What I was trying to say: The light of Christ shines so much brighter through His true body in times of darkness that it more readily attracts the lost and spiritually hungry/thirsty.

What I hear you saying: The light of Christ in His body shines more brightly toward His body when all else is darkness. Both so true, and so important. Thanks for expanding on this for me, because I hadn’t thought of it your way. This will add something valuable to my prayers for our family.

God bless, Cindy

I’m impressed with how the girl has withstood everything she’s faced, but that is a common thing among persecuted Christians.

Lately, I’ve been working a lot in watercolors. The way you make things look bright in a painting is to surround them with dark values. It’s absolutely amazing that a setting sun which looked drab and uninteresting half-way through the panting seems to absolutely glow with light when the darks have been painted in.

I’ve been meditating on 1 Thessalonians lately, and a couple of days ago, God pointed this out to me. The Thessalonians’ faith provoked such amazement not despite the darkness that surrounded them, but in part because of it.

My heart goes out to this young girl, and I’m praying for her already. This sort of thing is, unfortunately, not an unusual fate for girls and women in the Muslim world. To be raped by an uncle and then strangled by the father for impurity. This is considered the honorable thing for the father to do. And of course, the UK government is afraid of their Muslim population.

Anyway, I’ll stop monopolizing your comment section. If you haven’t already, have a look around Voice of the Martyrs website, persecution.com

God bless, Cindy