Grimes has openly shared the emotional and financial toll of her lengthy custody battle with Elon Musk, raising critical awareness about the realities of parental conflicts. The pair has engaged in a year-long custody dispute concerning their three children. Grimes alleges Musk obstructed her access to their children. The Battle Over Parental Rights Grimes, the Canadian musician, and ex-partner of tech mogul Elon Musk, has shared insights into the prolonged custody struggle concerning their three children, which she describes as emotionally and financially draining. According to Grimes, Musk limited her access to their children, including a period where she allegedly went five months without seeing one of them. Grimes elaborated that the legal proceedings almost left her bankrupt, hindering her creative pursuits. The couple’s custody dispute was primarily settled in Texas, but Grimes also pursued legal action in California to affirm her parental rights. Grimes revealed her custody battle with Elon Musk has deeply impacted her music career, saying, “The threat of losing ur kids while going bankrupt fighting for them is not very conducive to creative thoughts.” https://t.co/A3p1Yffn1X pic.twitter.com/eBdDoZdvsI — Yahoo Entertainment (@YahooEnt) November 20, 2024 Public Perception and Personal Revelation The transparent manner in which Grimes has spoken out about the custody battle has generated empathy from the public and highlighted the challenges faced by those entangled in high-profile legal conflicts. She claims the legal system in Texas favored fathers, further complicating her situation. Her revelations have led to broader discussions on the emotional toll such disputes take not only on celebrities but on families at large who go through similar feelings of helplessness and despair. i think people forget he wasn’t always like this. grimes left him once the brain rot took over. the photo and the tweet are about a month apart https://t.co/6OS0DeOki7 pic.twitter.com/2OgQh4olCS — ༄ؘ * ? ? ? ✧ #Arcane (@artangelfae) November 16, 2024 Looking Ahead After Settlement While the custody battle has reportedly reached a resolution, with terms not made public, Grimes expressed her desire to protect her children’s welfare amidst ongoing public attention. Despite the legal hurdles faced, Grimes remains focused on regaining stability and continuing her music career, which she paused during the height of the legal skirmish. The issue at the heart of this custody battle resonates with many parents who struggle under the public eye, emphasizing the importance of addressing these personal matters with sensitivity and care. Sources: Musk and Grimes fight in court The Grimes/Musk legal battle The post Grimes and Elon Musk’s Battle It Out appeared first on The Conservative Brief.

Things will get better because God is in control. Even if you are having a hard time finding anything to be thankful for, you can be thankful for God. He is our Almighty, Wonderful God and He is also our dearly loved friend.

I used to have a quote from G. K. Chesterton hanging on my bedroom wall: “Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” I wanted to remind myself to be grateful, but it really got me thinking about wonder. Wonder starts with humility and openness, which create space for ideas of amazement and revelation. Wonder is also inherent in Christianity. We know there’s more than we can know, and we’re prepared to be surprised by the invisible God whose thoughts are beyond our thoughts (Isa. 55:8–9). Christmas is filled with wonder as God takes on human flesh and works in mysterious ways to save us. As the holidays approach, I want to celebrate books that feature an aspect of wonder, an unexpected adventure or joy in surprising places or something astonishingly beautiful or brave or good we might look at every day but sometimes forget to see. Here are five wonderful new picture books to share with the children in your life. 1. Arlo and the Keep-Out Club by Betsy Childs Howard, illustrated by Samara Hardy (TGC/Crossway) In the newest release from TGC Kids, Arlo is back, a little older now and stepping up to help others. He has an opportunity to join a group of older boys playing at a playground, but they’ll only let him hang out with them if he agrees to do something unkind to a younger girl playing nearby. The story describes events that could happen in the normal life of elementary-aged children, but it’s told with an excitement that helps reveal its significance as a moral and spiritual battle, just one fought with pinecones, a stuffed owl, and a moderately distracted dad. There’s a scene where Arlo’s dad closes the book he was reading to focus on his son and says, “Following Jesus is a great adventure.” That reminded me of another Chesterton quote, from his essay “On Running After One’s Hat”: “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.” It made me appreciate, once again, the adventure of faith in action, even when it’s lived on playgrounds. 2. Fritz and the Midnight Meetup: A True Story About Kids Who Prayed by Megan Hill, illustrated by Chiara Fedele (B&H) The first night, seven orphans sit by a fireplace to pray together after dark. By the third night, the group more than doubles, with 15 children bringing their blankets downstairs after bedtime to ask God to bring more people to love him. This picture book tells the true story of a revival in Germany in the 1800s sparked in part by orphans who prayed together after dark, overcoming tiredness and a bully who threatened to disrupt their gatherings. My kids’ primary takeaway was that even children can honor Christ as King and point others to him right where they are. As the author says in a note at the end, “It may seem fantastical to imagine young children who seek revival, organize prayer meetings, pray for their enemies, and witness the conversion of their peers, but these things really happened. And, by God’s grace, they can happen again.” 3. The King of All Things by Shay and Catherine Gregorie, illustrated by Breezy Brookshire (Wolfbane) The back cover of this enchanting little board book summarizes it as “A blessing over little ones to awaken worship and wonder.” It’s a rhyming prayer of praise to God for being the king of clouds and birds, mountains and plains, that ends with a petition for Eyes to see how your wondrous works surround us, Ears to hear creation’s joyful noise, Words to spread your light to all around us, And a heart to serve you with deep abiding joy. The pictures are lovely, gentle watercolor illustrations of laughing dolphins, running horses, and dancing children. It’s an ideal bedtime read for little ones—both comforting and true—and a reminder to see the wonder of both God’s creation and his presence. 4. Joni Eareckson Tada by Kristyn Getty, illustrated by Hsulynn Pang (The Good Book Company) I came into this book already familiar with Joni’s story, but I was amazed by and grateful to be reminded again of the details. Joni gave her life to Christ when she was 15, and two years later a swimming accident left her paralyzed. The book tackles some of her struggles, describing how she couldn’t walk or use her hands, and the hard questions she asked God in her anger and sadness. With physical and spiritual disciplines, help from others, and grace, Joni learns to walk with God not despite her disability but through it. Getty describes some of Joni’s many acts of creating beauty (singing and painting), her service to others (charity work, legal advocacy, and teaching), and especially the ways Joni points those around her to the hope of heaven. Joni reminds readers to love others, including those with disabilities, and to love God amid the stories he is writing for them. 5. Strong by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago (Zonderkidz) Sally Lloyd-Jones’s Found, a retelling of Psalm 23, was possibly my daughter’s all-time favorite book when she was a toddler. She’s in upper elementary school now, but she still keeps her tattered copy close to her bed (just to look at the pictures on nights when she can’t sleep, she tells me). Strong is a new book in the same series, and it’s a brief exploration of the tree metaphor in Psalm 1. The pictures beautifully depict trees around the world—baobabs and redwoods and aspens, trees hung with coconuts, fruit, and Christmas decorations. The text describes aspects of the tree in the psalm, planted by water, bearing fruit, never withering, and Strong concludes that simply being close to God is a good place to be, “like a little tree by a stream.”

