President Reagan and Nancy Reagan present Pianist Vladimir Horowitz with the Medal of Freedom in the Roosevelt room. 7/28/86.
From Oct. 28, 1980 in Cleveland, here is part 10 of 11 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from WJKW-TV, CBS. This segment has the end of the debate, plus some analysis from the CBS News Staff. Part 11 will have news from WJKW, TV8 in Cleveland, about the debate.
The first and most decisive step was tax reform. The top marginal rate on individual income was 70 percent, and Reagan, who had majored in economics in college and had read extensively in the field during the 1950s and 1960s, concluded that if you reduced tax rates and allowed people to spend or save more of what they earned, “they’ll be more industrious, they’ll have more incentive to work hard, and money they earn will add fuel to the great economic machine that energizes our national progress.” Some economists called this approach supply-side economics; “I call it common sense,” Reagan wrote in his 1990 autobiography.[iv]
As early as 1964 in his famous television speech for Barry Goldwater, Reagan had sharply criticized the high taxes and large subsidies demanded by America’s welfare state and warned, “No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached one-third of its national income.” As governor of California, he had striven to reduce taxes, even sponsoring a tax limitation amendment to the state constitution which had been narrowly defeated. Reagan was a supply-sider, wrote Ed Meese, his long-time colleague, “long before the term was invented.”[v]
The conviction “that the size of the economic pie must be increased, not simply sliced differently” was fundamental to supply-siders. For Jack Kemp and others, this was a far more appealing message than the “balance the budget” imperative usually associated with Republicans. The “bibles” of this new economic gospel were Jude Wanniski’s The Way the World Works, published in 1978, and George Gilder’s Wealth and Poverty, published in 1981. It had first been proposed legislatively in 1977 by Kemp and Senator William Roth of Delaware with their 30 percent tax cut. But supply-side economics was far more than tax cuts — it envisioned a world “stripped of the tax preferences, subsidies and economic regulations” that were “strangling” the economy.[vi]
It would take fireside chats with the American people, deals with boll-weevil Democrats in the House of Representatives, pep talks with discouraged aides, and even near death from an attempted assassination, but on August 17, 1981, President Reagan signed the Economic Recovery Act (ERTA) into law. It was the tax reform Reagan had been urging for decades. Newsweek called it a “second New Deal potentially as profound in its import as the first was a half century ago.”[vii]
I am starting a series today on the legacy of death that Jack Kevorkian had. He chose to lengthen his own life while ending the life of others (many were physically able to live much longer).
Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as “Dr. Death” for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said.
Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian’s attorney and friend.
Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he became a defiant advocate, crossing Michigan in the rusty Volkswagen van that carried his machine to help sick people end their lives.
He launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer’s patient to kill herself using a machine he had devised. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999.
Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2007. As a condition of his parole, he vowed not to assist in any suicides.
He was convicted after a CBS News program aired showing a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The Armenian American Kevorkian did not leave the public eye after his exit from prison in 2007, giving occasional lectures and in 2008 running for Congress unsuccessfully.
An HBO documentary on his life “Kevorkian” and a movie “You Don’t Know Jack” starring Al Pacino brought him back into the news last year.
In a June 2010 interview with Reuters Television, the right-to-die activist said he was afraid of death as much as anyone else and said the world had a hypocritical attitude toward voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide.
“Now we’ve avoided death because we don’t like death. Religion says that’s a big enemy, leave it alone. But we went beyond birth, into conception. Now we’re dabbling in that,” he said.
“If we can aid people into coming into the world, why can’t we aid them in exiting the world?”
(Reporting by Mike Miller; Editing by Greg McCune)
(This article has been modified to correct the seventh paragraph to make clear Dr. Kevorian was Armenian American, not born in Armenia)
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Mark Heard in his article in March of 1997 in Christianity Today sums up Francis Schaeffer’s view of the world and how it held true 13 years after Schaeffer’s 1984 death:
some critics have recently allowed that his big picture has proven durable. The conceptual centerpiece of Schaeffer’s historical view is the triumph of relativism in the modern post-Christian world: “Modern men, in the absence of absolutes, have polluted all aspects of morality, making standards completely hedonistic and relativistic.” He would not have been surprised by the advent of “postmodern” thought, which has built countless altars to relativism across the intellectual landscape. Nor would he have been surprised by the resultant moral vacuum that characterizes much contemporary academic thinking. In a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban agonized over the fact that her discipline’s prime directive—cultural relativism—left her with no rationale for opposing rape or racial genocide in other cultures. One can almost hear Francis Schaeffer saying, “I told you so.”
