Husband forgives distracted driver who killed his wife: The power of faith in storms of deception and pain

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Melissa Nielsen kissed her husband Curtis goodbye and told him she would see him soon. She then left for her daily morning walk around their neighborhood in Rigby, Idaho.

Within minutes, Curtis’s phone rang. It was Melissa’s friend saying she’d discovered her on the side of the road. Curtis rushed to the scene, where he found his wife lying on the ground. Their next-door neighbor, Lincoln Lear, was standing nearby in horror. 

Lincoln’s life was already deeply difficult. His wife suffers from a debilitating respiratory condition. In 2014, the couple lost their oldest son to a neuromuscular degenerative disorder. Then came the news that their two other children have the same disorder. 

That morning, Lincoln said he had been driving to work and reached down to plug in his phone to charge. In that moment, he swerved and hit Melissa. 

As Curtis knelt beside his wife’s body, their four children (ages fifteen, eleven, eight, and four) were sleeping at home. “I started breaking down,” he recalls. “I started to pray. I knew she wasn’t going to be with us after this.” 

However, Curtis knew Melissa would want him to forgive Lincoln. So that’s exactly what he did. 

Lincoln was subsequently charged with vehicular manslaughter and pleaded guilty, but Curtis has been supportive of him. Lincoln’s offense is punishable by a year in jail and steep fines, but Curtis insisted he not go to jail or pay anything. “He was always being tortured enough by his own actions,” Curtis explained, “and I didn’t want to jeopardize him not having time with his own family.” 

Lincoln says, “I feel so grateful. Everybody’s been so supportive, caring, and sympathetic. If his attitude was different, I’d be in jail.” 

The difference faith makes in a marriage 

Grace in a world of hate makes headlines and changes hearts. So does faith in a world of…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Denison Forum.

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8 Reasons It’s Tough for Some Folks to Hear Us When We Preach

Not everyone listens to us when we preach, even when we’re in the same room. Here are some reasons some people struggle to listen:

  1. Something’s happened during the week that’s captured all their attention. It’s usually a difficulty, and it’s usually something that consumes their mind so much it’s tough to hear anything else. I think particularly of family and work issues.
  2. They’re typically so busy that just sitting still for any length of time—much less listening—is hard. Frankly, I’m one of those persons. I have to make myself listen, and it’s seldom easy.
  3. Distractions in the worship service have already diverted their attention. The distraction can be anything, especially as the enemy wants people not to hear the Word (see #8 below). Anything from a cold room temperature to a crackling sound system to a crying baby or a sleeping adult can turn our attention elsewhere.
  4. In some cases, we’ve hurt them in the past (or, at least that’s their perception), and they’ve never moved beyond that. They still come to church because it’s their church, but they find it hard to listen to us without remembering yesterday’s situation.
  5. Sometimes we’re boring. The problem is that we usually don’t recognize it, and few people are honest enough to tell us. They love us as their pastor. They wouldn’t want to hurt us—so they tolerate boredom but don’t listen.
  6. They’re frustrated with the music part of the worship service. In some cases, they cling to their personal…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Thom Rainer.

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Lakewood returns to in-person worship after 7 months

Pastor Joel Osteen speaks at Lakewood Church on Oct. 18, 2020. | YouTube/Lakewood Church

Lakewood Church in Texas reopened its doors for its first in-person worship service on Sunday since the COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions began in March. An emotional Pastor Joel Osteen spoke about reigning over problems to more than 4,000 people.

“About a month ago, or a few weeks ago, I felt like God put in my spirit it was time to come back,” said the pastor of the Houston megachurch, which held the indoor service at 25% capacity. Attendees were required to wear masks at all times and follow social distancing.

“We’ve never been closed; the building was closed but can I tell you these last months, we have had our greatest outreach of ministry in 61 years,” Osteen told the congregation, sharing that 12 million people watched the service online during Easter weekend.

“God has raised up Lakewood for this time. Hey, when does the world need hope any more than now?” 

During his sermon, Osteen said, “We were not created to go through life overcome by problems, struggling to make it in mediocrity … God created us to reign, to be the victor, not the victim.”

We can reign over all our…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – The Christian Post.

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Swiss Missionary Kidnapped in 2016 Is Killed by Islamist Extremists

Swiss Missionary Kidnapped in 2016 Is Killed by Islamist Extremists


A Swiss missionary who was kidnapped in January 2016 has been killed by Islamist extremists.

