HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 18, 2015 – Standing your ground as a Christian doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t flee persecution. Fleeing persecution is a time-honored tradition of true believers. Joseph fled to Egypt with Mary and Jesus. When they came back from Egypt, they moved to a part of the country where Herod’s successor wouldn’t have authority over them. Jesus himself, throughout his ministry, moved from town to town and avoided certain areas where he knew the Jews were out to kill him. We are to follow Jesus’ example in everything we do, so stand your spiritual ground as a Christian – and run!

NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE DOES IT ADVISE BELIEVERS TO REMAIN WHERE THEY ARE BEING PERSECUTED.

When Jesus knew his time had come, he willingly went to Jerusalem. When Paul knew his time had come, he willingly went to Rome. Otherwise, Jesus and Paul fled from or avoided areas where they knew their lives were in danger. In stark contrast, when they knew their time had come, Jesus and Paul boldly went to their persecutors rather than have their persecutors hunt them down.

Followers of Jesus will always suffer persecution. Our job is to pray for those who persecute us, and then get the heck out of Dodge. Jesus is nothing if not pragmatic in his approach to survival. Don’t fight your persecutors – flee from them, and pray for them.

Some notable flights from persecution:

•  The Exodus (Hebrews fleeing Egypt)
•  David (before he was king) fleeing from Saul
•  Early Christians fleeing everyone
•  True Christians (born-agains) in the Middle Ages fleeing the Roman Catholic Inquisition

In response to current widespread persecution of “non-believers” (that is, non-Muslims) in perpetually war-torn countries such as Iraq and Syria, some men who call themselves Christians have organized “Christian militias” and vow to fight and kill to retain their ancestral land. This is not what Jesus would have done; Jesus said: Those who live by the sword, die by the sword. Jesus told us to abide by the Ten Commandments, including “Thou shallt not kill.” There is no such thing as a “Christian militia”, if fighting and killing is involved.

Christians who are being persecuted need to flee. Standing and fighting (i.e., killing people) is going against God’s will. It’s your spiritual ground you need to stand, not the ground under your feet.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/12/21/syria-christian-islamic-state/18915275/

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 18, 2015 – God loves us all the same. Yes, we know that, but do we really know that?

God loves born-agains. God loves atheists.

God loves me the same now as a born-again as when I was an atheist.

God loves me the same as he loves Jesus.

God loves Jesus the same as he loves Satan.

Imagine that.

God loves us all the same.

The difference is in our choosing to love God back. When you love God, you give your will for him to work through you, so he does. When you don’t love God, you don’t permit him to work through you, so he doesn’t.

God respects our free will. He doesn’t always agree with our choices, but he respects our right to choose. He gave us that right, and he honors it. Choosing wisely means following God’s advice. He’ll never force you, but he will vigorously advise you. He doesn’t leave you guessing as to which choice is the right one. He always makes sure that the right choice is clear to you. God will NEVER trick you into making the wrong choice.

God loves us all the same. Remember that, and pray for those who hate you. My grandmother and countless strangers prayed for me.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 17, 2015 – Consider Jesus: He lived his whole life on Earth misunderstood. His family mocked him; the leaders of the Jewish nation he had come to save reviled him and ultimately plotted his murder; and his own followers betrayed and deserted him. He alone persisted, to his final tortured breath, in the certain belief that he was God’s “suffering servant”, the Christ, the one sent to redeem fallen mankind.

This is faith; Jesus’ entire life was a test of his faith. While everyone around him operated on assumptions derived from the witness of their senses, thinking as man thinks, Jesus relied on faith. His faith was unshakable because it was rooted in his trust in God, not in anything or anyone else. It was a deeply personal one-on-one relationship which alone endured to the end. Had Jesus hearkened to his family or his religious leaders or his followers or to outward appearances or even to John the Baptist when he expressed his doubts about Jesus being the Messiah, he would not have made it. Who would have thought that God would send such a humble man of questionable birth and little material means as his Messiah? And his disciples – such a rag-tag motley group of “sinners”! From the outside looking in, no-one, unless granted by God, could possibly grasp that Jesus was who he said he was, yet from the inside looking out, through the eyes of faith, Jesus was the perfect fit.

