Blessed Magazine April/May, 2019

The Story of a Backyard Abortion

M A G A Z I N E

April/May, 2019

When Altar Calls Don’t Work – Personal Testimony

4 Signs God Wants You to Be Single

How Being Bullied Almost Broke Me

Is It Time to Break Up with Social Media?

How Can I Follow My Calling if I’m Not Sure What It Is? April/May, 2019

Brands Who Use Homosexuality in Advertising

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‘The Momo Challenge’: What’s It All About?

The Case Against Twerking Within the Church!

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Contents April/May, 2019

Inside This Issue

Spiritual Wellness ▪ ▪ ▪

How Can I Follow My Calling If I’m Not Sure What It Is? – 20 When Altar Calls Don’t Work: A Personal Testimony – 25 Is It Time to Break Up With Social Media? – 29

Personal Wellness ▪

The Story of a Backyard Abortion - 34

Relationships ▪ ▪

4 Signs God Wants You to Be Single– 37 How Being Bullied Almost Broke Me – 42

Also in this issue: ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

Brands Who Use Homosexuality in Advertising – 48 The Case Against Twerking Within the Church – 50 ‘The Momo Challenge’: What’s It All About – 52 10 Scriptures When You Need Healing - 57

Regulars ▪ ▪

Editor’s Corner -14 Market Place - 66

Question: Do You Know

Jesus?

13 | Blessed Magazine

73

Editor’s Corner

Praise the Lord My Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

First, I always give all glory and honor to my Lord Jesus Christ for without Him in my life, nothing I could ever do would amount to anything!

With the approach of ‘Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday’ I want to remind everyone that ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life’ I want to personally thank all of our fans and readers for their continued support of this ministry which has continued to strive and for that I am grateful to our Lord,

Jesus Christ Our goal is to continue being a resource for Christians and others for years to come and with your support we can keep this publication available free of charge always on our digital platform Pray for us as we continue to pray for you and thank you for reading this issue of Blessed Magazine God bless you!

Your Humble Servant in Christ,

Laraine Turner Editor-in-Chief

15 | Blessed Magazine

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Powerful Prayers for Believers of the Faith When you feel like you have nothing to say in prayer, lean on the timeless Word of God.

These life-giving prayers can kick-start your conversations with God

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate having this available to me. It has inspired me to develop a better relationship with God. You guys are the best and I pray others will be blessed by this book - Susan

Exclusively at Blessed Magazine Get Yours Today! No Purchase Necessary!

Spiritual Wellness Do you want to find that “sweet spot” in your life or career where you’re energized and challenged?

Do you crave meaningful work or to spend your time on things that give you a sense of your purpose?

But what if you don’t know what your calling is? How can you discover it?

Here are four common obstacles that come between you and the sense that you’re living the life God intended for you.

1. You’re Not Sure What a Calling Is How many times have you met someone and one of the first questions you asked was, “What do you do?”

In our culture, your job easily becomes your identity. This mentality can reduce your calling in life to what you do for a paycheck.

If your purpose is all about a 9-to-5 job, then the ultimate goal in life becomes finding the perfect job where your talents, values and desires all meet. If you’re experiencing anything less, then your calling must be elsewhere.

But what happens if you, your boss, work environment or life circumstances change?

Do you restart the search for your calling?

This way of living can set you up for a lifetime of disappointment with God. The Bible says your life’s purpose starts with God at work in this world and that He’s calling you into His story.

How Can I Follow My Calling If I’m Not Sure What It Is? (*Image Credit:clipartroo.com)

calling for you – to know Him and make Him known – remains constant.

If and when your circumstances change, you don’t have to be thrown off course. Your calling does not originate with you. It starts with God. 2. You Don’t Want What God Wants for You It can be a struggle to trust that God is always good and that He wants what’s best for us.

But how do you reconcile your desires with God’s when they aren’t the same?

The Bible describes this process as denying — or dying — to yourself (Matthew 16:24, Galatians 2:20-21, Philippians 3:8-10). But turning death into life is one of God’s

Circumstances change, but God’s primary 20 | Blessed Magazine

Spiritual Wellness waking hours is more flexible than you sometimes think.

specialties.

Spend time reading the Bible, and choose to trust that God knows you and loves you — even when if it feels like you are dying to what you want. Pray and ask Him to align your heart with His. 3. You Don’t Know When God Is Speaking to You In addition to the Bible, one common way God gives us wisdom is through people who know us, know His Word and have the Holy Spirit living in them through a relationship with Jesus.

But this requires you to be in authentic, honest relationships with other Christians.

If you don’t have those kinds of relationships, a great place to start is by finding a church and joining a Bible study or small group.

4. You’re Scared of Choosing the Wrong Path So what if you’re not convinced you’ve heard from God, but you still have to make a decision?

God offers us multiple pathways, not a maze with one way through. Even occupations and locations that are an imperfect fit can grow your character. Sometimes they are especially good because of what they reveal about our weaknesses and spiritual maturity.

So ask yourself and God if any of your options are sinful, and then enjoy the freedom God is giving you to make a decision.

Trusting God to make your paths straight might even mean believing He is capable of working with your imperfect choices.

What’s Your Next, Best Step?

Read more on “Discerning God’s Will” and take some time to consider God’s calling for your life.

Explore opportunities to serve God Find a community to help you live the life God intended.

What if you make the wrong choice?

Use your journal to think through these questions, or discuss them with someone you trust.

