Greeting Card Headaches

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Finding the right greeting card can be so frustrating.  

 Like, where is the "I'm sorry you got arrested and will probably spend the rest of your life in prison ... but even though this terribly affected our family and friends forever, I love you anyway and hope you have as merry of a Christmas as you can, under these circumstances" kind of card?

 Oh, the headaches of trying to find the perfect card!
(And, no, I'm not joking.  I mean, yes I am, to a degree.  But in a "if I don't laugh about it, then I'll cry" kind of way.)

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A cool LOTR channel

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I just found this YouTube channel that takes deep dives into The Lord of the Rings, and I'm really enjoying it (even if it is AI sound and images): The Sundered Age I've only seen two videos so far, but they are insightful, profound, and quite touching.  If you are a massive LOTR fan like I am, check them out and see what you think. Here are the two I watched: Why Galadriel Was the Most Dangerous Person in Middle earth | LOTR Lore Gandalf Would Have Been Worse Than Sauron! | LOTR Lore These videos aren't from a Christian perspective or anything (at least I don't think so), but it still relates in my mind, illustrating how wise and good God is to create people with free-will, instead of dominating everyone with His sovereign control.  (And at the same time, it illustrates how wrong it is for the Calvinist god to deny people true free-will, to control our wills so that we can only think and do what he decrees us to do.)  
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List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

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I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
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Motherhood Matters To The Ones Who Matter Most!

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Motherhood: It's not just something to do while you wait for a "real job" to come along. Motherhood IS the job - the job that matters most. Pour your heart into it.  Give it your all, your best.  "Just a mom" is an incredible privilege and a blessed responsibility.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Y ou might feel like you don't mean much to the world, but you can bet that you mean the world to your children! Make choices that honor their love for you, that show how much you value your children and your role as the only mother they have. I am proud to be a mother!
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If They Mated ...

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I think I stumbled upon the perfect "If They Mated ..." scenario for who I look like and how I act.  (You know, when they take two people and morph their faces into one to show what their offspring would look like if they mated.)  I wasn't trying to figure this out or anything; it just came to me as I was watching The Hobbit recently.  And once I saw it in my mind, I couldn't unsee it.  Then after I thought about possibly sharing it with all of you, my mind won't let it go until I do.  And so here it is, much to my chagrin... I kid you not, if you mixed these three characters - their looks and their personalities - you would totally have me.   Frankie Heck from The Middle (Someone once told me I looked like her, when I was a lot younger.  Actually, it was when she was in Everybody Loves Raymond , but we're both a lot older now.  And I was told once I looked like Winona Ryder, for a split second.  Ah, to be young again!) Bard...
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Anti-Calvinism Links

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This is the last half of the post "What's The Best Way To Make People Agree With Your Calvinist Views."   But I put it here in its own post so that it's easier to find. These are some links to posts which are against Calvinism, the belief that the Bible teaches God has predetermined from the beginning of time who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  It's no secret from my writing that I strongly disagree with this view.  I believe the Bible clearly teaches that God offers us all salvation, that Jesus's death paid for everyone's sins, and that we have to decide if we will accept Him or reject Him.  And here is some of what others have to say about Calvinism: (FYI, I haven't read everything in all of these yet and I don't necessarily agree with every point they make, but I needed to link to them before I lost them online.  And for the record, I came to my belief about what the Bible says by reading the Bible, not extra-biblical books or articles...
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Ironic, Isn't it? The Hypocrisy of the #MeToo Culture!

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Recently in the news , there's this judge who ruled that high school students have to share the showers with transgender students who identify as their sex, even if they are biologically the opposite sex (i.e. girls have to shower with people who have penises if the people who have penises call themselves "girls" and vice versa.) Isn't it ironic that a #metoo culture - where women are demanding that men who assaulted them or harassed them are punished for their lewd/offensive behavior against women - would allow a judge to force young girls to shower alongside naked penises? This judge then had the gall to tell families that if they don't like it then they can remove their children from the public school! So the parents - who pay for the schools with their taxes - have no say in protecting their naked girls from naked boys, from the emotional trauma or discomfort or potential physical trauma that comes with being forced to shower in extremely uncomfortable a...
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Many are Called, Few are Chosen (Tony Evans' Interpretation)

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 There are some verses in the Bible that will always be confusing and cause disagreement.  And the "many are called/invited, few are chosen" verse is one of them. Matthew 22:1-14:   "The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son.  He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.... So his servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.  But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.  'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?' The man was speechless.  Then the king told the attendants, 'Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' 'For many are invited, but few are chosen.'" Some people th...
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Do Calvinists Really Believe God Causes Sin? Let Them Speak For Themselves!

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"You don't understand Calvinism" is the rebuttal we hear from Calvinists when we say that their theology makes God the cause of evil (and that He punishes us for doing the evil He caused us to do). I think there are a few possibilities for why this is so: 1.   Those Calvinists don't really understand their own theology because they haven't bothered to carry out their views to their logical conclusions.  (Which I think is most Calvinists.  I think most Calvinists think Calvinism is simply believing in God's sovereignty.  And they want to honor God, to humble themselves before Him, to acknowledge His sovereignty over all.  They are trying to do the right thing.  But they don't realize that Calvinism's view of sovereignty is a twisted, wicked version of it, very contrary to the Bible's presentation of God's sovereignty.  And if they bothered to really think about what their version of "sovereignty" does to God's character and the...
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My Testimony

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I've scattered bits of my story all over my blogs, but I’m gonna pull it all together here, about how I became a believer and some things I’ve gone through and how my faith has been affected.  (I’ll include links to posts where I explain things more fully.) Starting the journey:    I became a believer when I was eleven years old.    (I am now getting close to 50.   I don't know how that happened. )    At a Christian camp, on one of the last nights, they gave an altar call.    I wanted to go up but was nervous about standing up in front of everyone.    But being more nervous about the window of opportunity closing, I felt myself stand up and walk to the front.    I knew exactly what I was doing, that I was making a commitment for life.    And I meant it.    I really meant it.    I knelt down, asked Jesus into my heart, and have never turned back.    It hasn’t been an easy, carefr...
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