The woman, Beatrice Stöckli, was “apparently killed by kidnappers of the Islamist terrorist organization Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslim (JNIM) about a month ago,” according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

Christianity Today reports that Beatrice was killed just weeks before other hostages were freed, including Sophie Petronin, a 75-year-old French aid worker.

It’s unclear how Beatrice was killed.

“It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of our fellow citizen,” said Swiss Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis. “I condemn this cruel act and express my deepest sympathy to the relatives.”

Swiss officials said they “worked over the past four years, together with the relevant Malian authorities and with international partners, to ensure that the Swiss citizen was released and can return to her family. Members of the Federal Council have personally and repeatedly lobbied the relevant Malian authorities for her release. An interdepartmental task force under the leadership of the Foreign Affairs Ministry was deployed. The task force also included representatives of … [the police, the intelligence services] … and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. In addition, the authorities were in constant contact with the victim’s family.”

Beatrice was a…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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Do I Know Anything About Harissa At All?

In America, the heavily spiced condiment has been diluted, distorted, and sold en masse. Mansour Arem’s setting the record straight.

The post Do I Know Anything About Harissa At All? appeared first on TASTE.

Papillon, Europe’s Most Wanted Bear, is Captured After 42 Days on the Run – Urban Christian News

 M49, also known as Papillon after the prison escape film, in July 2019 after an earlier escape. Photograph: AP
M49, also known as Papillon after the prison escape film, in July 2019 after an earlier escape. Photograph: AP

A brown bear nicknamed Papillon for its propensity for escaping from its enclosure has been captured by rangers in the Italian province of Trento after 42 days of freedom.

Codenamed M49, the 149kg (23st) bear fled from the Casteller centre on 27 July after climbing over its enclosure, which had been reinforced following previous escapes.

M49 was the most wanted bear in Europe and considered an “escape genius”. Italian authorities compared the bear to Papillon, the eponymous character from Henri Charrière’s memoir about escaping from a French penal colony, which was released as a film in 1973.

An order for the bear’s capture was issued in June 2019 by the president of Trento province, Maurizio Fugatti, who declared that the animal was a risk to humans after it was seen close to inhabited areas. The first escape took place on 15 July 2019, when M49 managed to climb over three electric fences and a four-metre-high barrier at a wildlife enclosure in the northern Italian province of Trento before disappearing into the woods.

On that occasion, the authorities granted permission to rangers to shoot the bear if it came close to inhabited areas. “The fact that the bear managed to climb over an electric fence with seven wires at 7,000 volts demonstrates that this specimen is dangerous and a public safety problem,” Fugatti stated in 2019.

The animal, which has been implicated in the killing of livestock, was captured on 29 April, but remained in captivity for only two…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Urban Christian News

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Terrorist is Shot Dead by Police in France After Beheading Teacher Who Showed His Class Cartoons of Mohammed for School Lesson

The French President Emmanuel Macron denounced what he called an ‘Islamist terrorist attack’ after a teenager shouting Allahu Akbar allegedly beheaded a school teacher with a knife in Paris.

The victim was said to have been a middle school history teacher who had enraged parents by displaying cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed to pupils.

The attacker, whose identity has not been officially established, was shot by French officers as they tried to arrest him and later died of his injuries, police said.

Today the French leader visited the school where the teacher worked in the town of Conflans-Saint-Honorine and met with staff.

He said: ‘One of our compatriots was murdered today because he taught… the freedom to believe or not believe.

‘He said the attack should not divide France because that is what the extremists want. We must stand all together as citizens.’

A source told Le Parisien: ‘The victim had recently given a lesson to his students on freedom of expression and had shown the caricatures of Muhammad’. The murdered teacher was later identified as Samuel P.

His lesson led to an enraged man confronting him with a knife, and then cutting his head off, said the source.

The dead suspected terrorist was described as an 18-year-old who was born in Moscow, and who had links with the school.

The bloodbath took place in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb some 25 miles from the centre of the French capital on Friday at around 5pm (1500 GMT) near a school.