Then, as now, there is so much misrepresentation of who and what Jesus was and is, so much nonsense masquerading as knowledge and teachings. Jesus is the one and only Messiah, the one who was to come, God’s Christ. While on Earth, he was fully human, though increasingly suffused with God’s spirit. His faith was greater than any human’s either before or after him, which is why he was the chosen one of God. Being all-powerful, God can work in whatever way he wants, but he chooses faith as his means. Faith engenders an ever-growing desire to submit one’s will entirely to God, to do only the Father’s will, as Jesus did. The greater the faith grows, the greater the desire to submit to God; the greater the submission, the greater the faith, and so on.

Jesus was a human being; he wasn’t God. Fully human, he was also the fullest  expression of the manifestation of God’s spirit in a human being, and so God’s spirit worked through him more powerfully than through anyone else either before or after him.

But Jesus wasn’t God.

Jesus often spoke as God in the first person, as did many if not all “sons of man” – that is, prophets – before him. So although Jesus was not God, he could still speak with the authority of God, as it was indeed God speaking through him. Jesus was sinless not because God prevented him from sinning but because he chose not to sin. His did this of his own free will. Any one of us could also have become the Messiah, had we also always chosen to do the will of the Father, but only Jesus consistently chose God’s way. That’s what made him worthy to be the Christ. He wasn’t born the Christ, he became the Christ through his own free will.

This distinction – that Jesus was not God and that he became the Christ of his own free will – is incredibly important in shaping our relationships with God and Jesus. We are not to worship Jesus, but to follow him. We are to worship God as our Father, as Jesus did and also advised us to do. We are to strive to have the same relationship with God as Jesus had, where God’s spirit united them as “one” through an aligning of their wills. Jesus prayed for his followers to have this same relationship with God as he had, and Jesus always got what he prayed for.

Jesus was sinless because he always chose to do God’s will. In other words, he always chose life. He made mistakes, but he didn’t sin. There’s a huge difference between making mistakes and sinning. Jesus relied as much as humanly possible on faith, not on himself or other people or institutions or ideologies. Relying on faith means putting yourself as much as humanly possible into God’s hands and letting God’s spirit work through you. The more you put yourself into God’s hands by living by faith, the greater your faith grows and the more God’s spirit can work through you. That Jesus managed to make it all the way through his life, to his last breath, without sinning once, is by far the greatest human achievement of all time.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 17, 2015 – None of us know for sure who’s going to make it to Heaven. We can do our part, following Jesus’ example in everything we do and say and think, but ultimately it’s God’s decision about who makes it to heaven and who goes to hell.

For those who do make it to heaven, there’s no more pain, no more fear, no more death, no more ugliness, inside or out, and no more bad memories or regrets.

So what about those who don’t make it to heaven? If we make it to heaven, won’t it make us sad when we remember those who didn’t make it?

I asked God about this, because it bothered me. How could I be happy in heaven knowing someone I loved was in hell? If there are no tears in heaven (except maybe happy ones), how do people there deal with remembering their loved ones who ended up in hell?

The simple answer is: They don’t have to deal with it because they don’t remember anyone who didn’t make it to heaven. The memory of those people is completely erased from their minds, as if they’d never lived at all. Those in heaven only remember good things. Do you mourn or miss someone you never knew or never heard of? Of course not. Then neither, if you make it to heaven, will you mourn or miss those who go to hell.

In contrast, those who end up in hell never stop remembering all the horrible things they did, all the people they hurt, and all they forfeited by choosing the devil’s way rather than God’s. Over and over again, they relive the pain they caused other people.