In particular, he appears to have been prescient on the issue of human life. In 1976 he observed that “in regard to the fetus, the courts have arbitrarily separated ‘aliveness’ from ‘personhood,’ and if this is so, why not arbitrarily do the same with the aged? So the steps move along, and euthanasia may well become increasingly acceptable. And if so, why not keep alive the bodies of … persons in whom the brain wave is flat to harvest from them body parts and blood?” Schaeffer’s bleak vision is now daily news. “Cadaver Jack” Kevorkian has already killed more people than Ted Bundy, but the state of Michigan cannot muster the political will to stop him. A federal court has forbidden the state of Washington to pass laws preventing doctors from killing their patients, while the University of Washington is permitted to scavenge and sell the body parts of thousands of aborted children every year.
This video takes you to the United Estates–a gated community in sunny Florida–to help you understand the impact of Congress decision to annually raise our nations debt limit without addressing the out-of-control spending that keeps us buried in debt.
The first thing I intend to do is join the tea party. Then I’m going to refuse to raise my debt limit. Then I’m going to call the Visa people…
“Thank you, and remember: Vote Palin-Bachmann.”
You are thinking this is absurd. You are right, of course.
But you are not intellectually entitled to call it absurd if you are among the seven in 10 Americans telling pollsters you don’t want the federal government’s debt ceiling raised. You are not intellectually entitled if you are one of these right-wing politicians pandering to this tea-drunken grandstand by threatening to vote not to raise it.
Here is how real fiscal responsibility works: You repay the debt that you have incurred to date. You make spending reductions prospectively by showing sufficient discipline to reduce the future pace at which you incur debt. You dare not let your existing debt go unpaid lest your credit score suffer and you get denied the next time you find yourself in a bit of a pinch and need to finance a refrigerator at Sears.
I think the answer to this is simple. We must have deep cuts in the budget in order to get enough Republicans on board to raise the debt ceiling. Several Democrats agree with this too.
More than 150 economists back House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner’s call to match any increase in the debt limit with spending cuts of equal size, according to a letter released by the Republican leader’s office on Wednesday.
The letter will give Boehner an important talking point as he and his fellow House Republicans meet with President Barack Obama at 10 a.m. to discuss the debt limit and other fiscal issues.
“An increase in the national debt limit that is not accompanied by significant spending cuts and budget reforms to address our government’s spending addiction will harm private-sector job creation in America,” the letter said.
Signatories include Nobel laureate Robert Mundell of Columbia University and economists from schools like New York University and Georgetown University, as well as conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute.
The Treasury Department has warned that the country could face a default that could push it back into recession and roil markets across the globe if it does not raise the $14.3 trillion debt limit by Aug 2. Treasury has been tapping federal employee pensions and other funds to pay the nation’s bills since it reached the current debt limit on May 16.
Republicans say they will not back any increase that does not include steep spending cuts and other limits to ensure that debt stays at a manageable level.
Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution. Here is a portion of this recent article:
Now that Osama bin Laden has been successfully dispatched to the eternal damnation he so richly deserves, Washington is ready to return to the more mundane question of whether the Obama administration will be allowed to spend this country into oblivion.
The next big fiscal fight will be over when and how to increase the debt limit. The administration has been hard at work trying to shape the message and public opinion. Unsurprisingly, much of that message is less than 100 percent accurate. Here are some myths about the debt ceiling and the upcoming debate about raising it:
5. Only Republicans oppose raising the debt ceiling. The media and the administration want to turn this into a partisan fight. The ongoing narrative is that radical Republicans in thrall to the Tea Party want to wreck our finances, while Democrats responsibly want to pay our bills. In truth, a number of prominent Democrats are on record opposing a debt-limit increase without substantial reductions in spending. They include Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), Mark Pryor (D., Ark.), and Joe Manchin (D., W. Va.). Even Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) normally a reliable liberal vote, has been expressing ambivalence. And the most prominent spending limit liable to be offered as a condition for raising the limit, the CAP Amendment proposed by Sen. Bob Corker (R. Tenn.) is cosponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.). The real story is that a small group of extreme liberals wants to keep spending more in the face of bipartisan opposition.
So far, Republicans have not been very good about presenting their message. If they want to win this fight, they are going to have to do a lot more to correct the record.
Below info from ReasonTV:
Some say the world will end in fire and some say in ice.