People are seen outside an entrance area near the scene of a stabbing attack in the Paris suburb of Conflans St Honorine. The dead suspected terrorist - killed by police - was described as an 18-year-old who was born in Moscow, and who had links with the school where the teacher he allegedly killed worked
People are seen outside an entrance area near the scene of a stabbing attack in the Paris suburb of Conflans…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Urban Christian News

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Pastor Murdered, Two Arrested, One at Large

Pastor Murdered, Two Arrested, One at Large


A Florida Pastor was murdered after an altercation broke out between a group of men in front of a local business. Gregory Boyd, 54, pastor of New Birth Harvest Outreach Ministries Churches of Deliverance in Miami, Florida, was allegedly shot and killed by three perpetrators when he was caught in the crossfires of the dispute, according to The Christian Post. Two of the alleged perpetrators have been arrested, but the third one is still at large.

According to the Miami-Dade Police Department, Boyd was murdered in front of the Shoe Time store at 6:05 P.M. on Thursday, September 10. He was transported to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Center. He died in the hospital from his injuries.

According to Local10, the two who were caught have confessed to the murder, but several people opened gunfire in the parking lot where Boyd was killed while walking to his car, according to investigators. Investigators believe Boyd wasn’t meant to be the target but was caught in the crossfire.

According to multiple outlets reporting on a Facebook live video that has since been taken down, the alleged homicide perpetrators were arguing about something before one of them opened fire. And according to witness statements given to Local10, one of the shooters was in a “white shirt” and “he kept shooting and shooting and shooting.” Another witness said “suddenly I heard all of these shots.” One of the…

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Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.

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The Dangerous Rise of Military AI – Urban Christian News

The video is stark. Two menacing men stand next to a white van in a field, holding remote controls. They open the van’s back doors, and the whining sound of quadcopter drones crescendos. They flip a switch, and the drones swarm out like bats from a cave. In a few seconds, we cut to a college classroom. The killer robots flood in through windows and vents. The students scream in terror, trapped inside, as the drones attack with deadly force. The lesson that the film, Slaughterbots, is trying to impart is clear: tiny killer robots are either here or a small technological advance away. Terrorists could easily deploy them. And existing defences are weak or nonexistent.

Some military experts argued that Slaughterbots – which was made by the Future of Life Institute, an organisation researching existential threats to humanity – sensationalised a serious problem, stoking fear where calm reflection was required. But when it comes to the future of war, the line between science fiction and industrial fact is often blurry. The US air force has predicted a future in which “Swat teams will send mechanical insects equipped with video cameras to creep inside a building during a hostage standoff”. One “microsystems collaborative” has already released Octoroach, an “extremely small robot with a camera and radio transmitter that can cover up to 100 metres on the ground”. It is only one of many “biomimetic”, or nature-imitating, weapons that are on the horizon.

Who knows how many other noxious creatures are now models for avant garde military theorists. A recent novel by PW…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Urban Christian News

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How Dak Prescott’s neighbors responded to his injury: A Cuban pastor explains why God has blessed America

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (4) is tackled by New York Giants cornerback Logan Ryan, rear, in the second half of an NFL football game in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2020. Prescott suffered a lower right leg injury on the play. (AP Photo/Michael Ainsworth)

In the interest of serving all our readers, I try to refrain from commenting on local news. However, after Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a gruesome ankle injury in last Sunday’s game, a story so impressed me that I wanted to share it. Dak’s neighbors put a huge sign in front of his house with giant letters in Cowboys colors. The top line reads, “GET WELL SOON.” The line below it reads, “YOUR NEIGHBORS.”

In these days of pandemic pain and distress, it’s worth remembering the good in our communities and culture. 

Here’s another example: Kevin Williamson notes in National Review that “every Nobel Prize in 2020 was awarded either to an American, a team of Americans, or a team with an American member. Not bad for a group of people comprising 4 percent of the world’s population.” 

This week’s Apple unveiling of the newest iPhone is just one example of American high tech. Amazon’s Prime Day is another. Disney’s escalating leadership in streaming-video services is yet another. The fact that all three companies are multinational but headquartered in the US makes my point. 

Good news for religious freedom 

There’s even good news on the religious freedom front. 

A federal court ruled that the District of Columbia’s coronavirus restrictions violated Capitol Hill Baptist Church’s religious-exercise rights. The church has been meeting outdoors and observing all social distancing and mask-wearing standards. The District, however, has banned all religious gatherings over one hundred people, though the mayor appeared at a huge anti-racism rally in June and her office has not enforced its own ban on other gatherings of…

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Click Read More to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Denison Forum.

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