Reflections from the community: 

it’s called “He Who Paints The Butterflies“ and the artist is Paige Payne 

Related further reads:

https://lexkhoj.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/supreme-court-people-cant-be-forced-to-do-yoga/

https://persecution.org/2016/11/09/supreme-court-says-yoga-will-not-be-forced-on-christian-schools/

Yesterday, an insane 16 year-old boy entered an elementary school to commit a shooting. 3 young children and a teacher died, 2 other people were left critically injured. Fortunately, a father who was there and was carrying a gun, shot the shooter to stop him, and who knows how many lives he saved, but this father stopped this tragedy from getting even worse.

Unfortunately 4 souls, 3 of them little ones, are no longer here with us. I only pray they're in Heaven now. I also pray for the recovery of those injured by this shooting and for the families of everyone affected.

As a school teacher, it breaks my heart that tragedies like this happen. No students or teachers should live in fear of a crazy person committing a shooting where students are supposed to learn. As a teacher I worry about making sure my students learn and grading their assignments. I don't want to worry about a shooting ever.

For now, everyone who was lost in that tragedy is being mourned.

Edit: Bend, Oregon. I misheard the city's name.

I’ve never asked for anyone to pray for me before. I feel kind of weird about this, like I’m doing something wrong - I wanted to ask for prayers because I’m 24 years of age and been diagnosed with arthritis.

It’s genetic, got it from my pops it’s a long story. I’ve been in pain for 6 years now maybe 7 not sure anymore, it’s been getting worse.

I’ve been thinking this may be my punishment, I always say to people god allows trials and tribulations not to punish but to strengthen us, our faith and bond.

But lately I’ve been thinking that i might be wrong, yea this is all for me to for the reason I mentioned above but because I needed it, I needed to be humbled and punished to become better?.

I don’t know I’m tired, I’ve been in so much pain for so long it’s exhausting but I’m going to keep it pushing.

But if it’s okay with some of you, I’d appreciate some prayers not to get rid of the pain completely - I feel like I need it to stay humble, but just so the pain subsides a little.

It’s all over my body I’m tired, for the first time yesterday I felt it in the middle of my left palm, going all the way through as if someone’s driven something through it. 10/10 pain I’ve just lived with it so long it’s become part of my life, you can’t even tell by my face I’m in pain.

But anyways, the reason ive been thinking I may actually be getting punished is because of the pain I felt in the left of my palm. But I think it’s me just overthinking it, arthritis coincidental pain in a weird place caused me to think that. Despite me knowing Jesus had a nail driven through his wrists not palm.

I don’t know anymore, what to do or say, please just pray for the pain to go down a little if that’s okay. I don’t know if it’s asking for too much and I’m doing something wrong by asking for this right now, I’m sorry but god bless he loves us all.

Hi. I’m new to Reddit but feel like this is the only place in which I can express my feelings and get unbiased feedback.

I F24 have been married to my husband M25 for 18 months. We met in college at a Christian club as Faith is really important to both of us. We only dated for 6 months before our engagement but it took 16 months before we had our dream wedding. Throughout our dating time and our engagement we didn’t live together and practiced abstinence as we both wanted to save ourselves until marriage.

The night of our wedding we did the deed and although it didn’t last long it was awesome. The issue that I am having now is that we have been married for 18 months and have done the deed a total of 13 times including our wedding night and our honeymoon. Even if I initiate which I try to do often he tells me “not tonight” or “I’m not in the mood for that.” I have gone to lengths that I don’t want to share to try and increase our intimacy life. I don’t feel desired or wanted and it hurts.

Recently I shared my feelings with him and he shared that although he is attracted to me on many levels he just doesn’t enjoy intimacy as much as he thought he would and that can go a long period of not wanting it at all. He said he enjoys when we shower together and that is all he needs but that sucks because there isn’t even any touching most of the time.

I love my husband but I am unsure on how to handle this. I don’t feel desired and wanted.