But in Washington, a lot of people say it will end if we don’t continually raise the debt ceiling.
The statutory debt limit, or debt ceiling, represents the maximum amount of debt the federal government can carry at any given time. The limit was created in 1917 so that Congress wouldn’t have to vote every time the government wanted to increase the amount of debt (which was becoming a more and more frequent occasion). Since then, the Treasury Department has had the authority to issue new debt up to whatever the limit is to fund government needs. Last year, the limit was raised to $14.3 trillion, an amount that is about to reached.
As it approaches, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said failing to raise the limit would likely mean the U.S. would default on its debt, creating “real chaos” in place of the fake chaos that’s out there now. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that failing to raise the limit would be “deeply irresponsible” and and Austan Goolsbee, President Obama’s chief economic adviser, has said that not raising the limit would create “the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”
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This is Sam Newman on revelations that the successful Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup was heavily influenced by corruption within FIFA.
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The United States could still host the 2022 World Cup after soccer’s governing body continued to be plagued by a deep-rooted bribery scandal that has rocked the sport to its core.
The American bid to host the tournament ended in disappointment in December, when members of governing body FIFA’s executive committee made the shocking decision to award the event to Qatar, a tiny Arab state with a population of fewer than two million people.
However, a storm of controversy has erupted around FIFA in the past week, reaching a head when it was revealed that general secretary Jerome Valcke wrote in an email that Qatar had “bought the World Cup.”
FILE – In this May 18, 2011 fi… AP – May 31, 3:16 pm EDT
Soccer fans in the States may get to help host the 2022 World Cup after all. Suspicions about how Qatar had gathered the necessary support and outwitted the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea immediately flared up, and were raised again in May when Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper presented evidence that claimed to show bribes had been paid in exchange for votes.
Influential FIFA member Theo Zwanziger, president of the German Football Federation, demanded on Wednesday that Qatar be stripped of its hosting rights pending a full investigation – and that a new vote should be taken if any corrupt activity is unearthed.
“There is a certain degree of suspicion that one cannot sweep aside,” Zwanziger told the BBC. “I must expect that awarding this World Cup under these conditions needs to be examined anew.”
The scandal has intensified over the past week as FIFA president Sepp Blatter survived a fraught battle to win another four-year term in office but only after his lone rival, Qatar’s Mohamed bin Hammam, was suspended pending an investigation into alleged corrupt payments made to soccer officials in the Caribbean.
FIFA vice president Jack Warner was also suspended in connection with the same matter but then came out fighting, accusing Blatter himself of making unauthorized cash payments and gifts of computers to officials associated with CONCACAF, the North American and Caribbean confederation of which the United States is a part.
Blatter, a 75-year-old Swiss executive who has been in office since 1998, was handed a final four-year term in a vote at FIFA’s congress. He received 186 out of 203 votes.
Although Blatter remains in control, he was forced to announce widespread changes to appease FIFA’s sponsors and a furious worldwide soccer public. From now on, each of FIFA’s 208 members will receive a vote on where future World Cups will be held, rather than a select 24-man executive committee.
Significantly, the full FIFA Congress will also be given power to elect members of the governing body’s Ethics Committee, which oversees FIFA conduct and would ultimately be responsible for any decision to order a fresh vote on the 2022 World Cup. That move, in particular, will give U.S. Soccer great hope and cause grave concern in the Qatar camp.
The United States put up a strong challenge to host the 2022 tournament, reaching the final round of voting before Qatar prevailed 14-8. If a revote was ordered, the American federation would be a strong favorite, with Australia its primary challenger.
The political shenanigans have naturally gained far greater media coverage in countries other than the United States, where soccer is more ingrained in the public psyche. But if the sport’s hour of darkness shakes out into a satisfactory conclusion, there may be no bigger winner than the United States.
