. Something is missing in all these stories. Some clues about the missing story are the delay in bringing refugees to Canada, and the strange story about refugees from Iraq, living in Finland, returning home by the thousands, and kissing the ground of Iraq when they get off the plane. Someone lied. I live in a wealthy place that is now in a severe recession; where the government …

Dealing with the pain of grief.

How grief tilted my world

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My first-born son, Graham, died on January 15, 2004. He was 18 years old.  He took his own life while stranded on a country road in his own vehicle. My world took a serious tilt. My perspective on life shifted to the dark side. Everything and everyone changed as I viewed them through the eyes of grief. I didn’t know what to do with the people who surrounded me and engaged in life with me. I was terrified to talk about the loss of my son. Not feeling free to share feelings and thoughts hindered my grieving process.  I read the Bible and books on grief and suicide hoping this would help me deal with people’s questions and comments. Nothing could prepare me though. I had to face it alone and walk through the unknown waters of grief and let the waves splash over me. People meant well and out of the uncertainty of what to say their comments sometimes came across the wrong way — like my son’s suicide was probably for the best …

Artist's conception of an asteroid. Image NASA/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

NASA tweets about a massive asteroid blast over the Atlantic on February 6, 2016

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NASA is reporting that on February 6, 2016, an asteroid exploded over the Atlantic ocean about 1,000 kms (620 miles) off the coast of Brazil. The news of explosion was tweeted by NASA’s Ron Baalke. This is the largest asteroid explosion since the one that hit Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. NASA estimates this year’s explosion was the size of the nuclear bomb that hit Hiroshima in World War 11. But with a blast equal to 13,000 tons of TNT, it was minuscule compared to the 19-meter asteroid that exploded over Chelyabinsk. Scientists estimated that blast at 400,000 tons of TNT. Nearly, 1,600 people were injured as result of exploding glass caused by the explosion. It is estimated the asteroid off Brazil was about a third the size — maybe five to seven meters wide. NASA says there are several asteroids exploding in the atmosphere each year, but since most happen over the ocean they go unnoticed. Because of the dangerous threats they pose to human life, NASA tracks asteroids. Of the 12,992 asteroids that it …

Northridge megachurch in Plymouth, Michigan. Photo: Dwight Burdette/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

Study reveals weaknesses in mega churches

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A study just released by Duke University revealed a concerning weakness in big churches. The larger a church becomes the more sporadic its members are when it comes to church attendance and less likely they are to volunteer. The study was conducted by David Eagle, who teaches at Duke’s Center for Health Policy and Inequalities. Eagle formerly pastored a church in Canada and it was this experience that led to his interest in conducting the study. In an interview with the Christian Post, he said while in Canada there was a major push by his denomination on church growth. He was told larger churches would result in more non-Christians attending. Eagle said: “I was skeptical of this approach, and began to think that an emphasis on growth could lead to unintended consequences — things like creating a less involved membership.” For his study he analyzed data from the National Congregations Study and the General Social Survey in the US. He compared church attendance among four major church groups — Conservative Churches, Roman Catholic, Black Protestant …