Disgraced Mary

By Kelly McFadden

In a loud voice she exclaimed, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
Luke 1:42-45

Teen pregnancy is one of the most difficult things a young girl can go through. Some choose abortions so they don’t have to face their parents or friends with news that they are pregnant. Others who carry the child drop out of school and face the challenge of being shunned by family and friends. Let’s face it. Pregnant unwed teens are not looked upon with a great deal of respect, even in this more “tolerant” day and age, let alone throughout history.

All the Women of the Bible : Puah

Scripture Reference—Exodus 1:15

Name Meaning — Child bearing or joy of parents

Alarmed over the rapid increase of the population of Israelites in Egypt, Pharaoh ordered two Egyptian midwives to destroy all male children as soon as they were born (Exodus 1:15-20). He would never have employed Hebrew women to destroy the males of their own nation. The answer of the two named midwives, Puah and Shiprah, to Pharaoh’s anger when he discovered that his cruel edict was not being carried out, implies that they were used to wait upon Egyptian women who only employed them in difficulty at childbirth (Exodus 1:19). Hebrew women seldom employed midwives for they were more “lively,” or had far easier births than the Egyptians.

Pastor John Hagee Warns America About Obama Re-election

Pastor John Hagee is raising his voice in an urgent call for prayer over the presidential election.

Hagee, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, sent an e-mail addressed to all Christians and people of faith in America.

“First, I want to express my profound appreciation to President Barak Obama for doing what all of the Republican candidates have not been able to do for months: he unified the Bible-believing church in America in one week over the issue of abortion.

A Secret Shame

DOUGLAS WEISS, PH.D.

68

16

3

414

(© J0sefino/StockFreeImages.com)

Many men struggle with sex addictions. But in the United States today, a growing number of women also are falling prey to pornography and perversion.

Marsha is a 32-year-old woman who appears to have a perfect life. She is the attractive, healthy wife of a successful doctor in town and the mother of a terrific little boy. She began our first counseling session by saying, "I have everything going for me, but I have a problem I am so ashamed of that I can hardly tell you."

A Healing Journey

Written by Angie Cote

Secret -concealed from general knowledge or view, hidden. (Webster’s Dictionary)

There are different kinds of secrets. Some are things hidden from our understanding, sometimes called the mysteries of life: how they built the pyramids, miracles, unexplained events. There are military secrets – confidential military matters, the CIA and spies. There are the secrets that are methods or formulas based on successes: if you send in your hundred dollars, you can receive a secret blend of tea/cream/pills guaranteed to make your cellulite disappear. Don’t we wish. There are the secrets where others share confidences with you.

Then you have the secrets that are of the personal nature – things that we have done ourselves, or had done to us, or been involved in that we don’t want anybody to know about. Usually it is something that is not socially or morally acceptable.

Young ‘Millennials’ losing faith in record numbers

Posted on 20 April 2012

WASHINGTON (RNS)  A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.

One in four young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion, according to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.

But most within this unaffiliated group — 55 percent — identified with a religious group when they were younger.

“These younger unaffiliated adults are very nonreligious,” said Daniel Cox, PRRI’s research director. “They demonstrate much lower levels of religiosity than we see in the general population,” including participation in religious rituals or worship services.