Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love: A 4-Week Advent Study

5 Ways Christians Can Biblically Celebrate Halloween

Video obtained by Fox News shows a Democrat operative tampering with an election ballot drop box in Montana, appearing to try tearing the box off the wall. The operative, Laszlo Gendler, has been paid by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), according to OpenSecrets.org, as Montana Talks reported. The DSCC is attempting to help incumbent Democrat Senator Jon Tester against GOP senatorial candidate Tim Sheehy. Richie Melby, the Communications Director for Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, told Montana Talks, “The Glacier County election administrator contacted our office expressing serious concern over surveillance footage that appeared to show an individual ‘tampering’ with a ballot box. Our Elections Director contacted the election administrator, who confirmed that the individual in the footage is Laszlo Gendler. The name of the suspect and details were turned over to Glacier County law enforcement. Our Elections Director was pleased that the individual was not able to remove the ballot box from the wall, although the activity was obviously highly suspicious and concerning.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 Crystal R. Cole, the Election Administrator for Glacier County, had emailed the Montana Secretary of State this notice: Glacier County has put up two Official Mail Ballot Drop Boxes, one at our Satellite Office in Browning and one at the Glacier County Detention/Dispatch Entrance, both under 24/7 surveillance. Yesterday, on October 20th, at 10:25:05, Laszlo with the MT Democratic Party was on camera tampering with the Box. I did call him to ask him what his reasoning was, he stated “they” sent him to the location to see how secure the box was. The MT Democratic party did not notify the Elections office in any way to state they would be sending someone to the Ballot Box to see how secure it was, so on camera it looks like he was tampering with the box. An October New York Times/Siena poll showed Sheehy leading Tester 52-44; the last five polls of the race show Sheehy winning by between six and eight points. Republicans currently hold 49 seats in the Senate; a gain of two seats would give them the majority, which is crucial in many votes, including the confirmation of any Supreme Court judges.

Speaking at a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, former President Barack Obama disingenuously said he could not understand why America got so “toxic and just so divided and so bitter.” “I don’t understand how we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter,” he mused. “I get why sometimes people just don’t want to pay attention to it. And we all have friends like that; we have family members who are just like, “Ahh, y’know, it’s all a circus out there.” Barack Obama: "I don't understand how we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter." pic.twitter.com/OWj3uicQ1o — Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 22, 2024 Yet Obama’s own rhetoric and that of other Democrat leaders has fanned the flames of division before and during the time he was president. As a July 2016 Rasmussen poll taken six months before Obama left office noted, 60% of Americans felt race relations had gotten worse since Obama’s election. In 2016, campaigning for president, Democrat Hillary Clinton offered her deathless remark, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables.’ Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 In April 2008, when he was running for president, Obama infamously said, “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” More Obama: 2008: “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” 2009: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I’m angry.” 2010, in an excerpt from Jonathan Alter’s book, “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” Alter quoted Obama referring to members of the conservative Tea Party group as “teabaggers,” a vulgar slang term explained here. 2010, on the prospect of the GOP taking back the House of Representatives: “They see an opportunity to take back the House, maybe take back the Senate. If they’re successful in doing that, they’ve already said they’re going to go back to the same policies that were in place during the Bush administration. That means that we are going to have just hand-to-hand combat up here on Capitol Hill.” Just prior to the 2010 election: “If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder.” 2014: Obama said racism was “deeply rooted” in America, stating, “This is something that’s deeply rooted in our society, deeply rooted in our history.” In 2016, at a memorial service for five Dallas police officers ambushed and gunned down by a man who said, according to Dallas police chief David Brown, that he “wanted to kill white people, especially white officers,” Obama declared: America, we know that bias remains.  We know it.  Whether you are black or white or Hispanic or Asian or Native American or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point.  We’ve heard it at times in our own homes.  If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts.  We know that.  And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s sting.  Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent.  No institution is entirely immune. And that includes our police departments. We know this. 

