Would it be weird for me to put a bible verse as my discord status? I really want to put Proverbs 3:5, but im so worried that my friends are going to see it and think im weird or stupid

I felt like addressing the argument from pro abortion people that claim that somehow Genesis 2:7 endorses abortion by claiming the bible says "Life begins at breath" and citing this bible verse. However if we actually read the verse, we can conclude it would be a massive stretch to conclude this verse supports abortion. The verse reads:
"Yahweh God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being."
As can be seen from the verse, this verse is only talking about how the man Adam was formed and how his life started. That is it. Also, people who want to use this verse as an instruction manual on how life for all human beings begin will have to say human beings are made from soil in the ground just to be consistent. So yeah the connection between Genesis 2:7 and any endorsement of abortion is nonexistent. Hope this is helpful to anyone who comes across this argument. This was on my mind and I had to post it.

T/W mention of cat loss
I've got this cat (1.5) named Millie who I've raised from 3 weeks old. No understatement to say she was my baby, she would curl up in my arms every night, she'd snuggle under my chin when I was sitting down for work and she had a specific meow just for me when ever I came home.
When Millie was four months old we got another cat called Sammy, who was adopted at five months old. The two girls got on super well and I have a lot of cute photos of the two sisters but unfortunately one day Sammy slipped out when my husband was going to work and got hit by a passing car. We were all devastated and I think when Millie realised Sammy wasn't coming back she went through the motions as well, she became extra clingy for a while but eventually returned to normal, still snuggly but didn't meow at the bathroom door.
Fast forward a bit and we figure Millie might need a friend, we do still need to go work/school and even though I'm lucky enough to come home for lunch she is still alone for hours on end.
I took my son to a shelter and decided we'd let him pick, Sammy took a real shine to him so the loss hit him the most. Honestly I was hoping he'd get a cat but he chose a kitten named Oreo.
Oreo is a very smoochy boy with everyone in the family, seriously were constantly tripping over this tuxedo kitten - he is mostly snuggly with my husband and I only note that to say I'm not the one most covered in his scent.
We did the slow introductions with Millie just as we had done Sammy but still she was a bit cranky with Oreo. Not to the point of danger for the kitten but just tolerating him unless he got a little too close.
That is unless she sees Oreo near me, then Millie is a hissy Missy. No problem, she's just a little jealous I'll spend more time with her and give the kitten to my hubby/son. But Millie now hates me, she sleeps in my sons bed (Oreo has taken to sleeping on the couch not with me) she let's me pat her once or twice before running away, she doesn't come up for snuggles and if I try to pick her up she growls and sometimes bites or scratches me (not enough to break skin)
The extra weird thing is she ONLY hates me, she's become more snuggly with my husband and doesn't bite or growl when my son picks her up. It's been like this for three months, I've given her extra treats, dedicated play time to just her by putting Oreo away, tried keeping her in my room and closing the door but nothing seems to work.
I miss my girl, I don't know if she's mad at me for "replacing" Sammy or if she just hates Oreo and blames me over everyone else in the household.
How do I make this right?
TL:DR (cause this turned put more ranty than planned) Millie cat loved me Lost her "sister" Sammy in an accident about half a year back Got new kitten Oreo Millie now hates me and no one else I the household

Hello everyone, i need some guidance from folks who are well versed in scripture. I have been having a gnarly existential crisis for the past 2 weeks, like boom out of nowhere. Ive had them before. About mortality, the universe, existence and reality itself. I was raised a christian, and i slowly drifted as i grew older but came back to it. Even though i denounced it HEAVILY, having arguments with random people in LA, debating people who just believed, any sort of thing that involved christianity i just rejected. Earlier this year i decided i did not want to just be arrogant and i decided to humble myself and start reading the bible so i could really make an educated opinion on christ/god. It all clicked, all of my morals all of the things i believed would make the earth a better place, jesus spoke about, treating others fairly, even acknowledging the ugly of the world yet accepting it for how it is through the act of love alone. I felt good. But then i started realizing, im going to die someday, My family will die someday. There must be a bigger picture, something to back whatever there is after this world up. I started researching EVERYTHING, from the origins of Jesus (historical evidence) to Near death experience, quantum physics, Scientific theories, a lot of interesting information yet nothing that could ease my discomfort. Death is unavoidable and we will all go through it. However i still want to believe in Christianity, and please dont take this as an attack or anything as i am fully writing this as a person that could use some advice or words, even a prayer. One of the biggest things that did bother me was for example: archeological findings of “Yahweh” dating back to 800BC, claiming that yahweh was once a “storm god” yet at some point in the OT he became the god we know as jehova, and reading that really tested my faith. I know jesus was in fact a real person, historically, however i cannot shake the fact that the god in the old testament dates back and is inferred to as a lesser god, can anyone please give any information as to how that came to be? I clearly dont know enough to be certain and thats why im humbling myself to ask to be educated so i can understand further, i really hope i dont offend anyone im just trying to learn and back my faith up, its hard in the world we live in today, so much information its hard to take just one side at all.

This is a long story but I will try and condense as much as humanly possible. Also on my phone so if it’s the wrong format I apologize. I just really need advice from a neutral party.
I 34F have a mom who wasn’t around much when I was a kid. Always chose drugs and men over her 2 daughters. We lived with my dad as he had sole custody. She’s done so much over the years, if I put it all in we would have a novel. My dads parents, my grandparents, helped out so much and did so much with my sister and I. We had more of a “mom and dad” relationship verses a “grandparent” relationship. We had our own bedrooms at there house and they would take us on trips, amusement parks, basically we were always with them. My grandma and I were inseparable.
When I would see my mom it wasn’t very long visits and I’ll use one story as an example of how our relationship was. I was 16, and she was bringing me back to my dad’s. I had just gotten a prom dress and was so excited to show her! To this day it’s still my absolute favorite. When I came downstairs the only thing she did was look at the tag and say “I’d never be able to fit into that, I’m a size 6!” As she’s smiling and laughing too in her world to notice I’m on the verge of a breakdown while looking at my dad he was my rock. Many more things to add but I’ll stop there.
My grandmother who I’ve been inseparable with had gotten diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. My husband and I had been living with her at this time, and had been since my grandpa died 10 years ago to help her and she was never one to be alone so as much as it helped us not have to pay rent or anything it also helped her. We did everything at the house from grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. We started looking for a place when she got diagnosed because we knew with 2 kids it would become to much for her and my sister lived a block away until we found a nursing home. She wasn’t alone long but if anyone’s had to deal with nursing homes and pricing with Medicaid, at least in Ohio, you have to sell literally all your assets and have under $2,000 in the bank at all times. So we were going to have to move regardless and at that time didn’t want to be homeless.
About a year after we moved out I felt bad for my mom as her fiance had unexpectedly passed away. We hadn’t really had a relationship up until this point. She quickly weaseled her way into me and my families lives. My kids 4 and 8 see her often. Every now and then would still make comments about my weight. At this point I was 1 yr post partum. I should also add I’m the only one who has a relationship with her in the entire family.
I have over the last year lost 70 pounds and feel better then ever. I feel like I have my body back. I’m working on toning my “baby belly” now but other than that my stomach is flat! I’m FINALLY confident in myself! Well over the last several weeks my dear mother has made comments about my weight. How I’m now “too skinny” and “don’t lose anymore weight you’ll be too skinny” never happy with how I look basically. How my stomach is flat but I still have a “buldge, but it’s a cute buldge” makes it better right? I should mention she’s no longer on drugs so she herself has gained quite a bit and has all sorts of hip and knee problems.
The last few weeks my grandma’s health has been significantly deteriorating. I’ve gone up everyday and some days my mom has come to sit with the kids so I can go. On Friday, I get back, and my mom was asking “how much do you weigh now?” I said “down to 150!” She said “that’s great, are you done now?” I said “no I’d like to lose maybe 10-15 more”. She then goes, “I’d stop now, you don’t want to be too skinny and look like your on drugs!” I said “I’m gonna lose what I want”. She then looks at me with the most serious look and says “you’re not using drugs to lose weight are you?” I said “what? Absolutely not!” Shocked and appalled she would even ask that. Then looks at me confused, “you sure your not using?” I replied with, “no mom, I’m not. I would never put my kids through what I went through as a kid. It was awful and I’d never” now offended and she said “okay well it’s easy to get into so just had to ask”. She left and I was heated. Mind you at this time I had been over her stuff for a few months now. She’s a legit Karen, those videos online? Yeah that’s her to a T. She’s a full blown narcissist.
So this morning I get a phone call from my dad at 730 saying the nursing home called and it’s not gonna be long. I called my mom asking if she could come now. She said she was gonna get dressed and be on her way. My dad calls back and didn’t have to say anything. I broke down. My grandma had died. So I put myself together as best I can, call her and say don’t rush just get here when you can. She got here at 8/815 and I left to say my goodbyes with my dad, stepmom and sister. About an hour into being there my dad, sister and I get a few messages about there condolences. Weird as we havnt told anyone yet but who? My mom who was watching my kids. SHE MADE A FACEBOOK POST! WTF! I immediately text her and tell her to take it down. She replied with “I didn’t say any names”. I go “you didn’t say any names but mentioned it being your former mother in law and ex husband. Anyone can put two and two together. We don’t need this while saying goodbye.” She said, “okay I took it down”. I just said “thank you.”.
I go back into the room and am just livid. I told them how people knew and was just shaking in anger, grief, disbelief my own mom was trying to make yet again, this all about her. My dad loses it and just starts crying along with my sister as I’m saying “fuck her I hate her how could she”. Made what was an already hard time, losing my grandma who was practically my mom, even harder. About an hour later we’re all leaving. I get into my car just shaking with emotion and I texted her “I'm on my way home, I'm really upset and think it would be a good idea for you to leave when I get home. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to say anything in front of the kids you should have waited to tell anyone or say anything on Facebook until WE did. I mean we were literally saying our goodbyes as people started texting which is something I, Ashley and dad didn't need.”
She didn’t reply. My husband talked me down as much as he could while at work. I’m normally a person who stays as far away from conflict as much as possible and I bottle things up. The last few months she’s been so jealous when other people come over or we go do stuff, she’s been picking at my weight and more and I just had it. I havnt heard from her since and that’s okay. I just wanted to know if I was TAH for how I handled it. I texted her because I didn’t want to blow up in front of my kids. If you need more info I’m an open book, just ask.