The idea of a single, correct choice can be debilitating and add unnecessary pressure to each decision.

1.

2.

God’s plan is for every person to have an opportunity to know Him and for every believer to become more like Jesus. Where you do that and how it looks during your

3.

4.

What gifts do you believe God has given you?

What do other people say your natural strengths are?

How could you use your talents to serve God and serve others?

How do you respond to Proverbs 3:5-6?

21 | Blessed Magazine

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Spiritual Wellness

When Altar Calls Don’t Work: A Personal Testimony

By Jonathan R. Bailey

I grew up as a pastor’s kid, the third of four children. Or was it fourth? For years I believed I was born 30 seconds before my identical twin, Josh. But he recently challenged this 33-year-old fact, turning the Bailey family world order upside-down.

Josh and I were adventurous and independent twins who made the suburbs of North Dallas our playground. The flame of our adventurous spirit was fanned by our older brother, Jeremy. Together we wanted to take risks and experience them firsthand.

I wasn’t content to just watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I had to be Indiana Jones. I needed to wade through the creeks behind my house, build rope swings, and explore sewers. And not with a flashlight, but by tying my shirt to a stick, dipping it in gasoline, and lighting it on fire.

As a boy, I listened intently to my dad recount some of the greatest adventure stories ever told: Noah and his ark, David defeating a giant, and Joshua shouting down walls. These men experienced wild adventure, and God, firsthand. My longing for intimacy with God was born from story time with my dad.

Dad pastored a nondenominational, charismatic—or, as he liked to say, HappyBaptist—church. It was our family’s second home. BB gun shootouts commonly took place in the vacant sanctuary. Josh and I raced the petting-zoo miniature ponies around the parking lot after the fall carnival and learned how to do donuts in our youth pastor’s car before we could legally drive.

When I got a little older, I threw myself into

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Spiritual Wellness the behind-the-scenes work of our youth group. My brother and I made announcement videos and hooked up lighting and fog machines for our Wednesday night services. I insisted on working the sound booth, because it allowed me to avoid worshiping and watch others worship instead.

As a teenager, I was pretty sure I believed God existed, but without firsthand experience of him, “Christianity,” whatever that meant, went in one ear and out the other.

I knew facts and Bible verses and how to say, “Thank you, ma’am” to the old ladies who said they were praying for me.

Then there was my arch nemesis: the altar call. I had never experienced any meaningful or long-lasting change after raising my hand and repeating a prayer, so over time, I came to loathe phrases such as “walk the aisle,” “come forward,” “raise your hand,” and “repeat after me.” Each attempt at getting saved seemed to take life rather than give it.

By high school, my belief system was that I didn’t want to go to hell but wasn’t too psyched about heaven, either.

As my contempt for all things Christian hardened, my church involvement actually ramped up. At age 22, I became a summer camp counselor alongside one of my best friends. We played sand volleyball, slung frogs into the lake, and pranked our youth pastor.

The final night of summer camp, the guest pastor ended his sermon with an emotional altar call. Here we go again, I thought. I started to zone out, until out of the corner of my eye I saw my friend walk forward. More shocking than him walking the aisle was the

“Each attempt at getting saved seemed to take life rather than give it.” later evidence that something had happened to him that night. He stopped drinking and partying. He started studying the Bible, voraciously reading Christian books, and attending church. Further, his behavior seemed to come not from obligation but from love. He seemed to want to know God and learn from him and be like him. His countenance said it all. He had joy.

This was the opposite of what I had experienced growing up. The cycle usually went something like this: get saved in a burst of emotion, commit to Jesus for a few days or weeks, then let the devotion fade away.

Everyone in our church seemed to sputter out, digressing into their old way of life until the next camp or special church event.

But not my friend. Month after month, like a flower in spring, he grew. I spent the next five months closely watching him study and pray and seek Jesus. His commitment and love for God were unwavering, and soon, a waterfall of hope washed over me. The thought seized me: “Change is possible. It’s actually possible.” It gave me hope that Christianity could effect something real in my life.

One morning, an honest prayer began to spill out of me: “God, I don’t love you. But I want to.” I wasn’t mincing words anymore. I knew what love felt like because I loved my mom, dad, brothers, and sister. I felt nothing like

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Spiritual Wellness that for God but wanted to. I shared that prayer with my dad, and he prayed with me, never judging, accepting me where I was.

time. Unsure of what to do next, it seemed clear I needed to open it, so I picked a random spot.

I lived with that prayer for weeks, dragging it around with me everywhere I went, my dry heart soaking it in. Then one night everything changed.

In this instance, Bible roulette seemed to be God’s way of getting my attention. I peeled back the pages. There I was, my heart and the Scriptures wide open. In this moment everything around me blurred, and life seemed to come to a halt. I looked down to see the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22, verse 37. I read:

It was early and still dark outside. I was in a deep sleep, when suddenly my eyes opened.

I remember feeling confused about why I was awake at 5 a.m. I lay silently in the dark for a few seconds. Then I heard something in my mind, distinct and clear. It was like no other thought I had had. It didn’t shout and it didn’t whisper. I heard these words: “Get up, pick up your Bible, and sit down at your desk.”

My eyes widened and my pulse sped up. I lay there paralyzed, and after a few moments, the rational side of my brain convinced me I was making it up. I closed my eyes, trying to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t. The silence in the room was deafening. The thought came again: “Get up, pick up your Bible, and sit down at your desk.”

