Parental Support

The theme song for the year of 2020 should be Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive .  For all of you who just started singing it in your head, here's the link:  I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor .  Seriously though, 2020 has seen a pandemic, social unrest, a near collision with an asteroid, zombie fires (those are a thing??), murder hornets, re-emergence of cicadas, a Sahara dust cloud, tornadoes, earthquakes, broken dams, and skyrocketing unemployment and it's only July.  This will be a year to tell the grand kids as they sit wide-eyed listening to the struggles of the past.  Unfortunately, 2020 has also been a year for disappointment.  Seniors have lost out on graduations and senior proms, families have been forced to cancel long-awaited vacations, and kids have had their summer plans turned on their heads.  To say that 2020 has been hard to take in and process would be a huge understatement.  If ever there was a year to point to as proof of the need ...

Today I am burdened by the pain and hurt I see on display all around me.  Scrolling through my news feed, I see stories about people protesting, crying out against the pain and hurt they have experienced.  I read articles about those who are reeling at the loss of a loved one or the loss of a business.  There are stories about those who fear being infected by a deadly virus or who are grieving at a loss suffered because of it.  I see headlines about those who feel so alone that they chose to end their own lives to escape it.  My news feed is filled with the faces of people who are hurting, who are in pain, and who long for relief. The pain, featured so prominently on my the screen of my iphone, is the result of a single, pervasive disease that affects everyone and spares no one.  This disease is that of sin.  Ever since Adam and Eve took that fateful bite of fruit, the world has been writhing in pain (Rom. 8:22).  Sin has corrupted the earth and...