Hello,
The Trinity is undoubtedly one of the favorite subjects for other churches to criticize the Witnesses about. The reason for this is relatively well known. In most churches, the Trinity is preached repetitively over decades without most people even understanding what it means theologically.
When they encounter the Witnesses who tell them that Jesus is not God (which is actually incorrect since, according to Witness teaching, Jesus is a lesser god, just not Jehovah), quick negative judgments are often made, and the topic is dismissed.
Of course, there are also people, even here in this sub, who are so pissed off at the Witnesses that they support the Trinity just because the Witnesses do not.
So, here are the biblical and historical facts:
The Trinity, in neither word nor meaning, is in the Bible. There is simply not a single verse that states something like: "God is one and consists of three persons who are equal to themselves and also God."
Nowhere.
Mind you, everything else, such as the fact that Jesus descended from David and exactly how with every single ancestor, and that he is the Messiah are all written into it. All of that and many other side notes are interestingly all in the Bible.
But something as "important" as the Trinity? Seriously?
What Trinitarians use as "arguments" is cherry-picking. They piece together their doctrine throughout the entire book.
Is that wrong? No, but it can just as easily be used against them.
Someone says: John 10:30 "I and the Father are one."
I say: John 14:28 "The Father is greater than I."
Someone else says: John 14:9 "Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father."
I say: John 5:30 "I (Jesus) can do nothing on my own."
We could play this "game" for years. It makes no sense. Almost every verse can be interpreted differently, in a way that contradicts the interpretations of others.
"Yes, but John 1:1!!!1111!!!111"
There's a whole article on Wikipedia that clearly states that both Jesus is „God", „a god," and "of divine nature" can be translated simultaneously.
That argument doesn't work.
The Trinity prevailed because the Arians lost politically at the beginning of the Middle Ages. Why? Because they wanted to honor Jesus by deifying him but didn't want to break with the Jewish traditions of the Father. After that, Trinitarian Bible scholars translated their Bible - usually quite correctly - in a way that leads more towards Trinitarian thinking. And that cycle repeats until today.
Fact is: 1 ≠ 3.
God is not irrational or contradictory. The Trinity is.
Anyone who seriously believes that a God would truthfully reveal himself to his people by claiming on the one hand that he is immortal because he is eternal but on the other hand that he can be killed by the cross and rise again, I can't help.
And yes, when Trinitarians say that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man always and everywhere, even a kindergarten child understands that God the Father must also be mortal because he shares his essence with the Son and is somehow also separated from him.
And that's just one of many examples of what happens when you try to connect the properties of an imperfect created being - a human - with those of an almighty creator God.
There are even more examples, like why Jesus doesn't know when the end times will occur and refers to the Father, who supposedly "knows more" than he does in this context. But it is literally the same God refering to himself is it not, eh ?
And yes, I have intentionally shortened the discussion of the Trinity for simple reasons because I don't feel like writing 200 pages about something that doesn't make sense anyway.
It just doesn't work. Period.
By the way, the argument "You can't fully understand God" doesn't apply either.
If I couldn't understand God at all, I couldn't get to know him. Ergo, Christianity would be a huge farce.
I can certainly admit that as an imperfect being, I understand God imperfectly. That's not hard. I know 100% what it's like to be here and now in this place at this time.
Maybe I can remember yesterday and maybe think about tomorrow.
But only God can be everywhere fully, at every place and every time, and that 100%, and I can't, and that's why God is almighty and not me.
That's logical and can also be presented that way. After all, the Bible itself says that God is the origin of time; otherwise, the statement that he is the Alpha and Omega wouldn't make any sense.
So yes, God is logical, 100%, and the Trinity is illogical and therefore, by definition, not a suitable description of God.
So, what are the alternatives? I see three different fitting models that I'd like to discuss with you.

1. Arianism

No, the Witnesses are not Arians, but they are closer to Arius' thoughts than to the Trinity.
If God is an Arian element, then it is fire, and heat and light are its products. The products depend on the fire but not vice versa.

1. Modalism

This concerns some charismatic Pentecostal churches. Here, the element of God is like water, and its states - solid, gas, and liquid - are completely separate states that the element - God - can take on.

1. Mormons and Nestorians

Both are Trinitarian "heresies" and the only ways to save this nonsensical Trinity.
Nestorians reject the hypostatic union and postulate the existence of two separate existences of Jesus Christ - Human Jesus and Jesus the God.
Mormons argue differently in that all three beings (FatheSon/Spirit) are completely separate and only act together "socially." That is, they reject the intrinsic Trinity but not the ecumenical one outwardly.

This is a long story but I will try and condense as much as humanly possible. Also on my phone so if it’s the wrong format I apologize. I just really need advice from a neutral party.
I 34F have a mom who wasn’t around much when I was a kid. Always chose drugs and men over her 2 daughters. We lived with my dad as he had sole custody. She has done so much over the years, I’d have a novel when I was done if I put it all. His parents, my grandparents, helped out so much and did so much with my sister and I. We had more of a “mom and dad” relationship verses a “grandparent” relationship. We had our own bedrooms at there house and they would take us on trips, amusement parks, basically we were always with them. My grandma and I were inseparable.
When I would see my mom it wasn’t very long visits and I’ll use one story as an example of how our relationship was. I was 16, and she was bringing me back to my dad’s. I had just gotten a prom dress and was so excited to show her! To this day it’s still my absolute favorite. When I came downstairs the only thing she did was look at the tag and say “I’d never be able to fit into that, I’m a size 6!” As she’s smiling and laughing too in her world to notice I’m on the verge of a breakdown while looking at my dad he was my rock. Many more things to add but I’ll stop there.
My grandmother who I’ve been inseparable with had gotten diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. My husband and I had been living with her at this time, and had been since my grandpa died 10 years ago to help her and she was never one to be alone so as much as it helped us not have to pay rent or anything it also helped her. We did everything at the house from grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. We started looking for a place when she got diagnosed because we knew with 2 kids it would become to much for her and my sister lived a block away until we found a nursing home. She wasn’t alone long but if anyone’s had to deal with nursing homes and pricing with Medicaid, at least in Ohio, you have to sell literally all your assets and have under $2,000 in the bank at all times. So we were going to have to move regardless and at that time didn’t want to be homeless.
About a year after we moved out I felt bad for my mom as her fiance had unexpectedly passed away. We hadn’t really had a relationship up until this point. She quickly weaseled her way into me and my families lives. My kids 4 and 8 see her often. Every now and then would still make comments about my weight. At this point I was 1 yr post partum. I should also add I’m the only one who has a relationship with her in the entire family.
I have over the last year lost 70 pounds and feel better then ever. I feel like I have my body back. I’m working on toning my “baby belly” now but other than that my stomach is flat! I’m FINALLY confident in myself! Well over the last several weeks my dear mother has made comments about my weight. How I’m now “too skinny” and “don’t lose anymore weight you’ll be too skinny” never happy with how I look basically. How my stomach is flat but I still have a “buldge, but it’s a cute buldge” makes it better right? I should mention she’s no longer on drugs so she herself has gained quite a bit and has all sorts of hip and knee problems.
The last few weeks my grandma’s health has been significantly deteriorating. I’ve gone up everyday and some days my mom has come to sit with the kids so I can go. On Friday, I get back, and my mom was asking “how much do you weigh now?” I said “down to 150!” She said “that’s great, are you done now?” I said “no I’d like to lose maybe 10-15 more”. She then goes, “I’d stop now, you don’t want to be too skinny and look like your on drugs!” I said “I’m gonna lose what I want”. She then looks at me with the most serious look and says “you’re not using drugs to lose weight are you?” I said “what? Absolutely not!” Shocked and appalled she would even ask that. Then looks at me confused, “you sure your not using?” I replied with, “no mom, I’m not. I would never put my kids through what I went through as a kid. It was awful and I’d never” now offended and she said “okay well it’s easy to get into so just had to ask”. She left and I was heated. Mind you at this time I had been over her stuff for a few months now. She’s a legit Karen, those videos online? Yeah that’s her to a T. She’s a full blown narcissist.
So this morning I get a phone call from my dad at 730 saying the nursing home called and it’s not gonna be long. I called my mom asking if she could come now. She said she was gonna get dressed and be on her way. My dad calls back and didn’t have to say anything. I broke down. My grandma had died. So I put myself together as best I can, call her and say don’t rush just get here when you can. She got here at 8/815 and I left to say my goodbyes with my dad, stepmom and sister. About an hour into being there my dad, sister and I get a few messages about there condolences. Weird as we havnt told anyone yet but who? My mom who was watching my kids. SHE MADE A FACEBOOK POST! WTF! I immediately text her and tell her to take it down. She replied with “I didn’t say any names”. I go “you didn’t say any names but mentioned it being your former mother in law and ex husband. Anyone can put two and two together. We don’t need this while saying goodbye.” She said, “okay I took it down”. I just said “thank you.”.
I go back into the room and am just livid. I told them how people knew and was just shaking in anger, grief, disbelief my own mom was trying to make yet again, this all about her. My dad loses it and just starts crying along with my sister as I’m saying “fuck her I hate her how could she”. Made what was an already hard time, losing my grandma who was practically my mom, even harder. About an hour later we’re all leaving. I get into my car just shaking with emotion and I texted her “I'm on my way home, I'm really upset and think it would be a good idea for you to leave when I get home. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to say anything in front of the kids you should have waited to tell anyone or say anything on Facebook until WE did. I mean we were literally saying our goodbyes as people started texting which is something I, Ashley and dad didn't need.”
She didn’t reply. My husband talked me down as much as he could while at work. I’m normally a person who stays as far away from conflict as much as possible and I bottle things up. The last few months she’s been so jealous when other people come over or we go do stuff, she’s been picking at my weight and more and I just had it. I havnt heard from her since and that’s okay. I just wanted to know if I was TAH for how I handled it. I texted her because I didn’t want to blow up in front of my kids. If you need more info I’m an open book, just ask.

