This blog deals with
Christian living, disability, ethics,
Life Issues, a wonderful miracle,
and faith in Jesus Christ.
“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup
“A nation always gets
the kind of politicians it deserves. If a time ever comes when the religious
Jews, Protestants and Catholics ever have to suffer under a totalitarian state,
which would deny to them the right to worship God according to the light of
their conscience, it will be because for years they thought it made no
difference what kind of people represented them in Congress, and because they
abandoned the spiritual in the realm of the temporal.” Archbishop Fulton J.
Sheen
Today I an remembering my father Howard Pickup. During WW2,
Howard Pickup
(c.1943)
he served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (RCAMC). He would be horrified to know what western Civilization has descended to in the 70 years since the end of the war. Despite that generation's monumental sacrifice for the "survival of Christian civilization" (to use Churchill's words), we descended "into the abyss of a New Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science" (again Churchill's words). We have sunk into our own holocaust of abortion, genetic tinkering, and soon assisted suicide on request. God forgive us for squandering the sacrifice and turning liberty into license. The best way to remember the sacrifice of our father's and grandfathers is through personal and national repentance. Tonight I will pray for our dying western Christian civilization that my father's generation was prepared to lay down their lives to defend. Rest in peace Dad, rest in peace. You were one who came home. You died 24 years after the war, and I have missed you for 45 years. You loved and were loved. So many others missed out on life itself, but for the short time they were here they too loved and were loved.
When you're tempted to despair at the state of our western civilization that seems to have rejected the very Christianity that made it great, remember there are still multitudes who pledge allegiance to Jesus Christ. Shine, Jesus Shine! Click on image below orhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4hXJ9ax2FY
We are expecting our new grandchild from Haiti. I'm so excited!
I've been sitting here watching Black Gospel music on YouTube. When baby gets to Canada and comes to visit Grandma and Grandpa perhaps we'll worship with our Black brothers and sisters in Christ. You'll know me, I'll be the spastic old white guy with the white hair groovin' across the front of the church in a wheelchair with my wee grandchild on my lap. You'll also be able to pick out the rest of the family, they will be ones who are beet-red. Hallelujah! [Click on image below orhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhrg4YnpXSQ See Mississippi Mass Choir singing "They Got the Word". 7:19]
Having had aggressive multiple sclerosis for more than 30 years there have been many storms in my life. Episodic loss of physical function has involved much anguish. I have been incurably ill and disabled for half of my life. And yet despite the agony, Christ has been with me throughout my journey. I have learned that tears of sorrow and tears of joy can flow simultaneously. It's a strange and wonderful mystery. In March of 1984, on the day I was diagnosed with MS, I
remember lying in the hospital, and praying, “God, why this?” He replied directly (I could
swear it was audible): “You are mine.” I thought, What kind of answer is that?
What I think God was telling me
at the very outset of this 30 year
journey with chronic degenerative illness
was that I am His child through faith in Christ. Not even disease can strip
that from me. Nothing slips by God’s attention. All things work for good for
those who trust in God. I was being called to simply trust in Him and trust
that this was working for my good.[1]
My journey would take me into a
terrible fire of disease, but God would abide with me ― like Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abed-Nego I would not be alone.
And as with Job, my flesh is being destroyed but my life has been spared.
If we surrender our lives to Christ, he will lead us through life's
storms to our eternal home. We must pray, "Thy will be done" and mean it, content to accept whatever that may mean. We must trust that He is leading us toward the Celestial City, nothing slips by God's attention, the trials we face here are nothing compared to the glory that awaits us.[2]
