Faithful Writers

Girl With a Pearl Earring , painted by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer around 1665, is considered one of the most beautiful and priceless masterpieces in history. Now imagine someone taking that canvas and painting right over it, covering the unique brushstrokes, brilliant lighting, and her timeless expression.  The thought alone feels wrong to me. It would ruin everything unique about her and permanently erase the original. You don’t have to be an art lover or collector to know that would be a travesty. When we honor a masterpiece, we respect its story, its meaning, and its history. But when someone paints over it, they aren’t just adding their own “version.” They’re destroying the original and trying to replace it with something that never was. Now, to the point. Why is it that we wouldn’t dare do this to a painting, but so many are quick to hop on board and do this to the Bible? Scripture is being pulled apart, rewritten, and rebranded to suit feelings and modern taste buds. The truth is being stripped away, painted over with new ideas that are often unrecognizable from the original.  At this point, why not just write your own book and leave the Bible alone? If you dislike what it says so much, why attempt to rewrite history as though you can change God’s word and believe He’s going to let you? I’m baffled by it. I think people believe they can sanctify their sins by reshaping Scripture. Deep down, they still want the hope of Heaven, but don’t want to face the parts of God’s word that call for repentance and obedience. Then others use Christianity as a PR stunt, reshaping it for personal or political gain.  Whatever the reason, the result is the same: the truth is distorted, and what remains is no longer Christianity at all. The Bible is not meant to be cut up, relabeled, and stitched back together. That is what is called false teaching.  My faith cannot be rewritten. You can deny it, reject it, or ignore it, but you can’t change it into something it never was. If God’s word confronts you, that’s not a Bible issue; that’s a you issue. You can pander to feelings.  You can normalize sin.  You can try to bend truth into whatever shape makes you most comfortable.  But you can’t change the Bible and expect God to do a 👍🏻 © Jane Isley

Follower of Jesus Christ, wife, science communicator and biologist living in Namibia, Africa. I write about faith-science issues, Biblical living, wisdom and defending the faith, or whatever the Lord puts on my heart. Medium BlogSpot

I’m going to discuss something I haven’t touched on before, and it’s been traveling around in my head for some time now. I know I can’t be the only one who’s wondered about this. It has always felt that what our children went through and felt during those turbulent years was never fully acknowledged. Think about it:  one day, they’re planning sleepovers, prom, and graduation. The next day, they are told they can’t leave their house for “2 weeks,” and if they do, they better mask up. I’m stating for the record: I am not talking about conspiracies or my views on the vaccine, nor will I respond to those. This is about what our children went through and the ripple effect I watched happen. I had the opportunity to have a conversation with a young lady about her personal experiences during the pandemic since she was in school at the time.  I asked her to tell me what she felt and what she remembered the most. I learned she was at the tail end of middle school, going into high school, when masking and the various mandates went into effect. At first, it was just the basics she was telling me, like a person would when asked how their day went. As she kept talking, though, I watched her expressions and her body language start to shift. At one point, she crossed her arms together and ended up hugging herself, and stayed like that for the rest of our conversation. Then came the use of sarcastic humor. The kind people often use when talking about something difficult or painful, but don’t want to get emotional about. I’m not attempting any in-depth psychological interpretation for every micro-expression or movement I saw. I’m not an expert in any field, but I could see her; I know what I saw. Something was still left behind, not the same as the haunting of a traumatic incident, but not nothing either. She opened up about her struggles of having to teach herself sometimes with the assistance of Google and the constant frustrations of not being able to raise her hand and having a teacher come over to help. Her grades slipped from a 3.7 to 1.3; this was quite upsetting to her, and I don’t blame her. Could you imagine watching your hard-earned grades drop like that? That, all on its own, is a huge hit mentally and emotionally for a student, to be doing so well and watch it slip away. She talked about how students took advantage of online classes, learning how to trick the settings to look like they were active but instead were watching TV or playing video games. As more weeks of mandates kept getting added many students became overly disruptive and generally a pain in the ass.  With the accountability structure gone, why would we expect anything less from kids? Some of the more distressing things she told me were how friends were separated from each other based on their last name when they started school classes again.  