“Perhaps this catastrophe is also a new birth for Haiti.”

Random radio searching while driving today brought this remarkable perspective from a Haitian who has survived the major catastrophic earthquake in his country.

It’s an interesting thought. There is always pain before a new birth. Yet a new birth holds so much promise and potential.

It’s hard to imagine how life changed in an instant for many Haitians. What many of them knew as regular life is now gone. Familiar faces and empty hearts echo the depth of their loss. Home is no longer a place they can return to. We can only imagine the deep void that is left in the hearts and minds of those hurting.

Yet in the midst of it all comes this voice of new birth … this voice of hope.  Perhaps a re-born nation could be stronger; perhaps a new unity among the survivors will generate new possibilities. This voice of hope, randomly caught from the airwaves brings hope also to those of us here, those of us outside the area of devastation.

The aid of the world will bring new hope and new opportunities. Coupled with the hope and help of the Haitian people themselves there is hope for Haiti’s tomorrow.

First, food and shelter to bring immediate relief. Then re-building comes.

Won’t you be a part of the immediate hope for the people of Haiti as well as the hope for the future?

Contribute to Power to Change’s relief efforts in Haiti through our ministry partner Global Aid Network (GAiN). You can also view videos of GAiN’s efforts in Haiti and read their press release.

On January 12, 2010 a devastating earthquake hit Haiti just a few miles south of the capitol.

In a report for CNN, anchor Anderson Cooper reported that in Haiti it’s rare for buildings to use reinforced concrete.  When a quake hits, buildings just crumble.  Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas are incredibly densely populated, putting hundreds of thousands of people at risk in the wake the disaster.

“Because of the earthquake’s proximity to the capital, and because the city is densely populated and has poorly constructed housing, ‘it could cause significant casualties,’ said Jian Lin, a senior geologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.”(CNN.com)

Reports are pouring in of people running screaming from a collapsed hospital. There are photographs of incredible damage to the presidential palace – a beautiful building just days ago.  Ethan Park arrived in Haiti a couple of hours before the quake and was on the road outside the capitol when it hit.  He wrote, “we were in our vehicle on the way out of Port aux Prince when it struck…the road lifted and people were flying [through] the air.”

Haiti is one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere.  Most of Haiti’s nine million citizens survive on only $2 a day.  Year after year terrible hurricanes slam into the island displacing hundreds of thousands of people.  Haiti has a hard enough time surviving on a good day.  A quake like this can be catastrophic.

You can help

Global Aid Network (GAiN) is an aid provider who has worked in Haiti before.  They are preparing Emergency Response packages with water purification tablets, food and personal hygiene supplies.  All it takes is  $115 to feed a family of six for a week – that’s less than $1 per meal.  You can donate now and know that your aid will arrive in Haiti as quickly as possible.  Since it began in 1998, GAiN Canada has mobilized resources to help people in over 35 countries around the world.  GAiN is a registered NGO.

Where is God in all this?

When disaster strikes, it’s common to wonder “does God care?”   The pain and agony of fellow human beings in the midst of disaster goes beyond our comprehension. Our minds scramble to make sense of human suffering and we simply cannot.  We can agonize over the possibilities as we seek to answer the heart wrenching, “Why?” Yet we cannot understand God nor can we always determine the answer to the difficult “why?” even though we try desperately. Is God on our side?

Tell us what you think

We want to hear your thoughts as you watch the aftermath of this disaster unfold.

Talk about disaster and pain

*Photo courtesy of  US Department of State. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/pix/index.htm

The shooting began at about 1330 (1930 GMT) on Thursday at a personnel and medical centre at Fort Hood – the largest US military base in the world, home to about 40,000 troops.

The commander of the base, Lt Gen Robert Cone, told NBC News that, according to eyewitnesses, Mr Hasan had shouted the Arabic phrase “Allahu Akbar!” [God is great] before opening fire.

He was shot four times during the attack and is currently being treated in hospital under armed guard.

Reports suggested that he had been increasingly unhappy in the military and that his work at his previous post – Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC – had been the subject of concern.