Sam Newman on Qatar World Cup (23-05-2011) This is Sam Newman on revelations that the successful Qatar bid for the 2022 World Cup was heavily influenced by corruption within FIFA. ____________________________ Martin Rogers reported June 1, 2011 for Yahoo Sports: The United States could still host the 2022 World Cup after soccer’s governing body continued […]
Today we debate the #7 player in the world. Everette: Zinedine Zidane is the 7th best player and he might be better, but I had to punish him for the headbutt in the world cup. Zinedine Zidane Top 10 Goals Wilson: Ronaldinho– He helped his team win the 2002 World Cup, and he has always […]
Today’s debate is about the 8th best soccer player ever!!!!! Wilson: Lothar Herbert Matthaus- He won the 1990 W0rld Cup and he was the best player on the team. He defeated some great legends like Diego Maradona. He is the most talented German soccer player ever. Lothar Herbert Matthäus – goles ______________________________________ Everette: I went […]
Today the debate is over the 9th best player of all time. Wilson: Zico- Although he never won the World Cup, he still led the Brazilian team to many great victories. He is one of the all time greats. Zico Goals – Gols do Zico Everette: I have to go with Landon Donovan because he is the […]
This is a fun series that my son Wilson and I are starting today about the greatest soccer players of all time. Today we will discuss the list below and then give our 10th best player and later we will give #9. Wilson: 10 David Beckham- There is no one who can curve the ball […]
Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar Mohamed Bin Hammam of Qatar is pictured through the window of a limousine upon his arrival at the FIFA headquarters in Zurich May 29, 2011. The USA came in 2nd for the 2022 World Cup, and hopefully we now have a chance to re-bid for it. We have more stadiums […]
Reuters reported today: FIFA hit by “bought” World Cup claim By Mike Collett – 1 hr 36 mins ago ZURICH (Reuters) – Accusations that Qatar bought the right to stage the 2022 World Cup deepened the corruption crisis at the heart of FIFA on Monday just as an apparently unscathed Sepp Blatter prepared to claim another term as president. World soccer’s […]
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge walk hand in hand from Buckingham Palace in London Saturday April 30 2011, the day after their wedding. (John Stillwell/AP Photo)
I watched the royal wedding with great interest, and I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
Cohabitation: At least half of all newlyweds have lived together first, researchers say. And David Popenoe, a Rutgers University sociologist, estimates that two-thirds of people who marry have lived with somebody else first. Live-in unions are more fragile than marriages. About 41% of unmarried opposite-sex couples living together have children younger than 18 at home. But sociologists Pamela Smock and Wendy Manning have found that children born to couples who live together have about twice the risk of seeing their parents split than those with married biological parents. (The State of Our Unions – By Rick Hampson and Karen S. Peterson USA TODAY Feb 26, 2004)
Weekend To Remember Conference Testimony
Here’s a couple who went to a FamilyLife Conference and how it made a difference in their marriage
Maria Shriver Asks – How Do You Handle Transitions in Your Life?
Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to his wife several months ago that he had fathered a child about 10 years ago with a member of their household staff. Maria moved out, but has not filed for divorce. In the you tube clip above she comments:
“Like a lot of you I’m in transition: people come up to me all the time, asking, what are you doing next?” she said, adding: “It’s so stressful to not know what you are doing next when people ask what you are doing and they can’t believe you don’t know what you are doing.”
“I’d like to hear from other people who are in transition,” she said. “How did you find your transition: Personal, professional, emotional, spiritual, financial? How did you get through it?”
Mrs. Shriver has asked for spiritual input and I personally think that unless she gets the spiritual help that she needs then she will end up in the divorce court. I am starting a series on how a marriage can survive an infidelity. My first suggestion would be to attend a “Weekend to Remember” put on by the organization “Family Life” out of Little Rock, Arkansas. I actually posted this as a response to Mrs. Shriver’s request on you tube.
Kate found out her husband was having an affair the same week he asked her for a divorce—she didn’t see it coming. She told me, “My ‘gut’ was telling me that things weren’t quite right, but Bob had convinced me I that was just paranoid and insecure. I had no idea he was such a good liar. He talked me out of my suspicions.”
I asked her, “Could you make a list of his unusual behaviors? New actions that weren’t necessarily bad—just odd. But now, looking back, you see them as signs that he was having an affair.” Here is Kate’s top-ten list:
About six months ago, he started working longer hours and having more “client dinners.”
When he was home, he would seem restless and often claim he had “work” to do, so he spent a lot of time in the den—with the door closed.
He started some new patterns that I thought were wonderful. He took the dog for long walks, and offered to run errands for me in the evenings. If I commented that I wished I had some cookies for the kids’ lunches, he’d say, “I’ll be happy to go to the store for you.” I found out later that he’d call his mistress on his cell phone while he was walking or running errands.
He gave me a goofy, silly card for my birthday instead of his usual romantic, sentimental one, and he only signed his name—not Love, Bob.
Our sex life lost its sizzle. On the rare occasions when we did make love, it felt awkwardly cold—just a physical act, not an emotional connection. I think he may have felt as if he was being unfaithful to his girlfriend by sleeping with me.