I had heard enough Bible stories and listened to enough sermons to know it was time to pay attention. I got up, embraced the early morning chill, and found my Bible, which had been collecting dust under a lamp on my nightstand. I grabbed it and sat down at my desk. I stared at it for some

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Like the destruction of a great dam, the flood waters of God’s love crashed into me.

In that moment, my secondhand spirituality became firsthand. My knowing about God was replaced with knowing God, and like my friend’s experience, the change was permanent.

Shortly after my rendezvous with God, I developed a new routine of waking up early to drink coffee and read. I was thumbing through some of my dad’s books when I opened Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines and read a line that pinpointed the pain and disconnect I had felt growing up in church: “Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God.”

Yes. I had it all wrong. Christian faith wasn’t about going to church, being a

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Spiritual Wellness morally good person, believing the right things, or having some emotional experience. It was about God’s love filling and freeing me.

Is It Time to Break Up With Social Media?

Since that day 13 years ago, I’ve read everything written by Willard (eventually becoming board chair of Renovaré, which provides practical resources for cultivating a life that makes us like Jesus from the inside out) and have dedicated my life to apprenticeship with Jesus. That doesn’t mean faith has been easy, but it has been the most thrilling adventure of my life. Battling habits of pride, anger, lust, and gluttony has become an adventure, so much so that creeks and sewers pale in comparison. I have started successful businesses with my twin brother, always the risk-takers. I have a beautiful family; I have also buried a child. Through the joy and the pain, Jesus has shared his eternal life with me, filling and freeing me.

We’ve made it past the pink and red explosion of romance that is Valentine’s Day, but it’s possible that the topic of relationships is still fresh in our minds this February.

Today I not only feel the fierce and unflinching love of God but in some small measure, I’m making my own advance into love—becoming love, drawing ever closer to that sweet society we call the Trinity. That’s it. That’s what my life is about. That’s the adventure I’m on. END

Regardless of your “taken” or “single” status, I’m drawing our focus to a relationship that most of us interact with daily . . . our relationship with social media.

Before you bail, I promise this isn’t a doom and gloom post about how social media is awful and you should kick it to the curb then move to a farm in the middle of nowhere.

Let’s simply take an honest look at our social media habits together.

“It’s Time We Take a Break” Jesus says in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Let’s 29 | Blessed Magazine

Spiritual Wellness keep these words in mind as our basis for considering how our lives intersect with social media.

▪ ▪

If we don’t have a healthy, biblical mindset when we move our thumbs to scroll through Instagram and Twitter, it can rob us of the joy and abundant life that is found in Jesus Christ.

Friends, I see teen girls being robbed of this joy and abundant life every single day because social media has them locked into its addictive and joy-sucking grip.

How can you know if your joy is being stolen, too? Think about your answers to these ten questions, and consider if it might be time for you and social media to take a break.

What’s Your Relationship with Social Media Like?

▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

▪

Do you feel worse or tired after you check social media?

Have you lost a friendship or gotten into a significant fight over something that happened on social media?

Are you anxious to see how many likes your photos get? And to know if the right people liked those photos?

Do you feel intense pressure to maintain your Snapchat streaks?

Have you ever been grounded from your social media . . . only to borrow a friend’s phone or sneak back onto your own phone?

Do you attend events and spend the time taking pictures for social media and totally miss living in the moment with the people around you?

▪ ▪

Has anyone mentioned that you might be spending too much time staring at your phone?

Do you spend a significant amount of time taking and editing photos and/or planning your captions with the hopes of gaining more likes or comments?

If you forget your phone, do you experience anxiety or a sense of isolation?

Do you spend more than an hour per day on social media? (The Screen time information on iPhones can be a great tool to help you know just how much time you’re spending on social media apps!)

Did any of these diagnostic questions hit close to home? Might it be time to break off your relationship with social media for a little while? If so, commit to a certain length of time for a social media fast, and make it happen. (You may be shocked by how refreshing this is!)

A Relationship That Takes, Takes, Takes?

If you’re still not quite convinced, I wonder if this little scenario sounds all too familiar.

Emma was attempting to complete her homework.

Buzz! It was an Insta notification. She checked it . . . watched a few Insta Stories . . . and then switched gears back to her work.

Buzz! Snapchat notification. Again, she checked it, snapped a reply, then got back to work.

Buzz! It’s Twitter this time. Seventeen likes

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Spiritual Wellness on that super clever tweet she posted this morning! Yes! Scroll, scroll, scroll . . .

After ten minutes, she completely forgot that this was supposed to be homework time instead of scrolling time.

I am never going to be able to get this done, she thought to herself. She decided to leave her phone on the kitchen counter downstairs so she could finally finish those assignments.

Later that night at bedtime, Emma started scrolling through her phone. Before she knew it, it was past 1 a.m., and she finally went to sleep. The next day she was groggy and irritable.

“Do you relate a little too much with Emma’s evening?”

According to different research, teenagers spend between seven-and-a-half to nine hours each day staring at a screen. (That’s no small number!)

answer may not be to cut it out of our lives completely. So, how can we maintain a positive relationship with social media?

Five Ideas for Cultivating Relationship with Social Media

a

Healthy

Silence those push notifications.

You don’t have to know the exact second someone likes your Instagram picture or sends you a snap. The constant updating keeps us so distracted and unable to really enjoy or focus on what is happening in the moment.