The New York Times said the FBI had been investigating internet postings by a man called Nidal Hasan that appeared to back suicide bombings – but said it was not clear whether it was the suspect.

How can we respond to such acts of terrible violence? Recently, Gary, a young man with a family living in Canada, faced an attack of his own: A package bomb left on the back steps of his home. Not knowing what the package was, he picked it up, and it exploded in his hands. Read Gary’s story of his survival, and how he was able to respond to an act of senseless violence.

If you are grieving or dealing with disappointment or despair, please contact us today to talk about it, we’re always here to listen.

Image credit: Daniel Greene, used with permission, Creative Commons 2.0 License.

We had recently sold our cozy townhouse and were excited to move into a larger home with a yard for our daughters.  The day started out with a quiet breakfast of tea and cinnamon buns.   We were reflecting on the many fond memories from our time living in this wonderful, friendly neighborhood. Moving to a new neighborhood was going to be harder than we thought.

After breakfast, my wife Lynda and I kissed our two daughters, ages one and three, good-bye as they joyfully went to spend the day with their Oma.   We didn’t want to  worry about them getting in the way during a hectic day of moving.  The moving truck  came right on time and a handful of family and friends showed up to help us load up and get on our way. One of the last items that needed to be loaded onto the truck was the BBQ. I tossed the wet BBQ cover over the balcony railing and my father helped me carry the BBQ down the stairs. As I went to retrieve the BBQ cover from the back yard I discovered an unexpected package sitting directly in front of the back door.

An ordinary day flipped upside down

“How nice!” I thought. “One of our neighbors has left us a going away present.  I really will miss this neighborhood. It’s too bad the kids aren’t home to enjoy whatever surprise gift they would find inside.”   As I picked it up and as I walked through the back room and into the garage I remember wrestling in my mind about what I should do with the gift.  Should I put it on the truck for the kids to open later?  Should I run it up to Lynda for her to open?  While I stood there wondering, the brightly colored package violently exploded in my hands.

The deafening blast felt like a vicious slap by a tsunami of fire.  It had enough force to send me flying backwards, violently knocking the wind right out of me.  I was stunned, injured and in excruciating pain. My first thoughts, next to the utter shock of realizing that it was a bomb, were towards God. Before I hit the ground I sensed a deep connection with him as I asked with great surprise: “What do you want to do with this?”

Lying on the garage floor, holding my face together with my hands and gasping for breath my thoughts quickly turned to how grateful I was that my two precious daughters were not here to experience this horrific trauma. I was also grateful that my wife was upstairs packing, and my father was in the back room picking up boxes.   The blast sent razor sharp shrapnel tearing through my face, chest, arms and legs. I was bleeding from my face and having a difficult time catching my breath. All I could do to breathe was to breathe through a scream. The garage was full of thick smoke and I could hear my dad and my wife calling for me. As I lay on the floor desperately trying to stop the blood that was gushing from my face I could hear many people scrambling and screaming for someone to call 9-1-1.

The bomb left me with a severely lacerated face, abdomen, chest, and arm. I had a hole in my abdomen and burns from my abdomen to my knees.  My sinus was shattered and my jaw was cracked.   I was relieved to find so many people quickly coming to my aid. The police were just down the street when they received the many frantic 9-1-1 calls.  The ambulance seemed to only take minutes to arrive on the scene.  The next thing I knew, I was sitting outside on the sidewalk with a towel pressed up against my face.  Soon I was whisked off in the ambulance for a number of surgeries and five days in the hospital.

Seeing the destruction

I had the opportunity to return to our townhouse after I was released from the hospital. I was shocked to learn the extent of the damage done to our home. The blast blew large holes through the walls, ceiling and even the cement floor. It even blew through the neighbor’s window across the street. When I saw the damage done to one of our hardwood dining room chairs that was waiting to be loaded in the truck, I knew that it was only by the grace of God that I was still alive.