I'm not interested in any Sony Buff Passes or Universal Rewards
●Movies Anywhere●
•(Bundles)•
•Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection Volume 1 (4k) (4 Movie) (One Code)
1: The Birds (4K)
2: Psycho (4K)
3: Rear Window (4K)
4: Vertigo (4K)
•Best of the 2000's 10 Film Collection (4K/HD) (One Code)
1: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (HD) (10-Film)
2: Best in Show (HD) (10-Film)
3: The Departed (4K) (10-Film)
4: A History of Violence (HD) (10-Film)
5: The Hangover (4K) (10-Film)
6: I Am Legend (4K) (10-Film)
7: Letters From Iwo Jima (HD) (10-Film)
8: Mystic River (HD) (10-Film)
9: Ocean's Eleven (HD) (10-Film)
10: Pan's Labyrinth (4K) (10-Film)
•Halloween Trilogy (4k) (One Code)
1: Halloween (2018) (4K)
3: Halloween Ends (4K)
2: Halloween Kills (4K)
•High On Your Watch List 8-Film Collection (HD) (MA) (One Code)
1: Due Date (HD) (8-Film)
2: Friday (HD) (8-Film)
3: Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
4: House Party (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
5: Inherent Vice (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
6: Project X (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
7: Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
8: We're the Millers (HD) (MA) (8-Film)
•Men in Black Trilogy (4k) (One Code)
1: Men in Black (4K)
2: Men in Black 2 (4K)
3: Men In Black 3 (4K)
•Meryl Streep 8-film Collection (4K/HD) (MA) (One Code)
1: Death Becomes Her (HD) (8-Film)
2: It's Complicated (HD) (8-Film)
3: Mama Mia!: The Movie (4K) (8-Film)
4: Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again (4K) (8-Film)
5: One True thing (HD) (8-Film)
6: Out of Africa (HD) (8-Film)
7: Prime (HD) (8-Film)
8: The River Wild (HD) (8-Film)
•(4K)•
1917 (4K)
2 Guns (4K)
Abominable (4K)
The Abyss (4K)
Aliens (4K)
Ambulance (4K)
American Gangster (Extended Edition) (4k)
Annie (4K)
Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania (4K)
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm (4K)
As Good As It Gets (4K)
Avatar: The Way of Water (4k)
Avatar: The Way of Water (Collector's Edition) (4k)
Avengers (4K)
Babylon 5: The Road Home (4K)
Backdraft (4k)
Battleship (4K)
The Batman (4k)
Big Hero 6 (4K) (MA Split)
The Big Lebowski (4K)
Black Hawk Down (Theatrical & Extended) (4K)
Black Panther Wakanda Forever (4k) (MA Split)
Black Widow (4k) (MA Split)
Bloodshot (4K)
The Blues Brothers (4K) (Theatrical & Unrated)
Bullet Train (4k)
Cinderella (4K) (MA Split)
A Christmas Story (4k)
Cliffhanger (4k)
Concussion (4K)
Cruella (4K)
The Dark Crystal (4k)
District 9 (4K)
Do the Right Thing (4K)
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (4K)
Doom (4K)
Dr. Strangelove (4k)
Encanto (4K)
Enter the Dragon (4k)
Eternals (4K)
Evil Dead Rise (4k)
The Exorcist (4k) (Theatrical & Extended)
The Exorcist: Believer (4K)
The Fabelmans (4k)
The Fast and the Furious (4k)
Fast X (4k)
Field of Dreams (4k)
The Forever Purge (4K)
Free Guy (4k)
From Here to Eternity (4k)
Fury (4k)
Get Out (4K)
Ghostbusters Afterlife (4K)
Glass (4K)
Glory (4K)
Godzilla (1998) (4K)
Gran Turismo (4K)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (4K)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (4K)
The Guns of Navarone (4k)
Heat (4k)
Heavy Metal (4K)
Hellboy (2004) (4k)
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (4K)
His Girl Friday (4K)
Hobbs and Shaw (4k)
Hocus Pocus 4k (MA Split)
In the Line of Fire (4K)
Invisible Man (4k)
It Happened One Night 4k
Jaws (4k)
Jaws 2 (4k)
Jumanji (1995) (4k)
Jurassic World Dominion (4K)
Jurrasic World Fallen Kingdom (4K)
Kick Ass 2 (4k)
King Kong (2005) (Theatrical) (4k)
Kramer Vs Kramer (4K)
Last Actio Hero (4K)
The Last Picture Show (4K)
Lawrence of Arabia (4k)
The Lion King (Animated) (4K)
The Lion King (Live Action) (4k)
The Little Mermaid (2023) (4k)
The Lost Boys (4k)
The Martian (Extended Edition) (4k)
Meg 2: The Trench (4K)
Moon (4K)
Morbius (4K)
Mulan (2020) (4K)
National Lampoon's Animal House (4k)
National Lampoon's Vacation (4k)
Oblivion (4k)
Oliver (4k)
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (4k)
Onward (4K) (MA Split)
Oppenheimer (4k)
Parasite (4k)
Paprika (4K)
Poltergeist (4k)
Predator (4k)
The Prestige (4k) (MA Split)
The Prince of Egypt (4k)
Punch Drunk Love (4K)
The Raid Redemption (4K)
Rebel Without a Cause (4k)
R.I.P.D. (4K)
Rudy (4k)
Sense and Sensibility (4k)
Schindler's List (4k)
Shang Chi (4K)
To Sir With Love (4k)
Sleepless in Seattle (4K)
Smokey and the Bandit (4k)
Snow White (4K) (MA Split)
Soul (4k) (MA Split)
Spartacus (4k )
Speed (4K)
Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse 4k
Spies in Disguise (4K) (MA) (Split)
Super Mario Bros. (4k)
Starman (4K)
Tár (4k)
Unbreakable (4K) (MA Split)
Venom (4K)
Violent Night (4K)
West Side Story (4K) (MA Split)
Whiplash (4K)
Zero Dark Thirty (4K)
Zombieland (4k)
•(HD)•
Ant-Man & The Wasp (HD MA) (Split) (MA)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (HD) (MA Split)
Beauty and the Beast (HD MA) (MA) (Split)
Black Panther (HD MA) (Split) (MA)
Black Phone (HD) (MA)
The Breakfast Club (HD)
Brother Bear (HD) (MA)
Brother Bear 2 (HD) (MA)
Captain America: Civil War (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Captain America: The First Avenger (HD MA) (Split)
Captain America: Winter Soldier (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Despicable Me 2 (HD) (MA Split)
A Dog's Purpose (HD) (MA Split)
The Fast and the Furious 6 (Extended Edition) (HD) (MA Split)
The Gunman (HD) (MA Split)
Hercules (Disney) (HD) (MA Split)
Hocus Pocus (HD) (MA) (Split)
Home (2015) (HD) (MA)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (HD) (MA Split)
The Huntsman: Winter's War (HD) (MA Split)
Jarhead 2 (Unrated) (HD) (MA Split)
Jurrasic Park HD MA (Split)
Jurrasic Park: The Lost World HD MA (Split)
Jurrasic Park 3 HD MA Split)
Jurrasic Park 3 HD MA
Jurrasic World HD MA (Split)
Les Misérables (HD) (MA Split)
Megan Leavey (HD) (MA Split)
The Menu (HD) (MA)
My All American (HD) (MA Split)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (HD MA) (Split)
The Nut Job (HD) (MA Split)
Oz the Great and Powerful (HD) (MA Split)
Peter Pan (HD)
Pitch Perfect (HD)
Pitch Perfect 2 (HD)
Point Break (HD) (1991)
Rio (HD)
Rise of the Guardians (HD) (MA Split)
Sleeping Beauty (HD MA) (MA) (Split)
Snow White (HD MA) (MA) (Split)
Snow White & the Huntsman HD (MA Split)
Straight Outta Compton (Theatrical) HD (MA Split)
Straight Outta Compton (Unrated) HD (MA Split)
Sword in the Stone 60th Anniversary Edition HD (MA Split)
Thor Love & Thunder HD (MA Split)
Upgrade (HD)
When the Game Stands Tall HD
Willow (HD) (MA Split)
●Google Play Disney Splits●
•(HD)•
101 Dalmatians 2 (HD GP)
Ant-Man & The Wasp (HD GP)
Atlantis: Milo's Return (HD GP)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (HD GP)
Avatar: The Way of Water (HD GP)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (HD GP)
Avengers: Endgame (HD GP)
Bambi (HD GP)
Banshees of Inisherin (HD GP)
Beauty & the Beast (HD GP)
Bedknobs and Broomsticks (HD GP)
Big Hero 6 (HD GP)
Black Panther (HD GP)
Black Panther Wakanda Forever (HD GP)
Black Widow (HD GP)
Brave (HD GP)
Bridge of spies (HD GP)
Captain Marvel (HD GP)
Captain America: Civil War (HD GP)
Captain America: Winter Soldier (HD GP)
Captain America: The First Avenger (HD GP)
Cinderella (Animated) (HD GP)
Coco (HD GP)
Disneynature Monkey Kingdom (HD GP)
Doctor Strange (HD GP)
Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (HD GP)
Dumbo (Animated) (HD GP)
The Emperor's New Groove (HD GP)
Finding Dory (HD GP)
Finding Nemo (HD GP)
The Fox and the Hound (HD GP)
The French Dispatch (HD GP)
Frozen (Sing-Along Edition) (HD GP)
Hocus Pocus (HD GP)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (HD GP)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2 (HD GP)
Iron Man 3 (HD GP)
The Jungle Book (Animated) (HD GP)
The Jungle Book 2 (HD GP)
Kings Man (HD GP)
Kronk's New Groove (HD GP)
The Last Duel (HD GP)
Lightyear (HD GP)
The Lion King (Animated) (HD GP)
The Lion King (Live Action) (HD GP)
The Little Mermaid 3 (HD GP)
Luca (HD GP)
Maleficent (HD GP)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (HD GP)
McFarland U.S.A (HD GP)
Mickey's Christmas Carol (HD GP)
Million Dollar Arm (HD GP)
Moana (HD GP)
Monsters Inc (HD GP)
Mulan (2020) (HD GP)
Muppets Most Wanted (HD GP)
Nightmare Alley (HD GP)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (HD GP)
Onward (HD GP)
Oz the Great and Powerful (HD GP)
Peter Pan HD (GP)
Pete's Dragon (Live Action) (HD GP)
Pixar Short Films Volume 3 (HD GP)
Pocahontas (HD GP)
The Prestige (HD GP)
Ratatouille (HD GP)
Raya and the Last Dragon (HD GP)
Robin Hood (HD GP)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (HD GP)
The Santa Clause (HD GP)
Sleeping Beauty (HD GP)
Snow White (HD GP)
Soul (HD GP)
Spies in Disguise (HD GP)
Star Wars: A New Hope (HD GP)
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (HD GP)
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (HD GP)
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (HD GP)
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (HD GP)
Sword in the Stone 60th Anniversary Edition (HD GP)
Thor Love & Thunder (HD GP)
Thor Ragnarok (HD GP)
Tomorrowland (HD GP)
Unbreakable (HD GP)
West Side Story (HD GP)
A Wrinkle In Time (HD GP)
Zootopia (HD GP)
●iTunes●
•(4K)•
Allied (4k) (iTunes Split)
Annihilation (4K) (iTunes Split)
Avengers: Endgame (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Captain Marvel (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Daddy's Home (4K) (iTunes Split)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (4k iTunes) (MA)
Despicable Me 2 (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Despicable Me 3 (4K iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Doctor Strange (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Everest (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
The Fast & the Furious 6 (Extended Edition) (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Finding Dory (4k iTunes) (split) (MA)
Forest Gump (4K) (iTunes Split)
Gemini Man (4K) (iTunes Split)
Ghost in the Shell (Live Action) (4k iTunes Split)
Heat (4k iTunes) (MA)
How to Train Your Dragon 2 (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Iron Man 3 (4K iTunes Split) (MA)
Joy (4k iTunes) (MA)
Jurrasic Park (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Jurrasic Park: The Lost World (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Jurrasic World (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
The Kingsman Secret Service (4k iTunes) (MA)
La La Land (4k) (iTunes) (Split)
Les Misérables (4K iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Lone Survivor (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Maleficent (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (4K iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Moana (4K iTunes) (Split) (MA)
No Time To Die (4k)
Rocketman (4K) (iTunes Split)
Sicario (4K) (iTunes) (Split)
Sleeping Beauty (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Thor Ragnarok (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
War for the Planet of the Apes (4K iTunes) (MA)
Warcraft (4k iTunes) (Split) (MA)
Why Him (4k iTunes) (MA)
•(HD)•
All Eyes On Me (HD) (iTunes Split)
An Inconvenient Sequal: Truth to Power (HD) (iTunes Split)
The Big Short (HD iTunes) (Split)
Cheech and Chong: Up in Smoke (HD) (iTunes Split)
Den of Thieves (HD) (iTunes Split)
Good Kill (HD) (iTunes Split)
The Guilt Trip (HD) (iTunes Split)
I, Frankenstein (HD) (iTunes Split)
Megan Leavey (HD) (iTunes Split) (MA)
Nebraska (HD) (iTunes Split)
The Nut Job (HD) (iTunes Split) (MA)
Rise of the Guardians (HD) (iTunes Split) (MA)
Top Five (HD) (Itunes Split)
●Vudu●
•(4K)•
Annihilation (4K) (Vudu Split)
Apocalypse Now (Triple Feature) (4k) (Vudu)
Creed 3 (4k) (Vudu Only)
Daddy's Home (4K) (Vudu Split)
Early Man (4k) (Vudu)
Ender's Game (4k) (Vudu)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (4K) (Vudu)
Forest Gump (4K) (Vudu Split)
Gemini Man (4K) (Vudu Split)
Ghost in the Shell (2017) (4K) (Vudu Split)
Highlander (4k) (Vudu)
La La Land (4k) (Vudu Split)
The Man Who Fell to Earth 4K (Vudu)
The Mist 4k (Vudu)
Ran 4k (Vudu)
Rocketman (4K) (Vudu Split)
The Secret Garden 4K (Vudu)
Sicario 4K (Vudu Split)
Source Code 4k (Vudu)
Ugly Dolls 4k (Vudu)
•(HD)•
The Big Short (HD) (Vudu Split)
●Lionsgate●
•(4K)•
Apocalypse Now (Triple Feature) 4k (Vudu)
Belly 4k (Vudu)
The Cabin in the Woods 4k (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Early Man 4k (Vudu)
Ender's Game 4k (Vudu)
Everything Everywhere All at Once (4K) (Vudu)
Expendables (4K) (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Expendables 2 (4K) (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Fall 4k (Vudu, iTunes)
Hacksaw Ridge 4K (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Highlander 4k (Vudu)
The Hitman's Bodygaurd 4k (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
The Hitman's Wife's Bodygaurd 4k (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Jigsaw 4k (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
John Wick Chapter 4 4k (Vudu, iTunes)
La La Land 4k (Vudu, iTunes) (Split)
The Man Who Fell to Earth 4K (Vudu)
The Mist 4k (Vudu)
Plane 4k (Vudu, iTunes)
Ran 4k (Vudu)
Requiem for a Dream (4K) ( Vudu, iTunes)
Reservoir Dogs (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
The Secret Garden 4K (Vudu)
Sisu 4K (Vudu, iTunes)
Source Code 4k (Vudu)
Total Recall 4k (1990) (Vudu, iTunes)
Ugly Dolls 4k (Vudu)
•(HD)•
Blue Steel (HD) (Vudu)
Dementia 13 (Director's Cut) (HD Vudu or Google Play) (4k iTunes)
Dream a Little Dream HD (Vudu or Google Play)
Extreme Prejudice HD (Vudu or Google Play)
I Still Believe (HD Vudu) or (4k iTunes)
Little Monsters (HD) (Vudu, Google Play)
My Best Friend is a Vampire HD (Vudu)
Shivers (HD) (Vudu, Google Play)
The Wickerman HD (From 4k but redeems HD for now) (Vudu)
●Paramount●
•(4K)•
Annihilation (4k) (Vudu, iTunes) (Split)
Babylon (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
Braveheart (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
Coming to America (4k) (Vudu, iTunes, Google Play)
Crawl (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Days of Thunder (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
Dragonslayer (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
The Firm (4k) (Vudu)
Flashdance (4K) (Vudu)
Forest Gump (4k) (Vudu, iTunes) (Split)
Gladiator (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
The Godfather Coda (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Interstellar (4K) (Vudu or iTunes)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
Love & Monsters (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
A Quiet Place Part 2 (4K) (Vudu or ITunes)
Rosemary's Baby (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Scream (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Scream 2 (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Scream 3 (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Scream 5 (2022) (4k) ( Vudu or iTunes)
Scream 6 (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Sleepy Hollow (4k) (Vudu)
Sonic (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
The Sum of All Fears (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Super 8 (4K) (Vudu or iTunes)
Sweeny Todd (4k) (Vudu)
Terms of Endearment (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Titanic (4K) (Vudu, iTunes)
Top Gun (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
Top Gun Maverick (4k) (Vudu or iTunes)
The Truman Show (4K) (Vudu)
The Untouchables (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
Vanilla Sky (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
War of the Worlds (2005) (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
The Wolf of Wall Street (4k) (Vudu, iTunes)
•(HD)•
Mean Girls (2004) (HD Vudu, 4k iTunes)
Wonder Park (HD Vudu, 4k iTunes)