In hell, pain never ends.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 17, 2015 – Most people who don’t know God (and even some who do) claim that we can’t know anything about heaven because no-one has ever come back to tell us about it. That may well be, in a general sense, but we can certainly know about heaven through those who’ve had visions of it (meaning, they’ve been shown glimpses of life in heaven) and by what scripture tells us about it.

If you’re born again, chances are pretty good that God’s shown you glimpses of heaven. My understanding, from what I’ve been shown and told, is that heaven is very much like Earth, only absolutely perfected. By “perfected”, I mean that there is no decay, no physical or emotional pain, and no ‘ugliness’ in any sense of the term. There are no ‘bad hair’ days in heaven. Souls that make it to heaven leave their imperfect mortal bodies behind (on Earth) and enter into perfect immortal bodies that are entirely free of flaws. Everyone and everything is beautiful in heaven.

That means – perfect skin, perfect teeth, perfect hair, perfect bodies. If we make it to heaven, we will have perfect athleticism that comes with perfect hand-eye co-ordination and perfect balance of body mass distribution. (Imagine what that will do to your golf score!) We will also sing ‘like the angels’, whose voices are renowned even among non-believers.

We will live in homes that suit our personalities and preferences to a “T”. We will eat all of our favourite foods with perfectly attuned appetites, never gaining an ounce of superfluous flesh. Our weight will be perfect and remain so forever. We will be surrounded by our favourite flowers and trees and animals. Each night, our sleep will be the best we’ve ever had, and we’ll wake up the next morning feeling the best we’ve ever felt.

There is no sickness in heaven, neither of the body nor of the soul. Everyone in heaven loves God and follows Jesus. We all share the same values, but our personalities are our own. Our will is perfectly attuned to God’s, but our personalities are our own.

This is crucial to understand, that our personalities remain the same. My personality is unique to me, just as yours is unique to you. Whether an unbeliever or born again, whether on Earth or in heaven, my personality remains the same. My values changed profoundly when I was born again, but my personality remained the same. This is how you can tell the difference between someone who is born again and someone who is under the influence of the evil one – a born-again believer will have the same personality but values that are in line with Jesus’ values, whereas someone who is demon-compromised will have a markedly changed personality and values that are opposed to Jesus and God.

My personality is unique to me, and there will be only one like me in heaven, just as there is only one like me on Earth. Along with my personality are my preferences, such as my favourite foods, favourite colors, favourite sports, and so on. In heaven, I will have access to all of my favourites all of the time. So, for instance, I won’t have to eat any food that I don’t like, ever.

I love to figure skate. But here on Earth, I’ve had inner ear issues since the age of 6 (through botched surgeries) that have prevented me from learning figure skating skills such as spins and jumps. I simply can’t do them, no matter how hard I try. In heaven, though, those physical restraints will be removed. I will have athleticism that surpasses even the world’s greatest athletes, because I will have perfectly balanced physical form, perfect hand-eye coordination, and perfect inner ears. I’ll still have to learn how to jump and spin, but I will be able to learn. In fact, I’ll probably be spending most of my free time learning how to jump, spin and do fancy footwork in my own personal backyard skating arena, listening to my favourite skating music.

I say “free time”, because I’ll still have to work if I get to heaven. But work in heaven is nothing like work on Earth. In heaven, work is perfectly attuned to your abilities and preferences, and perfectly supported by God. It always involves “missions” to help both believers and non-believers in the mortal realm still going through the testing years. Think of what angels do here on Earth now, and you’ll have a general idea of your potential job description when you get to heaven.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 16, 2015 – If you had just one more day to live, how would you live it? What would you do?

None of us knows when our time on Earth is up. It could be tonight or tomorrow or even within the next few minutes. Scripture tells us that what’s important isn’t how we start our walk with God but how we end it.  What matters is how good your relationship with God is here and now, not how good it used to be or how good you hope it might be some day. Where your soul is here and now determines where and how you’ll spend eternity.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Read it again: Where your soul is here and now determines where and how you’ll spend eternity.