Unfollow (or just silence) those accounts that make you envious or weary.

All those fashion accounts? Those dream house photos? Don’t allow them to build envy in your heart. If you follow someone and have thought, I want her life, or If I looked like her, I’d be happy, it might be best to unfollow them. That might be difficult to do if they’re a close friend, so, maybe it’s time to take your envious heart to God and ask Him to make you content in Him. Limit screen time to one hour per day.

I’m not anti-screen or anti-technology, but I desire for you and me to have healthy relationships with our screens and social media.

If you’re feeling like a social media fast is in order, good for you! Take that time to soak in God’s Word, enjoy moments with family and friends, be creative, and pursue good things.

But because social media is a tool that can absolutely be used in positive ways, the

According to the latest research, spending more than one hour a day on social media begins to negatively affect mental health.

Don’t sleep with your phone in your room.

Having your phone in your room invites distraction and could also cause sleep deprivation, which worsens anxiety, depression, and makes you more irritable and less able to focus.

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Spiritual Wellness Enjoy the life that’s happening all around you!

When it comes to real-life events, don’t spend them trying to get the perfect picture to share or recording video of everything.

Take a few pictures, and then enjoy the rest of the time with your loved ones. END

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Personal Wellness The Story of a Backyard Abortion

I had an abortion. I killed my child. It was horrific. Now, after all years of trying I still can’t give my husband the family he deserves.

I deserve to suffer for my sins, but should he have to as well?

These are just some of the cries of woman after having illegitimate abortions. Abortions

by untrained hands often result in women find themselves having lots of complications trying to conceive. In addition, the guilt, the pain, the depression and the potential of future barrenness add to the burden many women face having subjected themselves to ‘getting rid’ of an unwanted child. However, having an abortion is sometimes the only option for a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, especially in cases of rape and an abuse.

This brings us to the recent arrest of a doctor, a mother and a sixteen year old girl for an abortion after a fetus was discovered in the backyard of the women’ house. In Trinidad and Tobago, purposely inflicting a miscarriage on a pregnant woman is

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Personal Wellness considered a crime under the Offences against the Person Act of 3 April 1925, as amended –

“Any person who, with intent to procure the miscarriage of a woman, unlawfully administers to her any noxious thing or unlawfully uses any means is subject to four years’ imprisonment. A woman who undertakes the same act with respect to herself is subject to the same penalty.”

So too is engaging in sexual activity with a minor (unless they are married, but that is another story). Thus, someone has criminally impregnated a young girl and in so doing has led to another ‘crime’ for which these three may now pay the penalty, in seeking to do what they probably think was best. This is quite apart from the mental and physical ramifications that may now wrack the 16 year old as she attempts to move forward with her life.

Back-yard abortions are not only illegal but are also very dangerous. In some cases, women die from untreated infections or can hemorrhage to death as most times this is done quietly without support from family for after care. Many are never sure if they can even get pregnant again because of potential damage to the cervix and internal scarring to the womb. However, we know they are prevalent in T&T despite the illegality of the procedure. Would removal or modification of caught breaking this law.

the law though lead to an end to the “backyard” risky option and help mitigate potential damage to these women? To get rid of a pregnancy sometime women who are too afraid to find a doctor for risk of being caught sometimes inject poisonous solutions in the womb, or use the abortion pill to induce a miscarriage. Some even inflict physical abuse to themselves or ask their partner to, such is the panic and fear of being Statistics on abortion in Trinidad and Tobago are widely considered to be not accurate as the practice is believed to be more widespread than reported. Abortions are blamed as a major cause of maternal mortality and hospital admissions, as people only appear when the procedure has been botched. While the performance of abortions is illegal in Trinidad and Tobago, the World Health Organization (WHO) has advocated a public-health approach to address unsafe abortions, emphasizing the need the legalization of abortions.

Perhaps with more dialogue we can get to a place where a minor’s entire future is not destroyed due to a moment of weakness where they can fall prey to the desires of a sexual predator who has escaped unscathed leaving a trail of wounds and eternal scars in their wake. END

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Question: Do You Know

Jesus?

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Relationships

4 Signs God Wants You to Be Single Perhaps one of the most prevalent questions amongst single Christians is, “How will I know if God wants me to get married or remain single?� Marriage is a big deal to God. Marriage is central to reflecting the gospel (Ephesians 5:2233), it is the way God has ordained the human race to be populated (Genesis 1:28), and thus most Christians are called to be married. There are many Christians, however, who are called to singleness. So how will you know if God is calling you to singleness?

(Watch this short video to help you know if God is calling you to singleness.)

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Relationships You May Be Called By God to Singleness If You Know Your Whole Focus Should Be on Ministry Often times the problem is that the church you attend values marriage or singleness more than the other. The Bible makes clear, however, that both marriage and singleness are equally important callings from God. 1 Corinthians 7:38 states, “So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.”

At first glance, 1 Corinthians 7:38 seems to totally disprove my statement that marriage and singleness are equally important callings from God. Notice, though, that this verse begins with “So.” Paul says that those who choose the calling of singleness “do even better” because in 1 Corinthians 7:29-35, Paul explains that the value of singleness is that you can focus solely on God. He goes as far to say, “From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none” ( 1 Corinthians 7:29).

Clearly Paul is not saying that husbands should abandon their wives and families to serve the Lord. The point of this passage is that whether you are married or single, your goal should be to serve the Lord with the same focus as someone who is single because they have committed their life to serving the Lord. This is why he said in 1 Corinthians 7:38 that those who choose Christian singleness have done better.