So I started playing a Stardew Valley a couple weeks ago after having it on my switch for almost a year. I just finished the Community Center and I full on cried when I got my last item to put in the bundle. (It was truffle oil) and as the Junimos were saying their farewell, I cried like a little baby, after all my hard work and dedication to this game I finally got something finished. How did you react when you finished the Community Center the first time?

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Leading Through Love: Why Setting an Example Isn’t the Main Means of Influence

Imagine yourself in the midst of a challenging season, trying to navigate life’s myriad responsibilities and complexities. You might look to others for guidance, hoping to see examples of how to handle such difficulties with grace. But here’s a revolutionary thought — what if setting an example, while impactful, isn’t the principal way to influence others?

The Power of Personal Connection

Setting an example is crucial, but the most potent transformations often occur through personal, heartfelt connections. Consider Jesus’ approach. While He lived a life that was the perfect example for all to emulate, His deepest impact came through His relationships. Think about the intimate conversations He had with His disciples, the one-on-one interactions with the sick, and the personal invitations to follow Him.
Bible Verse: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35, NIV)

Words and Actions Go Hand in Hand

Just living a good life often isn’t enough. Your verbal encouragement, empathic listening, and genuine interest in people’s lives hold tremendous power. People tend to remember how you made them feel far more vividly than the specific examples you set. Share your stories of faith, your struggles, and triumphs. Your authenticity can often inspire and influence others far more deeply than any unobtainable standard.
Bible Verse: “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21, NIV)

Inviting Participation

Think about how Paul influenced the early church. He did not just set an example; he actively invited others into his ministry, nurturing them like a father. In his letters, he encouraged the early Christians to follow his example as he followed Christ, but more importantly, he built relationships and formed communities.
Bible Verse: “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 11:1, NIV)

Questions for Reflection

1. When was the last time you deeply connected with someone and shared your faith journey?
2. Who in your circle could use your encouragement and personal stories to face their struggles today?

As you ponder these questions, remember that your influence grows exponentially when you combine your example with relational depth and genuine care.

Your Influence Goes Beyond Actions

True influence encompasses more than setting an example; it’s about forging sincere connections and speaking life into others through your words and actions. Your positive, Christ-centered relationships may pave the way for others to experience God’s love in unprecedented ways.

Call to Action

Reflect on how you can combine your exemplary actions with heartfelt connections this week. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. How has someone’s words or personal touch influenced your walk with Christ recently? By sharing, you might be the encouragement someone else needs today.
In your interactions, remember, you’re more than just an example; you’re a conduit for God’s unfathomable love. Embrace this holistic approach to influence and witness the transformative power of authentic connections in your life and in your community.
By recognizing the full scope of influence beyond mere example-setting, we can begin to craft relationships that inspire, uplift, and ignite a deeper faith in others and ourselves.
If you like this content, please connect with us at: https://BGodInspired.com
Or dig for more answers yourself with our BGodInspired Bible Tools! Be careful – each interaction is like a new treasure hunt… you can get lost for hours 🙂
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This is a long story but I will try and condense as much as humanly possible. Also on my phone so if it’s the wrong format I apologize. I just really need advice from a neutral party.
I 34F have a mom who wasn’t around much when I was a kid. Always chose drugs and men over her 2 daughters. We lived with my dad as he had sole custody. His parents, my grandparents, helped out so much and did so much with my sister and I. We had more of a “mom and dad” relationship verses a “grandparent” relationship. We had our own bedrooms at there house and they would take us on trips, amusement parks, basically we were always with them. My grandma and I were inseparable. When I would see my mom it wasn’t very long visits and I’ll use one story as an example of how our relationship was. I was 16, and she was bringing me back to my dad’s. I had just gotten a prom dress and was so excited to show her! To this day it’s still my absolute favorite. When I came downstairs the only thing she did was look at the tag and say “I’d never be able to fit into that, I’m a size 6!” As she’s smiling and laughing too in her world to notice I’m on the verge of a breakdown while looking at my dad he was my rock. Many more things to add but I’ll stop there.
My grandmother who I’ve been inseparable with had gotten diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. My husband and I had been living with her at this time, and had been since my grandpa died 10 years ago to help her and she was never one to be alone so as much as it helped us not have to pay rent or anything it also helped her. We did everything at the house from grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning etc. We started looking for a place when she got diagnosed because we knew with 2 kids it would become to much for her and my sister lived a block away until we found a nursing home. She wasn’t alone long but if anyone’s had to deal with nursing homes and pricing with Medicaid, at least in Ohio, you have to sell literally all your assets and have under $2,000 in the bank at all times. So we were going to have to move regardless and at that time didn’t want to be homeless.
About a year after we moved out I felt bad for my mom as her fiance had unexpectedly passed away. We hadn’t really had a relationship up until this point. She quickly weaseled her way into me and my families lives. My kids 4 and 8 see her often. Every now and then would still make comments about my weight. At this point I was 1 yr post partum. I should also add I’m the only one who has a relationship with her in the entire family.
I have over the last year lost 70 pounds and feel better then ever. I feel like I have my body back. I’m working on toning my “baby belly” now but other than that my stomach is flat! I’m FINALLY confident in myself! Well over the last several weeks my dear mother has made comments about my weight. How I’m now “too skinny” and “don’t lose anymore weight you’ll be too skinny” never happy with how I look basically. How my stomach is flat but I still have a “buldge, but it’s a cute buldge” makes it better right? I should mention she’s no longer on drugs so she herself has gained quite a bit and has all sorts of hip and knee problems.
The last few weeks my grandma’s health has been significantly deteriorating. I’ve gone up everyday and some days my mom has come to sit with the kids so I can go. On Friday, I get back, and my mom was asking “how much do you weigh now?” I said “down to 150!” She said “that’s great, are you done now?” I said “no I’d like to lose maybe 10-15 more”. She then goes, “I’d stop now, you don’t want to be too skinny and look like your on drugs!” I said “I’m gonna lose what I want”. She then looks at me with the most serious look and says “you’re not using drugs to lose weight are you?” I said “what? Absolutely not!” Shocked and appalled she would even ask that. Then looks at me confused, “you sure your not using?” I replied with, “no mom, I’m not. I would never put my kids through what I went through as a kid. It was awful and I’d never” now offended and she said “okay well it’s easy to get into so just had to ask”. She left and I was heated. Mind you at this time I had been over her stuff for a few months now. She’s a legit Karen, those videos online? Yeah that’s her to a T. She’s a full blown narcissist.
So this morning I get a phone call from my dad at 730 saying the nursing home called and it’s not gonna be long. I called my mom asking if she could come now. She said she was gonna get dressed and be on her way. My dad calls back and didn’t have to say anything. I broke down. My grandma had died. So I put myself together as best I can, call her and say don’t rush just get here when you can. She got here at 8/815 and I left to say my goodbyes with my dad, stepmom and sister. About an hour into being there my dad, sister and I get a few messages about there condolences. Weird as we havnt told anyone yet but who? My mom who was watching my kids. SHE MADE A FACEBOOK POST! WTF! I immediately text her and tell her to take it down. She replied with “I didn’t say any names”. I go “you didn’t say any names but mentioned it being your former mother in law and ex husband. Anyone can put two and two together. We don’t need this while saying goodbye.” She said, “okay I took it down”. I just said “thank you.”.
I go back into the room and am just livid. I told them how people knew and was just shaking in anger, grief, disbelief my own mom was trying to make yet again, this all about her. My dad loses it and just starts crying along with my sister as I’m saying “fuck her I hate her how could she”. Made what was an already hard time, losing my grandma who was practically my mom, even harder. About an hour later we’re all leaving. I get into my car just shaking with emotion and I texted her “I'm on my way home, I'm really upset and think it would be a good idea for you to leave when I get home. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to say anything in front of the kids you should have waited to tell anyone or say anything on Facebook until WE did. I mean we were literally saying our goodbyes as people started texting which is something I, Ashley and dad didn't need.”
She didn’t reply. My husband talked me down as much as he could while at work. I’m normally a person who stays as far away from conflict as much as possible and I bottle things up. The last few months she’s been so jealous when other people come over or we go do stuff, she’s been picking at my weight and more and I just had it. I havnt heard from her since and that’s okay. I just wanted to know if I was TAH for how I handled it. I texted her because I didn’t want to blow up in front of my kids. If you need more info I’m an open book, just ask.

