Month: March 2012

Sometimes You Can’t Keep Silent

communicating.across.boundaries ~ of faith, work, culture, values and more

Sometimes You Can’t Keep Silent.
Posted by  in Babies, Communication, Life, Social Commentary

When I was pregnant with my third child I had a friend come up to me one day. She began telling me her story. Her story of an unexpected pregnancy in a developing country and a plane trip she will never forget to Europe to end the pregnancy. She wept. And she wept. And she wept more. And once we had cleaned up her tears from this story, she told her second story. There was another baby and another country. Another trip and another “safe” abortion. Safe to everything but her psyche.  Like scales falling from her eyes, she told of the realization that these were her babies and they didn’t have a chance to be born, to take that first breath. They didn’t have a chance to be called “Good”. She told me because she watched my growing baby in awe. She was zealous for my safety, my nutrition, my activity – this baby must LIVE. And the baby did live. And he was perfect, just like our first two babies. We called him Micah and my friend held him, and she wept.

52 years ago this year I was born. I was born into an already established family of three brothers and my parents. I was a girl. My status in the family was predetermined – I would be loved and enjoy princess privilege. But the big thing is this: I was born.

I was born and God called it good. Just like you who are reading this were born – and God called it Good. God called this little being knit together inside a safe womb, safe from all the outside factors that could cause danger to the life and development of this little being, God called this “Good”.  Just as someone who knits watches carefully for slipped stitches or a missed pattern, so does God knit us, form us, and watch us, all the time calling it good. The knitter will go back and find the missed stitch, even if it takes a lot of time, to form that perfect pattern that will be the mittens, or the socks; the scarf or the sweater.

And so I can’t keep silent. Continue reading “Sometimes You Can’t Keep Silent” →

Morning Reading: Psalm 25.4-6 NIV

“Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old.”

You are God… Scott Underwood –

You are God of the heavens
And God of the earth
You are God of our Savior’s virgin birth
You were God on the cross
And God over hell
You were God before man
And God when he fell

You
You are
You are God
You are God God God

You are God in what seems like happenstance
You are God in every circumstance
You are God when we fall
And God when we stand
You are God Who holds us in Your hand

Why Pope Shenoudas Death Matters to Egyptian Protestants | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Fawzi Khalil is a pastor at Kasr el-Dobara Presbyterian Church, located near Tahrir Square. He believes no comparison should be made between Shenouda and his successor.

“God has determined the times and seasons, and appointed Shenouda in his wisdom,” said Khalil, whose church is the largest Protestant congregation in the Middle East. “God will not leave us as orphans, and in a few years we will speak of the new pope as was spoken of Joshua after Moses, and Elisha after Elijah. Our Lord will always raise new leaders.”

Click on link for full story – Why Pope Shenoudas Death Matters to Egyptian Protestants | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.
The Coptic ‘pope of the Bible’ was controversial yet beloved.
Jayson Casper in Cairo | posted 3/19/2012 09:39AM

Pope Shenouda, the controversial yet beloved head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, died Saturday after 40 years of leading and reforming the ancient Christian communion. His death complicates the uncertain position of Orthodox believers—who represent 90 percent of Egyptian Christians—now that Islamists have surged to leadership following Egypt’s revolution last January.

Coptic Protestants respected and appreciated the pope.

“Shenouda was a pope of the Bible,” said Ramez Atallah, head of the Bible Society of Egypt. “We are the fifth-largest Bible society in the world because [he] created a hunger for the Scriptures among Copts.” Continue reading “Why Pope Shenoudas Death Matters to Egyptian Protestants | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction” →

Pope Of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church Dies | Fox News

The big remaining question is with the absence of the charismatic pope, who will be able to fill the vacuum.

Pope Of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church Dies | Fox News.

CAIRO, Egypt — Pope Shenouda III, the patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church who led Egypt’s Christian minority for 40 years during a time of increasing tensions with Muslims, has died. He was 88.

The state news agency MENA said Shenouda died Saturday after battling liver and lung problems from several years. A Coptic Church TV station ran a picture of the pope, with a running feed reading, “The Coptic Church prays to God that he rest in peace between the arms of saints.”

The patriarch, known in Arabic as Baba Shenouda, headed one of the most ancient churches in the world, which traced it founding to St. Mark, who is said to have brought Christianity to Egypt in the 1st Century during the reign of the Roman emperor Nero.

For Egypt’s estimated 10 million Coptic Christians, he was a religious thinker and a charismatic leader, known for his sense of humor — his smiling portrait was hung in many Coptic homes and shops.

Above all, many Copts saw him as the guardian of their minority living amid a majority Muslim population in this country of more than 80 million people.

Continue reading “Pope Of Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church Dies | Fox News” →