For Those Struggling With Fear and Anxiety

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Are you having "one of those days"? 

You're not alone.

Worn by Tenth Avenue North ("I'm tired.  I'm worn.  My heart is heavy, from the work it takes, to keep on breathing ..."  Anyone else understand this feeling too?)

I Have This Hope by Tenth Avenue North (I'm clinging to my hope, to the truth, that God will work all the bad into something good, that He will handle the things I can't handle and pick up the pieces I drop, that He'll carry me when I can't stand anymore, that He'll hold me when I hurt, and that someday soon Jesus will come back and take us home.)


For more encouragement:

"Help for Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts"

My "When Anxiety Strikes" Playlist 

And watch any video of Bob Ross painting (so relaxing!)


Most Popular Posts of the Week:

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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Jill 4 Today: Around the world in 80 breads

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While researching bread-baking around the world, I stumbled on this YouTube channel -  Jill 4 Today  - and I just have to say that I'm really enjoying her.  A lot of fun to watch.  And I love when older women do videos like these because it feels very homey, very grandmotherly.    I'm especially interested in her new series "Around the world in 80 breads."  And I love it that she makes some of these breads for the first time on camera, leaving in the doubts and mistakes and all.  Amusing and charming. Anyway, I'd love for her to actually do all 80 breads, but she doesn't think she'll get to them all.  So if anyone else is interested in this too, support her channel and send her some comments to encourage her to actually do all 80.  It'd be fun to see. Here are the three breads she's done so far: #1 No-knead French bread #2 Icelandic Rye Bread  (just listening to their reactions as they eat it makes me want to try it too) #3 German B...
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Psalm 5: A Prayer for Our Country and World

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Franklin Graham has called for a day of prayer and fasting tomorrow, October 25, for all believers to call on God for His help with the upcoming election.  I hope all believers will humble themselves before God, calling on Him for His help not just with the election but with everything -  the moral condition of our country, the breakdown of our society, the fear that haunts us all, the brokenness all around us as we humans implode and race towards wickedness and destruction, etc.  Everything is going wrong all over the place, and we need more than ourselves to fix it.  We need God.   Anyway, as I was reading Psalm 5 this morning, I realized what a fitting prayer it is for our country, our world, right now.  And so I am writing it here, altered slightly to be a prayer from all believers.   Sadly, I think we are past the point of repair.  I think our world has broken down so much that the only real hope left, unless God chooses to interv...
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Why is Calvinism so dangerous? #9 (Love and justice)

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  [In this series, I'm breaking the long post   "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?"   into bite-sized pieces.] 9. The Bible says ...  God shows H is love and His j ustice by sending Jesus to the cross to pay for our sins. But Calvinism says ...  God shows His love by saving the elect (and by caring for the non-elect on earth)  and He shows His justice by damning  the non-elect to hell for their sins/unbelief. Calvinists know the Bible says "For God so loved the world ...", and so to appear biblical they say "Of course, God loves everyone."  But secretly, they believe in  two different kinds  of love: a "salvation" kind of love for the elect and a mere "kindness" kind of love for the non-elect.   He shows His l ove to the elect  by predestining  them to heaven, but He shows His "love" to the   non-elect merely by providing  for their needs while t hey're on earth (before sending them to eternal hell for being th...
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Calvinism's Heart-Breaking Destruction

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Wanna see some of the real-life destruction that Calvinism does to hearts, souls, and faith?   Here are some comments (warning: bad language ahead) from a Reddit post called  "Calvinism is disgusting" , showing how people - who don't realize that Calvinism is NOT biblical - have been hurt by Calvinism and have ended up rejecting God altogether instead of just rejecting Calvinism.  Sadly, it's because they don't know that there's a  big difference  between the God of the Bible and the god of Calvinism, between the Bible's hope-filled gospel and Calvinism's sick, hopeless, twisted half-gospel. The reddit post starts out with this comment (I added punctuation to make it easier to read):  "I had a discussion with a Calvinist last night and it's more gross than I thought.  After questioning him for over an hour, it basically boiled down to the dude admitting that god predestined innocent children to a life of suffering and then hell, and that same ...
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Though they have eyes, they will not see

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[I originally posted this on one of my other blogs , Oct. 2021] So   according to this article , it appears that scientists have found evidence of the type of biblical destruction that happened to Sodom.  They say they found a town that was destroyed by a blast of heat so hot that it pretty much melted everything.  They say that there's no earthly natural heat source that could do this, so they speculate that it must have been an asteroid that exploded over the town, melting everything.  Oh, and they speculate that the reason no one lived there afterward was that the asteroid impact might have brought over so much salt from the nearby Dead Sea that nothing could grow.  This, they say, must be what inspired people to make up the story of Sodom in the Bible. But I say that here's your "asteroid," scientists: "The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens.  Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, incl...
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"Honestly, I Need To Be Broken"

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(A post from my other blog , written March 2, 2022.  I was only adding new posts to that blog at the time, so that's why it wasn't posted here earlier.) I would like to dedicate the following song to anyone who is breaking down right now - like how I broke down this past weekend, sobbing to my husband about everything that's wrong in life and then vomiting uncontrollably for 11 hours because of tension in my neck that triggers my "throw up" button.   Is anyone else exhausted from trying to bear up under the pressures of this fallen, evil, upside-down, post-Covid world, from watching all their expectations crumble, from feeling like the future is just one big blackhole for you and your kids, from not knowing where to turn or what to do or how to do it anymore, and from knowing that you have to  testify against a close relative  in court very soon?  (Okay, maybe that last one is just me.   I've been dizzy every day since just hours before I got the ...
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Spiritual Warfare: Satan's Schemes #3 (vulnerable in good times)

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Today we're going to look at a general time we're vulnerable to Satan's attacks, when we need to be alert, discerning, and careful.  And we'll look at a few more in the next posts.   ( I looked at fear, specifically, in  the last post .  So I won't cover it here.)    T he more aware we are of his schemes, the more we can recognize and resist them.   And notice it's "schemes" -  Ephesians 6:11 :  "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes"  - not willy-nilly, shot-in-the-dark attacks.  These are strategically-planned attacks, tailored to you. Satan (demons) knows each of us, our weaknesses, desires, hang-ups, etc.  He's been watching us our whole lives (and watching humankind for millennia).  He hears what we say, what we mumble under our breath.  He knows what we read and watch and listen to and gaze at.  He knows when we discreetly peek at something, when ...
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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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"Home Church" and Worship Songs

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Since   we left our church   in May 2019, we have been staying home   watching sermons online   as a family.  And I've loved it.  I could finally breathe and feel my soul starting to come alive again after years of being suffocated by and angry about  the wretched Calvinism   growing in our church.  I would rather be home alone with my family every Sunday than spend one more week listening to that Calvinist garbage! However, I have often thought that it would be nice to meet with at least one other family, doing like a "home church" thing, watching sermons online and discussing them, or just reading the Bible and discussing it amongst ourselves. And thankfully, we recently met up with another family who has also wanted to do that too, to meet together in a home and just pray together, read Scripture together (verse by verse through a book of the Bible),  talk about what we learn from God's Word, and maybe sing.   We met last we...
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