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Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible. Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org.
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Children who are receiving free, reconstructive plastic surgery usually have a prolonged stay on board our ships.
Everything changes when you know the rest of your story. In 2 Samuel 22:25 (MSG) David says, “God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.” But what is the text of our lives? Self-help gurus and magazine headlines urge you to “find your narrative.” “Look inside yourself,” they say. But the promise of self-discovery falls short.
Your story indwells God’s. This is the great promise of the Bible. “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone” (Ephesians 1:11-12 MSG). In his story, you’ll find there’s more to your story.
Read more God's Story, Your Story
For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
Once again the truth is upsetting the pro‑abortion narrative: serious studies show the abortion pill known as mifepristone is not as safe as advertised. With the abortion pill now used in over 60 % of U.S. abortions, independent analysis finds that real‑world complications such as heavy bleeding, infection, and other serious events occur far more often than the industry claims.
Pro‑abortion activists are furious that these findings challenge their talking points and that the truth about the risks to women is being exposed. They once again call it “junk science” but it is real life data.
This isn’t just a medical debate, it’s a moral crisis. Abortion pill use ends the life of an unborn child, and can harm women too.
There's this beautiful spot on the coast of Maine called Bar Harbor, because there's a bar in the harbor. It's a sandbar that's totally exposed at low tide and totally submerged at high tide. The bar goes from the mainland to a little island called (you'll never guess) Bar Island. The island's okay, but you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time there. Although some people do - a lot more time than they had planned to spend. When our family walked across the bar at low tide, we made sure to check that tide chart to see when the tide would be coming back. As we were walking back from the island, the tide had started coming in. Then there were those intelligent tourists who waited a little too long to start back, and suddenly there was no way back! Now, you know what? No one has to be stranded on that island. There is a way off, if you take it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Escape From Lonely Island."
Lonely Island is not on any map that I know of, but it's an island we've all spent time on. Loneliness is like an emotional island and we can get stranded there when we've been isolated, or ignored, or left out, or forgotten, maybe misunderstood, abandoned. Maybe even today finds you in the middle of another one of your lonely times.
The good news is you don't have to be stuck on Lonely Island. Loneliness is ultimately not a prison sentence. It's a choice! Feeling lonely is unavoidable. It's part of being human, but staying lonely is a choice. Just like Bar Island, there are some steps you can take to leave that island.
One way to make a lonely time a short time is to find somebody who needs you; to reach out from your loneliness, even if you don't feel like it, to make a difference for someone else. At a time when loneliness leaves you thinking mostly about you, it's important to decide to look beyond yourself. Another antidote to loneliness is to expand your world, especially your circle of friendships. If you take the risks to reach out to more people, you can reduce your trips to Lonely Island.
But even with all our efforts to cope with the lonely times, a lot of us carry this gnawing sense of loneliness with us most of the time. It isn't necessarily that there aren't people there for us, it's just that those people have never been enough to fill us up inside. It's like there's always something missing. Actually, like someone missing. Well, there is - the One you were made by - the One you were made for.
The incurable loneliness in the human heart is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We're lonely for God. No earth relationship has ever been able to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart. In the words of the Bible, in Isaiah 59:2, "Your sins have separated you from your God." Your sins are all those thousands of choices you've made in your lifetime that disregarded God's way for "your way." So here we are, away from the one person who has the love we're looking for. The only person who knows why we were created; the person we will meet the moment we die.
For our word for today from the Word of God, consider this promise from Jesus in light of the loneliness you know all too well. Hebrews 13:5 - "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." Think of it - unloseable love, unconditional love. Jesus' love for you took Him all the way to a brutal death on a cross, where He gave His life to pay your sin-bill with God. The one whose love you've been looking for all these years is yours the moment you say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." You are one step of faith away from the world's only "never leave you" love. Would you take that step today? "Jesus, I'm yours. I'm pinning all my hopes on You."
Our website is there to help you get started. I hope you'll check it out today. It's ANewStory.com.
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