Must Read

When I was first given this book, I had no idea how amazing it would be. Father Arseny truly is a modern-day saint and to read a couple chapters each day was like entering a paradise. It only because of God's glory, that he was able to not just touch, but transform people's lives: atheists, criminals, lonely people, the hungry, the ill-stricken. His relationship with the saints, especially the Theotokos was striking. He reminded me of a nun I had spent some time with before in Upper Egypt who ran an orphanage. She always emphasized that St. Mary was the mother of the girls and Christ was their father. And the Two of them provided for the girls and the orphanage. The book told many stories of people who were in the hardest situations interceding to St. Mary: a girl who was about to be raped, a girl who was being followed by the Secret Police, a husband who was praying before St. Mary's icon for his unfaithful wife. Unreal stories. Humanity that is rare but as this book teaches us, not as rare as we think. St. George protecting the girls from soldiers who wanted to rape them on the top of a train to Moscow. Everyone should read this book. Whether you are Orthodox or not, and I daresay Christian or not. Read this book and allow Christ to show you his love for everyone and for you.

Understanding Confusion

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6

Last night, we attended bible study. It was our first time at this particular Coptic Church but we learned so much in the short 2 hour period. Fortunately for us, the priest held a PhD in Theology so it literally felt like we were in an upper level course studying Genesis 9-11. I wanted to just reflect on one topic: confusion. Genesis 11 has the passage about the Tower of Babel. Babel means confusion and symbolizes the world's evil. I won't get into the biblical theology and history of this passage but what stuck to me was that confusion is a characteristic of those living in the world. If I am confused, I am definitely tainted by the world, instead of being

"unspotted from the world." (James 1:27)

I am afraid that many of us in this generation, me foremost, are like those in Babel: confused. We are confused about who God is, the importance of the Church, what is actually important in life, and what living as a Christian really looks like. Why? Because we're listening to the world through all its insidious ways including who we spend time with (and oh-so-softly adopting their beliefs and philosophies), stuff we read online carelessly without examining it and the lies we are fed hourly through the tv, radio, internet. If we do find that we are confused, let us run back to God:

"For God is not the author of confusion but of peace." (1 Corinth 14:33)

Slaying the Dragon

When God wants to teach me something, He usually needs to send the message repeatedly. This past week, the topic was slaying our dragon.

  First, we watched a sermon by Father John Moses. When discussing what young women should use as their guide to choosing a husband, he advises them to pick someone like Saint George, a man who is willing to slay the dragon within himself. How beautifully complete! This morning, my husband showed me this post by Michael Hyatt. He discussed how all of us have dragons to slay and in particular, ones that need to be slayed before breakfast. He calls it lethargy. I call it laziness: spiritual, physical and intellectual. To combat this dragon, he talks about how he keeps a discipline of reading his Bible in the morning, exercises and listens to an audiobook (while working out). In both of these examples, I took away that we all have different dragons to slay. Selfishness. Materialism. Jealousy. Gossip. Judgement. Lust. Lukewarmness. Laziness. May God give us the grace and strength daily to slay these dragons!