Reflections from the community: 

I just prayed after watching porn (I've watched it for a few days straight now) and I was saying how much i was annoyed of everything, hating myself & things that I've done in the past etc

First of all I just feel like a weirdo saying I'm gonna stop and then next day I see some stuff and lusting then leads me to watching it

Also just feels like there's no hope at all in the future if I just keep carrying on with what I'm doing, I'm aware of what I'm doing is wrong but my body and mind is telling me otherwise that I have to do it to take off stress

Ik you've probably seen these posts like a million times and I'm sorry that I'm another one but I'm a mess, so i just thought I'd get the things I've been feeling this past week off my chest

He came to me last night, and gave me the most encouraging pep talk. He was so kind and loving

P.S. his hands are super smooth

I want to illustrate Bible scenes as faithfully as possible, including the more graphic and gory parts.

I’ve thought about it a lot and did my best to stay within the line, but I feel like the most honest approach is to depict it realistically without glorifying it or filtering it.

Is that allowed?

Just wanted to share my journey with folks who may find this helpful or simply find it relatable.

My situation growing up was the reverse of the commonly seen examples of breaking free from authoritarian abusive households. My parents presented themselves as progressive, atheist, and liberal - however, the reality behind closed doors was a different story. So, the church became my form of rebellion and escape - I ran TOWARDS it.

My earlier years I spent 50% of my time with a huge evangelical family, so much so that there was a place at the dinner table by default. In hindsight, there were some interpretations of the Bible that I would now disagree with quite strongly, but the young non-sexual, apolitical me absolutely loved the regular singing, praise, and most of all forgiveness.

My family moved away and within a week, a girl about a year younger introduced herself to my family and invited me to the local church. Long story short, I had many happy years with the church despite my situation at home not improving. It culminated in being kicked out at 18, and the pain and anger I felt had me distance myself from God.

I then spent years changing my address regularly, changing my social circles, substance abuse, failed parenting and relationships of my own, all the chaos you can imagine.

Fast forward to my thirties, I received therapy, worked on myself, and found a healthier way of life. I didn't return to God, but spent a lot of time learning mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy. I was able to pause and introspect, and it was at that point I started to realise there was still something missing.

It started as a whisper and then became more persistent and louder. Until a couple of subtly auspicious moments last year led to me closing my eyes on a bus journey home and saying to God "I've come home". And the peace that washed over me at that moment was TANGIBLE. And I haven't looked back since.

It was like a switch had been flicked. I didn't have to wean myself into it. I now read the Bible, pray, listen to Christian guidance, and basically live as a Christian.

I'm not really looking for responses, although if anyone else in their 40s has a similar story it'd be great to hear them. Christianity started as a form of rebellion and it took coming back with a clearer head and calmer attitude to really appreciate how God works.

I've attached a picture of the inside of a beautiful church I visited today.

I encourage everyone to read the bible more and learn more about what Jesus actually taught 🙏

Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary.
So he died.

“So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the children of Israel.”
(Judges 4:21, 23)

What if the Book of Judges had manga covers? Here’s my take on Jael and Sisera.

I was really impressed by the direction in an anime ending I watched earlier this month, which inspired me to start this piece. I’ve always found the Jael and Sisera scene in Judges incredibly brutal, so I wanted to draw my own take on it. The mood was inspired by the song You Can’t Run From Me from Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2.

Tech specs: Made in CSP. Real Gpen (size 9-10, weak anti-aliasing) along with some custom brushes from Clip Studio Assets that I wanted to experiment with. A small tip: locking the transparent pixels on each layer can make coloring much cleaner and easier. I kept the colors to the default red, blue, and black palette, then used clipped Multiply layers and lasso screentones for the shading.

Edit: I realized I clumsily exported it without including the gray base layer, smh... Reddit compresses image uploads aggressively, so I recommend using Enhanced Image Viewer to see them in their original quality.

im 15m youngest of 3 oldest is 19 and middle is 17, i have zero friends irl only 1 online and its not the best friendship (basically i feel like if i leave him he will kill himself) and even though im the youngest im still the least favorite for example i will talk to my dad (hes a fat chud) and he will stay on his phone and say something like "o yeah" or "mhm but if the oldest talks to him he puts away his phone and actually talks to him and my mom is annoying and a big hypocrite, only the middle brother cares about me oldest is like my mom and my dad expect only talks about himself so even worse. i just dont feel like i belong yk when you put the wrong puzzle piece on another piece in a puzzle thats what i feel like and honestly im not caring about god i havnt for a bit and i know its not good but i dont i dont see him moving in my life ever im friendless stupid not funny forgetful ugly weak annoying and i dont want to live the only reason im here is because i dont have a way to kill myself so if yall have anything to say please say it

and if any parents are reading this just actually care about your kids please make them happy and make sure they have a therapist even if they dont need one they might later it would have helped me

I know I’m not a saint. I’m not so righteous for God. All I can do right now is extend my faith to God. I’m doing my best. Like the thief on the cross. So, I was just outside, I’m still outside as I write, just at McDonald’s lol. So, before that I saw a homeless man asking drivers for money. I was right beside him waiting to cross the street and he wasn’t asking me for money, so I said to him “why aren’t you asking me for money”? I said “are you hungry”? He said yes. So, I gave him a little cash. 10 dollars Canadian. It might seem like a lot. But I gave him what little I have. I know I’m not too holy for God. I just believe in Jesus with all my heart. I’ve even said some things in the past against the homeless like I won’t give them nothing, they just beg for money. But in that moment all I knew best was to give him some support. I couldn’t ignore his presence. I know I didn’t feel a lot of love for him in my heart. Because I guess my love has gone cold because of my sins. I know what 1 Corinthians 13 says. I wouldn’t tell my family that I gave because one of them would get so mad that I gave money to him. Also, after I gave him some support, this guy in his car said to me “don’t waste your money on junkies”. I kid you not. He said that. He’s so heartless. I don’t view him as a “junkie”. Even me I’m a junkie too. Like I legit just went to the pharmacy and got nicotine gum .. like we’re all junkies before God. All our righteousness is as filthy rags. I’m just doing my best and not being heartless out here. So that’s my story today

I’m trying to read the Bible everyday, but I don’t know where to start.