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Understanding God’s Loving Discipline: Insights from Proverbs 3:11-12

Imagine you’re back in your childhood, and you’re about to reach for that hot stove. Your parent immediately stops you, not out of anger but out of love. Now, think about how God might be guiding us in a similar way. Proverbs 3:11-12 unveils this beautifully by shedding light on God’s loving discipline. Let’s dive deeper into these verses and draw some profound, uplifting insights.

God’s Discipline: A Sign of His Love

“Do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent His rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son he delights in.” – Proverbs 3:11-12
Here, Proverbs offers a comforting yet challenging truth. The discipline we receive from God is born out of His profound love for us, just as a parent corrects their beloved child. It’s easy to misinterpret discipline as punishment, but in the context of divine love, it aims to foster growth, righteousness, and a closer relationship with God.

The Purpose Behind God’s Correction

• Character Development: God’s discipline helps us build stronger character and deepens our moral integrity. As you reflect on times of correction, think about how these moments reshaped you for the better.
• Guidance and Protection: Much like preventing a child from touching a hot stove, God’s discipline serves as a protective measure, steering us away from harmful paths and guiding us towards His divine purpose.
• Strengthening Faith: These challenging periods can strongly test and subsequently strengthen our faith. Just as muscles grow through resistance, so does our faith grow deeper and more resilient through disciplined guidance.

Encouragement in Times of Correction

Receiving God’s discipline can be challenging. Here are some steps to help us embrace it positively:

1. Acknowledge God’s Love: Recognize that God’s discipline is an expression of His unfailing love.
2. Reflect and Learn: Use these moments to reflect on what God might be teaching you. What lessons can you learn, and how can you apply them in your life?
3. Pray for Understanding: Seek clarity and peace through prayer. Ask God to reveal His wisdom and purpose behind the correction.

Interactive Reflection: Embracing God’s Guidance

Think about a time when you felt God’s discipline. How did it shape your character and faith? Can you see areas in your life where God might be guiding you now? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Your journey can inspire and encourage others facing similar challenges.

In Summary

Proverbs 3:11-12 invites us to view God’s discipline as a testament to His love. Understanding it as a means of protection, guidance, and growth can transform our perception and response to divine correction. Next time you encounter a challenging situation, remember that it’s a step towards spiritual maturity, designed by a loving Father who delights in you.

Call to Action: How has God’s discipline impacted your life? Share your stories and insights in the comments. Let’s create a supportive community where we uplift and encourage each other in our journeys of faith!

By incorporating God’s loving discipline into our daily reflections, we open ourselves to spiritual growth and deeper understanding. Embrace God’s guidance with an open heart, for it is in these moments that His love shines the brightest.
If you want to want to research more Bible Answers on your own, please try our Bible Answers GPT. It’s easy to get lost in the interesting responses you’ll find… every search is like a new treasure hunt 🙂
Source =

u/tachibanakanade, u/kora_mcbasketball, u/Niftyrat_Specialist
The visible and invisible universe consists of two realms, vertical and horizontal. Demons are beings existing in the spiritual (verticle) realm. The spiritual realm is composed of dark (invisible, non-baryonic) matter. The two realms coexist in the same space. Physical motions affect the physical realm. Spiritual motions affect the spiritual realm. They do not interact easily. When they do, the observable effects are the products of a miracle. Another way for a spirit to effect change in the horizontal realm is by possessing a human's spirit. From there, it can control his volition.
Can a Christian have a demon?
Demons can attack a Christian's mind, but they cannot occupy his spirit because the Paraclete dwells there. See also Can Satan put thoughts into your mind?.
Also, not everyone who calls himself a Christian has the Paraclete dwell in him. Demons can indeed possess these.
Mark 5:

2 when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit.

with ἐν (en) Preposition Strong's 1722: In, on, among. A primary preposition denoting position, and instrumentality, i.e. A relation of rest; 'in, ' at, on, by, etc.
This man has an unclean spirit in him. Later, verse 15 shows that he is demon-possessed.

4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces.

He has supernatural strength through the demon-possession.
Jesus delivered him.

15 they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.

possessed δαιμονιζόμενον (daimonizomenon) Verb - Present Participle Middle or Passive - Accusative Masculine Singular Strong's 1139: To be possessed, be under the power of an evil-spirit or demon. Middle voice from daimon; to be exercised by a demon.
The word appears 13 times.
I posit demon possession to mean demons occupying a person's spirit in order to control his mind and body through his volition.
Elsewhere in Acts 10:

38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

oppressed καταδυναστευομένους (katadynasteuomenous) Verb - Present Participle Middle or Passive - Accusative Masculine Plural Strong's 2616: To overpower, quell, treat harshly. From kata and a derivative of dunastes; to exercise dominion against, i.e. Oppress.
The word appears only 2 times.
I posit demon oppression as demons occupying a person's mind and body but not the spirit/volition.
Do demons cause mental illnesses?
Yes, sometimes.
How can they affect Christians?
Demons can oppress the mind of a Christian.

Hi everyone, I've been a very very devout Christisn for most of my adult life, yet even as a young child I've had frans feelings.
I would never ever practice sodomy or any other sinful sexual practices.
For me, the more feminine I feel, the happier I am. It changes my personality and people like me more. It also really really helps with my mental health for a ton of reasons...
Could someone share a Bible verse about this or share some kind of strong argument as to why I shouldn't do this?

Hi everyone, I've been a very devout Christian since the age of 17...I found the Faith myself, which I am kind of proud of. Yet I have always had trans feelings even at a very young age.
I'm just changing my appearance, and I would never commit sodomy or any other sinful sexual practices.
For me, the more feminine I feel the better I feel, and people like me more and the change in my personality. It also really really helps with some of my mental health, but I won't get into that atm
Is it sinful to be trans? Could anyone cite a Bible verse or share a strong argument as to why I shouldn't do this?
I could really use some sound advice...

I just got some minute meditation books, which are the following:

• Daily Companion for Men
• Day by Day with St. Joseph

Each day has a bible verse, a reflection, and a prayer. Could anyone help me understand how I can meditate with these books?