Everyone had to line up 6 feet apart; no sitting next to each other, eating lunches together, venting, playing, whispering, hugging, or holding hands.  They were always lined up in sync with the mandates while their smiles were hidden away for years. Only the eyes were seen, and our eyes show our sorrows. The worst for her was when she would get called by the office, told to grab her things, and to leave. Because an anonymous student sitting 6 feet away from her tested positive.  She told me how this happened one time, moments before an important test, she begged them to let her take it, but they said no and sent her home for two weeks. She never did end up taking that test. This is just a very brief sample of one  young student’s experience, and it left an impression on her that I don’t believe will ever go away. We now have a nation (primarily young, but all ages have been affected)  of people who don’t know who they are and believe every emotion they feel has to be validated by everyone around them. While there was already a lot that contributed to this pressure point finally boiling over, COVID-19 was the final trigger that needed to be pulled. The world was thrown into pandemonium, not just for 2 weeks but for years. The constant fear of getting sick, death tolls around every corner, planning out even the smallest errand, socialization taken away, watching parents' jobs be threatened, watching them lose jobs, and vaccine mandates that some did not want to be a part of. Our children witnessed this for years, their minds absorbed everything.  End of part 1. I will be following up on part 2 by talking about trauma responses, groupthink, social contagion, PTSD, and more. © Jane Isley Sources: (1)   Mind.org (2)  U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs ; PTSD: National Center for PTSD; Common Reactions After Trauma (3)  Mayo Clinic ; Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (4)  PubMed Central (5)  Henry Ford Health : Why Is TikTok Giving Teen Girls Tics? (6)  Verywell Mind ; How Groupthink Impacts Our Behavior

To read part one, click here . In that article, I began exploring the subtle but lasting impact the pandemic had on our children. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a young woman who was in school when COVID first hit our nation. Listening to her experiences, it quickly became clear that the disruptions, isolation, and constant fear left lasting marks that she still carries today. This second part delves deeper into the psychological and social effects of those years. I propose that our country and, specifically, our children, have gone through a trauma. I suspect that nearly everyone went through something that they never thought would happen to them.  Then layer that with the constant warning signs everywhere, being treated like a walking contagion, apps that connected you with infection rates in your area giving out alerts, businesses going out, non-stop social media posts, death tolls up on every news station, and being blocked from even participating in holidays, birthdays, weddings, or funerals.  I don’t think I need to go on. Our entire country came to a screeching halt. Now, let’s add another layer to that trauma that our children went through. Mandatory Masking.  While I get the purpose of needing to mask up when sick, we all know this did not pan out as well as we were all told it would. I’m not here to go into that side of things; just pointing out that it didn’t work as well as planned. We went well past the 2 weeks we were all told. We were required to wear masks far longer than any of us expected. So we have people experiencing a high level of constant fear and stressors now, also being required to cover their faces.  So here are my connect-the-dot moments. Traumatic Event- “Trauma is when we experience very stressful, frightening or distressing events that are difficult to cope with or out of our control. It could be one incident, or an ongoing event that happens over a long period of time.” (1) “Covid-19 has destroyed and remoulded me into someone I am still trying to figure out. It has completely changed my outlook on life and it has broken a part of me which I am still working hard to heal, with the help of my colleagues and loved ones.” (1) Here are some of the common reactions after a trauma. (2) Losing hope for the future Feeling distant (detached) or losing a sense of concern about others Being irritable or having angry outbursts Getting easily upset or agitated Blaming yourself or having negative views of oneself or the world Being unable to trust others, getting into fights, or trying to control everything Being withdrawn, feeling rejected, or abandoned PTSD- “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that’s caused by an extremely stressful or terrifying event — either being part of it or witnessing it.” (3) “Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms may start within the first three months after a traumatic event. But sometimes symptoms may not appear until years after the event. These symptoms last more than one month and cause major problems in social or work situations and how well you get along with others.” (3) Here are a few common symptoms. (3) Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of a traumatic event. Negative thoughts about yourself, other people or the world. Ongoing negative emotions