imjustKent

poor country lawyer, aspiring trophy husband, pater familia to 3 chucklehead kids and 1 grand, PCA RE, pathetic triathlete, follower of Jesus, author, podcaster

[imjustKent @CaliforniaKent]

@JenniferJJacobs @VP Dear Reader, this is not the definition.

[Pvt A B @col_a_buendia]

The hat seems comically large for the first few bars, then just right.

[imjustKent @CaliforniaKent]

RT @BenSasse: Thx for the prayers — Turns out cutting out chunks of yer liver is no joke, man.

Good news, bad news, and next steps…
Good:…

[Baltic Takes @Baltic_Takes]

The world’s wrongest man, John Mearsheimer, says he was effectively penniless during his recent visit to Russia because the “Russia expert” didn’t know his US credit card wouldn’t work there.

Mearsheimer was in Russia to lecture Russians about Russia, leaving local audiences confused by pro-Russia talking points that he seems unaware are only meant for Western consumption.

[Casey Mattox @CaseyMattox_]

Happy ninth anniversary.

[L. David Fairchild @David_Fairchild]

This is very personal for me to share.

My biological mother was a stripper working at a club in downtown Seattle. My biological father was one of her clients. She became pregnant with me while struggling with addiction and used drugs throughout her pregnancy. When I was born, I was immediately taken to the ICU to detox and was eventually placed for adoption.

By God’s grace, I was adopted by two wonderful parents who loved me deeply. I was four months old when they picked me up from the orphanage, and they are the only parents I’ve ever known. I never grew up feeling like something was missing. I never felt some deep longing to find my biological parents. I had a mom and dad who loved me, cared for me, sacrificed for me, and gave me a wonderful home.

Years later, after I got married and we had our first child, my wife encouraged me to learn more about my biological history. If for no other reason, she thought it might be good for the sake of our daughter to know whether there was anything medically or genetically significant in my family history.

So I eventually submitted my DNA to Ancestry. Through that, I discovered a half brother, aunts, cousins, and eventually was put in contact with my biological mother.

We were able to meet.

And when I met her, I got to tell her something I’d wanted to tell her for as long as I could remember: thank you.

Thank you for giving me life.

I got to tell her about the wonderful parents who adopted me. I got to tell her that I’d had a good life. I got to tell her about my wife and my children. I wanted her to know that the baby she carried in the middle of all that chaos became a man with a family, a calling, people he loves, people who love him, and a life for which he is profoundly grateful.

I’ve never been angry with her. Never. Not once.

For years I told my wife and children that if my biological mother ever found me, I knew exactly what I would say. I wouldn’t condemn her. I wouldn’t demand explanations. I’d simply thank her for allowing me to live.

Because without that decision, I wouldn’t have the extraordinary wife I have today. I wouldn’t know the indescribable joy of my children. I wouldn’t have experienced the friendships, ministry, laughter, sorrow, beauty, failures, victories, and ordinary moments that have made up my life. There are people I love who wouldn’t know me, children who wouldn’t exist, and a story that never would’ve been written.

She gave me the chance to live it.

We still stay in contact. We speak every few months, and I genuinely enjoy hearing her stories and learning about her life. Since the day I met her, I’ve prayed that the Lord would bring her to Himself. I still pray that.

I share all of this because lately I’ve been thinking a great deal about the choices parents make. About life and death. About how much hangs in the balance of decisions made in moments of fear, desperation, darkness, or confusion.

And yes, I’ve been thinking about those three little children whose lives were taken by the very person entrusted with protecting them. It’s difficult for me not to think about my own story alongside theirs. Their lives mattered. Their futures mattered. Everything they might’ve become, everyone they might’ve loved, every ordinary Tuesday morning and Christmas morning and wedding and child and friendship that might’ve filled the decades ahead of them mattered.

And it makes me profoundly grateful that my mother chose differently.

So if there’s a mother or father reading this who’s in a dark place and wondering whether your presence matters, whether your decisions matter, or whether the people who depend on you would somehow be better off without you, please hear me: your choices matter more than you can see from where you’re standing.

Choose life.

Don’t make an irreversible decision in the middle of a season that will pass. Don’t allow a moment of darkness to make a permanent decision about a future you can’t yet see.

Trust the Lord. Ask for help.

[Shane Morris @GShaneMorris]

That time Nixon, Reagan, and..squints...R.C. Sproul worked it all out.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Roman Empire was fat and glorious

[𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖇𝖞𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖆𝖓 𝕻𝖎𝖊𝖉𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗 @PresbyXian]

Long live the king. Absolute cinema.