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Content Warning: Domestic Abuse
***
We pulled off I-51 a little after midnight, stopping at a truck stop which was couched between the highway and a large forest.
We waited in the van for ten minutes or so. Trent had increased the sonar radius to its maximum of 30 miles a little over an hour ago. Somehow the red pings had kept up with us, holding a steady distance of around 20 miles. Considering we were averaging around 80 mph, and a coyote's top speed is only around 40 mph, we figured they had been enhanced in some way. Either that, or they shape-shifted into something faster. Regardless, now that we had stopped, we waited to see if the demon spawn would try and close the distance. Luckily, or unluckily, they didn't. They kept their 20 mile buffer, but we noticed they were beginning to spread out along the circumference of that boundary.
"We're close. They know that, so they're trying to trap us in." Trent said.
"Trying to?—more like they have."
We considered whether we should stay in the van and keep watch, but we figured that would do us little good. At their speed, they could be on us in ten minutes, which means we would need to stay up all night and keep tabs on their positions. Trent offered to stay up, of course, but I shut him down.
"The demon doesn't want to kill us now. You said it yourself. Plus, we need our rest. If they come, they come."
Trent didn't like it, but he acquiesced.
The truck stop had all the essentials: a gas station and mini mart with showers and an attached McDonald's, a large parking lot for truckers to idle and sleep, and even a section with lodging for those who wanted a more comfortable night's rest. I told Trent that he should take advantage of the showers, and after a little convincing, he agreed. While he was cleaning himself up, I patrolled the dingy, half-stocked aisles of "Daisy's Quick Mart". I probably would have been appalled at the quality of the store had I actually been paying any attention to it whatsoever. But I wasn't. I was thinking hard about what awaited me tomorrow.
During the drive, I had asked Trent why the demon would want us to return to the crash site. What did he mean that I would be 'confronting a dark entity in a place he couldn't help me'? He seemed hesitant to answer, but my little stunt outside the storage facility seemed to have sufficiently motivated him.
"When I said I've never done this before, I meant it." Trent started. "I've never done this exact thing before—meaning I've never projected someone into the past."
"So, I'm time traveling?" I asked.
"No—don't think of it like that." Trent paused, trying to come up with a good explanation. "It's more like I'm opening a window for you to look through: not a door. You're going to see the past, but you can't interact with the physicalities there. But that doesn't mean you can't interact with anything."
There was a space of silence as Trent tried to let me work out his meaning for myself. "I don't get it. Are you saying there's something I can interact with? Like what?" And then it hit me. "The demon. The demon can interact with me? Meaning what? It can kill me?"
"Meaning… I'm not exactly sure. You're going to be in a kind of psychic space. If it does damage, it won't be to your body. It'll be to your mind—or spirit. But I don't know what the limits of that damage could be. I just don't have those answers."
"If you've never done this, how do you know any of it will work?"
"That's an easy one." Trent answered. "Because it's been done to me."
There was silence.
"Look, if I know anything, I know my tech. Don't doubt that this will work. It's my job to make sure it does. I just need you to be in the right mental for this. Just because it knows your coming doesn't mean it automatically has the upper hand. It won't be able to see you unless you make contact with it first. In other words, you have to initiate contact. As long as you remain a spectator, you should be okay. Trust me. Just don't make contact."
I started pacing faster—fast enough to catch the attention of the overnight shift worker, a young man whose name I can't quite remember. I know it started with a "J". Jake, maybe? Anyway, he asked if I was alright, to which I responded in the affirmative. He left me alone for another couple passes, but when I almost ran into one of the shelves, he stood up and said, "Uh—I'm going to have to ask you to stop running around. I don't want you to hurt yourself."
I must have stared daggers at him, because he recoiled from my gaze. What's gotten into me? I thought. Then, steadying myself, I apologized. I looked around and grabbed the nearest edible looking piece of merchandise: a bag of Swedish Fish, and placed it down on the counter. "Just this, please."
The cashier rang me up. It was surprisingly cheap.
"Are you sure you're alright?" the young man asked. He was tall with brown hair. He seemed tired—maybe even more tired than me. But he also seemed kind.
I smiled as best I could and said, "No, I'm not. But there's not really anything you can do. Hell, there might not be anything I can do." I furrowed my eyebrows at my own response, realizing that imminent death may have broken my verbal filter.
On the other hand, the cashier did not seem surprised at all. "Ah, I see. It's one of those problems." He responded. "Well, hey, for what it's worth, you seem like one of the resilient ones. I think you'll be alright."
I only smiled and nodded at his mildly cryptic comment. Looking back, the whole interaction was a bit strange, but I had way too much mental clutter to recognize that in the moment. I took my Swedish Fish and walked through the anteroom which led to McDonald's. I found an open yellow booth that wasn't littered with crumpled straw sleeves and sat down, chomping mindlessly on my little red fish until Trent returned. When he arrived, he took my place, and I went to shower. After we were both clean and fed, we returned to the van. The pings were still pushed safely out of harm's way. But that didn't mean we were out of harm's way. Trent asked me if I wanted to sleep in the van, saying that "it'd be the safest place."
I thought it over. He was right, obviously. The van was not only outfitted with weapons I couldn't even begin to understand, but it was also our escape, and it would be just as difficult, if not more difficult to break into than the studio-style motel rooms with their wood doors and big windows. Still, if this was going to be my last night on earth, I wanted to sleep in a bed. A real bed. Trent understood and said he'd stay parked right outside my room for the night.
After purchasing a key from the night attendant, I moseyed over to the cement walkways which connected the twenty or so rooms. Mine was room #56, which I thought was odd since, like I said, there were only 20 rooms. I lugged in my tomato plushie and dad's old book and placed them on the queen mattress.
"I'll be right outside." Trent said after I collapsed onto the bed.
"Trent," I called out, stopping him half-way through the door.
"Yeah?"
All the blood in my body rushed up to my face as I realized my unfiltered mouth almost reflexively said the word "stay". I stared at Trent, my heart beating, my face hot. I considered asking him to sleep on the floor like my dad, but that would be childish and impolite. The alternative was to share my bed… Or I could take the floor.
"I'll just be right outside." Trent said before my mind processed a solution. "Come by if you need anything. I'll be up most of the night anyway."
"Okay," I replied in a faint voice.
Trent shut the door.
I sat atop the bedsheets and acquainted myself with my new living space. A feeling of regret closed over me as I considered that even sleeping on a carseat would have been better if it meant I didn't have to be alone. With a sigh, I turned on the bedside lamp and grabbed the book and stuffed tomato, using the tomato as a backrest as I slipped my legs under the covers and situated the book upright on my thighs. I cracked it open and was immediately blasted with a puff of dusty, old book scent. It was ripe at first, and I turned my head away to sneeze, but as I perused through the pages, the scent grew on me. It reminded me of the days growing up when I'd step into dad's study and read through one of the many volumes on cryptic topics which were at least two college degrees above my Lexile range.
I was only a couple minutes into browsing the collection of different scientific and philosophical works when I came across a page which contained highlighted text. This was unusual, as my dad would never mark up his books. He was a purist on that point. I rubbed my thumb over the yellow lines, and sure enough, it was highlighter.
The highlighted text was part of a small book by Carl Jung called "Synchronicity". There were a total of three pages that were marked, and they advanced like this:
Page 5:
The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law is causality*. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically valid and relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explaining natural processes… That is as much to say that the connection of events may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and require another principle of explanation.*
Page 19:
…there are events which are related to one another experimentally, and in this case meaningfully*, without there being any possibility of proving that this relation is a causal one, since the "transmission" exhibits none of the known properties of energy…a situation which does not yet exist and will only occur in the future could transmit itself as a phenomenon of energy to a receiver in the present…Therefore, it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity... "synchronicity"*
Page 22:
A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer… which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment.
I flipped through the rest of the pages of the book. There was no more highlighted text, but there was a message on the last page which read:
Matthew 7:7-8
I'll meet you in the darkest place.
He also included his typical smiley face which had an ovular shape and three sprouts of hair which I now realized kind of resembled my tomato plushie. It was my dad's writing, of course. But why? And how? What did this mean?
The motel had a Bible stashed away in the nighstand drawer. I got it out and looked up the verses which read the following:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
I spent maybe an hour ruminating on all of this. The whole discourse on energy and causality and a "falling together in time" just seemed so right. It was clear that my dad definitely did know what I was going through, but for whatever reason, he made it seem like he was oblivious. Why had he hidden that from me? I felt like I was being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, my dad loved me enough to leave this note, maybe even knowing the exact moment I'd need it. But on the other hand, he had neglected my struggles throughout my entire childhood. He even lied at times. Was this really enough to make up for all of that?
And then there was the section about the future transmitting energy to the past. I read back through the whole paragraph and the original writer had meant it to say this as something that wasn't possible, but my dad's highlighting made it seem like he wanted to flip the meaning. The future does affect the past. I thought about where I was headed and wondered if I would soon discover that for myself.
Lastly, dad's message. The Bible verse reminded me of the first time I prayed; how I reached out to God and received peace as an answer to my prayer. Now I feel like I'm actively seeking… something, but I don't know yet what I'll find. And then there's knocking. At first that reminded me of the story with the beetle tapping on the window, but then I went back even deeper in my memory and dug out the monster tapping at my window, and the words my dad spoke to me in order to set my mind at ease: "you're a superhero. And you know what your greatest superpower is? Your greatest power is you get to tell the monsters what to do. Because the monsters are only as strong as the stories you tell about them…so if you're ever scared, honey, just dream up a better story."
I was crying into my stuffed tomato now. I felt like all the blinking pieces of my life had finally been pulled together into a completed puzzle. This was all by design. My entire life, filled with so much chaos and confusion, was actually preparing me for this moment. And my dad thought I had the tools and strength enough to get through it. I flipped through the book one more time, thinking maybe he had left some other hidden comment—some formula to defeat this demon and return home. But there was nothing. Only that one comment: "I'll meet you in the darkest place."
What's the darkest place, dad? Is that where I'm going? Are you saying you'll be there, too?
With those thoughts in mind, my eyes became heavy shutters which, with a slight pressure on the pulley, winded shut. My swimming thoughts and firework-like fears dissipated, and I returned to a precious childhood memory. It was after an evening soccer practice. Summer. Dad was driving me to Dairy Queen. I got a cherry-dipped twist cone. I was happy.
So, so happy.
***
I woke up to sunlight blaring through my windows. Shit, I overslept, was my immediate thought. I threw off my covers and opened the front door. A glance at the clock showed 1:13 PM. I shouldn't have even been allowed to stay checked in this long. Damn, am I gonna get double-billed for this?
I heard a rummaging sound around the corner of my motel room. It sounded like a squirrel was trying to find an afternoon snack in one of the garbage bins. I stepped outside. The sun was extremely bright, to the point where I had to squint and put my hand over my eyes to even see the ground in front of me. I was trying to walk toward the van, but somehow I ended up in front of the trash bins where the animal's tail was sticking out from a turned-over, silver garbage can. Its tail was wagging excitedly, and I remember thinking that it was much too large to be a squirrel.
The animal bent down as if biting onto something, and I heard the sound of its growl as it struggled to tug whatever it was free from the barrel. Inch by inch, the creature backed out of the canister, and more of its sharp, sticky hair was revealed. I heard something snap, then the creature leapt back and I saw what it was chomping on. My eyes widened in horror as the pink tube of a human intestine was pulled taut like the end of a tangled hose. Blood and entrails were spilling out of the human's opened gut. And then, behind the canine, I saw the person's face. His face was pale white, his eyes closed, and his hair was slicked back… It was Trent.
Before I could react, I heard footsteps approaching from behind. I whirled around and saw my dad. But—no, it wasn't him. It was someone wearing a paper-mache face mask that was painted to look like my dad. The forehead of the mask was already beginning to crack, white specks breaking off like sawdust. Through the cracks, I could see the figure's true form. I didn't know darkness had its own type of light, but that's the only way to describe it. It was as if malevolence itself was reified into a skin which was actually an amalgamation of millions of little, oozing parasites that leached into the nearby light. When it finally spoke, the demon's voice was a full octave lower than the old man's at the deli. And it had an earth-stilling gravitas.
"Today's the day!" He sang and reached into his pocket. His lips curled upward into a foxy smirk. "You have no idea how long I've waited for this day." He said and held up a razor blade. Half his facade had already fallen apart, and now I could see the bugs up close, writhing in what was either horror or ecstasy. And his scent… it was somehow more rank than the rabid coyote rummaging through the trash can with Trent's cut open body inside. The demon closed in on my position, and in one, decisive motion, he brought the blade close to his chin, then sliced it across my throat. "Wake up!" He screamed.
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my throat, feeling the cold sting of its quick slice. Hyperventilating, I patted the area down, trying to hold the blood in, but when I removed my hands, I saw they were dry. It was only a dream, I thought. Gray light was only beginning to filter in through the drapes. I'm in my hotel room. I'm safe. I tried consoling, but the pragmatic mental massages weren't enough to hold the force of my knees buckling. I dropped onto the carpet and cried for a long while.
Outside, rain was beginning to fall.
***
By the time I met up with Trent, I had already composed myself and decided to keep my dad's message and the nightmare to myself. None of it seemed particularly productive from a logistical standpoint, anyway. And I wanted to focus on the mission.
We stopped by McDonald's and bought a couple cups of coffee. Trent asked if I wanted any food, and I declined. Black coffee seemed like the only thing my stomach could take at the present moment. I could tell Trent was hungry, but he tried playing it off (I guess to be respectful of me?) I told him to knock it off and get something to eat. I didn't need my Charon getting lightheaded and dropping the paddle before he finished rowing me to Hell. He didn't care much for my joke, but he ordered a couple Chicken McGriddles at the kiosk anyway.
There were maybe ten patrons spread throughout the restaurant. We sat down at the same booth from the prior night, this time across from one another. Trent spent the first ten minutes or so babbling about our fuel supply and the logistics of the trip from here on in. Practical stuff. I've come to realize that's how he deals with his stress. He talks it out in short, durable sentences. I mostly nodded and watched as what looked like a storm front closed in on the truck stop. The sky was overcast, and there were darker clouds in the distance. The rain was still only a patter, but a middle-aged man wearing a yellow bow tie on the wall-mounted TV confirmed that there would be heavier rain and thunderstorms very soon.
After the worker delivered Trent's food and he ate it in record time, I posed the one question that was still on my mind.
"How do I fight him?" I asked.
Trent finished a large gulp of his coffee, then looked at me. It was the first substantial thing I'd said all morning; Trent could tell something was off with me, but he figured there was no point in asking what it was. "By 'him', I assume you mean the demon?"
I nodded.
Trent licked his teeth clean. "You could try praying again."
"I'm serious," I responded.
"I'm serious, too. It worked before, didn't it?"
"You mean at my house?"
Trent nodded.
"I thought you weren't a religious man?"
"I'm not. Just a practical one. If praying worked before, maybe it'll work again."
"That's the best you've got? A maybe?"
"No, I've got a lot of shit better than a maybe." He answered. "It's just not accessible where you're going. Which is why I recommend not making contact on the first run."
"First run? So we're going to do this more than once?"
"At least," Trent answered. Then, seeing my expression, he continued. "What? You thought this was going to be a one-and-done? We have to conduct some research first. I did tell you this was new for me, right?"
Somehow Trent's response had set my mind at ease a little. I was going to have more than one chance. Of course, why wouldn't I be able to go back more than once?
"Why didn't you tell me this earlier? It would have gone a long way in easing my mind."
Trent lifted his hands in defense. "Sorry, I just thought that was a given. I mean, what we're doing is dangerous, just like I said, but it doesn't mean we aren't going to approach this as safely and scientifically as possible. However, there is a different problem with running multiple trials."
"The Organization?"
"That's right," Trent said like a proud parent. "Our little experiment will be like a giant spotlight, and the longer we wait around after it's on us, the greater the chance we'll have unwelcome company."
"So, safe but speedy."
"Safe but speedy. Exactly."
***
We fueled up and were back on the road a little after 8:00. From that point on, Trent and I were absolutely silent. I had the distinct feeling of being in the eye of a storm. The pings moved closer commensurate with our progress toward the crash site. The cloudfront continued its advance. And I noticed a haze beginning to descend onto the road ahead of us. It was fog.
We meandered further inland, the forest thickening around us until the rain almost stopped entirely—the leaves drinking it up before it fell onto our windshield. I kept my eyes on the radar. We were approaching the large yellow circle which indicated we had arrived. As we pulled closer, I began to feel things. Fear. Eeriness. Doubt. Then happiness. Hope. Love. Normally feelings like these had a clear source to picture, but these sensations came on in waves without any discernible reason. It was almost as if they were blinking into existence inside me.
"Here we go," Trent said like an airline pilot readying his crew for turbulence.
I still recall the exact moment we crossed the boundary into the area of higher energy. It was like something just "clicked" in my brain, and all of a sudden everything felt so much closer. The sound of the rain against the trees was almost right next to my ear. The trees in the distance would oscillate between their position a half-mile out, then suddenly seem five meters away. If I focused on something long enough, it began to radiate those same ethereal particles as when Trent released Ava's "phase lock". I checked to make sure the shifter wasn't set to "TD". Sure enough, it was still in drive.
"Can you see them?" Trent asked. "The shifts?"
"Yeah," I said in a dreamy voice. I felt like I was driving through a wonderland.
"It's the energy. I barely notice a difference. A bit of movement in the trees, but not much else. But I'm sure for you, it's a whole experience."
"What is this?" I raised my hand and caught some of the pixel dust dripping off the sun visor. It disappeared when it made contact with my hand.
"It's a kind of radiation. Everything emits it, just in different quantities. I'm still not exactly sure how it relates to the other realms, but I'm guessing it's a kind of primordial matter that helps connect our worlds."
"It's beautiful," I exclaimed. "I wish I could see the world like this all the time."
"Maybe you will," Trent whispered.
As we arrived at the crash site, I began to get glimpses of the past. My childhood dreams and memories were pushing their way out from my subconscious. I noticed an increased number of blinks, which were validated by Ava who reported the following: "Currently detecting 14,350 novel emergences and 2,777 controlled agents. Net anomalies: 2,777."
"That's a lot of blinks." I remarked. "Why doesn't Ava include them in the net anomalies?"
Trent turned his head so I could see his smirk. "Because blinks aren't anomalies."
I thought about it for a second. Blinks aren't anomalies. "I never thought about it that way."
"It's hard to think about it that way when 'normal' for most people means not picking up on a fundamental aspect of reality. But that doesn't make it any less real."
We continued past the epicenter of the yellow circle. "Are we not stopping?" I asked. "I think we already passed the crash site."
"It doesn't have to be exactly at the site," Trent said. "Plus, we don't want to stop on the side of the road and risk getting some civilian involved. There's a field about half a mile up ahead. I'm going to pull off the road and set up camp there.
The "field" that Trent was referring to was actually a large clearing that dipped down into several trench-like troughs which were filled to the brim with fog like witches cauldrons. Further on in the distance, I saw open fields, probably used for farming, and then a large hill where the trees once again reasserted themselves. We had pulled off the road and up a small incline where the trees had already been broken down, leaving a trail for us to drive through. When we surfaced at the edge of the clearing, Trent pulled us onto a flat bed of dried mud which was maybe thirty yards long.
"Here," he said with a sigh.
We both sat for a minute, looking around at the field. We had finally arrived. The rain was beginning to pick up, and the dark sky made it almost impossible to discern the time of day.
"You ready?" Trent asked.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. In his blue eyes. Was I ready? Did it even matter?
"Let's do this," I said.
***
This was the first time I was really able to inspect the back of Trent's van. He had talked up his gear a lot, and honestly, I was impressed. Not in the way that a scientist is impressed by another scientist's lab—I wasn't any kind of expert—but it still seemed remarkably well managed. Now that I was in a state where my vision had been enhanced, I could actually see the enigmatic particles circulating through the pneumatic tubes which were coiled like the pipes and valves of an elaborate wind instrument. The walls of the van, itself, were glistening white, making it easier to make out everything else inside. Along the floor were five overturned columns. Each column was dark and had a vibrating quality, as if they were charged with energy. Then atop the center three columns was a small altar which supported an apparatus with two skinny, metal arms holding a silver halo. At present, the arms were folded and the halo was suspended a few inches above the altar, faced-down. I thought maybe I'd see particles exuding from it, but instead it was emitting visible waves which bent and warped everything they touched.
"That thing is emitting a lot of energy." I remarked, gesturing toward the halo.
Trent stepped in between the columns and started pulling out the packages he had stuffed in there yesterday. "Just wait till' it's on."
Most of the packages contained only a single piece of equipment, and were otherwise packed with foam peanuts. We carefully removed each box and set them on the ground outside. I asked if the rain would damage any of the stuff inside, to which Trent only laughed and continued lugging out the boxes. When they were all out, Trent removed a box cutter from his pocket and went one-by-one opening them. There were eight pieces in total.
"What is it?" I asked as we fished the first item out.
"It's another apparatus, like the one inside. Except it'll mount on the ground out here."
I pulled out what looked like a metal tripod.
"Good, that'll go on the bottom."
"Where are we setting it up?"
"Over here," Trent said and stepped five paces away from the van. He coordinated himself up so he was centrally aligned with the inner ring, then stomped a few times. "This is the spot."
As we continued to work, I asked Trent about how the whole contraption works.
"Do you remember the first time we were in the van? When we had to escape from the semi-truck?" Trent asked and connected a secondary mounting apparatus on top of the tripod. It had four spider-like legs that made right angles and stuck into the ground.
"Of course," I said. "The 'phase lock'."
"Yeah," Trent said and gestured toward the metal stick that was in my hand. I handed it to him. "The phase lock is a seal on the level of energy that the van is allowed to release. It also controls its dispersion pattern so that it releases its energy in a steady wave. This allows Ava to scan for anomalies without causing us to become an anomaly." Trent stuck the plank into the neck of the tripod.
"So when you released the phase lock, we started emitting more energy."
"That's right." Trent confirmed. "Enough to create an alternate route through a different realm."
"So we blinked into a different realm, then back, just to avoid that truck?"
"That's right."
"But why couldn't we just move out of the way?"
"Because it had locked onto us. It was tracking our motion and adjusting its course based on the amount of energy we were emitting. So in order to escape, we had to radically skew our potential energy and then use it to shift."
"Couldn't he have just followed us?"
Trent connected four more pieces to the device which now looked like an elaborate teepee. He was fishing in the last box when he spoke again. "Yeah, he could have. But it was highly improbable that he would have found us." Trent returned from the bottom of the box with another silver ring in hand. "Think of it like this. Let's say you're trying to escape from some bad guy who's coming after you, and you enter a new room you've never seen before. Would you prefer this room to have three doors to go through, or ten?"
I thought about his riddle for a second, then responded, "It depends where they go."
Trent fastened the ring atop the teepee. "Let's say they all lead to random places, or let's say they're all closets that lead nowhere. The key is that more is better, because the more doors he has to check, the less likely he is to pick the correct one. Make sense?"
"So we opened up a bunch of doors and escaped through one at random?"
"Hence the gear 'TD', for 'Trap Door'."
I marveled at the insights, but not for long. Trent hopped back in the van and pulled a lever that I hadn't seen until now. The two metal arms raised the inner ring until it was perpendicular with the altar. Then Trent clicked one of three red buttons along the back wall, and I saw what looked like a large, glass eye suspended in a magnifying glass protruding from the wall, aligned with the center of both rings. A couple seconds later, the glass eye began to focus the energy which was being fed to it from the pneumatic tubes, and a blue pyramid of light projected from it into the first ring, then from the first ring into the second ring. All three pieces were aligned at slightly diminishing heights, so the cylinder of light beamed through the second ring, into the ground.
"Alright, time for the first trial."
I felt the nerves starting up in my stomach. Trent sensed this and hopped out of the truck. It was raining quite hard now, though it was still warm. Both Trent and I were soaked, but that hardly concerned us. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "I know you're feeling scared." He said. "But trust me on this. You're going to do fine. Just keep in mind what we talked about. Stay a spectator. Okay?"
I looked into his blue eyes, which seemed especially gray in the dark. Still, Trent's voice was reassuring. All I had to do was trust him. Trust myself. Trust my dad. And it was all going to turn out right.
"I'm ready," I said.
Trent was still for a second, holding my eyes in his. Then he guided me behind the outer ring and into the cylinder of light.
"I should step into it now?" I asked, afraid I'd be called away immediately.
"It's not on yet, so don't worry. I still have to press another button."
I followed Trent's instructions and stood in the blue light which was centered on my chest. Then I watched as Trent ran into the back of the van and posted up next to the glass eye. "Ready?" He yelled out. It was hard to hear him over the rain, but I yelled back. "Ready!"
The next thing I saw was a blinding blue light beam from the van. I heard what sounded like a laser, then saw the cylinder oscillate, expanding and compressing. When the energy reached the second ring, I saw everything around me light up—it looked brighter than noon on a cloudless day. Then the oscillations made their way to me, and I was swallowed up whole.
***
When I came to, I was in the backseat of a car. I felt my butt rumbling. Everything was dim and quiet. And then I heard a woman's voice from in front of me.
"Mark, please, not with Lauren in the back."
The man, who I now identified as my father, pulled the cigarette away from his lips and blew the smoke at my mom. He eyed the back seat where I was sitting, using one of five markers that hadn't rolled off my lap to color a rabbit in my animal color book.
"The kid's fine." he said and took another drag.
"Mark," my mom repeated.
I saw my dad raise his hand in a rapid motion. "I said she's fine, Cheryl. Now check the map and make sure we're going the right away. I can't see shit with all this fog."
I took a moment to make sure I was really in the back seat. I patted myself. I clearly had weight. Then I tried touching the car. At first, my fingertips met a solid surface, but when I tried to press through, my hand slipped into the car. I quickly pulled my hand away as if I had reached into a fire.
That's when I heard the little three year old next to me start crying. I turned and saw that little-me had dropped another couple markers onto the ground and was struggling to reach them.
"Hey!" my dad shouted. "What did I say about crying?"
"Quit it, Mark. She just dropped her markers." said my mom; she turned to help me pick them up.
"What did you say to me?" Mark spat with a voice full of guile. He reached out and pushed her back into her seat. "Don't," he commanded. "She has to learn how to deal with life."
"Deal…" My mom started in disbelief. "Deal with life? Do you hear yourself? What's gotten into you?"
"Sometimes shit happens. It doesn't give her the right to cry. You helping her is just going to reinforce her behavior."
"Her behavior? What about your behavior? You're acting like a total dick."
I didn't even have a moment to react before my dad's hand was across my mom's face. I felt the slap more than I heard it, my own face seeming to swell with the force of the blow. I saw my mom cover her mouth and lean away. Then little-me began to cry even louder, which only challenged my dad to step up his own volume.
"Everyone needs to get a fucking grip before I crash this car." My dad shouted and took another drag. The scariest part was I couldn't tell if he was warning us or threatening us. I felt the sudden urge to do something. There was no way this was real. I was definitely in some fantasy concocted by the demon. He wanted to turn me against my dad. That was the only explanation for something like this. My dad was a good man, not… this.
As I contemplated what to do, I saw a small, golden light appear behind little-me's window. Apparently she saw it, too, because her cries hushed as she traced the wisp with her eyes. After a second, the wisp transformed into a bunny rabbit, reminiscent of the one she was coloring. The rabbit hopped alongside the window, then did a couple circles in place. I watched little me let out a playful laugh and reach toward the window.
"What's going on back there?" my dad asked with a scowl. Apparently the only sound more disturbing than cries were laughs.
I looked back to the front and saw my mom wiping blood from her lip. Her expression was miserable. "Leave her alone, Mark."
"I'll do whatever I damn well want to do, Cheryl. It's my kid back there."
My mom was quiet.
When I looked back toward the rabbit, it was no longer a rabbit but a person. Or at least it looked like a person. The figure radiated pure gold, and atop his head was what appeared to be a King's crown. I recalled Allison's experience of seeing the sun-like figure in her moment of distress. Was that what was happening here? Was this really all true?
"Hey!" My dad shouted, eyeing little-me from the rear-view mirror. "What are you reaching at?"
I looked and saw the golden figure extending his hand toward the window, and little me's hand was reaching back. "Mom, dad, it bright." little-me said.
"What's bright, honey?" my mom asked.
"Don't encourage her, Cheryl."
"Someone there!" little me shouted happily and dropped the rest of the markers and the coloring book onto the ground.
"Who's there?" asked my mom.
"Cheryl, I swear to God. Sit the fuck down."
Everything from that moment on happened so quickly I barely had any time to process it. My mom lifted out of her seat to either get little me's attention or help me pick up my coloring book. My dad responded by grabbing onto her throat, letting go of the steering wheel entirely. He threw her back against the car door, and her head hit the window so hard, the glass cracked. My dad had dropped his cigarette, and I could smell smoke coming from under his seat, but that didn't seem to bother him at all. He turned toward little-me at the same moment my three-year-old hand reached out and grabbed onto the golden figure, whose hand diffused through the window. When my dad turned, I got a whiff of the most awful smell that I wouldn't have been able to place had I not had that nightmare last night. He grabbed onto little-me's shoulder and tugged her away from the golden figure that was trying to pull her the other way. My dad's facade began to crack, and I could see those dark bugs crawling out from the pores in his arms, marching down toward little-me.
I reacted.
I grabbed onto my dad's arm and pulled him off little-me. I heard the sound of my shirt ripping as she was torn from his grip and pulled out of the car, diffusing through it like a ghost. My brief victory was immediately overturned as I saw what was now clearly the demon smiling at me, his wretched fingers curled around my forearm.
"Caught you," He sneered.
Then the whole world once again diffused into countless numbers of particles, only this time, instead of riding through it, I felt like I was falling through an elevator shaft with each floor darker than the last. The further I fell, the less I became aware of my surroundings, and the more I felt a deep sense of loneliness. It was as if I was the only person in the whole world: and the whole world was a prison designed entirely for me. This went on for so long, I began to forget who I was. Where I was. What was.
And then I landed.
***
Source Used:
Jung, Carl. Synchronicity. Translated by Sonu Shamdasani, Princeton University Press, 2010.