It’s not better to be single than it is to be married. It is better, however, that you seek to serve the Lord and not have other distractions. But to deny your calling of

marriage would be to dishonor the Lord. If you are called to marriage, you must seek to serve the Lord with the same passion that you would have if you were a Christian called to singleness. Paul qualified his statements when he declared, “I wish that all were as I myself am [single]. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another” (1 Corinthians 7:7).

With all that said, one way you will know if God is calling you to singleness is if your motivation is simply to serve the Lord. If you have a desire to live a Christian life of singleness because you hate men, don’t want to submit to a husband, don’t want the responsibility of caring for a wife, don’t want to deal with all the emotional wounds you experienced because of your parents failed marriage, don’t want to stop dating multiple people – if your desire to remain single is anything other than to please the Lord, this is not a sign that you are called to singleness.

“If You Don’t “burn with passion”/Sexual Desires, God May Be Calling You to Singleness” “Does God want me to be single forever?”

One sign that will help you determine if God wants you to be single is if he completely takes away your sexual desires. Again, it is crucial to make sure your feelings and desires are not rooted in unhealthy wounds.

For example, if you don’t have a sexual

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Relationships desire because you were sexually abused as a child, this is not a sign you are called to singleness.

that claim celibacy and singleness are requirements for holiness. 1 Timothy 4:1-5 explains:

If, however, you are seeking to love God and deal with the wounds of your past but you simply don’t have a strong sexual drive, this may be a sign that God wants you to be single forever. God does not want you to be single if you burn with sexual passion. 1 Corinthians 7:12, 8-9 explains:

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, 3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”

“Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. . . .

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. 9 But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

None of this means that just because you have a sexual desire it is a guarantee you will one day be married. God’s ways and plans for us are sometimes not that clear. God knows what he’s doing, but he doesn’t always reveal everything so clearly to us when we want to know. If you do have a sexual desire, however, this is good biblical evidence that you should pursue marriage.

Religious Reasons Will Not Help You Know If God Is Calling You to Christian Singleness Marriage is a gift from God. Marriage should never disqualify anyone from any type of godly ministry. Sadly, there are many religions today

If you want to serve the Lord, this is not a sign that you are called by God to singleness.

God can call you to marriage or singleness and call you to serve him in full-time ministry as well. While many Christian religions like Catholicism certainly do many good things for God’s kingdom, there teaching on priestly celibacy is simply unbiblical.

Love God and He Will Reveal His Calling for You, Whether It’s Marriage or Christian Singleness

You may not be able to know if God wants you to stay single forever. Most of the time God does not give us signs that would reveal his whole plan for our life all at once. Rather than spend your whole life seeking signs on whether or not God has called you to marriage or singleness, the wiser approach is to do what you know God has called you to do.

We all know God has called all Christians to

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Relationships love him and other people. When we simply seek the Lord with all of our hearts, God will reveal the next part of his calling for us when we need to know it. There are certainly some biblical ways to know whether or not God is calling you to singleness; ultimately, though, each Christian will simply need to seek the Lord and obey what he or she feels led to do.

Marriage and singleness are both wonderful callings from God. If you desire to be married and not remain single forever, odds are God has not called you to singleness.

Only God truly knows what his plan for you is, so seek the Lord and in due time he will make it all clear.

God may want you to be single or he may want you to be married, but you do know he definitely wants you to serve and love him right now. END

How Being Bullied Almost Broke Me It lingers, the hateful, mocking laughter. The images of angry glares and sneers. That cold feeling in your bones letting you know just how isolated, scared, and lost you’ve become. Or maybe it’s the self-inflicted and all-too-visible scars decorating your body that make it impossible for you to feel anything but broken.

Perhaps you’re familiar and haunted by all of the demons listed above. To some degree, we are all familiar with these nasty diseases of the mind: anxiety, insecurity, fear, self-hatred, selfharm, mental torment, depression, hopelessness, isolation.

I became infected when I was thirteen, which might seem like a young age, but anyone familiar with the way the world works today knows this is actually quite typical.

I started public school in seventh grade after being homeschooled for the majority of my life.

Due to the fact I was relatively sheltered, I entered middle school with the confidence any pre-teen would possess if they had never been touched by bullying. I was largely ignorant of my flaws, walking around with the selfawareness of a goldfish. I see now that this made me the perfect target–a sheep amongst wolves.

42 | Blessed Magazine

Relationships I had a vision of what public school would look like for me. It involved me making as many friends as I wanted, spending my weekends at the movies on double dates, walking down the hallways earning the admiring glances from all my peers…(insert any other cliché here). It only took a few years for this vision, along with my selfesteem, to shipwreck and for my identity to become lost at sea. To my great pain, I found that I was not admired, but hated. Not envied, but mocked.

Who I was and what I thought of myself became solely defined by what my peers said and thought about me. And if you know anything about how teenage girls operate, you’ll know that they weren’t telling me how awesome I was. Every flaw was thrown up in my face, my own inadequacies used as a weapon against me.

“Kids are cruel,” society justifies. “It’s a tough age,” counselors explain. But these remarks do nothing except popularize the idea that bullying is just a rite of passage.

That being slandered and tormented is just a part of teenage life. Like being called ugly, fat, annoying, and unwanted is as routine as learning to drive a car.