And again: Where your soul is here and now determines where and how you’ll spend eternity.

Some words bear repeating because otherwise they can be easily overlooked.

Where your soul is here and now determines where and how you’ll spend eternity.

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Every morning, I ask God what I should write about that day. He usually gives me a range of topics, but occasionally he’ll point to just one topic. Today, he pointed to death.

When Jesus gathered his followers for one final meal before his execution, he told them not to cry but to be happy for him because he was going home. Jesus clearly didn’t think of death as something to fear or mourn, but rather something to celebrate and look forward to, and so should we.

But old habits, as they say, die hard. I don’t know about you, but I was raised not to talk about death unless absolutely necessary. And then, if the unmentionable happened to someone we knew, we would use the term “passed away” rather than “died”. It sounded less, well, terminal. We were atheists, and death was a taboo subject; we never spoke of it as something that would happen to us. Any mention of it was with averted eyes, hushed tones, and a sad shake of the head, followed by a quick change of topic.

Today, as a born-again believer, I could talk about death all day. In fact, the thought of dying actually makes me excited because, like Jesus, I think of it as the way to get home to my Dad and to all those who love him and love me. Maybe the older you get, the more amenable death becomes. Or maybe the more I get to know about heaven, the more I want to be there.

We know from Jesus, Paul, David and others that heaven is so amazing, it’s worth any amount of suffering during this lifetime. God has shown me what awaits me in heaven if I, as Jesus puts is, “endure to the end”, and there’s nothing on Earth that comes even remotely close to what I’ve seen. Not that heaven is completely different from Earth – not at all! – it’s the perfection of what we know and love here on Earth that makes it so wonderful.

You shouldn’t talk about death without talking about heaven, because the thought of heaven erases all fear of death and makes the suffering endurable. It also puts death in the correct context – that of being a transition phase from life on Earth to life in heaven rather than a punishment or a failure (which is how the world tends to view it). This is what I was missing for me as an atheist, and what made death so fearsome and unmentionable. There was no vision of heaven to temper the pain and horror that I used to anticipate were the main characteristics of death. As a child, everything I knew about death I’d learned from horror movies.

We need to talk about death every day, openly and cheerfully, like Jesus did. We don’t need to dwell on death, but we do need to remember that it can happen at any time, and when it does, our soul needs to be ready for heaven, not primed for hell. Am I looking forward to the physical suffering that might accompany my transition from this world to the next? No, not at all. I’m not a masochist. I don’t seek out pain for the sake of it, hoping that my contrived suffering will atone for something I or someone else did. God’s justice doesn’t work that way (just ask him; he’ll tell you). Jesus wasn’t a masochist, either. The last thing he wanted to do was to suffer physically, but he accepted that, as the Messiah, suffering was his lot. At the same time, he also had faith that God would get him through it as quickly as possible. And so God did.

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If God let me know that I had just one more day to live, I would, first and foremost, immediately choose to forgive anyone and everyone I had anything against. I do that every day now, anyway, but I would be especially conscious of doing it if I knew that my time was almost up. Choosing to forgive those who’ve hurt you is the best way to stay closest to God. What I would do after that point would be up to God’s guidance and would be completely dependent on my physical location and abilities. I have no idea what God would advise me to do, but I would certainly do it the best I could, knowing God would be supporting me in my efforts.

Come to think of it, maybe this is how we should live every day – continuously choosing to forgive and continuously asking God’s advice and taking it, knowing that he’ll support us. Maybe this is how we should live every day as if it’s our last. Jesus knew his time was coming, David knew his time was coming, Paul knew his time was coming, and maybe we will, too, but maybe not. Maybe just to be sure, we should adopt the “live every day as if it’s our last” mentality, continuously choosing to forgive and continuously following God’s advice, just as Jesus did. I can’t imagine there’s any other way to successfully “endure to the end”.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 15, 2015 – The pope has spoken out in support of Islamic violence and against freedom of speech, declaring that insulting people’s faith should not be permitted, and that if religion is insulted, violence should be expected as a reasonable response. In this, as in nearly everything else he comments on, the pope is wrong.

