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Ed Young reveals daughter struggled with depression; trusting in God after her death
In an emotional message delivered Sunday, Pastor Ed Young and his wife, Lisa, revealed the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding the death of their 34-year-old daughter, LeeBeth, and reflected on God’s continued faithfulness amid their grief.
On February 14, Ed and Lisa Young spoke publicly from the pulpit of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, for the first time since announcing their firstborn daughter passed away on January 19.
“I would say in these 30 plus years of ministry and leading at Fellowship Church, we probably have never been as weak and as vulnerable as we are right now,” Lisa said. “We’ve experienced difficulty and we’ve walked through pain, but not like this, and only by God’s grace are we doing it.”
“This … was an out of order death,” she added. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, and dealing with that adds another messy layer. So today we just thought we would share some of [what has] led up to this time.”
The Youngs revealed that LeeBeth, whom Ed described as an “original creative thinker” who loved the Lord and was gifted with discernment, struggled with depression and anxiety — issues her father said got worse as she got older.
After getting out of a “tumultuous” relationship five or six years ago, LeeBeth called her mother and said, “Mom, I think I’m an alcoholic.”
“That rocked us … because LeeBeth had never been a drinker, or someone who partied, zero,” Ed recalled. “That was something that definitely snapped our heads.”
While on her way back from seeing a doctor after binging on alcohol, LeeBeth had a seizure and ended up in the ICU. There, the doctor told her, “If you continue to do this, you will die.”
“So she had her first episode that I described of binge drinking, and a second episode which led to rehab,” Ed said. After going through rehab, LeeBeth saw a “great therapist” and participated in counseling, along with her parents.
When COVID hit, LeeBeth began conducting her ministry duties at home, away from the church office — something Ed admitted he “knew intuitively would be a struggle” for her. About three weeks ago, the couple said they noticed LeeBeth “acting a little bit different.”
After receiving a strange FaceTime from her daughter, Lisa, who was in South Carolina visiting her mother, urged Ed to go check on her.
“I called Ed and I said, ‘Honey, LeeBeth’s not good.’ He goes, ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘It’s just not good, you need to go.’ And so he did and he found her,” she said.
Ed revealed that after finding LeeBeth in a state that “as a parent, you pray you never have to get involved in,” he took her to see her therapist. At that time, she told her parents, “I want to live, I want to be better. I want to get over this. I want to do what’s right.” That evening, Ed laid his daughter down in the room next to his office.
“She was shaking,” he recalled, “I said, ‘You’re just coming off, LeeBeth, this alcohol that you’ve consumed.’” LeeBeth didn’t want to go to the hospital, so Ed “sat down by her and kissed her, rub her back a little bit” before going into his office to work on his sermon.
While working on his sermon, the pastor heard a noise and ran into his daughter’s room.
“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “She had a seizure. When I saw her, I thought she was gone right there.”
Ed’s nurse daughter-in-law, who lived in the guest house, attempted CPR on LeeBeth as they waited for the ambulance. Once the paramedics got there, they couldn’t find LeeBeth’s pulse but heard a faint heartbeat. Because of COVID, the family was unable to be with LeeBeth at the hospital. However, Ed revealed that the family was able to FaceTime her, singing praise songs to her as she took her last breath.
“The doctor came in and I’ll never forget what he said,” Ed said. “He said, ‘we can’t do anything else.’”
Through tears, Lisa said nothing that occurred was what they, or LeeBeth wanted, but stressed that “God has provided” amid their grief.
“We can’t judge LeeBeth based on that last bout, that last thing that she did,” Ed said. “But it’s really about the last thing that Jesus did on the cross. That’s what her life is about. She should be judged by that.”
The pastor admitted he still struggles with the “images” of finding his daughter, expressing frustration that many people can “drink like a fish” and consume drugs and walk around “healthy as a horse,” yet LeeBeth struggled with three known binge episodes “and she’s gone.”