But the real effects of bullying are this. You feel forgotten. You pray for assigned group projects so you won’t be that kid without a partner. You wait in the bathroom until the bell rang so you won’t have to stand alone while everyone else mingled and laughed waiting for class. You stop answering your phone, afraid of what kind of teasing might be on the other line.

Bullying is a lot more than an uncomfortable

memory from the past. It’s a present reality, a constant friend, a dark companion, telling you to not even bother trying to talk to that guy. It’s the whisper that warns you to stop passing by mirrors, because there’s nothing good to see there. It’s the darkness that urges you to take the pain into your own hands to hurt yourself because you deserve it. The effects of bullying run deep.

I held these thoughts in my heart for years. I dropped out of public school and started hiding from the world. But I learned that you can’t outrun your demons. You can’t hide from yourself. Wherever we might be in life, no matter how far we’ve traveled from that time period, we carry the wounds, friends.

And yet, I carried a heavier burden still.

The roots of unforgiveness and resentment were firmly embedded into my spirit. In fact, I think the best word to describe my entire being at that time was hate. Hatred for not only myself, but for the ones who had stuck a knife into me, and for the ones who twisted it. For my family and for strangers. For pretty girls I had never met and for popular guys I never bothered to know.

I was so consumed with insecurity and bitterness from the past that I was completely missing out on the life right in front of me. In fact, the darkness surrounding me was so strong that it seemed as if I would never find the light again. Never feel confident again.

But there is one who is stronger and His eyes never stopped watching over me through it all.

One day, during my senior year of high

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Relationships school, I heard an inspirational speaker on the TV as I sat in my living room. He talked about the importance of forgiving your enemies and letting go of hatred. That caught my attention.

What a weird thing to say.

That’s completely ridiculous, I thought. But as any child of the modern technological era would do, I followed my obsessive need to Google everything. I discovered during my search that in the Bible one of Jesus’ followers asked Him an interesting question. His follower wanted to know how many times we are expected to forgive our enemies. He wondered if seven times would be enough. Jesus told him to forgive people “seventy times seven” meaning infinitely. I didn’t really like the idea of that, so I dismissed it and went on my way.

However, the next day I was riding in the car with my mom and had my headphones on.

When I looked up for a second, I saw the number “7x70” flash on our radio screen showing which songs are playing. It only took one whisper from God to save my life.

I went home that night and obeyed God for the first time in years. At first, I was a little resentful. I mean, come on. I had been raised in a Christian home, but had been distant from God for years. This is the first assignment I had after such a long silence? Forgive people who not only hurt me, but who weren’t sorry? Let go of the anger and revenge I felt was rightfully mine? Impossible.

Except – it’s not. Luckily for me, God specializes in the impossible. That night I made a choice to consciously forgive everyone who I held grudges against in my heart. At first, it was just a robotic, going-down-the-list chore. But

then God started moving powerfully and actively in my heart, and by the end of the list I was a new person. I felt the unbearably heavy chains being lifted off of my spirit, replaced with a weightlessness that brought me to my knees. In that moment, God did for me what I could never do for myself. That night, God set me free.

He can do the same for you. He wants to do the same for you.

No matter where you are, you can be found.

You might be the college student still broken from abuse you’ve suffered in the past. You might be the woman who sees herself as others have labeled you: unwanted, unlovable, and undesirable. You might be the one who thinks you’ve gone too far and done too much. Or you could be the one who has hidden everything away in your heart, cried silent tears alone in the dark, and covered up the parts of your body that will reveal how ruined you really are.

Whoever and wherever you are, I can tell you that I’ve been there. I’ve walked through my own personal Hell. I’ve cried and suffered and believed the lies. I have been bent into so many shapes that I forgot what my original form looked like. All to discover one truth that changed everything: there is One who is bigger. And His name is Jesus.

At the bottom of the pit is where He finds you. Standing alone in the middle of the crowd is where He sees you. In the bathroom with the blade in your hands is where He holds you. In the deepest aches of your heart is where He heals you. And in the restless part of your soul, where so many lies have shut out the light, is where He whispers the truth about

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Relationships who you are.

For me, real healing began only when I allowed Jesus to tell me the truth. The first thing I learned was that I was never capable of picking up my own pieces. I was never strong enough to defeat the darkness by myself. I had a disease of the spirit and diseases demand a very real antidote. When we’re physically infected with a virus, we don’t put a bandage on our elbow and expect it to go away. In the same way, I couldn’t expect to be healed from my pain without seeking out a treatment plan that worked from the inside out.

On that day when God found me and spoke to me, I realized that Jesus was the cure my soul had been searching for all that time. By His gentle urging and help, I was able to forgive them. He infused my spirit with healing, washed my wounds in love, and soothed my tired and sore bones.

the deepest part of my heart. All of my quirks, features, interests, thoughts, dreams, and gifts are known and treasured by my God. In fact, I found a verse in the Bible during that time that says He is “familiar with all my ways” (Psalm 139:3).

Nothing but the truth of who I am and how much I am loved could have saved me. No longer am I anxious about what others think about me, because I know how the God of the universe feels about me. No longer am I bitter about what has been done to me, because I have a strong defender who fights my battles for me. And no longer am I a slave to hate, both of myself and others, because I have been pursued by a love that changes everything.

If I could take away only one truth from my experience, it would be that the love of God is alive and relentless; He will stop at nothing, will spare no expense, to win back your heart and bring you home into the shelter of his arms. The effects of bullying? I found freedom.

