#christian-based

[tears-that-heal]

Exciting Plans Ahead......

It's already April and I'm so excited to be busy preparing for my next art project, it's going to literally be a big one. LOL 😉 Plus this summer, my art business will be in full swing with available in-person openings for The Visual Arts Worship Workshop and Drawing 101 lessons. I'm Super Stoked!!! 🤩❤️

I'm simply amazed how God is affirming me on this business endeavor! He's constantly reminding me how much He's totally in favor of make this dream to startup my own art studio business into reality. I feel like practically everything has been falling into place without me needing to do much. The financial needs to start a business continues to be resolved and provided. My volunteer work at my church, using my artistic talents, have already been a huge promoter. Which has lead me to my first paid commission offer which will be my next art project. What I receive from that commission will so straight toward my small business. What's even more exciting to me is that my town will be having a Neighborhood Block Party next month, which I hope to have a promo-table to advertise sign-up for the my summer art workshops and lessons. God is seriously providing alot of opportunity for my art business to become known in my community. Thank you, Lord! I couldn't have gotten this far without you! 🎨

[soup-mother]

"oh but you're against evangelism yet you'd want more people to be communist" yes well one of those is like... real though...... and like actually materially impacts the real world and stuff... and makes verifiable claims...

[wordpress-blaze-221137359]

Mao Saigo Wins a Thriller in Houston

Mao Saigo, the 23-year old from Japan who won the 2024 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year Award won her first-career major at the Chevron Championship in a playoff.

It is a bit difficult to concisely breakdown the chaotic finish to the 2025 Chevron Championship, played at the Club at Carlton Woods. The playoff included major champions Ariya Jutanugarn, Hyo Joo Kim and Ruoning Yin, plus two players looking for first-career victories in Lindy Duncan and Saigo.

Saigo got to the playoff despite some massive struggles on the day. She shot +2, bringing the leading score down from -9 to -7. She came in clutch when it mattered most though, making a putt of decent length for birdie on 18 to work her way into the mix.

Hyo Joo Kim got into the playoff doing what she does best, playing solid, not flashy golf. She hit all 13 fairways and had all pars from hole nine to the finish. She shot -2 for the day.

Lindy Duncan, at one point, looked to be in good position, but everything went wrong on hole 15, leading to back-to-back bogeys that set her back. She shot +1 for the day even though she had four birdies in regulation.

Ruoning Yin brought the flash with some terrific shot making down the stretch that led to a birdie on 18. At the time it didn't seem that score would hold but her -1 round was good enough to keep her in contention.

Finally, we get to two-time major champion Ariya Jutanugarn. Jutanugarn looked poised to win on 18, sitting next to the par 5 green in two shots, holding a one-stroke lead. She duffed her chip though, not even advancing it much more than a yard. After a chip long, she missed her par putt, opening everyone up.

While Lindy Duncan effectively took herself out of the playoff with a poor third shot, everyone else seemed in play. Especially after Yin, the only one to hit the green in two, ran an eagle putt well past. Kim, Jutanugarn and Yin though all missed their birdie putts, clearing the way for Saigo to tap her short putt in for the win.

Saigo is the third player to win a major playing under the Japanese flag in the last five majors. Only two had ever done so previously.

Source: Mao Saigo Wins a Thriller in Houston

[kensatou]

j… jesus oppa ;____;

[vulpixelates]

i know it will never happen but i so desperately desire an origins-type playable backstory thing in all games but especially veilguard. i feel like it added so much depth to origins and made you feel instantly connected to your character in a way that gets lost in games like inquisition where you fill in the blanks as you go except for the bare basics. like, i do enjoy the freedom to willy nilly decide where a character was before the events of the story from a creative perspective, but the playable origins were just so good! especially when you go back to where your warden is from and can engage differently with the arcs there

[the-storming-sea]

can my followers tell i watched conclave (2024)

[horrorknife]

ahaha yo it's the blowjob brothers

[thatgentlewife]

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Leverage 5x3- "The First Contact Job"

[tears-that-heal]

Just Asking for Prayers. ☺️❤️ Thank You!

[deservedgrace]

I logically understand what people are getting at when they say stuff along the lines of "christianity is fine when it's love based and not fear based!" but... 99% of churches will self identify as being love based regardless the actual doctrine they're preaching.

And certain doctrine are fear based doctrine no matter how you dress it up. Hell (especially eternal conscious torment) as a concept is fear based. It doesn't matter if you scream about brimstone and hellfire for hours or if you gently preach about how lucky we are to be loved enough to be saved from that fate (if we only give up our entire lives). "Love me or burn for all eternity" is coercion. And coercion is not love.

"Fear based" churches genuinely believe the most loving thing to do is to make sure people are aware of what's at stake. It's a parent using corporal punishment and saying "I'm only doing this because I love you", despite study after study indicating that any "benefit" of changed behavior comes with long-lasting harm... because it's abuse. It's not a metric that will actually promote any kind of meaningful change because of how prevalent the belief of "the ends justify the means" is in christianity.