The experience sent my family and entire community into absolute chaos.  Everyone was asking the same question, “Who would plan to bomb and kill an innocent family like ours?” I have great confidence in the Langley RCMP and the officers who we have trusted to bring the people or person responsible to justice.  But a year after the incident, the question of “who?” still remains unanswered.  While there is no evidence to suggest that the bomb was targeted towards me or our family in anyway, we can see that whoever planned, built and carefully planted this evil device must have been tormented with incredible anger and hate.

Ever since our peaceful world had been so violently interrupted, I have become much more aware of the violence that continues to make headlines throughout our world and even my community.  Whether it is international news of a child suicide bomber, the latest victim of gang violence, or headlines of police being deployed with automatic assault rifles, we all recognize that something is terribly wrong with our world. We know deep in our souls that this is not how the world should be.

We are so inundated with acts of violence in our news that we are almost numb to it.  That is, we’re numb until it happens to someone we love.  We can try to ignore violence as long as possible, but every act of violence affects the entire community. One act of violence doesn’t just damage one life, it damages many others and potentially generations. Now through the power of the internet and instant information one act of violence is felt around the world as we increasingly become one global community.

What our souls crave

I recently read a book called Soul Cravings and I have really appreciated what my friend, author Erwin McManus  has to say about the common thread between love and community as opposed to hate and isolation.

In entry five of Soul Cravings Erwin writes: “The farther we move from community, the closer we move to violence.”

Why is this? Because the farther we move away from understanding and caring for the needs of others, the closer we are to selfish judgment, prejudice and hatred.  This may not be true in every case of violence, but it seems to be true in the case of the quiet community of Jefferson County Colorado when two teenage boys planned for over a year to ruthlessly massacre as many students and teachers at Columbine High School as possible.

In Soul Cravings Erwin writes:

If I know nothing else about Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, I know that they had given up on love. They no longer considered themselves as part of the human community. They cared for no one and cared about no one, not even themselves. Where there is no love there is no value for life. When hate consumes our hearts, all we can think of, all we desire is to destroy.
When there is disengagement from human community, there is the potential for inhumanity.

The human heart was not created to be a container for hate.

When we allow bitterness, jealousy, envy, racism, lust, greed, and arrogance to fuel our souls, we create an environment within us to be agents of violence.

We live in a time when the most terrifying bomb is not a nuclear one, but a human one.

As a follower of Jesus, I believe that we are created for love and to love, not to hate. I believe that we are created to live and thrive in community, not in isolation or exclusivity. The danger of loving nothing or loving ideas that teach that one view of the world is superior over another, is that these ideas only fuel racism and fanaticism.  There is a dramatic difference between fanaticism and love.  Fanaticism justifies and defines who you hate.  True love is unconditional – true love sacrifices oneself for another without expecting anything in return. Unconditional love embraces and forgives and leaves no room for violence.

So if we are created for love, what happens inside a human being when belief in an ideology becomes more important than a human life?

I recently read that the security costs for the upcoming Vancouver Olympic Games were originally estimated to be $175 million dollars, but now critics are claiming the new estimates for security will push past $1 billion.  I am all for the games, and believe that we need to have security at the games. But it is the fear of violence that costs us all in the end. You don’t even need to know the ins and outs of world politics to realize that something is wrong with this picture.   This is not what the world was created to be like.

How dark must a human soul become to justify taking the life of an innocent person just to make a point? In light of what happened to us last November, this question resonates with us the most. Even though we may never know the true answer to the question of motive, I think it is what our entire community seeks to know.

I think McMauns communicates the issue clearly when he writes in Soul Cravings:

We stand in the midst of a human dilemma.

We long for community; we long to belong; we long for love.

Yet what we long for most we seem incapable of sustaining.

Humanity has no natural predators except each other.

We are safer in the jungle than in the city.

We are our own worst enemies.

I have heard many people say that religion is one of the main causes of violence and war, both historically and presently. As a person of deep faith and a follower of Jesus, I think that the world has a skewed perception of the difference between organized religion and having a dynamic, life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. It is through my relationship with Jesus that God has absolutely transformed my life.