He started referring to a person at work named Pierce. He would tell me how funny and talented Pierce was. That was his mistress’s last name!
He started to skip desserts and be very careful about what he ate—he lost weight and started exercising.
He dyed his hair—to cover the gray. “She” is twelve years younger than he is.
He seemed more short-tempered. Things that didn’t usually bother him suddenly did. He was especially impatient with the children.
After I saw the way he reacted to “her” at a company party, I asked him if there was something between them, and he lied to my face. Looking back, I know he lied to me about credit card and cell phone bills, and that most of the new clients he’d been taking to dinner were not clients at all.
Kate summed it all up: “I wish I’d been more alert. I just didn’t put all the pieces together until it was too late.”
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Chip Ingram – Three Ways to Improve your Conflict Resolution Skills (pt 2)
Why is conflict so hard to resolve? Whether in your marriage or other relationships – conflict can be a huge barrier that most of us would rather avoid. I want to share with you some common mistakes in conflict resolution and three important realizations that will bring fresh perspective to even the most difficult conversations. If you want to learn more, you can listen to the full message on conflict resolution from our guest speaker Tim Lundy here: http://www.venturechristian.org/files/sermons2/t032011.mp3
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The clip above has some material that originally came from a video from Family Life. I have mentioned this organization several times in this post. Contacting them would be a great place for Arnold and Maria to begin their recovering. I am hoping that Maria realizes that this family is worth saving. It will take a lot of forgiveness and she will have to turn to Christ for his supernatural help to make it happen.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The estranged daughter of actor Billy Bob Thornton has been found guilty in Florida of aggravated manslaughter of a child.The Orange County State Attorney’s Office says the verdict against 32-year-old Amanda Brumfield was returned Friday. She faced murder charges in the 2008 death of her best friend’s 1-year-old daughter, Olivia Madison Garcia.
She was found not guilty on first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse charges.
Brumfield claimed the girl hit her head after falling while trying to climb out of a playpen. Prosecutors said it was “impossible” that a fall from that height would cause a three-and-a-half inch fracture on the girl’s skull.The trial took place in the same courthouse where Casey Anthony is on trial for the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
My good friend Tommy Jacks grew up with Billy Bob Thornton in Malvern, Arkansas and played in a rock band with him.
Billy Bob Thornton (born August 4, 1955) is an American actor, director, musician, playwright and screenwriter. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone. In the mid-1990s, after writing, directing, and starring in the independent film Sling Blade, he won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay). He appeared in several major film roles following Sling Blade ‘s success, including 1998’s Armageddon and A Simple Plan. During the late 1990s, Thornton began a career as a singer-songwriter. He has released three albums and was the singer of a blues rock band. Thornton was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the son of Virginia Roberta (née Faulkner), a psychic, and William Raymond “Billy Ray” Thornton (November 1929 – August 1974), a high-school history teacher and basketball coach.
Also Known As: Billy Bob Thorton, William Robert Thornton, Reginald Perry, Billy Bob Thornton
Sling Blade – Part 3 of 11
Sling Blade – Part 3 of 11
Sling Blade is a 1996 American drama film set in rural Arkansas, written and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars in the lead role. It tells the story of a mentally impaired man named Karl Childers who is released from a psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing his mother and her lover when he was 12 years old. He befriends a young boy, begins a friendship with the boy’s mother and eventually confronts the mother’s abusive boyfriend, as well as his own dark past. In addition to Thornton, it stars Dwight Yoakam, J. T. Walsh, John Ritter, Lucas Black, Natalie Canerday, James Hampton, and Robert Duvall.
The movie was adapted by Thornton from his short film and previous screenplay, Some Folks Call it a Sling Blade. Sling Blade proved to be a sleeper hit, launching Thornton into stardom. It won the Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, and Thornton was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The music for the soundtrack was provided by French Canadian artist/producer Daniel Lanois.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: News On Woman & Love Child TMZ Scoop
Maria Shriver Asks – How Do You Handle Transitions in Your Life?
Arnold Schwarzenegger admitted to his wife several months ago that he had fathered a child about 10 years ago with a member of their household staff. Maria moved out, but has not filed for divorce. In the you tube clip above she comments:
“Like a lot of you I’m in transition: people come up to me all the time, asking, what are you doing next?” she said, adding: “It’s so stressful to not know what you are doing next when people ask what you are doing and they can’t believe you don’t know what you are doing.”