Imagine you’re a parent with a teenage daughter who has been struggling with her identity. Like many teens today, she’s being told that it’s good to try to be the opposite sex. You sit down with her to discuss what to do next. High on everyone’s list is going to a professional counselor to help her talk through tough issues to live a healthy life. But then you start looking for a counselor. To your dismay, you can’t find any counselor who can commit to a level-headed approach to speak with your child. What do you do next? Families across America have asked themselves that question as they navigate common sense and gender identity. But the lack of available counselors to helpfully address this topic is a government-created problem. And it is a problem created by design. Over 20 states and the District of Columbia now have laws that prohibit certain private counseling conversations between counselors and minor clients about gender identity. These laws only operate in one direction. They allow counselors to encourage children to think they are the opposite sex or seek irreversible surgeries to look like the opposite sex. But they prohibit counselors from encouraging minors to accept their bodies. The prohibitions apply even when clients desire counseling to help them align their identity with their religious beliefs, and even when the counseling involves nothing but voluntary discussions between counselor and client. Counselors who would be willing to have these conversations must avoid them or risk significant penalties. By outlawing private, consensual conversations like this, the laws violate a fundamental First Amendment principle: The government cannot silence private speech it dislikes while it amplifies speech it prefers. The government has no business picking ideological winners and losers. Those choices are left to individuals. And in the case of conversational counseling, the choice should be up to parents and their kids. Counseling works best when the counselor and the client feel free to speak openly. This freedom from the government’s weighted scale is especially important when controversial subjects like gender identity are being measured. To justify these bans, governments sometimes rely on statements from a few medical organizations. But those statements don’t empower the government to suppress speech. After all, medical organizations can be wrong and make decisions that conflict with good science.  Consider the history of peanut allergies. More Americans have peanut allergies now than ever before. Why? Bad medical advice. In 2000, there was an uptick in children affected with allergic reactions to peanuts. The American Academy of Pediatrics responded by recommending that children under three years old avoid peanuts altogether. That was the prevailing advice for over a decade. But the ungrounded advice made things worse. As John Hopkins medical expert Marty Makary, M.D., explains in his book “Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health,” avoiding early exposure to peanuts triggered widespread peanut intolerance, leading to more (and more severe) allergic reactions. The AAP later about-faced. Now the AAP recommends early introduction of peanut protein for infants. So too in the field of gender identity. The heartbreaking stories of “de-transitioners” who have come to accept their biological sex – but only after pursuing irreversible hormones and surgeries – demonstrate the harmful and irreversible consequences of rushing young people struggling with gender dysphoria toward life-altering procedures. Now, multiple European countries are reversing course and severely restricting these procedures, in a tacit admission that the headlong plunge into gender ideology wasn’t based on sound science. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ COMING TO DAILYWIRE+ OCT. 28 One study shows that many young people — especially girls — are steered toward identifying as boys without adequate psychological evaluation and counseling. And Dr. Hilary Cass, former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health in England, recently found in a nationwide, independent review commissioned by the British government that the science related to using puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and permanent surgeries on children struggling with gender dysphoria is an area of study with “remarkably weak evidence” with “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes.” In this context, it is particularly egregious for governments to interrupt counseling sessions and dictate what is said. Worse, because the counseling bans only stifle speech that would help children talk through their struggles related to gender identity, the bans have the effect of pushing kids towards experimental drugs and surgeries as the only available response. But even more so than with peanuts, this push has dangerous consequences. The better approach is what the First Amendment demands. Give parents, children, and their chosen counselors the freedom to speak honestly about the clients’ goals related to gender identity. This freedom helps ensure that families can avoid the heartbreak of looking for help and finding none. And it helps ensure families can flourish by giving them control over the care they seek. * * * Bryan Neihart serves as senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire. 

You’re never too young to practice affirmations — just ask this little girl who’s been teaching her baby sister to love herself! One mom was beyond proud when she discovered a video that her daughters had recorded together. Emily Banks had been wondering what her kids got up to in their downtime, so she decided to watch the clip. What she saw filled her heart with joy! In this precious footage, Emily’s eldest daughter sat down with her little sister to practice some positive affirmations. She told the baby girl nice things about herself, then patiently waited for her to repeat them. Although the younger child had trouble pronouncing some of the words, she seemed to get the idea! Mom was so moved by this wholesome interaction that she just had to share it on social media. @emilybanks5 My oldest baby pouring words of affirmation into my youngest baby was one of the most amazing things a mama could find #fyp #foryou #proud #proudmom #mom #momsoftiktok #momlife #kids ♬ original sound – Song-_- “They say go through your kid’s electronics to check for danger… so I did and this is what I found,” Emily wrote at the beginning of the video. First, the older child taught her baby sister to say, “I’m brave.” Then, she told the little girl to repeat, “I’m strong” and “I’m beautiful.” At the end of these affirmations, the bigger sibling tried to get her sister to practice some positivity toward others, too. “I love everyone,” she told the younger girl to recite. Screengrab from TikTok At the end of this adorable video, the two sisters shared an affectionate hug. Mom loved seeing her girls behave so sweetly toward one another! She was especially pleased to see her eldest daughter doing something so kind for her little sibling. “My oldest baby pouring words of affirmation into my youngest baby was one of the most amazing things a mama could find,” Emily wrote in her social media caption. This eldest daughter seems like an incredible older sister! We hope these kids never lose their beautiful sibling bond. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Little Girl Practices Affirmations With Baby Sister & It’s Precious appeared first on InspireMore.