Any advice would be great, sorry for the novel:)

TL;DR how do I handle our intimacy disconnect?

If God can rain manna, multiply loaves, and command the harvest and even control the harvest, cause it to rain and shine on whoever he pleases, is in control of nature, of all things, then “slavery was necessary to prevent starvation” looks like a problem God could have solved directly, and the slavery apologetics is utter bullocks.

Instead, God wrote down rules for how to own slaves, and started with the 10 commandments and continued on, rather than saying, "don't own slaves" commandment 11.

I posted a week back about how lately ive been heavily converting to christianity, but im worried I won't be accepted at church due to my Sexuality, and im also worried that jesus would be disappointed in me for it. I came out a few years ago and was told that god would strike me down for it,so thats also a concern of mine.

On a similar note,does jesus still love me if ive had past experiences with things like disordered eating and self harm?

Im scared jesus won't love or accept me for who I am

Over the last few months, I have been writing an 11-part series on my shift from being a strong young-earth advocate to slowly, then suddenly, accepting deep time.

This series also covers my personal struggle of wrestling with the tension between faith and science, growing up in the evangelical and homeschool subcultures, coming of age during the peak of the New Atheism movement, and how I now feel more at rest in my faith while still holding a deep love of science.

(Note: The link includes a full chapter index if you prefer to jump straight into specific topics like geology, biblical hermeneutics, theological implications without reading the personal narrative.)

I’m 21 weeks pregnant and my husband left me a month ago. He didn’t just separate from me he took me back to my home country to “visit” and just flat out left I found out he had been planning it for a week. I’ve had no communication with him whatsoever aside from a text telling me I can sell my wedding ring if I need money. I have nothing- no car, no money, i’m now homeless and i’m severely depressed. This pregnancy has been rough from day 1 and i’m exhausted. I no longer feel any attachment to my baby girl which makes me feel horrible and I feel so guilty about raising her without a father. I can get an abortion up to 24 weeks where I live and I am genuinely starting to consider it but I don’t know if I would ever be able to forgive myself. I feel like i’ve lost so much of my faith and i’m struggling to even want to live I’ve been struggling with suicidal thoughts too.
Please help

I was reading this morning and it just hit me. So many common words and phrases we use everyday have roots in biblical names or stories. It's really cool how pervasive it is in our culture even if people don't always realize it. Just a little observation I wanted to share with you all.

If your wife cheated on you, do you break up with her? Is it a sin? Are there instances where you should stay?
There is a broken trust and an enormous hurt. 😞

The Holy Spirit does not fill us to make us impressive, but to make Christ unmistakable.

This is gonna be a bit long. It’s gonna be more of a story time and I honestly don’t even know what flair to put this under. I will try to keep it as much within the community guidelines as possible, though.

Ok on with the show

Ok, so basically I go to school with this girl who we’ll call Casey… and I have known her since middle school, she’s always known I’m Christian and I’ve always known she was atheist… or at least that’s what I thought…turn out she’s Shinto….(for those who don’t know Shinto was a dominant polytheistic religion in Japan.) she’s definitely a Japanese obsessed girl. Loving a whole bunch of things like anime dressing like it and that’s sort of thing which has always been fine until high school all around. Basically, one day we were sitting at a lunch table in the morning and we were talking about religion. I told her I was Lutheran. (which at the time I was though now I’m a Christian Mystic.) and she replies with “I’m the reincarnated goddess Amaterasu” (the sun Goddess of Shinto) obviously right off the bat. I didn’t believe her (and I still don’t.) to be honest I just stare at her confused....

Eventually, I shifted the conversation away from there, but I stop seeing her the same ever since... I mean, I’ve heard of people following closely to a God or goddess of their choice.... But... to claim to be one.. that just felt way too far for any religion.

Anyway, I thought for bit, and I decided so long as she believes this for herself, I guess it’s no big deal.... until it became a big deal...

Months after (the next year actually) I learned that she also has two demons following her (according to her) this, this will be important for later in the story.