My family was actually a part of this church for a long time now and I started to feel the "Struggle" and lost of freedom when im here in this organization.
To give you a "Clear" View of how things actually work inisde of one of thier meetings. he'res how it is actually.
They start of with singing hymns. seems pretty fine right?
Then they started praying. not together. but one by one. And if you don't pray. it's still fine though but hey will then think "Somethings wrong with this guy! maybe he's to accupied with the world and it's Sins" (actually what they meant about the world is "The outside world" or Society for instance. they litteraly brainwash you into thinking. Society isn't the better place and that. Satan himself was the one actualy behind all of it! sounds scary though).
After that. all of us are to read this books. which of course we're the writtings of watchman lee and nee. and not just that. you have to pray read them after. (If you don't know whats "Pray reading" its a combination of "Reading and praying" like if the given verse in book says "God is love" you will then pray and thank God for his love towards us and that his love is forver lasting and this and that. seems quiet long process though and its quiet tirring)
then after, Some brother will then stand up and explain to all of you what actually the contents are. ussualy will take up to 1 hour and so.
and after him speaking will be the hardest part for most kids and teenagers alike
it is that you have to speak infront of all the brothers and sisters. and share to everybody what you have learned. (Of course the call this "Phrophesying" cause it says in the Bible "Some of your brothers shall Prophesy!"
and that will actually cause nightmares to those who's to shy to speak.
and thier are some times we're the brothers will consfiscate thier gadgets and force them to speak infront. totally taking their dignitg away from them.
and if they refute. they will then brainwash them for being to dissobiedient to them and that thier letting themselves used by the devil for not following the rules. (Of course the most accurute way as posibble)
So we're done with the "Meetings" so lets go with the beliefs.
I'm not actually disrespecting thier beliefs as well. but I'm here to ahow you what they believe in and that you have to decide for yourselves.

