Rachel Filippone

Wife, mom, sister and friend. I'm a news junkie, sports fan and follower of Jesus.

[Dr. Lee Warren @drleewarrenmd]

I stood outside in Iraq while mortars fell and realized I had zero control over where the next one would land. I felt that same helplessness the day my son Mitch died.

What got me through both was a verse I preached to myself until my mind believed it:

"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17 (ESV)

That's self-brain surgery. When you can't control your circumstances, your brain sounds the alarm on repeat.

But your mind is in charge of your brain, and you get to choose what it rehearses.

Every time you tell yourself the truth that Jesus is holding this, you strengthen a pathway of trust instead of panic.

The fourth commandment of self-brain surgery is I must believe that my mind is in charge of my brain.

It's hard and holy work.

Save this for the day you need it, and share it with someone who's under fire right now.

I'm your friend Dr. Lee Warren, hopefully your favorite brain surgeon. Hit that follow button for more connections between neuroscience and faith every day.

Click the link in my bio to learn more about The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery.

#selfbrainsurgery #anxiety #control #mentalhealth

[Paul David Tripp @PaulTripp]

I'm deeply persuaded that the secret to a confident heart and a peaceful night of sleep isn't a secret at all. Rather, it's plain-and-simple theology. By that, I mean trusting foundational principles that God lays out in his Word. Here are five:

1. Accept The Chaos
We have a miniscule amount of control in a gargantuan universe. Each day will provide fresh trouble (Matthew 6:34). The more we try to manipulate the situations, locations, and relationships of life, the more we'll become exhausted and discouraged. Live responsibly and be wise, but recognize that you were not designed to govern this world.

2. Know The Facts
Even though I just told you to accept the chaos, the Bible actually declares that everything in the universe is managed with complete and specific authority (Acts 17:26). Nothing is chaotic in God's eyes; he is never confused or taken off-guard. When we tell ourselves otherwise, it makes sense that we'll be stressed and anxious.

3. Trust The Father
God is more than just a ruling deity, exercising his sovereign power of people and places. The Bible tells us that he is also good and will give his children everything we need and more (see Matthew 6:26-32 and 7:9-11). Your life is secure is the hands of a powerful and loving Father.

4. Pursue Spiritual Disciplines
In the midst of trials, it's very tempting to abandon the spiritual disciplines of your faith and try to make it on your own. Pray, fast, meditate on and memorize Scripture, and keep attending worship services and small groups. Immerse yourself in God, his Spirit, his Word, and his body of believers.

5. Know Your Limits
Too many Christians fret trying to decipher God's secret will for their lives. It's a secret, after all! Instead, we should rest within the clear limits of what God has made known to us. Let God be God, and let him establish our steps (Proverbs 16:9).

You and I can sleep because God is wise, loving, and powerful. He is in moment-by-moment control of every detail of our lives.

[Tanya @tanyaelisabethh]

My grandma kept her house clean, she cooked every day for all of us, so many days with fresh fish my great grandfather would bring home from the dock early in the morning. My grandmother raised children, she raised grandchildren, and she buried my grandfather.

The world has not given my grandmother any rewards, or praises. She never had a salary, she never wrote a resume in her entire life, she never got a raise, she never has clocked in for a job.

By today’s standards her life has been a complete and total waste of potential, all that she has done, all of it does not count.

But I have lived the life of a career woman, I have seen the inside of therapy offices, I have been inside the lives of women who by all standards are doing exactly what the world has told them they should do, I have lived it myself, and I have seen it all lived right next to me, I have seen what emptiness looks like up close. I have felt what emptiness is like, for many years it was a friend I myself kept close.

The work my grandmother did, by worldly standards is irrelevant, and yet it held our family together, it gave us a place to kill the loneliness, a place of comfort where we knew we belonged. She fed us, loved us, yelled at us for our nonsense some few times, and she sent all of us out with something solid in our hearts.

So much so that after years living in the vast loneliness of the world, after years of living what the world told me to do, I looked back on my life to find where I last had peace, comfort and meaning, and I’ll tell you what, it has never been in a cold office working long hours, dealing with office politics, deadlines and pressure, it has always been my grandma’s kitchen where the food smelled like love, and a kiss on my forehead felt like rest.

The world might have nothing to show for my grandmother, but I do.

[James Dorman IV @alfredsparks]

Do not allow the fact that you sin repeatedly keep you from prayer.

Rather, 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦, since you are in need of forgiveness and strength, so that the grace of God may be glorified all the more.