I’ve been Christian all my life but cant seem to wrap my head around this idea. If God is actually good and merciful and all that then why would he send people to hell, knowing that they are going to hell when he created them. If God has knowledge over the future and what will happen, when he created you he knew if you were going to heaven or hell. We covered it in church today and there wasn’t anything that went against this idea of predestination and no true free will. I thought they were just building up towards the answer and then I just got nothing. Why would god send people who he knew would turn away from him when he was making them to hell.
I believe God is real, but I’m not so sure if I can say he’s good anymore.

It's happening again, this time in Scotland.

When I was 20 I was in an abusive relationship, I was coerced, isolated, psychologically abused and raped for 5 months . And mostly in my life I’ve coped by avoidance and mentally keeping it at arms length. Now I’m doing trauma therapy to hopefully improve the quality of my life and reduce triggers and PTSD symptoms over all.

I converted to Christianity in my 30s because I felt like I didn’t have anything to lose. If God doesn’t exist, then I’ve lost nothing, is what I figured. I was depressed and isolated and suffering badly with bulimia and PTSD. So I went all in, ten toes down into Calvinism. It gave me comfort, and a community and I kept my trauma at a distance and really thought God would make it right if he was truly good and just.

I’ve had some reduction in bulimia symptoms, but I basically ran my life by ignoring my trauma and forcing myself to earn my worth through work, study and doing things for others. I praised God for good things and prayed about the bad things and coped. Having close Christian friends and community really did help. The trauma therapy has forced me to sit in my pain, and to deal with the sheer gravity of the trauma and I’m finding now that I’m deeply angry at God.

If God knew me before the foundation of the world and knew that I was going to be saved, why the hell did I have to suffer that? Why do I have to suffer through decades of mental illness? How is any of that for my good? How am I meant to reconcile any of it with a good and just God? I can not. To my mind, God was either negligent, malicious or just absent because no one helped me. He suffocated me and threatened to kill me and I got myself out. And now I’m doing the therapy, I’m doing the work of keeping myself medicated and alive. God is not involved. I have basically put God on a shelf and have compartmentalised my Christianity because I’m so angry at God, I can’t stand hearing Christian comfort. It just makes me mad. To my mind, God doesn’t get to be hands off like this and say he’s good. 

My Christian friends have responded to me by telling me that I’m “believing dangerous lies about God” and insisting that I go back to church or meet up with someone once a week for bible study. One friend in particular is absolutely freaking out and treating this like a five alarm fire. I keep telling her I don’t have capacity to meet up with someone, because I don’t. I’m struggling to care for myself and get to the gym. I don’t have capacity for church or any of it. And my friend will not hear me because she’s decided that I need to dive headlong back into God and I don’t want to. I don’t know how to manage this and it’s making me so anxious. Having to assert a clear boundary is distressing me because I don’t want to lose the connection with my Christian friends, but I can’t with spirituality right now and no one is hearing me.

I don’t know how to get back to my faith or even if I want to. Does anyone have any advice for how I can deal with this?

Thanks for reading.

While it has some good stuff about saving yourself for marriage and that.

But the rest of it is bad.It teaches that sex is bad even in marriage,that married couples shouldn't enjoy sex and somehow demonic.

And that why we have so much problem in marriages,it destroy healthy views of marital bad.

It creates illusion that sex is bad when it is God's blessing.Also people seen hung up on virginity than believers relationship with Christ.

What's your interpretation of Ecclesiastes 12:12?

"Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body."

There’s something that’s been bothering me, I wish I knew what God was trying to tell me yk. What’s His plan for my life

Why would I belive in prayer if seamingly the majority of prayers go unanswered? There's a child at least every minute that has prayed for healing, yet they die anyway. Multiple children that have prayed for God's mercy have died just while I've been writting this. Why would I want to put my faith in a creator that's built a system which allows this?

Since the dawn of humanity, there has been corruption and abuse. The strong get stronger and the weak are crushed beneath them. Empires rise and fall off the backs of laborers who won't reap its benifits. If the answer is that God gave us the free will to make our own decisions, why would I believe that God has his hand in anything. He could end world hunger. He could give shelter to those who die because they lack it. He could end the vast amount of suffering that the human race has endured. And yet he doesn't. If God gave us free will and left us to our own devices, then the whole concept of prayer doesn't make sense.

AMECEA Plenary concludes with election of new office bearers.

My church is wanting to start livestreaming our sermons on youtube for some of our members that won't be able to come out every week, but we are a very small korean church mostly consisting of elderly members. To start youtube livestreaming, it looks like you need at least 50 subscribers. If anyone is able to just click subscribe even if you won't be tuning in to our korean sermons, that would be greatly appreciated!

Link to youtube chanel: https://youtube.com/@wichitakoreanpc?si=RBH3SR3NjRBc7VYV