“I have now seen the One who sees me” Genesis 16:13 END

I discovered that I was loved unconditionally with an acceptance not based on how pretty I was, how many friends I had, what kind of car I drove, or what others were saying about me. I had found a love based on who I was in 45 | Blessed Magazine

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Say What?

Brands Who Use Homosexuality in Advertising Kimberly-Clark’s toilet paper brand Cottonelle is the latest to use homosexuality in promotional advertising, as one of the commercials in its recently-released “Down There Care” series centers on advising a man to give himself a “confidence boost” in meeting his partner’s parents for the first time.

“Down there, because today you meet the parents,” the 15-second advertisement states.

“So, before they sit you down, give your [bottom] a confidence boost with ripples that remove more at once for a superior clean, and make you feel like the kind of guy he takes home to mother.”

It then shows two young men smiling at each other.

advertisement on Twitter—both positively and negatively.

“Thank you @cottonelle for supporting my community. You have a new customer,” one viewer wrote.

“I just went out and bought two jumbo packages and switched over to Cottonelle’s products. Thanks Cottonelle for a stance on diversity,” another stated.

“Stick to selling tp and leave the social issues alone,” a third urged.

“After 20+ years, I’m breaking up with @cottonelle. Too bad. Be aware what you embrace. Be more aware what you promote,” another wrote.

Cottonelle has replied to at least two commenters, telling one, “No matter a person’s orientation, gender or anything else, being clean impacts everyone. Here at Cottonelle brand, diversity is embraced in all aspects and we are proud to share a commercial that is representative of that.”

The commercial, also posted to YouTube, has received 70K views as of press time, and has generated over 800 likes and more than 500 dislikes.

Cottonelle has disabled commenting for the video, but some have posted about the

The group One Million Moms, a part of the American Family Association, has launched a petition calling upon the Kimberly-Clark Corporation to “clean up its advertising.”

It outlined in a site post on the matter that this

48 | Blessed Magazine

Say What? is not the first time that the organization has taken issue with Cottonelle’s ads, as it also found its “Dare to Go Commando” campaign to be “ridiculous” and “inappropriate.”

“Cottonelle should go back to using cute puppies in their advertisements instead of focusing on controversial issues,” One Million Moms opined.

Kimberly-Clark is among a plethora of companies that have used homosexuality in its advertising in recent years.

while Nabisco promoted its Honey Maid grahams and Teddy Grahams in a commercial that featured a homosexual couple.

In 2012, cereal giant General Mills came out in support of same-sex “marriage,” and dessert mix company Betty Crocker did the same a year later, donating cakes to three homosexual twosomes for their “wedding.” JC Penney published Mother’s Day and Father’s Day print ads depicting homosexual couples in 2012, and in 2009, the Campbell’s Soup Company placed a two-page ad featuring two lesbians in the homosexual publication “The Advocate.”

As previously reported, one of Walmart’s recently-released “Love Is in the Air” videos posted to Facebook depicts two men going on a blind date at their local Walmart.

In 2016, Colgate released an ad featuring two men moving into an apartment together and included the hashtag #smilewithpride, and Zales created a video depicting a lesbian “wedding.” In 2015, Marriott ran a “Love Travels” campaign and similarly posted on its website, “[a]t Marriott, there is no room for inequality.”

Tylenol promoted lesbianism in its 2014 American families advertisement, and DirecTV and CVS likewise came out with commercials featuring homosexuals that same year. In San Francisco, Burger King advertised its “proud Whopper,”

As previously reported, the Bible teaches that all men are in the same predicament: All are born with the Adamic sin nature and are “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), having various inherent inclinations that are contrary to the law of God and being utterly incapable of changing themselves.

It is why Jesus outlined in John 3:5-7 that men must be regenerated by the second birth, and be transformed from being in Adam to being in Christ, or they cannot see the kingdom of Heaven.

“Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’

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Say What?

Nicodemus saith unto him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?’

Jesus answered, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Marvel not that I said unto thee, ‘Ye must be born again.’

Romans 5:8-10 also teaches, “But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by His life.” END

The Case Against Twerking Within the Church

The enemy knows the importance of church and fellowship. God created the church and built it upon the premise that the “gates of hell” would not prevail against it. (Matt. 16:18) Although many are being led astray by worldly churches, there are true churches made of of true believers that love God with pastors that serve God. Pastors are shepherds that should protect the flock and teach them God’s way. When you see things like this, just know that the pastor of this church has given himself over to the will of the flesh and he is no longer a good watcher for your soul.

The enemy would rather you give up on church, stay home, isolate yourself and your children, and just use the internet as a shepherd. But the bible said to “know those that labor among you” which implies that we should have fellowship with those that lead, guide, and teach us

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Say What?

1Th. 5:12 And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; Sure you can learn things on the internet, but the checks and balances of life will come from the fellowship of believers and God’s plan for the church He established. Pray for God to lead you to a church with a pastor that will care for you and your family’s wellbeing. They exist but they are just not popular. Pastors that allow this kind of sin and lasciviousness in their churches should be avoided at all costs.

Jer. 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

out. You got all type of trash in your life but you want to be the one to judge – f*** you,” said Matthews, who leads the Naked Truth Liberation and Empowerment Ministries, in a video message posted on Instagram. “You motherf***ers who are out here judging, there is nothing in the Bible about dancing but it is judging. Again, f*** you.”