[leelarots]

this is not funny

[in4newz]

[meanderingstream]

Eliot at peace with being Damned

One of the things that makes Eliot hard to write for in-character (but also such an interesting character to explore) is that he believes he is damned to Hell and he is at peace with that. He has a lot of guilt, oceans of guilt, but it's not so much the tortured, anguished catholic guilt à la Nate or like, Daredevil. 

He has done monstrous, unforgivable things. But, on his own, he came to a realization of what he had done, and pulled away from that world. On his own, he left the worst person he ever worked for, and stopped using guns, and stopped killing. On his own, he switched from wetwork to retrievals. This all occurs before we ever meet him, so while there are many hints and inferences, the specifics of how that happened, how he came to those decisions, are left up to the audience’s imagination. 

Eliot wants to make the world a better place, and he works everyday with the team to help people, and he genuinely enjoys helping people and the work he does on the job. But he does not believe that he can be redeemed. (Not my own personal belief about him, but it is what he thinks). When he dies, he will go to Hell for his sins, and there is nothing that can possibly be done to change that. He doesn't need to angst over it, because it’s just a fact. It is what it is. There is no point agonizing over whether his soul can be saved, because he knows it cannot. This is both a keystone of his character, and also something he doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about day-to-day, because it’s a settled matter. 

And as much as we love Eliot the character, he has a point that lives are not tradable for equivalent exchange. If he killed a specific family 25 years ago, that was snuffing out the light and potential and future of those particular parents and children. The surviving extended family lost those particular relatives. Saving a family now does not balance that ledger, because each person is a unique life and not interchangeable for another. While I may have different beliefs about Hell and redemption than Eliot, I still want to acknowledge that he has a point. That changing now doesn't necessarily help the people he hurt in the past, and unlike Harry, he can’t work down a list of making amends, because almost all of his victims are dead. There is no atonement to the dead. 

Eliot’s redemption is in seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and helping others get to it. Particularly the team, and particularly the pair he’s going to protect until his dying day. He will stay down there in the dark forever (he believes), but getting the others out is his redemption. 

I do not believe that Eliot will actually go to Hell when he dies, but his belief that he is damned is fundamental to who he is as a character, and he is going to believe that for the rest of his life. It can be really challenging to balance that when writing his POV, particularly when delving into events that dredge this stuff up for him (which we writers love to do because it’s so delicious). Eliot doesn’t exactly have a low self-esteem. He knows he has many skills and is exceptional at them (cooking, fighting, grifting, guitar, sports, etc). He pretty much knows his teammates love him, and care about him, and want him to stay alive for them, and spend the rest of his life with them. He has professional pride, and he will argue when he wants something. He is certainly not a doormat. However, he also believes he is fundamentally and irrevocably a bad person. Balancing between him not being too self-deprecating in normal situations / about his usefulness to the team, with his inherent belief in his own moral depravity can be a thin blade to walk without falling to one side or another. But it is also one of the biggest aspects of his psyche that makes him such a fascinating and complex character to explore.

[fictionadventurer]

You guys know "Christian fiction" is not a dirty word, right?

Yes, it's stereotyped as fluffy romances or hit-you-over-the-head allegories, but the genre is growing beyond that. Like any other type of book, it can be done well or done poorly, and I'd say there's a similar ratio of good fiction to dreck as there is in any other genre--Christian fiction just gets a much more critical lens applied to it by people who think any mention of faith is cringe.

There's nothing wrong with writing for an audience that mostly shares your beliefs--it can let you get more specific and realistic about what a life of faith is like and dig deeper into the details for people who are already on-board with the basics.

There's a wide range of what "Christian fiction" can do. Sometimes it tries to preach the Gospel to an audience that's already converted. But sometimes it incorporates Christian themes into a good story. Sometimes it features characters who are practicing Christians and whose faith affects how they approach the world. It can dig in to the questions and complications that come with living out ideals in an imperfect world. Someone looking for "Christian fiction" could be looking for any of those things, might just want to have a conversation with someone who shares their worldview. There's nothing wrong with that.

We shouldn't be afraid of the label. The marketing category that has come to define "Christian fiction" is not the limit of what Christian fiction can do. Don't write it off based on the stereotypes--and don't be afraid to add to the genre!

[cillianmesoftlyyy]

Book Recommendations Based on Cillian Murphy's Characters! | Pt. 1?

These are all books that I've read and associate with Cillian's characters. Just because I include a book does not mean I completely agree/condone anything in them... they just remind me of the character. Characters included:

Crane

Jim

Matthew Joy

Killick

Raymond

Neil

Lenny Miller

Fischer

Let me know which books you’d recommend and which character’s recommendations you like the best!