—Wilhelmus à Brakel, Christian’s Reasonable Service, 3:472

[Tanya @tanyaelisabethh]

Marriage used to be the starting point.

Two people would come together with almost nothing to their name, but each other, and then they would build everything side by side. This process of building led to bonding, it built loyalty, it required tremendous sacrifice and most of all it taught interdependence. But now we are told the opposite. We are told instead that we need to have it all before we marry.

We need a good career, a home, a bunch of money in the bank, your entire identity discovered and solidified, a passport filled with stamps, a degree and much dating experience.

The problem with this is that by the time two people finally decide to join one another, well they have spent most of their lives learning how to do life alone.

So it is not wonder then that building a life with someone else, suddenly feels so much harder. Marriage used to be a beginning, not it is an after thought to an already built life.

Two already self-sufficient and self-reliant people do not easily merge and mesh. It is hard to go from the perspective of “mine”, to “ours”, when individualism is all we have ever known.

And this is why individualism has become the death of marriage.

[Chuck Swindoll @chuckswindoll]

Isn't it strange how life works?

We expect tests during difficult seasons—they make sense then. But when they come right after our victories, suddenly we're questioning if we did something wrong.

But maybe these tests aren't punishments—maybe they're preparation. Victory can make us self-reliant; trials remind us we still need Him. Success can make us comfortable; challenges keep us dependent on His strength.

Are you surrendered to Him today?

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

“God is a cruel God to have wiped out potentially millions of people with a catastrophic global Flood.”

We’re heard this claim many times. Some people will even claim God was committing mass genocide against the pre-Flood world, so He must be an immoral deity. Now what’s the foundational problem with this argument?

Well, here’s the big problem: Why is wiping out millions of people wrong? The answer I usually get to that question is “because of course it is!” And yes, nearly everyone would agree that you or I wiping out millions of people would be wrong, but that doesn’t explain why it’s wrong. Just saying something is wrong doesn’t make it wrong; what if I have a different opinion? Who gets to be right? You need an absolute authority to appeal to, but an atheist doesn’t have one.

Someone who rejects the truth of the Bible doesn’t have a consistent foundation on which to stand to say that killing anyone is wrong. After all, blue whales wipe out untold billions of helpless krill every single day, and no one bats an eyelash! Why? We intuitively know that a whale swallowing a krill is not the same thing as a human being killing another human being. But if we’re just animals, as the evolutionary worldview teaches, there is no real difference between us and krill and blue whales; we’re all just animals and accidents of evolution.

Apart from the absolutes of the Bible, given to us by the Creator God, there is no foundation to say that murder is wrong. In order to argue that God is unjust to kill people with the Flood, the skeptic must first assume the morality of the Bible . . . and then they’ve defeated their entire argument!

Now, of course, God was not cruel to judge people for their wickedness at the time of the Flood. He is the Creator and has every right to judge people for their wickedness.

Ultimately, atheists aren’t upset that God judged people at the time of the Flood for their sin (they claim they don’t believe God exists or that those pre-Flood people even existed!)—they’re upset that someday God will judge them for their sin. They don’t want to be accountable to God; they want to do whatever they want without consequences. But regardless of what they believe, they will someday stand before God, and He will judge them for their sin. If they have not repented, they will pay for their own sin in hell. But if they turn from their sin and trust in Christ’s sacrificial death on their behalf, they will be saved for all of eternity.

How arrogant of fallible, sinful humans to tell the eternal God what is just and unjust!

Have you trusted in Christ?

[Dr Jordan B Peterson @jordanbpeterson]

So, an update on our challenge to the legacy universities: @petersonacademy.

First and most immediate: we are pleased to announce the release of our latest course, the Historical Reliability of the Bible, taught by none other than the great @WesleyLHuff, whose popularity as a podcast guest may (should) have made him familiar to you.

The trailer is super cool. It's well worth a minute of your time.

This course suits our broader purposes extremely well—our determination to showcase and promote what the modern universities have decided to abandon:

the greatness of the West;

the irreplaceable necessity of the free market;

the criminal catastrophe of Marxism;

the inestimable value and beauty of traditionally classic literature and art; and

absolutely unapologetically,

the treasure-house of our Judeo-Christian heritage.

I originally promised to produce a world class liberal arts bachelor's degree equivalent curriculum available to everyone for less than the cost of a single university course.

We're very near to delivering on that promise, with the more than 100 politically-incorrect 8-hour courses we have produced—and in a mere two and half years.

We have gathered the best lecturers in the world. We have produced their courses to a standard reached by no other comparable institution.

