The FACS of Life

Dear Millennials,  (Those born in the 90s and early 2000s) I was born in 1985.  I am part of a lost half generation, Generation Y, as it used to be called, shaped by the on spurt of the Internet and rapidly changing technologies.  I remember life without the Internet.  I remember life without smartphones.  I was in college when social media became a thing.   I look at you and my heart aches.  You are a boat, adrift in the open sea with no anchor or guiding light.  You were thrown to the wolves with no sense of right and wrong.  You had social media accounts in high school and even some of you, in middle school.  I cannot imagine that type of world.  Adolescence was hard enough without it being displayed for the whole world to see.  Your self image was influenced by some many impossible standards and fake images that you began to think that was reality.  You aren’t even allowed to have an opinion because by having even...

Do you remember doing research papers in school?  One of the first things they taught us was to check our sources.  Just because you read it doesn’t make it true.  My mother taught me a valuable lesson early on in my life.  She would reward us with a dime every time we saw an ad on TV promising something if we purchased that product.  For example, If I buy those shoes, I’ll run faster and have more friends, ect. You get the picture, just because something is said online or on TV doesn’t mean it the truth or more accurately, the whole truth.  Why have we lost this common sense proverb in our current information overloaded society? We have endless information at our fingertips, constantly.  News travels faster than is ever has before in the history of Mankind.  But with this speed comes inaccuracy.  Sources don’t take the time to fact check as was common practice in days gone by.  It’s become, "report first, ask questions later." Many thin...

 I want to use all of these things in part 1 to address the current atmosphere in our country.  It is a combination of all of these things as to why there is so much unrest in our country.  Information is coming at us so fast and with such volume that we are not able to search for truth.  The sources behind much of this information have an agenda and they want their research to prove causation and to prove their point.  They are using headlines and images that cause us to go to our reactive and emotional brain instead of our logical brain.   Specifically I want to speak to systemic racism and white privilege.  Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech was "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." This is an amazing statement and I can completely get behind it.  It is about true equality and that we should be judged no...

 Now, this last segment is directed towards the church, specifically, and those who are leaning towards a socialistic society.  Warning, I am very passionate about this subject so you are about to hear some very strong opinions.  But the alternative is too scary.  I must speak! We all saw and experienced recently what a socialist society would actually look like. The government recently shut down the entire country due to COVID. So many were completely dependent on the government for their income. The lucky few were able to remain independent. It was a horrible feeling and led to many social and emotional problems. Our churches were shut down and now only able to open with mask and number restrictions. Thankfully our president believes in capitalism and reopened as soon as he could. We as Christians will not have all our current freedoms of religion under a socialistic government.   Government is not the gospel, it is not Christ. It does not save people or ...

Have you ever felt God’s absence? I never had in my life.  I grew up in a Christian home, was baptized when I was 9, and lived my whole life knowing and seeking God.  I have been through many trials in my life each with God bringing me through closer to Him and with a deeper faith.  All of these trials have been more difficult then my current one.  Which is what puzzled me at first as to why this trial seemed to way so heavily on my husband and I.     Let me back up a bit, every year for the past few years I’ve asked God for a word of the year instead of a New Year’s resolution.  For 2019 I felt Him give me “dreams” as our word of the year.  The year started off well enough with 2 dreams quickly realized.  I became a notary, which I‘ve wanted to do for awhile. Also, we purchased a building for our business, which was anther long time dream of ours.  We were starting the year off strong, but little did I know we would be in for a yea...