“I’d like to hear from other people who are in transition,” she said. “How did you find your transition: Personal, professional, emotional, spiritual, financial? How did you get through it?”
Mrs. Shriver has asked for spiritual input and I personally think that unless she gets the spiritual help that she needs then she will end up in the divorce court. I am starting a series on how a marriage can survive an infidelity. My first suggestion would be to attend a “Weekend to Remember” put on by the organization “Family Life” out of Little Rock, Arkansas. I actually posted this as a response to Mrs. Shriver’s request on you tube.
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I read an article that really was very helpful on this subject and here it is below:
Brad and Cindy had been married for less than three years, but something was very wrong with their relationship. Brad had not been himself and Cindy suspected that he was involved with another woman.
They appeared to be headed for divorce. But after some relatives learned about the Weekend to Remember marriage getaway, they challenged Brad and Cindy to attend. “Will you please just give this weekend a chance and then make your decision?” they asked. “What’s three days when what you’re about to do will change your whole life?” They even offered to take care of Brad and Cindy’s young daughter, Chloe.
Brad and Cindy (who asked to remain anonymous for this interview) reluctantly agreed.
Cindy: When Brad and I went to our first Weekend to Remember, we arrived in separate cars. I don’t remember who the speakers were, but I recall one of them saying there had been a time when he prayed his wife would die. “And then,” he said, “she almost hemorrhaged to death when she delivered our third baby, and I found myself on the floor praying that God would save her life.” I will never forget that because I was at the place where I didn’t want to divorce Brad, but I wanted him to die. As I heard that man share, I had a glimmer of hope. Could God do something like that for me?
Brad: At the time I was involved in an adulterous affair. I didn’t want to give that up. I went to the conference to appease Cindy. It was just one last thing to do before I left her. I had no intention of getting anything out of it. As the speakers shared, God began to deal with me and I felt a lot of pressure. I didn’t want to hear what God was saying. I wanted my own way. When the speaker asked us to write a love letter to our spouse, I just couldn’t do it. My plan was to eventually marry another woman. When Cindy read her love letter to me, I felt so bad. How could she love me? I didn’t love her. All I could say was, “I don’t think that I can make this work. I want a divorce.”
Cindy: God had so prepared my heart for those words. He had been teaching me for months how to love my husband unconditionally. He reminded me during the Weekend to Remember that He was using me to teach Brad that the cross is about unconditional forgiveness.
I came from a divorced home and I was raised by my dad. I remember thinking, “I do not want Chloe to grow up in a home where she doesn’t have a mother and a daddy.” I would just rock her at night and say, “God, I’m praying this for Chloe. Put Brad and me back together for her.”
Brad: My heart had become cold to God’s ways. But because they used humor throughout the conference, I had to try harder and harder to fight against what the speakers were saying. On the last day, the speaker asked his dad to stand up. As I watched this man honor his father, it just got to me. I thought of my daughter, who was a little over a year at the time. Tears came to my eyes. I realized what I was doing to her and just couldn’t stay at the conference any longer. I had to get away. So I left the conference. I wanted to get as far away from it as I could. I was not ready to do life God’s way.
Cindy: Brad was already at the house when I arrived there with Chloe. He seemed unchanged by the conference.
An older lady had been mentoring me through this whole thing. Her advice was, “Do not seek out what is going on right now. God knows, and just try to allow God to give you as much information as He knows you can handle.” Instead of praying that Brad would fall back in love with me, I started praying that he would fall in love with God. Then I started praying for myself—that I would have hope.
Brad: Things continued to be tense between Cindy and me … and between me and God. It had gotten to a point where God kind of put me in a corner and said, “You’ve got to choose.” About three weeks after the conference, I made my choice. While Cindy and Chloe were at church one Sunday, I packed my things. I left Cindy a note and said that I would not be back. As I walked out of the house that morning, I thought my decision would give me peace. Instead, within hours God showed me the path that I was going down. It was as though He said, “Okay, this is what you’re going to give up and it’s not all going to be roses. Leaving Cindy and Chloe isn’t going to be everything you think it will be.” That Sunday night I just knew I couldn’t go through with the divorce.
Cindy: On Monday morning I walked outside and Brad was standing there. He said, “Can we talk?”
“I really have nothing to talk to you about,” I said.
“I just need to talk with you.” So we went into the bedroom and sat down on the floor.
“Can we pray?” he said. I was so shocked.