Our 60000 students are thrilled with our constantly improving platform and its widening social network.

Join the education revolution.

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

Two hundred and fifty years ago today, fifty-six men signed their own death warrants.

That is not a metaphor.

Putting your name to the Declaration of Independence was treason against the Crown.

The penalty for treason was the rope.

Every man who signed knew that if the revolution failed, his signature was the evidence that would hang him.

They signed anyway.

These were not desperate men with nothing to lose.

They were lawyers, merchants, planters, and physicians.

Men with land, money, families, and comfortable lives.

They had everything to lose, and they wrote their names down anyway, in ink, where the King could read every one.

Then the war came for them.

Richard Stockton of New Jersey was dragged from his home and thrown in a British prison.

He came out with his health broken and never truly recovered.

Carter Braxton of Virginia watched the British navy sweep his ships from the sea, and much of his fortune went with them.

John Hart was driven from the bedside of his dying wife.

His fields were burned, his mill destroyed, his children scattered into hiding.

He spent more than a year sleeping in forests and caves while soldiers hunted him.

He came home to a fresh grave and an empty house.

That was the cost.

Not a slogan. Not a parade. The actual price, paid by actual men, with their homes and their families and their names.

They closed that document with a single line.

They pledged to each other their Lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor.

And every one of them was asked to make good on all three.

Two hundred and fifty years later, we are still free because they were not afraid.

Happy Independence Day.

Spend it like it was expensive.

Because it was.

🦋

[Secretary Sean Duffy @SecDuffy]

FIND LOVE, GET MARRIED, HAVE KIDS

That is what gives us purpose. 27 years of marriage and 9 kids later, I can tell you it’s the best decision I’ve ever made

The strength of our country is rooted entirely in the strength of our families. As we celebrate the country’s 250th birthday, we should celebrate our American family @Freedom250

[The Daily Spurgeon @dailyspurgeon]

Jesus, the Son of God, himself God over all, the infinitely glorious One, Creator of heaven and earth, out of love to men stooped to become a man and die. Christ, the thrice holy God, the pure-hearted man, in whom there was no sin... espoused the cause of the wicked.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Judas ate with God for three years and never flinched.

Sat at the fire. Said the prayers. Watched blind men see. Watched dead men stand up. Watched lepers get clean skin back. Saw all of it. Touched all of it.

And it did nothing to him.

That should make you sick.

Because you know men like that. You’ve sat next to them in church. They sing the hymns. They say amen. They put the money in the plate. And they go home and do things in the dark that would get them killed in any century but this one.

Jesus called him a devil. Not after the betrayal. Before it. John 6:70. He looked at twelve men and said one of you is a devil. And then He let the devil stay.

He let him hold the money. Let him sit at the table. Let him hear every parable. Let him watch Lazarus walk out of a tomb.

And Judas saw resurrection with his own eyes and thought, what’s that worth in silver?

That’s not weakness. That’s not a man who lost his way. That’s a creature wearing human skin at the table of God, calculating the price of the blood on his plate.
Jesus washed his feet.

Read that again.

God kneeled in front of the thing that was about to murder Him and washed the dirt off its feet.

Not because Judas deserved it. Because the eleven men watching needed to see what love looks like when it’s aimed at something that will never love you back.

That’s the sermon your pastor won’t preach.
That Jesus didn’t die confused. He didn’t die betrayed. He sat across from a devil, broke bread, and said what thou doest, do quickly.
He gave evil permission to finish.

Because the cross was never Plan B.
And the son of perdition was never a surprise.

He was a prop in a story written before the foundation of the world. A creature who thought he was the predator and turned out to be the instrument.

The tomb didn’t stay shut.

But the field Judas bought with his thirty pieces? His guts are still in the dirt.

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Elon Musk: “Anyone who wants to make more than they take has my respect”

Elon is asked for his advice for entrepreneurs, to which he responds:

“I’m a big fan of anyone who wants to build. Anyone who wants to make more than they take has my respect. That’s the main thing you should aim for: to make more than you take and be a net contributor to society.”

He compares it to the pursuit of happiness:

“If you want to create something valuable financially, you don’t pursue that. It’s best to pursue providing useful products and services. If you do that, money will come as a natural consequence of that rather than pursuing money directly. You can’t pursue happiness directly. You pursue things that lead to happiness — fulfilling work, study, friends, loved ones.”

Elon continues:

“It sounds very obvious, but generally if somebody is trying to make a company work, they should expect to grind super hard and accept that there’s a meaningful chance of failure. Then just focus on having the output be worth more than the input. Are you a value creator? That’s what really matters: making more than you take.”