But basically the next year. I was again talking to her at lunch. And she says. That not only she is the reincarnation of Amstrasu she is also a kitsune
(A kitsune it’s a Japanese fox spirit that can sometimes have multiple tails depending on how many spirits it holds)

At this point, this was getting annoying so I looked it up and guess what. Not only according to Shinto were her beliefs false (as amatrasu was never depicted to reincarnate, but she also isn’t a kitsune it’s impossible for a human to be one of those too)

So at this point, I’m just annoyed, she’s lying to get attention, and disrespecting another religion... but I didn’t say anything about it. I was too afraid to lose her as a friend. She was a genuinely good friend and the only one I had at the time in currently really...

But here’s where things begin to get out of hand, a few days later in class, she mentions how in order for her to re-ignite into the sun she either has to die or gain full power to gain full power. People have to worship her so she plans to get a group of people to worship her........ I don’t know why, but this just made me so uncomfortable and disgusted. Because genuinely. It just felt so self entitled and narcissistic.

But here’s where it gets worse remember those demons that I mentioned follow her, well, she has threatened people with them, me and another one of our friends, she has said that one of the demons that follow her has been known to kill people and cause car crashes. When she first told me this, I wasn’t as faithful in God at the time so for a while, I genuinely was in fear to mess up around her, which was already hard enough because I have ADHD and autism and I can’t understand social skills the best. Thankfully, now I have a much stronger faith in God and I know that no matter wha Thankfully, now I have a much stronger faith in God and I know that no matter what evil spirits are demon, she sends out to me I’ll be fully protected by Jesus. But even then, the fact that she was threatening me at all and then this year she threatened another kid with them claiming that it was a war warning, not a threat but saying the same thing about how this demon that follows her can kill people so our friend needs to be careful...... and even though I know I can’t be hurt by it now, I know how badly that can scare people who aren’t full in Christ or have any other religion against it. It got to the point that I literally had to tell her to stop. because threatening people wasn’t OK. She claimed it wasn’t her and that the demons could do whatever they wanted and so she was just warning us, but she has also claimed in the past that she can control them to an extent so she’s clearly changing her story to avoid getting in trouble.

Anyway, I’m sorry to trouble you with this, but to be honest, I really want support from other Christians, who understand. I know I probably just should stop being friends with her, but I feel like I don’t really have a choice. And the threats and what not just aren’t stopping. In the believing you’re reincarnated God and asking people to worship you is honestly so narcissistic it just makes me upset. Because I know everyone around us knows she’s not.

Any and all support and advice is welcome! 💜✝️☦️

(Also, this is my very first post in this subject, so if anything I said goes against the rules, I kindly ask that the mods at least tell me what part so that I may change it before taking down the entire post)

Apart from that, thank you, and God bless 💜✝️☦️👑

I feel so broken and I broke up with my boyfriend we dated for 1 year and a half, he initiated the break up and I’ve just realized I’ve done alot of hurtful things and he gave me chances to change but I just didn’t , it’s not that I didn’t want to change but I’m really trying to.
I feel really burnt out and I don’t know how to handle myself.
Im a Christian and I really want to rely on God and get back to Jesus, can someone give me some advice of how to get through this?

That was just an excuse invented to reinterpret non belief as evidence of the truth as opposed to evidence that our belief system could be wrong

Maybe if we didn’t force our opinion on people and put words in their mouth we wouldn’t be considered backward bigots by most of society

Atheists are more loving and understanding than us in that regard because they don’t show their beliefs in other peoples face

It’s one of the main reasons why are a lot of Gen Z is deconverting

I'm currently 15 and my past is just, an absolute mess. I've done bad things and I just can't forgive myself for my actions, I'm worried of the possible outcomes or consequences I may get in the future. I can't stop thinking about how I can get in trouble or even imagine facing the consequences. It's been making me REALLY anxious and depressed and I don't know what to do, everyday feels like hell, I feel like my life can be ruined at any moment. How do I get through this?