1. They believe that the world (Society) is under Satans Usurpation.

Of course. They believe that anything that is not of God belongs to Satan.
And of anything that can replace God is also of Satan.
(To those asking in the comments to why some individuals lost thier family and friends upon entering this Movement. then here is your answer.)
According to them, actually. anything that can replace your love towards Christ is by means a part of the devils Usurpation.
And this is where it gets hard.
Anything from Phones Gadgets, Educations, Jobs and even your Families and friends.
According to thier belief. Tiktok, Youtube, and Facebook are all Apps that are used for Satan to Brainwash and separate you from God.
Which is the same reason phones are Confiscated before the meeting starts.
And not just That. according to their belief. Friends and families can also be used by Satan to drive you away from God.(Answers to your Questions to why Some individuals who tried to join this group actually end up lossing thier relationship with thier friends and families)
And Question? Why Families and friends are involved in this?
Well its still based on thier one belief.
According to them. If your Family is an Unbeliever (To them it's a Family who Actally don't believe in the teachings of The living stream ministry and witness lee) are a hindrance to your Christian life.
Actually. your family just wants you to be in the same religion as thiers but things go down far with this one.
They might portray your family. with them stopping you from going to church. (You know so to stick in one religion) As Bieng told by the devil to stop you from coming to Christ.(Of course since they believe that thier religion is the purest)
And with all of that. They could also state that. by loving your family. its also a hindrance towards your love to Christ (Since thier actually basing it on the Bible verse found in Genesis that states "Though shall not worship other Gods except me") which they firmly stick to the belief as well.
How about with the friends? How is it going to do with the this?
Well according to them. Your worldly friends (Of course the friends you found at school) Can. according to them. be used by Satan to Brainwash you into doing stuffs appart from Christ. Of course you've ask me what are those? Well those are mostly what you do with your friend like Hanging out with your friends. Playing video games, and by doing tiktok and stuff. Mostly normal things to do as a teenagers bu they consider it a "Sin" in the eyes of God.
And with this is that.
Your not allowed to listen to "Worldly Music"
So when you go to this Church. Don't show them with you playing "Taylor Swift" and "Doja Cat" or they'lle end up thinking you have been "defiled by the world" of course you. According to them. Have been brainwashed by Society. And that the Devil has taken Control over your life.
Don't take this as an insult to the group but I'm only giving you the most accurate Depiction as possible.

1. They believe other religions are Usurped by Satan and was teaching False doctirnes and stuff.

Their most Target for this is the Roman Catholic Church for Appointing leaders like clergy and pope intead of Christ.
Well. the sad thing about here is that they don't learn how to respect others religion. but instead. planting a bad image to others to Disrespect other religion into thinking thiers was right.

1. They Don't entertain to your psychological needs.

When your feelings depressed and have gone through a lot of troubles in life. they don't actually give you advice. Instead they would just tell you that your lossing your contact with Christ and That the devil is now planting evil thought in your mind. Which most Teenagers with depression doesn't like to hear.

1. They don't Care with you lossing your education and Job. all they care is that God is Glorified through your lost and that he is going to overcome those in your life.

Well. losing a Job is the most hardest part in life right. but thier response is different for this.
Instead of saying. "Lets just pray. God will find a way!" They will say.
"God needs you to reoent in your life. maybe your to uccupied with your job and that's the reaon God took it away from you." Seems to discouraging to here isn't it!

1. They believe that by getting sick. its also the work of the devil to tempt you to blame God for everything.

Now its already a biological matter but things have gone to far for this.
Some of our brothers and sisters really prayed all night long intead of resting thinking they might be lacking in prayers and that they sin againts God. Sounds pretty hard now right?

1. When one of your friends try to convince you to do something not related to the Church or whatsover. they will tell you "Get behind me Satan"

Actually this is a Verse from the bible where Peter told Jesus that he should not be nailed to the cross for he has done nothing wrong. with Jesus answering "Get behind me satan!" for being a hindrance to Gods plan. which of course that Jesus is to be crucified so to save humanity from the sins of the world.
What is actually Bad here is that with someone telling unrelated or ditracting stuffs inside the Church. they will then tell them "Get behind me satan!" Which of course can gave an insult to people who actually heard them being preffered to as "Satan"

1. (Your Question with someone who lost a love relationship here. then you've got to read this!) The Church Believe that you should not love anything other than Christ.

And that includes your Boyfriend and Girlfriend Which of course according to them can replace your love towards Christ.
This actually has Gone to far. and can rip someones dignity and freedom over.
They will them tend to brainwash you that Your love for you Girlfriend boyfriend can replce your love towards Christ.
And that your not allowed to have one! not even a single one! Which kinda make me mad of Them controlling your life!
So thier forcing us Now?
Comment bellow on what you think

Im (50m) a stay at home dad. Before we had kids I worked in IT and made decent money. Then my wife got a job opportunity in another country. I quit, we moved and i used the opportunity to do something else, and started my own online business. Then we decided to have kids and I stayed at home with the baby, while also managing the business at night, after wife got home. We ended up having 2 kids. Business went bankrupt during the pandemic and since then I’m exclusively a SAHD.
My kids are 13 and 9.
In the country where I live, it’s very common for an expats spouse be a stay at home as the salary of the spouse who got the jobs be enough for the family. But in all cases I know, I’m the only man who became the stay at home, all other cases it was the woman who followed the husband due to his job.
During this journey, I heard lot of things.
Here are actual things I heard (and my answers)

• wow your living the dream, fucking around the whole day while your wife works and pays the bills.

Yes I’m living the dream, but I’m not fucking around. Taking care of the kids is actual work, and a damn hard one. And A very important one too: you’re raising the future.

• who wears the pants in your house huh? Does your wife allow you to go outside? Do you ask her permission?

My wife is not my owner or boss. My wife is my partner. Me and my wife are a team, each one doing their part for the the family. I’m not less (or more) of a man because I happen to not conform to your gender stereotype

• you don’t know what you’re doing, a man can’t take proper care of q child (not actually said on this words, but countless women expressing this on several ways to me)

No one is born knowing how to take care of a child. Everyone has to learn. Women learn. Men learn too. I learned, just like everyone else, woman or man, does. And I know better than you how to take care of MY kids, thank you very much.

• oh, it’s okay, you’re one of the moms too (said by another mom during a parents meeting were I was the only man present)

No, ma’am, I’m a parent too. But I’m a dad not a mom. Thank you for trying to make feel welcome, tho.

• aw you’re so great! It’s wonderful you help your wife so much.

I don’t help my wife. I raise my kids (as she does too btw).

• it’s fantastic what you do!

If you mean that dedicating my time to raise my kids full time is fantastic, thank you. It’s a very hard job, and I’m proud of doing it. But I hope you say that to women who do the same too.
Edit: typo