“Oh, God, just help me trust You,” Brad said. Then he started bawling and told me everything—how the affair started, and what they had planned. He said he wanted his family back and how sorry he was. I didn’t say a lot because I knew he was hurting so much. My mind was on him. I had been in that place before—I had rebelled and had been in sin and realized, “I want God back in my life.” I told him he couldn’t go back to work, because the affair was with a woman from work.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve already called my boss and said I want to quit.”
Brad: Cindy loved me through this, and showed me how much God loves me. Because she could forgive me, I knew that God could forgive me. After I confessed to Cindy, I talked with my mom. She gave me the name of an assistant pastor at her church, and I met with him that day. He counseled with Cindy and me for several weeks and gave us some good guidelines.
Cindy and I joined the church where I had grown up. We immersed ourselves in the Bible and prayer, and we also fasted. I got around a few older men at church who were really on fire for God. I shared with them what Cindy and I had gone through and started praying with them. Over the next year I began to win Cindy’s love and trust back. We reconnected spiritually. I learned to appreciate her again.
Cindy: About a year after Brad and I reconciled, we went to another Weekend to Remember conference. We wanted to go back and listen and make a commitment to apply the material to our marriage.
Brad: Cindy and I have now attended four conferences. There’s a part where you look at each other and say, “You’re not my enemy.” At that first conference I couldn’t say it because Cindy was my enemy. This year we looked at each other and said, “You’re not my enemy.” It’s amazing how far we’ve come in six years.
I love everything about the conference. In fact, Cindy and I have been group coordinators for the past two years and have brought about 30 people with us. I think everybody we have brought has literally come back and told us, “Thank you for inviting us.”
Cindy: When we first came to the conference we were struggling in our marriage and God used it as a tool to bring us back together. We want to see other couples benefit from it as well.
At our first Weekend to Remember, a couple stood up and said, “We came with divorce papers at our first conference, and were holding hands at the next one.” I thought, Is that possible? Could that really happen to us? And it did.
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I have mentioned above a lot about Family Life. Here is more info below that comes from Family Life originally. I am starting a series today that talks about conflict in marriage and how to resolve it.
Chip Ingram – Why Conflict is a GOOD Thing (pt 1)
We finished a five part series about marriage at Venture Christian Church this weekend. As I shared God’s plan for marriage, I could sense it stirring up a lot of questions and even some conflict among people. I’d recently heard Tim Lundy share a powerful message about resolving conflict … so I invited him to join us. The good news is that conflict in your marriage or friendships doesn’t mean the relationship is bad, it means it’s alive! When you learn to recognize conflict as an opportunity you’ll learn how to push through tough conversations and actually come out better for it! I wanted to share some of Tim’s key points about resolving conflict and invite you to listen to the full message for free at http://www.venturechristian.org/files/sermons2/t032011.mp3 – it should be available by Monday.
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I am hoping that Maria realizes that this family is worth saving. It will take a lot of forgiveness and she will have to turn to Christ for his supernatural help to make it happen.
Prince William and Kate Middleton were married in a beautiful ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London Friday. There were so many picture-perfect moments from the star-studded guest list and the bride’s gorgeous gown to the carriage processional and two balcony kisses, we just had to share them all.
Prince William and Kate moved in together about a year ago. In this clip above the commentator suggested that maybe Prince Charles and Princess Diana would not have divorced if they had lived together before marriage. Actually Diana was a virgin, and it was Charles’ uncle (Louis Mountbatten) that gave him the advice that he should seek to marry a virgin.
I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
You may believe that living together is a good way to find out if you are compatible — a sort of “test drive” that will improve your chances for marital success. While this seems to make sense intuitively, actually the opposite is true. Research indicates that couples who cohabit before marriage have a 50% higher divorce rate than those who don’t. These couples also have higher rates of domestic violence and are more likely to be involved in sexual affairs. If a cohabiting couple gets pregnant, there is a high probability that the man will leave the relationship within two years, resulting in a single mom raising a fatherless child. The best way to test your compatibility for marriage is to abstain from sex, date for at least one year before engagement and participate in a structured, premarital counseling program, which includes psychological testing. (Bill Maier, Ph.D.)