God has asked us not to take his name in vain. Jesus has advised us to treat other people as we would like to be treated. But nowhere in the Bible does it say that ridiculing people’s beliefs is off-limits.

In fact, the very opposite is true. Jesus stood first and foremost for speaking the truth, regardless of the personal cost. He would never have glossed over the truth (in other words, lied) in order to spare someone’s feelings.

This is truth: the world’s organized religions are based on “doctrines of man” that are for the most part ridiculous lies. These lies need to be exposed as such, so that those who are confined and shackled by them can be set free to embrace the truth, as revealed by Jesus.

Thank God for freedom of speech. Those who wish to limit free speech wish to control us for their own purposes.

Never let them control you.

Give your free will solely and entirely to God.

Jesus fearlessly spoke out against those who pretended to speak with God’s authority but were in fact (like the pope) mouthpieces of the devil. Like Jesus, we must also speak out against lies.

God gave us the right to speak our minds freely (it falls under the auspice of free will), but the pope wants to one-up God by limiting our free speech. Don’t let him. Speak your mind freely and fearlessly, especially in matters concerning faith.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 14, 2015 – A little bird told me that no religion has a monopoly on stupidity… and then Islam said: “Hold my beer.” The latest manifestation of foolishness masquerading as religious dogma is an Islamic cleric’s fatwa issued against snowmen.

The ‘logic’ behind the fatwa is that making a snowman is like making a graven image, and Muslims are forbidden from making graven images.

Mind you, in the Commandments, Christians and Jews are also forbidden from making graven images, but to the best of my knowledge, no edict, papal or otherwise, has yet been issued advising Christians and Jews that making snowmen is the modern-day equivalent of forging a golden calf.

Considering that God, my Dad, is always the first to consult in issues of religious dogma (and everything else), I asked him what he thought.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, my sweet.”

“Can I make a snowman?”

“You can make as many snowmen as you like.”

“Will you get mad if I make them?”

“No. Why should I get mad?”

“Some guy said it was evil to make snowmen.”

“Sounds like some guy has too much time on his hands. Go make your snowmen. I’ll deal with the guy when the time’s right. In the meantime, pray for him.”

So there you have it. I’m off to make a snowman, with God’s blessings. If anyone’s offended by it, please take your concerns directly to God.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 14, 2015 – There is no marriage in heaven. Needless to add, there is also no sex in heaven, of either type (intercourse or gender). Jesus tells us we will be “like the angels”, who are neither male nor female, don’t marry, and do not reproduce.

This may come as a surprise to those who hope to be ‘reunited’ in heaven with their dearly departed spouse. They may indeed be reunited as adopted children of God (not as spouses), but having ‘marital relations’ will no longer be possible or even desirable. You just won’t want it or even miss it.

As a very close friend of mine once said: “There are no holes in heaven.” This means there is no sexual intercourse but also no defecation or urination, which should come as a vast relief to many.

You can still eat, though – and how you can eat! Your appetite will be perfectly tuned to your body’s needs. The food will always be your favourites, made with the finest and cleanest of ingredients. There are no pesticides or herbicides or fungicides or genetic modifications of any kind in heaven. Everything is clean, natural and perfect. No indigestion or heartburn or tummy-aches of any kind can happen in heaven because, as scripture tells us, there is no pain in heaven.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, January 13, 2015 – In the book of Acts, Peter and John are found rejoicing over their beatings, as they deemed it a noble thing to have been found worthy to suffer for the name. Jesus warned us that, as his followers, we will suffer persecution and be hated “without cause”, just as he was. Yet he also advised us to pray for our persecutors and for those who treat us badly. This loving of our enemies is only possible through the power of God’s spirit, as our usual first response is to give back what we get, an eye for an eye, or at the very least demand an apology and perhaps some financial restitution. Only by operating in God’s spirit can we have compassion on those who are hurting us, understanding that only those souls in pain can inflict pain on others. Souls in pain need help, not curses.