[Robert P. George @McCormickProf]

Hello there friends and neighbors! This is your periodic reminder that there is nothing in sacred scripture that requires you to allow President Donald J. Trump to make you crazy. 1/

[John St. Something @JohnStSomething]

The Zoomer social media intern @Ligonier deserves a raise for this one

[Charles Murray @charlesmurray]

I said to my wife, “this is awful.” She said, “it’s insane.”

[Matt Whitlock @MattWhitlock]

"Lulu Lenins" is so good.

[imjustKent @CaliforniaKent]

@Camp4 Is there a link to where it can be bought?

[imjustKent @CaliforniaKent]

@chasedownleads Groom holding his forehead as he sees his insufferable father in law.

[imjustKent @CaliforniaKent]

@MarinaMedvin 1, 4, 2 is the correct answer.

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

He told his students to go to the windows.
Get out. Jump if you have to.
Then Liviu Librescu walked to the classroom door and pressed his body against it.
He was 76 years old. He weighed 140 lbs
The gunman was in the hallway.
It was April 16, 2007. A Monday morning. Solid mechanics class at Virginia Tech, Room 204. Twenty-two students, most of them 19 or 20 years old.
At 9:45 AM, gunshots echoed through Norris Hall. Room by room, the shooter was working his way down the corridor.
Liviu heard it. He understood immediately.
He had survived the Holocaust. He had survived a labor camp. He had spent decades living under Communist oppression. He knew exactly what evil sounded like.
He told his students to escape through the windows. Second floor — it was a drop, but they'd survive. Then he walked to the door and held it shut with his body.
The shooter tried to force it open. It wouldn't move.
He fired through the door. Wood splintered. Bullets came through.
Liviu stayed.
Behind him, students were climbing out the windows. Dropping to the ground. Running. One by one, all twenty-two of them got out.
The shooter kept firing through the door.
Liviu held it shut until every student was safe.
Then the bullets killed him.
When police arrived, they found his body at the door.
All 22 of his students survived. Not one was injured.
Liviu Librescu was born on August 18, 1930, in Ploiești, Romania.
He was Jewish. In 1941, when he was eleven years old, Romanian authorities sent him and his family to a labor camp. His father died there. Liviu survived. When the war ended, he was fifteen.
He went back to school. Studied engineering. Earned a doctorate from the University of Bucharest.
But Communist Romania had no interest in allowing a Jewish intellectual to succeed. He was blocked from academic positions. Passed over for jobs he deserved. He applied to emigrate. The government kept refusing.
Finally, in 1978 when Liviu was 48 years old — Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened. Romania let him go.
He had spent most of his adult life trapped in a country that didn't want him.
In Israel, he taught at Tel Aviv University. Published over 300 papers. Became an international expert in aeroelasticity — the science of how air flows over aircraft wings.
In 1985, Virginia Tech offered him a position. He moved to Blacksburg, Virginia. He taught there for 22 years. His students loved him — demanding but kind, high standards, genuine care.
He was still teaching full-time at 76. Still publishing research. Still showing up every Monday morning for solid mechanics.
April 16 was the first day of Passover — the Jewish holiday celebrating liberation from slavery and oppression.
Liviu Librescu died on the day his tradition sets aside to celebrate freedom.
He spent his entire life escaping death and oppression by luck, by persistence, by the intervention of others. And on his last morning, he chose to stand at a door so that twenty-two young people could have the future he had fought so hard to reach.
He could have run. He could have hidden. He could have climbed out a window with his students.
He chose to stay.
The Virginia Tech shooting killed 32 people that day — the deadliest school shooting in American history at the time.
Room 204 had zero casualties.
Because a 76-year-old Holocaust survivor held a door with his body until every student behind him was gone.
His funeral was held in Israel. Students from Virginia Tech flew across the ocean to honor him. The Israeli government awarded him the Star of David Medal posthumously. Virginia Tech named a scholarship in his memory.
His son said his father died the way he lived — protecting others.
A man who survived everything evil threw at him for 76 years.
On his last day, he made sure 22 kids survived too.
Professor Liviu Librescu. August 18, 1930 — April 16, 2007.
Holocaust survivor. Labor camp survivor.
302 published papers. 22 years at Virginia Tech.
22 students out the window.
He held the door.

[The War on Beauty @thewaronbeauty]

Why is everything so ugly? A thread🧵👇
There has been a systematic persecution and removal of Beauty in the West in recent years. Why? Because real Beauty has the power to build up or destroy a society. The transcendental quality of beauty makes it a powerful linchpin to pull to hasten our societal downfall.

[Jonah Goldberg @JonahDispatch]

This has been a running theme of the Remnant podcast since the first episodes.