Still, the couple said they find peace in the fact that God is on the throne and bigger than their “whys.” They said LeeBeth dedicated her life to Christ on February 14, 1991, a fact they find great comfort and consolation in.
“God is faithful,” Ed said, and asked the church to continue to keep them in their prayers. The pastor added that he and his wife will “do church with greater urgency than ever before” because “we’ve been so close and we are so close to eternity.”
“One moment, LeeBeth was alive the next moment, she’s in eternity,” he said. “And all of us have a tissue-like veil separating this life from the next, it doesn’t matter who you are … Every single person dies and death is the great equalizer. You’re not ready to live … until you’re ready to die.”
Sources:Christian Post
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കാത്തിരിപ്പ് സമയം വെട്ടിക്കുറയ്ക്കും; ഇന്ത്യക്കാർക്ക് ആശ്വാസമായി 2025-ൽ പുതിയ യുഎസ് വിസ നിയമനം
യുഎസിൽ ജോലി ചെയ്യാനും യാത്ര ചെയ്യാനും ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന ഇന്ത്യക്കാർക്ക് പുതുവർഷം ആശ്വാസം പകരും. 2025 ജനുവരി 1 മുതൽ, ഇന്ത്യയിലെ യുഎസ് എംബസി, നോൺ-ഇമിഗ്രൻ്റ് വിസ അപ്പോയിൻ്റ്മെൻ്റുകൾ ഷെഡ്യൂൾ ചെയ്യുന്നതിനും റീഷെഡ്യൂൾ ചെയ്യുന്നതിനുമുള്ള പുതിയ നിയന്ത്രണങ്ങൾ അവതരിപ്പിക്കും.
ഡിപ്പാർട്ട്മെൻ്റ് ഓഫ് ഹോംലാൻഡ് സെക്യൂരിറ്റി (DHS) H-1B വിസ പ്രക്രിയ നവീകരിക്കുന്നതിനുള്ള പുതിയ നിയമങ്ങൾ വെളിപ്പെടുത്തിയതിന് തൊട്ടുപിന്നാലെയാണ് ഈ പ്രഖ്യാപനം.
രണ്ട് പ്രഖ്യാപനങ്ങളും ഇന്ത്യക്കാർക്ക് അനുകൂലമാണ്, കൂടാതെ നടപടിക്രമങ്ങൾ കാര്യക്ഷമമാക്കാനും അപേക്ഷകരുടെ നീണ്ട കാത്തിരിപ്പ് സമയം കുറയ്ക്കാനും ലക്ഷ്യമിടുന്നു.
Sources:azchavattomonline.com
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ചിക്കാഗോ ലേഡീസ് ഫെലോഷിപ്പിന് പുതിയ നേതൃത്വം
ചിക്കാഗോ: ചിക്കാഗോ ലേഡീസ് ഫെലോഷിപ്പിന്റെ രണ്ടു വര്ഷത്തെ കോര്ഡിനേറ്ററായി സിസ്റ്റര് മോളി എബ്രഹാമിനേയും, ജോയിന്റ് കോര്ഡിനേറ്ററായി സിസ്റ്റര് ഗ്രേസി തോമസിനേയും തെരഞ്ഞെടുത്തു.
സിസ്റ്റര് മിനി ജോണ്സന്റെയും,സിസ്റ്റര് റോസമ്മ തോമസിന്റെയും പ്രവര്ത്തന കാലാവധി പൂര്ത്തിയായതിനെ തുടര്ന്നണ് പുതിയ ഭാരവാഹികളെ തെരഞ്ഞെടുത്തത്.ഫെലോഷിപ്പ് ഓഫ് പെന്തക്കോസ്തല് ചര്ച്ചസ് ഇന് ചിക്കാഗോയുടെ കണ്വീനര് ഡോ.വില്ലി എബ്രഹാമിന്റെ ഭാര്യയാണ് മോളി എബ്രഹാം.ഗുഡ് ഷെപ്പേര്ഡ് ഫെലോഷിപ്പ് ചര്ച്ചിലെ അംഗമാണ്.