Loving our enemies by praying for those who are persecuting us is the way of God’s Kingdom, not of the world. As followers of Jesus, we will be persecuted and hated, but that should not affect our inner peace and joy, nor must that deter us from persevering in God’s will to the end and preaching the Good News.  Persecution is part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus. We’re not to fight back against it or oppose it, but rather to rejoice that, like the early followers, we’ve been deemed worthy to suffer for the name.

Chastisement and correction are also part and parcel of being a follower of Jesus. How, then, are we to distinguish between persecution and punishment so that we can respond accordingly? When we are persecuted for our beliefs – that is, treated unfairly, mocked, reviled, or even imprisoned or sentenced to death, as Jesus was – we know in our hearts that we have done nothing wrong. Far from being separated from God at these times, we feel even closer to him, even more suffused with his peace and joy. Thus fortified, disciples through the ages have been able to go to their deaths singing glory and praise to God, blessing their executioners and praying to God to forgive those who know not what they are doing, as Jesus taught by his example.

Chastisement and correction, on the other hand, evoke a deep-seated sense of remorse, of something being wrong, of a separation between us and God. This feeling of separation is by far the worst pain, as there is no life, joy or peace outside of living in God’s grace. Followers of Jesus learn (some of us taking longer than others!) to distinguish chastisement from persecution and to take the appropriate steps.

The first thing you do when you sense separation is to ask God what you did wrong, and he will unhesitatingly tell you. It is your responsibility to repent and to make restitution as counseled by God.  However, if you ignore the sense of separation or refuse to repent, you will remain separated and in danger of worse chastisement. Most if not all followers of Jesus cannot bear to live without the constant companionship of God’s spirit, so they’ll do whatever it takes to be close to God again.

Persecution, then, brings us a sense of being closer to God and strengthened by him, while chastisement brings us a sense of separation. This is how we can distinguish between persecution and punishment (chastisement). However, as followers of Jesus, we are not to try to avoid either persecution or chastisement, as both are permitted by God for the edification and perfection of our souls.

Tellingly, many self-proclaimed Christian organizations, in union with other religious organizations, condemn persecution and consider it something to be eradicated rather than celebrated. Their persecution watchdogs have chapters and informants the world over, technology ever at the ready to receive reports of the slightest slur that could be construed as an attack against their organization. When, to their barely constrained delight, one appears, the anti-persecution machinery rumbles into action, with tremulous cries of moral outrage and calls for immediate public apology, retraction, and monetary restitution.

But Christians are not the only religious organization to respond this way to perceived “persecution”, which is often not persecution at all but simply an astute pointing out of the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of the organization, including their own culpability in matters of persecution. Contrast this response to perceived persecution to Jesus’ silent endurance of the real thing – the trumped trial, the beatings, the mockery, the public execution by excruciating crucifixion, through all of which Jesus’ only words were of comfort to his followers and prayers of forgiveness for his tormentors. This is the “patience of saints” in action, and we, as Jesus’ followers, are called to respond to persecution as he did.

Jesus was an outcast and an outlaw who died the most ignominious of deaths. Before dying, he informed us that we, as his followers, should expect to be treated the same at the hands of unbelievers. Jesus prayed for us to be protected in the world, not to be removed from it. But when our hour has come, as it will for each one of us, death may hold sway over our bodies but not over our souls.

Unbelievers fear to be dishonored almost as much as they fear death. Their reputation in the world is of utmost importance to them, as is dying a “dignified” or “peaceful” death. Being crucified naked as a criminal would not be top on their list of ways to go, and yet we as followers of Jesus must anticipate that our deaths will be as ignoble as his was, and our reputation among unbelievers as maligned.