of fear, blame, guilt, anger or shame. Feeling detached from family and friends. Irritability, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior. Social Contagion- “the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregates from one member to another. Adolescents are prone to social contagion because they may be especially susceptible to peer influence and social media.” (4) “Given their developmental stage, adolescents are a population prone to social contagion not only because they may be especially susceptible to the influence of social media [ 9 ], but also to that of their peers” (4) Group Think-  “Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group. In many cases, people will set aside their own personal beliefs or adopt the opinions of the rest of the group. The term was first used in 1972 by social psychologist  Irving L. Janis.” (6) Here are some of the signs to watch for with this phenomenon. (6) Illusions of unanimity  lead members to believe that everyone is in agreement and feels the same way. It is often much more difficult to speak out when it seems that everyone else in the group is on the same page. Unquestioned beliefs  lead members to ignore possible moral problems and not consider the consequences of individual and group actions. Rationalizing   prevents members from reconsidering their beliefs and causes them to ignore warning signs. Stereotyping  leads members of the in-group to ignore or even demonize out-group members who may oppose or challenge the group’s ideas. This causes members of the group to ignore important ideas or information. Direct pressure  to conform is often placed on members who pose questions, and those who question the group are often seen as disloyal or traitorous. Here’s something personal I’d like to bring up.  I do not know how many remember this, but a while ago, there was a concern, for lack of a better word, when teenagers started showing up at the doctor’s office because they developed Tics/Tourette's syndrome symptoms. It made the news for a while, and doctors learned that these teenagers were watching influencers who truly had a Tic disorder or Tourette's syndrome and then were starting to mimic them; their brains did this to them. I remember this and watched it play out because my daughter truly has Tourette's syndrome. I will be honest, it was saddening and also frustrating. No one knows the hell Tourette syndrome can actually be, and here are kids being so influenced by stuff online that their brains literally started copying them. “Then, because they’re watching these videos so often, their brains start to mimic the tics. “What these teen girls have are called functional tics — it’s a functional neurological disorder,” says Dr. Danoun. “We’ve seen this before in children who have parents or siblings with seizures.” (5) “Functional neurological disorders are often associated with anxiety, depression and/or trauma, so people with these mental health conditions may be more susceptible to developing functional tics.” (5) Why am I dropping all these definitions?  I know it’s not as cut-and-dry as these definitions, but we have a problem. When I see reports of teens developing tics just from watching too much TikTok, we have a problem on a much larger scale in our country if that can happen to our children. I can see that there’s a large population suffering from trauma, and they are all reacting quite loudly and rudely; they are reacting as if they experienced a trauma. As a survivor of trauma, I can see and recognize these actions, and I can understand them internally in a way those who haven’t experienced trauma cannot. Take all these conditions (there’s more btw, but I stopped)  and throw in a couple of years of masks, fear, isolation, and trauma to young children, teenagers, and adults. You can not convince me that they came out unscathed.  I am 42 years old, and I have never seen a reaction so substantial, forceful, and potent in this country until the mandates went down and people went back to “normal” lives. I know I can not be the only one who saw this. © Jane Isley Please consider  supporting my work ; all donations go to running this publication. Sources: (1) Mind.org (2) U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs ; PTSD: National Center for PTSD; Common Reactions After Trauma (3) Mayo Clinic ; Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (4) PubMed Central (5) Henry Ford Health : Why Is TikTok Giving Teen Girls Tics? (6) Verywell Mind ; How Groupthink Impacts Our Behavior

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” Philippians 4:4 If you’ve ever read that verse and thought, How? How am I supposed to rejoice when my life feels like a painful, overwhelming mess? You’re not alone. I used to stumble over this all the time. For the longest time, I thought rejoicing meant forcing a smile and pretending everything was fine. I believed I had to stuff down my worries and hide my pain, because if I admitted to struggling, it meant something was wrong with me, or worse, with my relationship with God.  Along the way, I got the idea that Christians were supposed to have it all together, and if problems didn’t magically disappear, then clearly I  was the problem.  (this was reinforced many times w/in churches) But that’s not what Paul was saying here at all. Joy vs happiness. Paul isn’t commanding us to feel  happy every second of every day. Happiness is tied to circumstances. But Joy? Joy is way deeper. Joy is an anchor. It comes from knowing the Lord is near, even when the storm rages on. This is the same Paul who wrote these words while imprisoned, not on a chillax vacation or during an easy season of his life. That tells me rejoicing is not about ignoring our pain, it’s about remembering God’s presence within it. Choosing rejoicing. Rejoicing is an active choice, and it's definitely a hard one to make. It’s choosing to thank God for every breath you're taking, even when anxiety wants to tighten your throat. It’s choosing to sing praises while your face is damp and your nose is still clogged from crying. It’s choosing to trust that God’s promises are always stronger than today’s problems. Definitely not easy things to do, sometimes beyond hard, but when you can do them, even in small ways, it will shift your whole perspective. Because rejoicing reorients us. It pulls our gaze off the chaos and fixes it back on the Lord, who holds us steady. It doesn’t erase the struggle, but it reminds us that the Lord is our refuge, our fortress, and our friend. A Psalm to hold on to. “The Lord is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart triumphs, And with my song I shall thank Him.” Psalm 28:7 So, if you’re struggling today, I want to encourage you to rejoice. It doesn’t mean that “ fake it till you make it ” crap.  It means pause, breathe, and whisper, “Lord, I know You are here.” And that whisper of faith?  That’s rejoicing. © Jane Isley Thank you for taking the time to read, and please consider  supporting my work . Your gift helps keep this work going. You can visit me at Faithful Writers  on Medium, where other Christian writers have joined me in sharing the word of God. You can also find me on   Tumblr  and   Facebook.

I like to call them “fly-over chapters”. Maybe you have heard the expression referring to some American States. “Flyover states” describe the central regions of the United States that people typically fly over when traveling between the East and West Coasts, such as between New York and Los Angeles. These states are viewed as less significant culturally or economically by coastal elites. In other words: boring. Fly-over Bible chapters are the same. We start them, see there is a genealogy, and quickly lose interest, skipping to the next chapter. The action of the Bible is compelling. It’s sexy. Digging deep into the Word to find profound spiritual truths in genealogies is not. I wonder how many Bible readers skip the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles to get to the death of King Saul in chapter 10. How many Christians blow through the genealogy of Jesus to get to the astonishing miracles? When I was new at Bible study, I would sometimes ask, “Why is that even in there?” and skip it. Now I ask God, “ Why is that even in there? Show me.” And He does. Numbers 33 is the story of your life. It starts this way: “These are the camping sites in the journey of the People of Israel after they left Egypt, deployed militarily under the command of Moses and Aaron. Under God’s instruction, Moses kept a log of every time they moved, camp by camp:” Vs 1–2 And then the chapter goes on to list all forty-two places the Hebrews stopped in their 40-year pilgrimage. Why? It states that God instructed Moses to list them all. What does God have in mind by making sure we know about every stop in the journey of His chosen people? Nothing in the Bible is wasted. Nothing is meaningless. There must be something in Numbers 33 for us now, today. If you Google the name of each place listed, most of them don’t even exist anymore. Some Bible scholars will speculate. But there are no archaeological ruins to pinpoint exact locations. Some of the names have changed. And many stops were in desolate, nomadic regions that leave little trace. Of the forty-two locations mentioned, only five can be identified on a map. Ten to fifteen of them have a strong traditional or historical case for the location. With at least twenty, we have no idea. Ramses, Succoth, and Nebo can be visited today. Hashmonah and Tahath, not so much. The Secret Must Be in the Math. There were fourteen stops in the first year alone after leaving Egypt. And there were eight stops in the last year after Aaron’s death. They were heading to Canaan. However, for most of their 38-year lives, they made twenty different stops. Each stop was different. Each one had challenges and joys. There were new neighbors, different views, and each could be considered a fresh start. God always provided for them. There was daily manna and water. They were covered by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Their clothes didn’t wear out. They had everything they needed. Living in twenty separate places in thirty-eight years meant there were no deep roots to lay down. Although two years is a long time to stay at a place, it was still temporary. They weren’t to be established there. They were on a journey. The deep roots would come when they reached their promised land. Canaan was destined to be the place where they could have lasting rest. The other stops were a part of a narrative of their lives. Did they ever sit around a campfire, reminiscing about their time at certain stops? Some places had ample wood. Others took arduous work to keep the family going. Did an aging Grampa recount the story about giving the Amalekites a serious beat-down at Rephidim to the young kids? How did they remember the golden calf? Or try to describe the day the earth swallowed Korah and family? Could they still hear the screams in their mind? Maybe That’s What God Is Showing Us in This Fly-Over Chapter. What if it is not a list of strange places? But the story of us. What if we are on a journey to a promised place of rest and peace? And with each stop in our lives, in each chapter, we have been led there for a reason. It was beautiful, but it was temporary. God doesn’t want to read about our birth, skip to the day Jesus became real to us, and then skip again to the day we joined Him in heaven. No, those Elementary School years, the dating tears, that failed business, being Angelically saved in a car wreck, the bad, the good, the rebellion, the promotion, and the bankruptcy are all important to Him. Because they are all stops in our Exodus through this age. Each experience is necessary. Every tear is important enough to be saved. “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” Psalm 56:8 Will God Fly Over Our Story at the Judgment? Imagine the scenario as recorded by John in Revelation: “I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.” 20:12 Will God say: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, skip all that and cut to the good parts.” Nope! He knows the number of hairs on our head (Luke 12:7) , and all our days were planned before we were born (Psalm 39:4) . Each chapter of our lives is methodically woven into a tapestry of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, love and loneliness, freedom and bondage, lack and abundance, stress and peace… and ALL of them are important . They are a part of our story. They are a name in a list of a chapter called “Life”. Next time you come across a scripture like Numbers 33:24, “They left Mount Shepher and camped at Haradah ,” pause for a second. Don’t just fly over it. It’s important. They left a beautiful mountain to camp at a place called “Fear” before they headed to the next beautiful mountain. I would love to know more about that stop. Because we have all had seasons in a valley of fear before we headed to the safety of the next mountain. Wherever you are camped today, it is temporary. Stand firm. Rejoice always. Endure. Appreciate. Conquer. Love fiercely. Pray. Sing. Share. Believe. Help your fellow life campers. Because where you are, what you are doing, what you see, and who you are with is temporary. And when the cloud or pillar of fire moves, it’s time to go to your next assignment. You have a long chapter left to be written. Enjoy the trip. © I.M. Koen Thank you for reading to the end. You might also enjoy: Why God Eavesdrops on You. Why Did God Choose Me? I’m Broken. Does Your God Stoop? May God sing songs of love over you as you sleep. -Issachar

I was once told by a psychiatric nurse that I should tell my story.  I scoffed at her, and trust me, I was very rude, but she didn’t give up on suggesting it. At that time, though, I wasn’t in any mood to consider it or anything; I was desperately just trying to survive what my body was doing to me. This all happened while I was a voluntary patient in a psychiatric ward.  Long story short, COVID did one hell of a number on me. First, it went after my heart. Landed me in the hospital for that one, and a heart monitor, because my heart rate was dropping into the lower 30s/ upper 20s at times. All I could do was lie there and think and cry. I made and sent videos to family and friends as a will for my daughter. Then it hit my kidneys. Another hospital stay, acute Kidney Injury, they told me, I think my function dropped to 23%, or 25%, can’t remember which. But I do remember signing that DNR. And finally, last but not least, rounding out to full-blown destruction of my GI tract and nervous system. I admitted myself to a psychiatric ward for that body blowout and to protect myself because I knew what I wanted to do was not right. I was hospitalized three times within four months. By the time I met this nurse, I was exhausted, burnt out, lost, and done with life. From time to time, I had thought about telling my story, but I always thought it meant sitting down and writing a book from beginning to end.  Just the thought of that and writing anything about my life at the moment was repulsive to me. Turns out I was wrong, and she saw something in me that I didn’t know was there. I’ve begun to heal countless parts of my life, body, and soul that I didn’t even realize were still injured by writing. A person’s story doesn’t need chapters or a neat beginning-to-end arc.  My story is broken up into pieces and told out of order.  Every day has a villain, and every day I wake up is part of my story arc. Now, I write.  I break my story into bits and pieces to give hope, reassurance, and encouragement that this, too, shall pass.  I break my story into bits and pieces to give hope, reassurance, and encouragement that this, too, shall pass. You are never alone. I survived what hands down should have been an un-survivable time in my life, and it wasn’t me who did that. To God: Thank you for sending her to me that day.  To the nurse I scuffed at. I’m sorry, and thank you. © Jane Isley (Revision) First published in Know Thyself, Heal Thyself , I think.