• There’s no condom for the brain or the heart. So when you have sex before marriage you’re playing with fire that will most certainly burn you at some point in your life… especially in your marriage relationship. (Unknown)
• When you’re intimate with someone other than your spouse, you’ll have those memories from “the other person” to come back to haunt you later.(And the enemy of our faith would like nothing better than to have weapons available to use to unsettle your thoughts toward your spouse at a later date.) What if the other person kisses better or does other intimate actions with you that you eventually remember enjoying better than the love-making you’re experiencing with your spouse? It’s better to have nothing in your memory bank with which to compare those intimate times than to have those thoughts trying to crowd into your mind as you’re being intimate with your spouse. (Cindy Wright)
A smashed car sits next to the South End Community Center, which lost most of its roof in a tornado that touched down in Springfield, Mass., Wednesday, June 1, 2011. (/AP
Courtesy Marque Tortoriello
An apparent tornado has caused damage in Springfield, Mass.
Twister: This photo, taken through a window, shows a tornado moving through Springfield, Massachusetts
Photo by Matt Stone
‘VERY SAD’: At top, Will Rodriguez walks near a partially collapsed building after a tornado hits off Union Street
Springfield, Mass., Tornadoes: Lives Uprooted
Sharyn Alfonsi reports on the victims of the deadly twisters.
2011 Springfield-area tornado reader photos
Wednesday, June 01, 2011 9:39 P
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Anthony Ricco sweep up debris. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
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People seek cover after an announcement of another possible tornado.
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A woman runs with her child to safety after another report of a possible tornado. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
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Houses and trees show damage after severe storms, with possible tornadoes, moved through Brimfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Tom Rettig)
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A man talks on his phone near storm damage. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
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A police officer checks on people in a house. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
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Bricks and debris that fell from a building lay on top of cars. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Springfield MA tornado aftermath A smashed car sits next to the South End Community Center, which lost most of its roof in a tornado that touched down in Springfield, Mass., Wednesday, June 1, 2011. (/AP Courtesy Marque Tortoriello An apparent tornado has caused damage in Springfield, Mass. Twister: This photo, taken through a window, shows […]
Springfield, Mass. Tornado – Multiple Views – June 1, 2011 (lots of cursing) ___________________________________ Raw Video: Tornado Strikes Springfield, Mass. An apparent tornado struck the downtown of one of Massachusetts’ largest cities Wednesday afternoon, scattering debris, toppling trees, and frightening workers and residents. _________________________________ Tornado touches down Springfield, MA _____________________________________
Steeple of First Church of Monson lays The steeple of The First Church of Monson lays in rubble on the ground after a tornado swept through the downtown area of Monson, Mass., Wednesday, June 1, 2011.… Read more » The Associated Press reported this morning: SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Rev. Bob Marrone was pained […]
Destructive Joplin Missouri Torando On May 22, 2011 a destructive and sadly a deadly tornado tore through the town of Joplin, MO. Here is video of the tornado entering the southwest side of town. Filmed by TornadoVideos.net Basehunters Colt Forney, Isaac Pato, Kevin Rolfs, and Scott Peake. Good Morning America: Joplin, Missouri Tornado Video: Storm […]
Destroyed helicopter lies on its side A destroyed helicopter lies on its side in the parking lot of the Joplin Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Mo., Sunday, May 22, 2011. A large tornadomoved through much of the city, damaging the hospital and hundreds of homes and businesses Emergency personnel walk Emergency personnel walk through […]
The last video listed does not have very good pictures but you hear when the tornado hits a building where people inside are filming. The sounds are just horrible and a cold feeling went through my body just listening to it. Joplin, Missouri tornado damage from the air Tornado damage of Joplin, Missouri. Aerial coverage […]
Volunteer firefighters William Jackson Volunteer firefighters William Jackson, left, and Ashley Martin, center, from Oklahoma, and Johnny Ward of Joplin look through the wreckage of a home whereit was feared a pregnant woman as feared to be trapped following a tornado in Joplin, Mo., Sunday, May 22, 2011. A large tornado moved through […]
Fox News reported today: Rescue crews dug through piles of splintered houses and crushed cars Monday in a search for victims of a half-mile-wide tornado that blasted much of this Missouri town off the map and slammed straight into its hospital. At least 116 people died, making it the nation’s deadliest single tornado in nearly […]
Twister: This photo, taken through a window, shows a tornado moving through Springfield, Massachusetts
Anthony Ricco sweep up debris. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
People seek cover after an announcement of another possible tornado.
A woman runs with her child to safety after another report of a possible tornado. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Houses and trees show damage after severe storms, with possible tornadoes, moved through Brimfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Tom Rettig)
A man talks on his phone near storm damage. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
A police officer checks on people in a house. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
Bricks and debris that fell from a building lay on top of cars. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
(AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
(AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
(AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
The path of the tornado. 
The Daily Hatch 