What if You Suddenly Died?

             

        Several years ago, a woman at the place of my employment received a devastating telephone call. Her husband was killed in an automobile accident while travelling for a work assignment. The woman was absent from work for about a week for bereavement and funeral leave.

        When she returned to work, she was still obviously very withdrawn and possibly in a state of depression. Unlike some, she was willing to talk. After relaying my sympathies to her, what I said next seems to have greatly improved her mood. 

        I told her that she could be proud that, when her husband died, he was where he was supposed to have been and was doing what he was supposed to have been doing.  He was a man of honor, fulfilling his responsibilities.  His wife smiled.

        If you had a sudden massive heart attack and died on the spot, what would you want your wife and children to be told? That you died on your way to a scheduled business meeting or that you lied to them and died while having sex with a prostitute?

Casein Protein Intolerance

             Agalee Jacob, a Canadian dietitian and diabetes educator. says. " Lactose intolerance , which is an intolerance to the sugar found in milk, is one of the most common food intolerances, but an intolerance to casein can sometimes cause similar symptoms." Casein is a milk protein rather than a sugar. Milk to most people is a harmless and tasty food ingredient. To persons with a milk product intolerance it is basically a poison.
             Intolerances to food products which most people can safely consume. can, in the intolerant individual almost instant bloating, cramping,. flatulence. and diarrhea.Sufferers acn experience either or both of these food intolerances.
             It is possible to purchase lactose-free products which can be safely consumed by the lactose intolerant person but not all of these products are also casein-free. An example is a "dairy free" coffee creamer which contains "casein. a milk derivative."
             In our lives as Christians, many things are tasty and pleasant but they can also sometimes cause discomfort or even intense pain. Sports.our occupations, literature. culinary adventures, travel, etc, can all be positive and fulfilling experiences. When they are allowed to become obsessions that interfere with our family and Christian duties. they can cause injury in our lives. Anything which distracts us enough to make us less useful to our families and to our Lord is damaging.
              Oddly enough. some Christians unintentionally cause severe injury in their families their personal lives. and in their relationship with the Lord. when they become obsessive about "church work.
               These are people who are unable to say "no" to any church related request. It is important to understand that God is not the one asking you to be involved in EVERY church project or activity. Often, when you try to do too much you end up accomplishing very little and you may cause emotional and spiritual injury to yourself and others along the way. How does it honor God for you to perform forty-five church projects at the cost of neglecting your husband and your children? Your emotional and spiritual burnout does not honor God. It makes you less useful to Him.
               It is much better to choose two or three activities into which you feel especially led by the Lord and to do them excellently without neglecting yourself or your family.

The First Meal As a Married Couple

"A couple sat down to eat their first meal as newlyweds.  The wife said, "today I learned how to make meat loaf and chocolate cake."

The husband looked at his plate and said, "That's great, honey!  Which one is this?"

From the Big Book of Church Jokes, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

A Wedding Hope

“I hope you realize what a generous and giving person you are marrying,” the bride’s father said to the groom.

“I do sir!” said the groom. “And I hope she inherited those fine qualities from her father.”

“From The Big Book of Church Jokes, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.”

She Listened to the Lord

Kylie Bisutti won her dream job as a Victoria 's Secret lingerie model in 2009 in a competition with 10,000 other models.  In 2012, she quit the financially lucrative position because she had come under conviction that the lifestyle she was leading was in conflict with her Christianity .  She is still a model, but now it is not in her underwear.   She had become convinced that "My body should be only for my husband and it's just a sacred thing."

"The New York Same Sex Marriage Vote" Revisited, #4

On 28 June 2011, I posted "The New York Same-Sex Marriage Vote" and promised, "More on tax-exempt status, homosexuality, persecution, and marriage later."  Today, marriage.

"Because the Bible says so" doesn't hold much water with the rest of the world.  The world doesn't, for the most part, accept our values.  Most people in Western countries think that marriage is between a man and a woman because that is how it "just is," "that's the way it has always been."  That is, of course, not actually true.

Marriage worldwide has taken many forms: multiple husbands for a single wife; multiple wives for a single husband; one man, one woman for life; group marriage of multiple husbands and multiple wives all of whom "belong" to everyone; serial marriages to individual spouses; "open" marriages into which other persons may be temporarily inserted for sex; marriages for legal purposes in which the "spouses" might never even meet one another; marriages between children and adults; wives who may be "shared"with visitors as a form of polite hospitality; a form of prostitution called "comfort marriages" in which men marry and then divorce the wife in a single afternoon so their sexual relations will not be considered to be illegitimate; and many other variations.  

For the Christian, the words of Jesus in the Bible are authoritative.


"And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,  And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?  Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."  Matthew 19:4-6


I predict that we will eventually lose the battle over same-sex marriage.  Remember that the world does not share our values, except incidentally.  The modern argument is that there are no absolute values; nothing is always true; there may not even be such a thing as "truth.".  Your "truth" may not be my "truth."


Public opinion can be easily swayed by seemingly reasonable arguments about "fairness."
We are called to obey the truth as given to us by God, not as determined by the changing opinions of men.  We must understand that this will in no way convince the rest of the world and they may react very negatively to us.  We must decide which we value more, the opinion of other people or the opinion of God.  This makes our choice very simple and,  possibly, very difficult.


A possible option if we eventually lose the legal battle over same-sex marriage: drop our tax exemption status and continue to do what we know is right.  Hold religious wedding ceremonies which we consider to be binding and submit whatever civil paperwork is required to make our marriages "legal."


R. Albert Mohler, Jr., the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, speaks on this subject in "Evangelicals and the Gay Moral Revolution," an article appearing on page A13 in the Friday 1 July 2011 issue of The Wall Street Journal.  The chilling final sentence of the article is "We are about to find out just how much we believe the Gospel we so eagerly preach."

A Cemetery Inscription in Burlington, Vermont

Burlington, Vermont (2000 census population: 38,889) is the smallest city in the United States to also be the largest city in its state.  The following is a gravestone inscription found in one of its older cemeteries.

Her family probably didn't mean this in the way it sounds.

"She lived with her husband for 50 years

And died in the confident hope of a better life."

Intimacy4us

I have added the website, www.intimacy4us.com, to the list of blogs and websites which I check regularly. Each of the websites and blogs on the list contributes to the theme of this blog that Christians should be and are represented in every legitimate human field of endeavor and are “on the loose;” “ακωλητοσ” (“unhindered”).

www.intimacy4us.com  is a site for married Christian women which is dedicated to fostering and enhancing their experience of physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy with their husbands.