As a Christian, my holy scriptures describe God as a loving creator and father.  As a father who is deeply involved in and concerned about his creation he knows the depth of our potential to hate, and our inclination to violence, so he provided a way to deal with this problem through Jesus. Jesus took on the full judgment/penalty of God’s anger against humanity’s violence.  God is a  father who is passionately pursuing us much more than we are trying to pursue him. The Bible is filled with stories of God reaching out to us with mercy, grace and love despite the many ways we make a mess of our lives and our society. The main message of the Bible can be simplified to one simple yet profound passage:

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Who ever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” What great news!

It’s simply about trust and accepting God’s gift of love. I’ve come to discover that it’s not about do’s and don’ts or rules to follow, which is what the religions of our world has taught us to believe. In the book of Jeremiah, God says that he loves us with an everlasting love. God’s heart is that no one would perish but have everlasting life and relationship with him.

Again, I really like what Erwin McManus says about love in his book Soul Cravings:

We speak of true love not only lasting a lifetime, but lasting forever.

We can’t manage [what’d it be like] to meet the standards of love [forever], and so we just accept that love isn’t all it’s made out to be. Prepare to be disappointed. Isn’t that the history of love? We can never live up to its standards. I think we recognize this when it comes to God. If God loves conditionally, we’re all in trouble. And this, when you whittle it down to its bottom line, is the basis of all religion.

God loves but on condition. Meet the conditions and gain the love. Love is something that is attained. Oh, we use different words for it—forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, grace—all really different words for love.

In this it appears that all religions are the same. They give God a name and then establish the rules that we must follow if we are to gain his favor and affection. I think this is why a lot of us see all religions as different ways of getting to the same thing.

Some girls want flowers; others, chocolates; others, meaningful conversation (and you thought the flowers and chocolates were expensive); all different ways of trying to get to the same place— to be loved, to find love.

Religion exists not because God loves too little, but because we need love so much. In the end all religions misrepresent God. They either dictate requirements for love or simply become a requiem for love. I think many of us have rightly given up on God on this basis alone. We’ve been told that God is a reluctant lover and that his standards must be met before there can be any talk of love. This is lunacy. Love exists because God is love. Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts have found this love that we so desperately yearn for.

One of my favorite passages of scripture is in the book of John chapter 8 when the religious leaders try to trap Jesus by bringing him a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. In that day the crime of adultery was punishable by a violent death of stoning:

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:3-11, NIV)

Through this passage we see God’s heart of unconditional love and forgiveness. The world seems to view Christianity as a set of rules, but this passage clearly reveals God’s true heart and love for people.  God’s main message is about relationship and forgiveness.  It is only through experiencing God’s unconditional love and forgiveness in my own life that gives me the ability to pass on love and forgiveness to others – whether it be someone who cuts me off in traffic, or the person who placed a bomb at my doorstep and nearly took my life.

If we really believe that the only way we are going to see an end to violence in our world today, and experience community in the way God has created it is to live a life of unconditional love as Jesus did.   The only way I know to live like Jesus is to follow him.  God is good and approachable, he is not hard to find as he says in his Holy word, “If you seek me you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised. Is this the life for you?

If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest. Please let us know about your decision by clicking below, and let us know how we can help you continue your journey!

On September 12.

Since September 11, 2001, I’ve often wondered what might have happened had her appointment been a day earlier or the terrorist attacks a day later. I could have been walking the streets of New York City with her picture.

What were your feelings that tragic day? Shock? Fear? Anger? Confusion? Sadness? How do you process those feelings now, as reminders of the attacks come in anniversary commemorations and media coverage? Nearly two-thirds of American Red Cross 9/11 adult counselees still grieve, according to a study of those directly affected by the attacks{1}.

“I Hate You!”

In the immediate aftermath, my feelings of sadness blended with intense hostility. Once when Osama Bin Laden’s face appeared on television, I spontaneously shouted, “I hate you!”

I was and am a follower of Jesus. He taught his followers to “love your enemies.”{2} Why was I yelling “I hate you!” to a picture on a TV screen?