So a while back, my brain was spinning in a hamster wheel, circling the concept of the soul-body connection. It’s like I was standing on the edge of understanding something big, almost grasping it, only to have it keep blipping out. But it finally clicked, ya’ll. As I read through different verses in the Bible, I noticed how often God addresses our human nature, our tendency to be scared, carry anxiety, and worry. And how, when we let those things pile up, they don’t just weigh down our ability to think. There is also an effect on our physical bodies. The more I read, reread, and really absorbed what the Bible was saying, the more I began to see a pattern as things clicked upstairs.  What God tells us to do for our spiritual health is often exactly what we need for our emotional, mental, and physical health as well. That’s when everything started to make sense. I realized the human body and the soul aren’t separate after all. I used to believe, and was even taught, that the physical body and the soul existed apart from each other. Kinda like a jar with smoke in it, two different elements put together, but not integrating into each other. I never thought to question it.  The more I’ve reflected, the clearer it’s become: every person is a unique combination of dust and soul. That’s what makes us who we are. There isn’t just a “ physical you ” or just a “ spiritual you.”  There’s just you. One whole living, breathing being. In learning this, I’ve come to realize that my spiritual health is way more important to tackle first than my physical health. That's not me saying I don’t care, or that God doesn’t, but a sick soul leads to a sick body. When I’m struggling physically, I do pray for that, but my focus is now shifted. I pray for strength and peace in my heart. I pray that I continue to follow His lead despite what may be going on.  He cares about the physical pains, He really does, but we cannot let our body be the only thing we are praying for; we can’t allow our body to drown out the health of our soul. I hope that makes sense. “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 “ A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” Proverbs 14:30 “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 My prayer life, my relationship with God, and my physical health got better once I stepped beyond just the needs of my body and how things of this world affected me, and I prayed for the health of my soul and my relationship with God.  Once I realized that my soul needed as many band-aids, if not more than my body, was when everything fell into place. Our faith, emotions, and physical bodies are deeply intertwined.  When we nurture one, we nourish the other, too. © Jane Isley Thank you for taking the time to read, and please consider  supporting my work . Your gift helps keep this work going. You can visit me at Faithful Writers  on Medium, where other Christian writers have joined me in sharing the word of God. You can also find me on   Tumblr  and   Facebook.

The Olympics definitely went off with a bang this year, but what I’m seeing from some Christians is even more deeply concerning. Screenshot from YouTube video “Symbolism Explained: The Olympics Opening Ceremony is Worse than You Thought” by Jonathan Pageau. Used under fair use for commentary. Many are defending this, claiming it wasn’t really a Last Supper parody, that it’s just “artistic expression,” it was only about the god Dionysus, not Jesus, and that people need to calm down and be more inclusive. Basically, we’re being gaslit into thinking outrage over clear moral violations is overreacting. The harsh truth is, it doesn’t matter whether the parody intentionally referenced the Last Supper or not. The point is: the excuses being given to justify this as “okay” are meaningless in the face of what was actually presented. The point is what it openly promoted: the LGBTQ+ community, drag queens, the feast of Dionysus (the god of wine, fertility, and revelry), sexuality, gluttony, drunkenness, and immodesty, all in front of children. It normalized a culture of blatant sexuality, sensuality, and revelry under the guise of “art,” making a spectacle out of behaviors Scripture clearly condemns. If you call yourself a Christian and support this, it’s time to reevaluate your faith, and I mean that quite literally and seriously. It’s not about being judgmental; it’s about aligning with the truth of God’s Word. The Bible makes it clear: there is no middle ground when it comes to defending behavior that glorifies sin. The only “middle ground” some claim is a false one, designed to allow people to live however they please while excusing what Scripture forbids. Stop defending this monstrosity of an “artistic” expression. There is no place for it in Christianity. It is a stark reminder that the world will continue to push boundaries, but our faith calls us to stand firm, sober, and vigilant. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 © Jane Isley Consider  supporting my work ; all donations go to running this publication. Image Source: The Symbolic World by Jonathan Pageau