Christian
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“But, the reality is, I still feel like I haven’t lived up to my dad’s expectations. Or rather, I haven’t lived up to my own expectations that masquerade as the memory of my father.”
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I still wasn’t becoming who I wanted to be. Then it dawned on me, you become what you look at. So if I’m only looking at myself, my faults, my failures, my successes, I will just stay myself. I won’t actually grow. So I looked to Jesus and said “do your work.” Seeing my death…
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All of my feelings well up in my soul. All of my thoughts race through my mind. And more than ever in my life, I just want to call my dad.
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Good Friday is the yearly remembrance of Jesus’ Christ’s betrayal, trial, suffering, crucifixion, death, and burial. Christians across all times, cultures, and geographies have communally and reverentially worshiped Jesus as the author of salvation in his sacrificial act. Over the last 100 years, Good Friday has fallen on April 15th only four times. And, this…
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My boys smiled at me as I cried, and then proceeded to spin to the music while screaming at the top of their lungs. And, in that moment I tasted joy; joy unexplainable. A joy so deep and unexpected, it can only be explained as supernatural. I felt the presence of God in that very…
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Today is New Years Eve. The year 2020 is about to become 2021, again reminding us that time does not stand still. Time continues to move on. Through pandemics, through economic crises, through natural disasters, time doesn’t stop. Humans keep growing older, and the universe keeps slowly dying. 2020, to most, has made this truth…
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I remember Christ’s death on Good Friday, celebrate Christ’s resurrection with joy on Easter, then immediately go back to experiencing sorrow and pain by remembering my Father’s death. It is like reaching a beautiful mountain top only to have a storm roll in and quickly rush you off, having you descend in darkness and experience…
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Photo Credit: Philippe Wojazer / Reuters Saturday morning my wife, Stephanie, and I with our friends and family celebrated the new life and coming birth of our twin sons, Abel James and August John Elliott. Gray clouds covered the sky, and a steady rain fell on the ground, a typical spring day in the South Puget…
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John Francis Elliot, my father, died twenty years ago on this day: Where were you at my soccer games? Where were you at my high school graduation? Where were you when I graduated college with honors? Where were you when I joined my soul with my wife in marriage? Where were you? Where are you…
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Today is my beautiful wife’s, Stephanie Augusta Elliott’s, birthday. The more I think about her and all of her amazing qualities and virtues, I realize that I value her birthday infinitely more than mine. For, birthdays are a celebration of an individual’s life, and I would much rather celebrate my wife’s life than my own.…
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I find myself writing on death quite frequently. Every year for the anniversary of my father’s death, I write a theological reflection and meditation on the concept and reality of human death. Death has always had a certain hold on me, and I have always had a certain contemplative fascination with it as both a…
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What if I told you I was a Greek god? What if I told you that people offered sacrifices of food and libations to me? Well, it is true. Let me explain. In Greek mythology, gods were built temples in which human subjects would bring offerings of food, drink, and incense. Greek citizens would try…