I wondered why this guy hated my sister. If Deborah Wright had been among the victims, her death would have been included among those he applauded. If I had been a victim, he would have applauded mine. I wrote a radio series on “Why Radical Muslims Hate You” to discover historical, socio-cultural, political, religious, and psychological roots of such anger. It helped me to connect with Muslims who shared similar concerns but disavowed the radical methods.

Dust of Death

Deborah’s experience as a corporate chaplain took her back to New York to help WTC-based companies and their employees who suffered loss on 9/11 cope with the emotional and spiritual whirlwinds their worlds had become. Many suffered from survivor guilt. Failure to process grief could lead to serious consequences. Some firemen, for instance, were assigned to look after widows of fallen comrades. “There can be enormous intimacy and bonding in shared grief,” Deborah notes. “Some of the firemen and widows ended up in bed together.”

Some competitive, driven businesspersons re-examined their rat race—making big bucks and accumulating the most toys—and asked, “Is that all there is?”. Long looks at corporate culture prompted many to consider spiritual realities.

Part of helping survivors process their experiences involved taking them to Ground Zero. Deborah comments, “As I stood at Ground Zero and picked up the dust, I could not help but think that we were standing in a giant crematorium. The ground seemed hallowed to me.”

Personal Lessons from 9/11

What personal 9/11 lessons persist? Perhaps you can relate to these that seem poignant to me:

We live in a contingent universe. Human decisions and actions have consequences, often for good or evil.

Life is temporary. One early spiritual leader wrote of our lives’ fleeting nature, “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”{3}

Link with the eternal. Jesus of Nazareth, whom people of diverse spiritual persuasions respect as a great teacher, told a friend grieving her brother’s death, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish.”{4}

Cherish your friends. In the aftermath of 9/11, many friendships were deepened as people linked with each other for encouragement, solace and support.

Understand and love your enemies and intellectual adversaries. Support national defense, but learning about state enemies can help communication with moderates who share some of their convictions. Getting to know neighbors or associates with whom you differ politically, philosophically or spiritually can help build bridges that foster civility in public discourse.

Related reading: Lorraine tells the story of her son, a NYPD officer at Ground Zero on 9/11, and how she began her own search for meaning. Hear Lorraine ’s story.

Notes
1. Amy Westfeldt, “Study: Sept. 11 Survivors Still Grieving,” Associated Press, May 26, 2006, on AOL News. Also see full Red Cross report, http://www.redcross.org/images/pdfs/SRPClientSurvey.pdf, p. v.
2. Matthew 5:44 NASB.
3. James 4:14 NASB.
4. John 11:25 NLT.

© 2006 Rusty Wright, used by permission.

Image credit: Joseph Hoetzl, used with permission, Creative Commons 2.0 License.

It’s hard for me to even mentally grasp that amount of money. For the sake of comparison, $800 billion would be enough to build approximately 12 million Habitat for Humanity homes.

What would use you such an incomprehensible amount of money to do?

The intent of the stimulus is to fix the economy. But right now what the average citizen needs most is the assurance of hope. The President has “warned that the nation’s economic crisis could become a “catastrophe” if the government does not act quickly on a plan to create jobs and revive the economy.” What if the stimulus fails? Where will our hope be?

A story of hope, “Facing AIDS with Hope“, was written some time ago about relief work in South Africa. Its message may be worth considering during difficult times of our own.

Fires in Australia have erased entire towns.

As fires smoldered and sometimes raged across sections of the scarred landscape Tuesday, rescue officials in Victoria attempted to offer solace to hundreds burned out of their homes and frustrated at being unable to return…

… Weekend bushfires “completely wiped out” the towns of Marysville and Kinglake, officials said. More than 20 fires were burning Tuesday, according to the Country Fire Authority.

Frustration also brewed as residents desperately wanted to return to their homes, or what was left of them, but were prevented by authorities because of safety concerns. (CNN.com)

How do you think the world can help those affected by this disaster?

Video, photos and eye-witness accounts of the firestorm.
Starting over after loss
Can you find peace in troubled times?

We’ve watched our TV screens in horror.

Just where is God when disaster strikes?