Plants around the world absorb 37 billion more metric tons of carbon than was previously thought, a new study has demonstrated. It means every tree planted to try and prevexnt the worst of climate change goes 31% farther than earlier models on Earth carbon systems have calucated, and it’s believed the research will help contribute […] The post Climate Models Need an Upgrade: Plants Absorb 31% More Carbon Than Previously Thought appeared first on Good News Network.

Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course Do you want to inspire your kids to be free and self-sufficient?  There’s nothing better than a good book to point them in the right direction. My kids are total bookworms, so I enlisted their help to compile this list of favorites. Some folks may pooh-pooh the idea of fiction as a teaching tool, but reading about a character who is smart, adaptable, self-reliant, and skilled can influence the way your child or teenager thinks.  These books are not all specific to kids in prepper families – many of them are just tales of kids who are put into situations in which they must rely on their wits and courage to survive, while others outline the dangers of too much government. In no particular order, (and just in time for Christmas) here is a list of favorites from the Luther Family Library of Awesome and Influential Books. I’ve included a little synopsis from Amazon with each book. For Younger Kids The Little House series This nine book set follows the adventures of Laura Ingalls and her family from their little homestead in the middle of the frigid Northern forest of her younger years through the journey west on a wagon train, farming, education in a one-room schoolhouse, up until Laura becomes an adult and gets married. Order it here. The Boxcar Children series There’s something about orphans struggling to get by that inspires great works of fiction, and this vintage series is no exception. The Alden children begin their adventure by making a home in a boxcar. Their goal is to stay together, and in the process they find a grandfather they never knew they had. Order it here. Jake and Miller’s Big Adventure: A Prepper’s Book for Kids The world can be a scary place! There are snowstorms and mean snakes, hot jungles and wild rivers. But intrepid adventurer Jake and his dog Miller aren’t scared —they’re prepared! In Jake & Miller’s Big Adventure, young readers discover it’s never too early to start prepping. Learning how to use life-saving survival equipment like canned goods, water filters, first aid kits, Mylar blankets and emergency radios can keep you safe, healthy and happy even in the scariest of adventures—whether you’re deep in the jungle or hunkering down at home. Order it here. An Island Called Liberty  “This book is a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged,” writes the publisher. Younger children will enjoy the rhyming verse and beautiful, full-color illustrations on every page, while older children and adults will enjoy the strong message that speaks in favor of free markets and against excessive government regulation, bureaucracy, and taxation. Order it here. Prepper Pete Prepares: An Introduction to Prepping for Kids (Prepper Pete and Friends) Prepper Pete works very hard to keep his family safe by preparing for events that may happen in the future… things such as power outages, bad storms, illness, and other disasters. Join our hero as he explores the many reasons to “be prepared” and fun things your family can do, too! Order it here. Prepper Pete’s Gun of a Son: A Gun Safety Book for Kids Prepper Pete works very hard to keep his family safe. When his son Charlie becomes old enough, they enroll in a gun safety class together. Join our hero, his son, and their friends in this fabulously illustrated book as they explore many of the important aspects of gun safety ***** A Note For grownups If knowledge is power, then in the case of firearms, “knowledge is safety.” Familiarity with guns for kids often helps avoid the “forbidden fruit” syndrome, which can create a safer environment. When they are an appropriate age, work with your kids to familiarize them with firearms, and always stress the importance of gun safety! Order it here. Founders’ Fables A unique and colorful conservative children’s book, “Founders’ Fables” helps families explain America’s most treasured values through the use of ten simple fables. These stories address the principles of the Founding Fathers and the concept of limited government through the use of funny and memorable characters. Each story, written in rhyme, begins with a quote from one of our founders and is followed by age-appropriate discussion questions and a short art activity to inspire the child to an even deeper understanding. Topics addressed within the stories include self-reliance, national debt, pork barrel spending, socialism, eminent domain, free speech and government intervention in business and private lives. This book can be understood and enjoyed by children ages 5 to 85! The only copies I could find still available are used.  Order it here. For Young Adults Island of the Blue Dolphins The Newberry Medal-winning story of a 12-year old girl who lives alone on a Pacific island after she leaps from a rescue ship. Isolated on the island for eighteen years, Karana forages for food, builds weapons to fight predators, clothes herself in a cormorant feathered skirt, and finds strength and peace in her seclusion. A classic tale of discovery and solitude. Order it here. The Hunger Games Trilogy  In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, “The Hunger Games,” a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. The series follows Katniss and her allies as they fight for their freedom from the tyrannical Capitol. Order it here. The Divergent Series One choice can transform you. This series tells a gripping dystopian tale of electrifying choices, powerful consequences, unexpected romance, and a deeply flawed “perfect society.” Order it here. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon On a six-mile hike on the Maine-New Hampshire branch of the Appalachian Trail, nine-year-old Trisha McFarland quickly tires of the constant bickering between her older brother, Pete, and her recently divorced mother. But when she wanders off by herself, and then tries to catch up by attempting a shortcut, she becomes lost in a wilderness maze full of peril and terror. As night falls, Trisha has only her ingenuity as a defense against the elements, and only her courage and faith to withstand her mounting fears. For solace she tunes her Walkman to broadcasts of Boston Red Sox baseball games and follows the gritty performances of her hero, relief pitcher Tom Gordon. And when her radio’s reception begins to fade, Trisha imagines that Tom Gordon is with her—protecting her from an all-too-real enemy who has left a trail of slaughtered animals and mangled trees in the dense, dark woods…Order it here. Little Brother Marcus, a.k.a “w1n5t0n,” is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works–and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school’s intrusive but clumsy surveillance systems.  But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they’re mercilessly interrogated for days.  When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state where every citizen is treated like a potential terrorist. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself. Order it here. 1984 Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time. Order it here. Animal Farm As ferociously fresh as it was more than a half century ago, this remarkable allegory of a downtrodden society of overworked, mistreated animals and their quest to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality is one of the most scathing satires ever published. As readers witness the rise and bloody fall of the revolutionary animals, they begin to recognize the seeds of totalitarianism in the most idealistic organization—and in the most charismatic leaders, the souls of the cruelest oppressors. Order it here. Hatchet Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his father when the single-engine plane in which he is flying crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness with nothing but a tattered windbreaker and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present—and the dreadful secret that has been tearing him apart since his parent’s divorce. But now Brian has no time for anger, self pity, or despair—it will take all his know-how and determination, and more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive. Order it here. Brave New World Aldous Huxley is rightly considered a prophetic genius and one of the most important literary and philosophical voices of the 20th Century, and Brave New World is his masterpiece. From the author ofThe Doors of Perception, Island, and countless other works of fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, and poetry, comes this powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations. Brave New World remains absolutely relevant to this day as both a cautionary dystopian tale in the vein of the George Orwell classic 1984, and as thought-provoking, thoroughly satisfying entertainment. Order it here. If We Survive High schooler Will Peterson and three friends journeyed to Central America to help rebuild a school. In a poor, secluded mountain village, they won the hearts of the local people with their energy and kindness. But in one sudden moment, everything went horribly wrong. A revolution swept the country. Now, guns and terror are everywhere—and Americans are being targeted as the first to die. Will and his friends have got to get out fast. But streets full of killers . . .hills patrolled by armies . . . and a jungle rife with danger stand between them and the border. Their one hope of escape lies with a veteran warrior who has lost his faith and may betray them at any moment. Their one dream is to reach freedom and safety and home. If they can just survive. Order it here. Cabin on Trouble Creek After clearing enough forest to build a log cabin for their new home, Pa returns east to fetch the rest of the family, while young brothers Daniel and Will stay behind to watch the land. Pa had planned to return within six weeks . . . but something must have gone wrong. Now the boys must survive the winter with only a few supplies and their ability to invent and improvise. But are they alone in the woods? Jean Van Leeuwen;s engrossing novel of pioneer survival is based on a true incident. Order it here. My Side of the Mountain  Every kid thinks about running away at one point or another; few get farther than the end of the block. Young Sam Gribley gets to the end of the block and keeps going–all the way to the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. There he sets up house in a huge hollowed-out tree, with a falcon and a weasel for companions and his wits as his tool for survival. In a spellbinding, touching, funny account, Sam learns to live off the land, and grows up a little in the process. Blizzards, hunters, loneliness, and fear all battle to drive Sam back to city life. But his desire for freedom, independence, and adventure is stronger. No reader will be immune to the compulsion to go right out and start whittling fishhooks and befriending raccoons. Order it here. Ice Drift The year is 1868, and fourteen-year-old Alika and his younger brother, Sulu, are hunting for seals on an ice floe attached to their island in the Arctic. Suddenly the ice starts to shake, and they hear a loud crack–the terrible sound of the floe breaking free from land. The boys watch with horror as the dark expanse of water between the ice and the shore rapidly widens, and they start drifting south–away from their home, their family, and everything they’ve ever known. Throughout their six-month-long journey down the Greenland Strait, the brothers face bitter cold, starvation, and most frightening of all, vicious polar bears. But they still remain hopeful that one day they’ll be rescued. Order it here. What’s in your library? Obviously, this list is far from comprehensive – it is a compilation of our own family favorites. Are there some books that you or your children found particularly engaging or influential? If you were recommending books to young people, what are your favorites in the survival and liberty genres? Let’s discuss it in the comments section. The post Our Top 20 Works of Fabulous Fiction to Inspire Self-Reliant, Liberty-Loving Children and Teens appeared first on The Organic Prepper.