When you think about your church’s culture, you can likely identify positive and negative aspects. There’s no perfect church. So you involve yourself in Christ’s body not because a church has it all together or has attained human perfection but because you are, in fact, “involved” in Christ’s body. Ephesians 2:19–22 (CSB) explains this about all believers: “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household . . . being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.” Christians are joined together for a holy purpose. We’re “one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). The question, then, is how imperfect people of all walks of life are joined together in Christ. And what does that mean for our assurance and our destiny? Gospel Doctrine: We’re Saved by Grace The word “gospel” means “good news.” It’s the message of God’s grace shown to undeserving sinners through the work of Christ’s cross. We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone apart from all our works. God, through Jesus’s perfect life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection, rescues all his people from his wrath and into peace with him. And he promises the full restoration of his created order forever—all to the praise of his glorious grace. That grace is a gift (Eph. 2:8–9). We don’t earn salvation by having it all together, and we’re certainly not meant to relate to one another under the guise of that terrible assumption. So how should what we believe about the good news of God’s grace doctrinally extend to the way we relate to one another in this life and into eternity? Gospel Culture: Grace Leads to Loving Unity Consider Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth: Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. . . . For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Cor. 15:1–2, 9–11) The Corinthians had heard and believed the gospel of God’s grace. They’d been unified in Christ. Yet they were at odds with one another and operating in disunity. They, like all believers then and now, needed a reminder that grace changes everything—including our relationships within the church. Grace changes everything—including our relationships within the church. Paul was convinced having gospel assurance would lead the church to gospel unity. But can we truly have assurance? Jesus came to earth with a radical grace foreign to all we’ve ever known. His mercy for the undeserving can be hard for us to believe and hold on to. In a world where we’ve experienced performative and conditional love, it’s hard to wrap our minds around a different kind of love. But as unsteady and unsure as we may be, God’s steadfast love for us endures forever (Ps. 136). In our instability, we believe Jesus is disgusted by the reality of who we are. We’re well aware of our failures, so our accusing thoughts insist he despises us. But we must cling to the gospel that says he loves us. We must choose to believe he has forgiven us, justified us, and adopted us. We must believe he rejoices over us—and always will. Why? Because it’s only when we hold on to the gospel of grace that we grow in unity with fellow believers. It’s only then that the risen Jesus’s presence and the sure hope of eternal life become felt realities. Gospel Future: Grace-Filled Communities Offer a Taste of Eternity When we embrace the gospel and find assurance in Christ, we’re set free to love one another. And our love foreshadows the grace we’ll experience for all eternity. Jesus is coming again (John 14:3). History isn’t drifting along out of his control. He’ll return to conclude it with dramatic judgment, and he’ll establish his kingdom for eternity. Jesus said of when he comes, “I will . . . take you to myself” (v. 3, CSB). The new heavens and new earth will involve more than being transformed as individuals. Heaven will have a new community, a gospel culture where we’ll forever experience nothing but God’s love and grace. Heaven will have a new community, a gospel culture where we’ll forever experience nothing but God’s love and grace. That great hope has direct relevance to us as a church today. Every gospel-centered church is a model home for the new neighborhood Jesus is building. Church is a place where people can come and see what human flourishing can look like so they’ll want to buy in now. We invite them to come to safety now, before the final judgment. For this reason, much is at stake in the quality of our life together as local churches. We pursue gospel cultures so that by God’s grace, our churches will feel a bit like heaven on earth. God calls us to bring this taste of heaven on earth so people see how Jesus changes lives. How do we live up to that high calling? We believe the gospel. We trust God’s promises so assurance of his love overrules our selfish impulses each moment. We hold to his promises as real so we can relax and rejoice and love and serve until he comes again.

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