Whether it comes wreaking havoc in our private world or whether we see it in mammoth proportions on our TV screen, we can’t help but question and wonder. Does God care when the hurricanes of life sweep in unexpectedly and tear at the very fiber of our being with inexpressible grief? The answer is “yes”! Yet to find the comfort He offers we must first get past the questions.

When Jesus walked this earth He told His followers that in this world there would be trouble. Since the beginning of time there has been struggle on this earth –germs and weeds, storms and insects, people problems and money problems. The Bible tells us that God set things in motion on this earth. The seasons come and the seasons go and God does not necessarily intervene in every one.

Was this God’s fault?

When we find ourselves appalled at the overwhelming things happening in life we cannot always determine the source. It may be the world and the forces of nature set in motion at the foundation of the world; it may be consequences of our own flesh and choices we have made; it may be spiritual opposition from the enemy of our soul or it may come from the very hand of God.

We can agonize over the possibilities as we seek to answer the heart wrenching, “Why?” Yet we cannot understand God nor can we always determine the answer to the difficult “why?” even though we try desperately.

The hope that we have in times of severe circumstances and agonizing grief is the knowledge that God does care and He will help us through. Often our unanswered questions leave us blaming God and we distance ourselves from the very One who can bring comfort to the anguished heart.

Is God on our side?

We know God sees everything that happens to us. Nothing is a surprise to Him. We wish He would intervene and stop the pain. We wish children did not die and loved ones were not lost. As our lives play out on planet Earth we find ourselves with a choice to make.

We can believe God is a God of love or we can turn from Him in anger.

We can believe that His heart is always for us or we can believe He is cruel and mean. Running to Him in the midst of our anguish will take us into His arms of comfort. Pushing Him away will leave us alone with desperation in our souls.

The main theme running through the Bible is God’s great love for us. Over and over He tells us that He sent His son, Jesus, to this earth to heal broken hearts.

Even King David, known to be a man after God’s heart, went through times of great tears to the point that those around him questioned, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42) Yet he also knew how the Lord took note of his anguish and recorded his tears. (Psalm 56:8) He ran to God for strength in his despair.

There is still hope for us

When we simply cannot understand the twists and turns of our path we can run to the One who will anchor us. He doesn’t promise our lives will be free of trouble yet He does promise to hold us close through it all. Never doubt God’s love and care. He hurts when we hurt. His son, Jesus, went up the agonizing hill to the cross and understands the deep anguish the soul can plunge to. That’s why we can trust Him to be with us in our times of overwhelming stress.

• God continually calls us to come to Him with our burdens and find rest for our souls. (Matthew 11:28 & 29)
• He invites us to cast our worries on Him because He cares. (1 Peter 5:7)
• He invites us to come to His throne and ask for mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
• He will be our Comforter in sorrow when our heart is faint. (Jeremiah 8:18)
• He offers strength when we are weak. (Philippians 4:13)
• He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.(Psalm 147:3)

When our minds cannot comprehend the tragic events we find ourselves in … our hearts can reach to the God of all Comfort to find the strength we need to get through today and to know that there will be help and hope for tomorrow.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3 & 4)

Take a look at your life. How would you describe it? Contented? Rushed? Exciting? Stressful? Moving forward? Holding back? For many of us it’s all of the above at times. There are things we dream of doing one day, there are things we wish we could forget. In the Bible, it says that Jesus came to make all things new. What would your life look like if you could start over with a clean slate?

Living with hope

If you are looking for peace, there is a way to balance your life. No one can be perfect, or have a perfect life. But every one of us has the opportunity to experience perfect grace through a personal relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ.

You can receive Christ right now by faith through prayer. Praying is simply talking to God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. Here’s a suggested prayer:

Lord Jesus, I want to know you personally. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life to you and ask you to come in as my Savior and Lord. Take control of my life. Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Does this prayer express the desire of your heart? You can pray it right now, and Jesus Christ will come into your life, just as He promised.

Is this the life for you?
If you invited Christ into your life, thank God often that He is in your life, that He will never leave you and that you have eternal life. As you learn more about your relationship with God, and how much He loves you, you’ll experience life to the fullest.

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