Salt & Light

Salt&Light

Description

While parenting may be one of life's most rewarding experiences, it can also be a perplexing and heartbreaking journey. This second book from popular Christian portal Salt&Light looks at the daily challenges that families face, including marital struggles, work pressures, parenting issues, even trauma and tragedy. Against the ominous backdrop of the pandemic, these struggles can seem insurmountable. These true-life accounts balance unvarnished reality with encouragement and hope. Draw inspiration from these stories of Christian families from all walks of life, including those who live with special needs, illness and failure, so that you, too, may experience a life-giving faith in every season of your life, even through times of testing.Salt&Light is a digital gathering place for Christians to unite in spirit and purpose to see God in our daily life, to influence and to impact, to find meaning in the mundane, to wrestle with doubt and despair in faith - and find amazing grace for the journey ahead.

Sujets

• Bibles
• Philosophie et théologie
• Bible

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789815009934
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

2022 Salt Light Private Limited
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: [phone]. E-mail: [e-mail]
Website: www.marshallcavendish.com
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
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Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 800 Westchester Ave, Suite N-641, Rye Brook, NY 10573, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd, 253 Asoke, 16th Floor, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a registered trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Name(s): Salt Light Private Limited.
Title: Salt light : inspirational stories of faith in families.
Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2022
Identifier(s): e-ISBN: 9789815009934
Subject(s): LCSH: Families--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Parent and child--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Families--Religious life.
Classification: DDC 248.845--dc23
Printed in Singapore
Contents
Foreword
Introduction
Love
The first time we held hands was after we got engaged : Minister Hannah Yeoh s love story
If God tells you he has the one for you, are you patient enough to wait? : Belinda Lee opens up about the man she waited for for 8 years
We will not choose : Parents who adopted four babies, three with special needs
If I had three stars, my wife should have four : General Winston Choo in salute to military spouses
It was out of our control and God came through : Couple with COVID-19 on their miracle baby
Keyuan comes home: God kept opening doors, say his adoptive parents
I want to fight for the down and out : Youth praised by PM Lee for helping stranded Malaysians was homeless at 14
A divine exchange: When God showed one mother how He saw her special son
He pursued her, she pointed Him to a greater Love
A difficult privilege
Learning to accept my son s autism: A father s continuing journey
Worth the wait: One woman s wait for love
A match made for missions
God s picture perfect gift: A young woman overcomes a rare disorder to become a pro photographer
Loss
Help me, God. I just want to be able to breathe again, cries 29-year-old whose fianc died in a car crash
The miracle we wanted was her healing, but the miracle God gave was changing people s lives
Eulogy for my beloved son, Jethro Puah
Death is not the end : A mother consoles others at the wake of her son
Tragic bus accident: God sent us help when we most needed it, says widower and father of two young sons
I needed to know if God still loved me : Heartbroken widow who lost her husband, but went on to found a place for those who grieve
In the midst of COVID, there exists a hope, unshakeable, everlasting and true : What Beatrice Chao learnt from her father, who died battling SARS
Seasons
God is in the business of restoring my family : Felicia Chin
Why not me instead of her? Rev Dr Peter Tan-Chi and Deonna s heartbreak over their daughter s attack
When God joined them as man and wife twice
I begged God to give her back to me : One mother s prayer when her daughter jumped 14 storeys in suicide attempt
The mum at The Helping Hand who never knew a mother s love
God wants you to forgive and restore your family : Esther Tzer Wong
Jim and Ernest Chew: Bound by brotherhood, Bible and Billy Graham
5 dads from the Bible who light the way for all dads
5 mums from the Bible who encourage all mothers
He made a mark on us as young men : A tribute to a father who was a role model to his sons-in-law
I offered to resign from my church : The heartache Dr William Wan felt when his daughter strayed
Learning to scar well
To my fellow anxious parents: Let faith arise, not fear
My 6 life lessons in 6 decades: Pastor Benny Ho
About the writers
Foreword
Whether you are married or single, living alone or in a crowded household, caring for elderly parents or raising young children, a working professional or a stay-at-home parent, there are 2 things that shape our identity: Our work and our family.
Why do I say that? Imagine you are at a wedding dinner and you are sitting next to someone you have never met before.
What would you say to that person?
Most likely you will ask: What do you do? That s work.
Then you might ask: Are you married? Any children? That s family.
Work and family are what shape our identity. They have a direct impact on the quality of our spiritual, moral and mental life.
And here s the interesting thing - they both come from God!
On the day of creation, God first created man and then gave him his work: The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Genesis 2:15)
Then the Lord gave man a family: It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. (Genesis 2:18)
In God s original plan, there was no conflict between work and family.
It was all good until sin came into the world. That was when both work and family went south.
Tensions started to arise, work became toil: By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:19)
With the entrance of sin, not only did humankind move away from God, each of us has also turned to our own way. We are now estranged from one another relationally: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)
Family can now be divided.
With the fall of mankind, creating a healthy family environment became challenging because of our inherent selfishness. Curating a successful work life became harder because we compete more than cooperate.
But when Jesus came to redeem us, He not only reconciled us to God, but He also reconciled us back to one another and restored the dignity of work to mankind.
The Apostle Paul exhorts us to restore our family: Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. (Colossians 3: 18-20)
We are urged to reclaim our work: Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3: 23, 24)
But here is something we must not miss.
Paul exhorted us to love our family deeply and do our work excellently. Family is about relationship; work is about task. Family is about loving; work is about doing.
In the quest to have a higher standard of living, we have often reversed the order. Many of us pour our passion, our time, our effort unceasingly into our work. We love what we do. But we just do what we need to keep our family going.
Instead of loving our family deeply and doing our work excellently, we end up loving our work passionately and doing our family dutifully.
Let s face it. One day we will all come home from our office for the last time. Nobody retires from our family to spend our final days in the office.
What that day will feel like depends on how we live out our priorities between now and then.
One of the saddest statements I have read goes like this: It s sad when men and women are forced out of organisations they bled for, to return home to families they have neglected.
Whether we work in the home, the church or the marketplace, there is a strong tendency to become preoccupied with the doing more than the loving.
Work can become not just an occupation but a preoccupation.
I am not saying that we should not do our work with excellence and commitment. But what I am saying is to derive a right perspective and to embrace a sense of biblical balance between our work and our family.
The past two years have been pandemic years. For many, the socio-economic fallout has ranged from dismal to devastating. Around the world, family life has borne the huge brunt of the fallout.
In an interview with The Straits Times in July 2021, Focus on the Family Singapore s head of research and development Elisa Ng noted: The Circuit Breaker and work-from-home arrangements would have created more marital tensions, introducing new conflicts or resurfacing old ones, between some couples.
Christians are not exempt from pandemic pressures. But, in the midst of success or suffering, loss or gain, youthfulness or old age, we have the assurance that our Maker walks beside us: Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. (Isaiah 46:4)
So, take heart when you read the true stories in this Salt Light book, where many of our Christian brothers and sisters have walked the path of disillusionment and even despair but came out on the other side knowing that our Lord has never left