The Jewish religious establishment considered Jesus a dangerous madman and a blasphemer against all things sacred. That he was believed in by the masses mattered little to them, as they considered the masses ignorant and of no account. It was with members of the religious establishment that Judas Iscariot made his infamous deal to betray Jesus.

Keep in mind that the religious establishment was also the ruling class. They made and enforced the laws, as there was no ‘separation of church and state’.

Nothing has changed since Jesus’ day. His true followers are still persecuted by the religious and political establishment, most especially by those who masquerade as “Christians”. Sometimes the persecution is made public, as it was for the three centuries following Jesus’ crucifixion, and during the Inquisition, which spanned the years from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries. Most often, though, the persecution is more subtle and closer to home (again, as Jesus promised it would be).

We are to anticipate nothing but problems from unbelievers in the world, yet we are nevertheless to pray for those who mean us harm. This is a directive straight from God. As a former unbeliever myself, I can attest that I persecuted followers of Jesus by mocking and tormenting them emotionally. One such believer was my maternal grandmother, who looked after my sister and I during our school years while both of my parents were at work. I loathed my grandmother inexplicably. Even as a child as young as seven, I yelled at her, disobeyed her, mocked her, cursed at her, stole from her, and made her cry almost daily from the cruel things I’d say to her. But not once did she ever raise her voice at me or treat me badly. Neither, as I found out after her death, did she ever “tell on” me to my parents or to anyone else. She suffered silently, finding comfort in God alone.

In retrospect, I believe my grandmother knew that my behaviour towards her was demon-inspired, and all those times she retreated to her bedroom in tears after one of my horrendous verbal assaults, only to emerge a few minutes later, sniffling, to face yet another barrage from me – all those times, in the privacy of her bedroom, she was praying for me. I was raised an atheist and considered myself to be an atheist up until the moment of my rebirth. Whether or not she would have articulated it that way, my grandmother knew my problems were spiritual, and so she did what she knew she should do: she prayed for me.

At the reception for her held at the funeral home, I found out from some of my cousins that they had likewise treated my grandmother abominably. This surprised me, because she always spoke so glowingly of them, proudly displaying each of their successive school photos on her bedroom dresser and seeming to genuinely look forward to her visits with them. Yet there they were, miserably confessing how rude and disrespectful they’d always treated her, and yet how kindly she had always treated them in return.

Now, being a believer myself, I see my grandmother as the true spiritual matriarch of our family. A humble and poor widow though she was, always deferring to others, she showed us by her actions and by the way she treated others, how to live life as a disciple of Jesus. What she had to learn on earth – her soulwork – is not my soulwork, yet I can still learn from her the most important lesson of all: how to patiently and cheerfully endure in faith whatever comes my way. I have faith that my grandmother has gone to the rest that Jesus promised his followers, and that all her good works have gone with her. I have faith that she will rise on Judgement Day and take her place among the saints who will become, as Jesus promised us, “like the angels”. And while I miss her, I’m happy for her. More than anyone else in my family, she inspires me to be kind, to be cheerful, to be humble, to endure, and to fearlessly stand my ground as a follower of Jesus, no matter how badly anyone treats me because of it.

If she knew I had written this, she’d get flustered and lower her head, shaking it a bit, smiling, not really sure what to say. But her eyes would shine brightly, as they always did. Was she perfect? No, none of us are. Did she make mistakes? Of course, we all do (even Jesus did!). She used to say: Mistakes keep us humble. Did she consciously sin? Only God knows the answer to that. But if she did sin, I believe she worked it out with God well before her death, and that she died the happiest and wealthiest of women, rich in God’s wealth, not the world’s. Having put up with me as her grand-daughter, she’s earned her reward.

I believe that God puts a person of faith into every family as an example of how to live, and these believers are always treated badly by their relatives. This comprises the most common type of persecution nowadays, just as Jesus warned us would happen. Do not be offended by the attacks, but take strength from the persecution by leaning all the more heavily on God.