Matthews, who launched his ministry about three years ago, building on a longtime career as a controversial broadcaster in Memphis, doesn’t consider his unorthodox ministry offensive to God and told The Christian Post in a recent interview that he doesn’t consider his use of expletives in his messages swearing. END

Jer. 3:15 And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.

But unfortunately, there are those pastors who condone such activity such as Thaddeus Matthews, a controversial Memphis pastor better known as the “Cussing Pastor” for his profanity-laced messages which have attracted millions of viewers online, is defending his decision to host a sexually provocative twerking contest at his church, telling his critics “f*** you.”

He went on to say; “This message is for all you hypoChristians who live hypocritical and f***ed up lives when you have the nerve to judge someone else. I look at many of you who have criticized the young ladies who were dancing in my gymnasium in my church. I look on your pages, you got your a**, your titties

51 | Blessed Magazine

Photo Credit: Facebook; Instagram

Say What?

‘The Momo Challenge’ What’s It All About?

SALT LAKE CITY — Major news outlets including the BBC are reporting that the "Momo challenge" is a hoax being perpetuated by alarmed parents and online news articles.

A woman named Becci McGuigan posted a video on Facebook Sunday which shows her confronting her son about a character called "Momo," depicted by a photo of a creepy bulging-eyed woman. The pictured character is really a statue called “Mother Bird,” designed

by Japanese artist Keisuke Aisawa and displayed at the Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo in 2016.

"This is my boy's reaction when I asked him if

he had ever heard or seen this Momo,“ McGuigan, who lives in Morecambe, England, wrote on her Facebook page. "I've had to spend the last half hour trying to convince my sobbing boy that it's not real and nobody is going to hurt him."

She indicated in her post that her son encountered the character on YouTube but kept it secret because he was frightened.

"It just comes up as a picture," her son says sobbing in the Facebook video.

Other parents have shared similar stories, some

52 | Blessed Magazine

Say What? claiming the Momo character threatened to harm their children. For example, a woman named Pearl Woods told CBS Sacramento this week that her 12-year-old daughter with autism was encouraged to do dangerous things by the character.

In July 2018, a YouTube user called ReignBot posted a video that unpacked and debunked the phenomenon, prompting stories and news articles warning about the dangers of the "challenge" last year, Rolling Stone reported.

But despite accounts parents have shared about kids allegedly encountering Momo, YouTube confirmed that it has not seen any evidence of videos promoting Momo on its platform, according to The Atlantic. A YouTube spokesman told The Atlantic that if the videos did exist, they would be removed instantly for violating the platform's policies.

Now, those rumors are back.

"We work to ensure the videos in YouTube Kids are family-friendly and take feedback very seriously," said YouTube in a statement reported by USA Today.

The UK Safer Internet Centre told the Guardian that stories about "the momo challenge" were "fake news.“ "News coverage of the momo challenge is prompting schools or the police to warn about the supposed risks posed by the momo challenge, which has in turn produced more news stories warning about the challenge," said Guardian media editor Jim Waterson.

According to Rolling Stone, the photo of Aisawa's "Mother Bird" statue gained traction on Reddit back in 2016 because it looked so disturbing. From there, rumors started circulating that scammers using the photo would encourage children to text a number on WhatsApp and then send the kids instructions to reveal personal information and complete a series of dangerous tasks, culminating in self-harm or suicide.

On Monday, Northern Ireland police issued a warning stating they are working with other UK law enforcement to "identify the extent of the problem and look for opportunities to deal with this issue.“ "No official reports have been made to police," the statement reads.

Fact-checking website Snopes said although the challenge is likely a hoax, reports about the challenge can still be harmful.

"Word of the 'Momo challenge' is now so widespread that whether or not it represents a real threat, the subject has generated rumors that in themselves can be cause for concern among children," David Mikkelson wrote in the Snopes article.

Kim Metcalfe, a retired professor of early childhood education and psychology, told the Deseret News that there is danger in perpetuating a myth that might cause kids to go searching for disturbing material out of curiosity.

"Professionals and parents are naturally concerned and want to keep our kids safe.

Consequently, they leap into action while trying to get the facts," said Metcalfe.

"Naturally, the first thing kids do is go to the internet and try to explore the 'forbidden'

53 | Blessed Magazine

Say What?

Momo challenge. As we see these behaviors keep the topic alive, and the spread of the virus across social media is like a runaway train gathering speed as it descends down the tracks.“

the myth to avoid causing unnecessary alarm. END

Experts have suggested that rather than focusing on Momo, parents should use the opportunity to educate children about internet safety.

“You don’t need to know about every platform and every app and every device out there, but you do need to know and understand your kids' favorite apps, their favorite games, their devices,” said cyber safety expert Denise DeRosa, as reported by Snopes.

Pediatric psychologist Meghan Walls, said it's best to talk to kids about frightening things they might encounter online before they run into them.

“Something like, 'Ya know, there’s some scary things that pop up on phones and tablets and if you ever see something like that, come get me,'” Walls told Snopes.

"Have honest conversations with kids about click bait — information intentionally embedded in social media to entice kids to 'click' for the purpose of stealing their private information — or giving unscrupulous characters access to you and your information," Metcalfe recommended. "Keep the conversation matter-of-fact style. There is no need to mention Momo challenge."

The BBC reported that adults should be careful about sharing articles that perpetuate the myth to avoid causing unnecessary alarm.

54 | Blessed Magazine

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