ഗില്ഗാല് പെന്തക്കോസ്തല് അസംബ്ലിയിലെ സീനിയര് ശുശ്രൂഷകന് പാസ്റ്റര് സാം തോമസിന്റെ ഭാര്യയാണ് ജോയിന്റ് കണ്വീനറായ ഗ്രേസി തോമസ്.
Sources:onlinegoodnews
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Biblical Archaeology From the Holy Land Revealed: ‘You’re Almost Touching…History’
An Israeli entrepreneur on a mission to highlight biblical artifacts has brought his “treasures from the Holy Land” to America.
Oded Golan’s “Discovering the World of Jesus: Ancient Treasures From the Holy Land” experience opened Dec. 3 at Atlanta’s Pullman Yards, with hundreds of ancient artifacts surrounding the New Testament on display.
“We are bringing [a] once-in-a-lifetime experience to people to look at items that they will probably not have other opportunities to see,” Golan recently told CBN News. “The 350 items that are presented here, most of them are from the time of Christ. They were all found in the Holy Land in Israel, and they are telling the stories that are mentioned in the New Testament, but in first hand.”
He added, “You’re almost touching the history.”
Golan said some of the items are related to Jesus’ family or people living during his lifetime. These elements allow people to explore life during biblical times, seeing the behaviors and practices that unfolded during the New Testament era.
Already, audiences are loving the experience, Golan said, noting that giving a lens into the past illuminates knowledge and understanding.
“It doesn’t change faith, it doesn’t change belief, but it changed, somehow, how do you feel and how do you see the stories that are mentioned in the Bible — in the New Testament,” he said.
Golan’s story is a fascinating one, as he started collecting antiquities when he was just a child.
What started as a passion project grew into something much more — a collection he calls the “biggest and largest … in the world of biblical archaeology items.”
“When I was young, even, you know, until the age of 16, 17, I had in mind that I should be an archaeologist one day,” he said. “But … in life it was changed … but I kept archaeology as a hobby.”
And that hobby grew as he traveled all over the Holy Land and collected artifacts — relics he brings to audiences in “Discovering the World of Jesus: Ancient Treasures From the Holy Land.”
“In this exhibition, we present only items that came from a very short period of time,” Golan said. “We are talking about the early first century AD, the time of Jesus. A few items are from the 3rd, 4th, 5th century because this was the time when the first churches emerged — the cradle of Christianity.”
He believes audiences will be captivated regardless of their age or religious beliefs.
“It doesn’t matter what age you are, and what [religion] you are, and how strong [a] believer you are,” Golan said. “It’s fantastic.”
The entrepreneur also made international headlines in 2012 when he was on trial after being accused by the Israel Antiquities Authority of forging an inscription on the James ossuary, a stone relic believed to hold the bones of Jesus’ brother, James.
He was acquitted after a seven-year legal battle. The ossuary, which has been a source of contention, has an Aramaic line that reads, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” Proponents argue that the inscription pointed to evidence of Christ’s brother, James.
Ultimately, Golan was absolved of the most serious charges surrounding manufacturing elements of this inscription, among other serious charges. Some have since defended the authenticity of the artifact’s inscription, which would be the earliest reference to Jesus. Read more about the history of the matter.
Golan referred to this case while explaining he was in the “later stage” of his life – over the age of 50 — when he read the New Testament for the first time and started to understand it. Wanting to better comprehend the ossuary in his collection, he turned to the text for understanding.
Speaking about the James ossuary, he heralded the importance of the find, which is included in “Discovering the World of Jesus: Ancient Treasures From the Holy Land.” He’s hoping the collection inspires visitors to think more deeply about the past.
“You’re touching the history — almost physically,” Golan reiterated. “And that makes … a big difference compared to any other kind of exhibition. And, as I mentioned, it’s not only the artifact exhibition. It has much more than that.”
After the Atlanta run, Golan hopes to bring “Discovering the World of Jesus: Ancient Treasures From the Holy Land” to other cities across America.
Sources:faithwire
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