Video source: @nikhilkamathcio (2025)

[Minnesota Staff Fraud Reporting Commentary @Minnesota_DHS]

Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response. Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members and an indifferent mainstream media. It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to.

In addition to retaliating against whistleblower, Tim Walz disempowered the Office of the Legislative Auditor, allowing agencies to disregard their audit findings and guidance. Media and politicians supporting Tim Walz or the DFL-agenda attacked whistleblowers who were trying to raise red flags on fraudulent activities.

This is a cascade of systemic failures leading up to Tim Walz. Agency leaders appointed by Tim Walz willfully disregarded rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet - even to the extent of threatening families of whistleblowers. These same leaders are not qualified for their jobs, instead getting leadership jobs via Tim Walz’s friendship so state government were left floundering. DFL lawmakers refused to acknowledge fraud and deflected any serious conversation to stop fraud. Biased mainstream media such as WCCO and MPR showed absolutely no interest in covering fraud happening in our own state. Programs, especially in behavioral health and disability services were built without any guardrails against fraud, all in an attempt to extract more funding from legislature and the federal government.

As staff, we firsthand witnessed and observed fraud happening yet we were shutdown, reassigned and told to keep quiet. Sometimes more. Leadership did not want to appear to discriminate against certain communities and were unwilling to take action, such as stopping fraud, that would have an adverse impact on their image. To date, no single agency leader has been held responsible for their role in fraud whether it’s Shireen Gandhi, Jess Geil, Jodi Harpstead, Natasha Merz, Eric Grumdahl or others.

It is a structure created and maintained by Tim Walz who has created an environment of inter-related agencies and institutions including the media - that help foster fraud through retaliation and turning a blind eye in exchange for political gain in the form of high power agency leadership jobs or other perks.

Fundamentally, Tim Walz is dishonest, lacks ethics and integrity, has poor leadership abilities, and has never taken any accountability for his role in fraud. Instead, Tim Walz deflects by blaming national politics for his own failings and distracts the public with inveterate lying. These lies include his reference of a budget surplus under his tenure. Fact is, Minnesota never had a surplus, we had been given federal ARPA funds that were conflated as surplus money otherwise, we’d be in a deficit. And those ARPA funds, which were meant to be temporary funds were used to create more leadership positions for Tim Walz “buddies.”

As such, we can’t fight fraud in Minnesota alone hence why we’re appealing to the federal levels of government. We need all the help we can get as Tim Walz’s agency leaders have upped their brazen approach in covering up their knowledge of fraud.

We are grateful to numerous solid politicians (esp the Fraud Committee) and media outlets who are trying to halt fraud. We are also grateful to other whistleblowers who are bravely stepping up.

Thank You NY Times for bringing the plight of Minnesota to the national stage.

@nytimes

[Rachel Filippone @RachelFilippone]

@Reuters Elon?

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

Stressed out pizza delivery lady gets emotional as a pastor prays over her following a difficult evening, helps raise $50,000 for her.

‘Suzanna’ was seen apologizing on a Ring doorbell camera after messing up an order.

Suzanna: “I'm sorry. I'm on my way back to get it right now. I will bring it back.”

Pastor Neal Seiwert: “Don't for one second feel bad. We love you and Jesus loves you … You're very much loved. You know that? Do you know Jesus?”

Suzanna: “Yeah… I'm just struggling.”

Pastor: “Hey girls, come here. We're gonna pray for this really nice lady.”

Pastor Seiwert launched a fundraiser and has raised $50,000 for the woman.

“Suzanna is one of those people who has spent her life putting others first. She is currently the full-time caregiver for her 82-year-old mom, managing the daily responsibilities, medical needs, and expenses that come with it,” the fundraiser said.

“For years, she has given her time, love, and energy to take care of others, often at the expense of her own needs.”

God bless her.

Video: neal.seiwert / IG

[Not the Bee @Not_the_Bee]

They burn down cities. We do this. We are not the same.

[𝕊𝕠𝕝𝕒 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕕 🎚️ @sola_chad]

“There’s only two things you can get in the afterlife … you can get justice or you can get grace.”

Dr. Frank Turek just preached the gospel to millions of people. Pray for mass conversions.

[JD Vance @JDVance]

If we want to stop political violence like what happened to Charlie Kirk, we have to be honest about the people who are celebrating it and the people who are financing it.

My closing remarks on today's episode of the Charlie Kirk Show: