Rachel

Christ-follower ✞ | Pilgrim on this earth | Wife + Mom | Business Owner @morganvalmusic |Teacher 🎹 |Writer | Reader

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@DrNeilStone Doesn't anyone remember Ebola? Now that virus was scary with confirmed cases in US but still they prevented its spread.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@Milajoy It's been replaced with THC and micro-dosing psychedelics, not to mention the percentage of people on antidepressants and/or anti-anxiety meds. Still numbing themselves just using different methods.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@GuntherGunin @Alana6276874052 @MrPitbull07 Actually quite the contrary! She's able to carry on intelligent conversations with peers and adults now as a 5th grader...and has many social interactions through fine arts activities (musical theater, cello + piano lessons), co-op 2x week + soccer.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

It's not impressive to act like you're too busy to read. You make time for what's important to you. Not to mention the average person scrolls social media for hours so there's really no valid reason, only excuses.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@Alana6276874052 @MrPitbull07 False. My 5th grade daughter is doing 6-7th grade math along with other subjects above grade level. She's receiving excellent grades and being challenged much more than she was in public school.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@seanfeucht Not only are they trashy lyrics, it's also just bad writing in general.

[pagemasta @AdamPage85]

Now would be a good time to remind everyone that not a single soul has been saved over an emotional reaction. I believe God uses whatever He desires to draw people to Himself: settings, tones, events, etc.

But at the end of the day, no matter how sad or upset, or how many altars you run down, no matter how many prayers you repeat, one is not truly saved until they place their faith in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior.

It will not be our hatred for our enemies that saves our souls, tranforming our lives, but a love for Jesus. It is all about a love for Jesus. He is everything. This is the message that should be louder than anything else.

[Mike Riccardi @MikeRiccardi_]

In his excellent book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, historian Carl Trueman argues that the dominant worldview of the contemporary secular West is what he calls “expressive individualism.” This is the idea that “each of us finds our meaning by giving expression to our own feelings and desires” (46).

The Enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes is famous for the dictum, “I think, therefore I am.” Expressive individualism is captured by the motto: “I feel, therefore I am.” Or perhaps, “I am what I feel I am.”

“And,” the reasoning goes, “in order for me to be my authentic self, I must give unfettered expression to those feelings. And because I am my feelings, any contradiction of my psychological beliefs about myself—any failure to affirm and validate those feelings—is a hateful threat to my very self. It is violence against my personhood.”

That is western culture over the last 15 years, especially as promoted by the political left. It’s why “speech” is called “violence.” It’s why words are spoken of as being “weaponized.” Everything is a weapon if I am under attack when my feelings aren’t affirmed.

Any lack of wholehearted affirmation and even celebration of my feelings—and certainly the notion that my feelings ought to change in order to be brought in line with objective reality—is virtually the same as wanting me to die.

It’s not difficult to see the implication: I have to kill you before you “kill” me. There is a straight line between the deification of one’s own feelings to the political assassinations (and attempts) that we are now seeing more of.

But the answer is to this is: you are not your feelings. You are what God your Creator says you are: a creature, made in His image, male or female as He has designed you, created to glorify and honor Him. And yet you have fallen into sin and corruption through disobedience to God’s law, and that disobedience earns you the just penalty of eternal punishment for your sins in hell.

But the Father has sent His Son into the world, (1) to live the perfect life of obedience you and I have failed to live, and (2) to die the substitutionary death that you and I were required to die (but couldn’t survive), bearing the penalty of divine wrath that sin deserves, and (3) to rise from the grave in victory over sin and death.

And He promises that if you will turn from your sin and trust Christ alone for your righteousness before God, your sins will be forgiven. If you repudiate yourself and find your identity in Jesus, He will replace the sinking sands of your feelings with the solid rock of truth. And He will be to you all the satisfaction and fulfillment that you could ever wish.

Expressive individualism is willing to take the lives of others in pursuit of self-actualization. The Gospel is: Jesus was willing to surrender His life in pursuit of others’ salvation. We live consistently with that Gospel when we lay down our lives to pursue others’ freedom.

A nation can only survive on one of those worldviews. The answer to our country’s brokenness is the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@turo your bill for towing exceeds the amount we paid for the entire reservation even though NO TOW TRUCK WAS PROVIDED.
Your customer service reps are difficult to understand and it's clear you care more about bottom dollar than customers +owners who make you that money.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@turo your incompetent service continues. Still trying to take our money for a towing service we didn't use and the owners handled themselves. It doesn't help that the customer support is almost impossible to understand due to outsourcing abroad.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@Dearme2_ So true. Have learned this the hard way.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@FrankieVtotheD My parents are only in their 60s and still healthy but I'm worried when I can't go get hold of them for a couple hours!

[Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog]

It blows my mind when I hear from a parent who says they had no choice but to put their 7 year old boy on psychotropic drugs to treat “ADHD.”

“We tried everything,” they always say.

Really? You tried everything? He’s seven. Did you try giving him a chance to grow and mature and come into his own without mind altering drugs? It’s literally impossible that you “tried everything” when he’s still in elementary school. The one thing you didn’t try was giving him time. And that is almost always the solution to any parenting challenge. Keep working with your child, and give him time.

[Shane Pruitt @shane_pruitt78]

Lukewarm Christianity has become so normal that Biblical Christianity seems radical.

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@erichoke Yep it's an excuse.

[Eric Hoke @erichoke]

Stop saying you’re not administratively gifted.

Very few are.

It’s a learned skill.

And here’s the thing.

Paying attention to details, keeping a calendar, responding in a timely manner to people, keeping a close eye on important tasks and duties tends to be what separates professionals from amateurs.

[Claire Lehmann @clairlemon]

Revenge of the Silent Male Voter

What I learned about Trump's landslide victory from one night in New York City.

On election day, I caught the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Sitting across from me an elderly woman wore a t-shirt with the image of Trump pumping his fist in the air with the words “fight, fight.” A small "I Voted" sticker was pressed onto her lapel.

She sat with an easy confidence. There were no disapproving glances from other passengers. There was no tension. No conflict. It struck me that in 2024 it was now perfectly acceptable to express support for Trump in a deep blue (Democratically held) city. As I travelled to my destination I wondered: if one could support Trump this openly in New York City, what might support look like in the rest of the country?

A few hours later I attended an exclusive well-heeled party. I spoke to various professionals who said that they had never voted Republican in their lives, but had voted for Trump that day due to his support—in their words—“for the Jews”. These Manhattanites told me that Kamala was too sympathetic to the “pro-Hamas contingent” of the far-Left, and at a time of rising antisemitism, they couldn’t bring themselves to support her. This small group of cosmopolitans represented a contingent far-removed from the stereotypical MAGA voter. And yet listening to their views, it again occurred to me: if I could find such support for Trump in the middle of a Democratic heartland—what might it look like in the rest of the country?

When I arrived at my final stop of the evening—a private underground bar in the Lower East side of the city—a celebratory atmosphere had begun to explode. The betting markets tipped a Trump win, and online supporters of Harris started to express acceptance of defeat. The beer here had already run dry. It was so bustling that it was hard to move, with young men in their twenties and early thirties outnumbering women by 2:1. These men were diverse: white, black, Hispanic, Asian. A few wore Trump caps, but the aesthetic was more like a university dorm than a MAGA rally. “This is the counter-culture” one party goer told me. "This isn't just about Trump," another said. "It's about Vance and Musk. It's about American dynamism."

In the coming days, much will be written about working class concerns—issues that have become familiar focal points for those seeking to understand Trump’s support. But while inflation and border policies will have no doubt played a role in the Republicans’ landslide victory, we might also want to look at the sentiments expressed by young male voters—voters who represent a new and emerging contingent in American politics. Nothing about the young men I spoke to appeared particularly conservative or “right-wing”. Yet it was easy for them to explain why they voted for Trump. And if we zoom out and look at broader cultural trends, it should be easy for us to understand too.

If we take a macro perspective, we see that such young men have never known a culture in which males are not routinely described as “problematic,” “toxic,” or “oppressive”. Going to university, and working at modern companies, they live in a world of Diversity Equity and Inclusion policies—many of which promote an insidious and pervasive form of anti-male discrimination. Yet to talk about it in public invites social ostracism. To criticise DEI is to risk being called a Nazi.

These young male voters know about theories of patriarchy and white supremacy, but they have never known a culture which celebrates the Great Man Theory of history. Thomas Carlyle’s nineteenth century framework for understanding the past is seen as an anachronism, not worthy of serious thought. Today we acknowledge historical figures not for their feats, but for their crimes. Whether it is due to slavery, colonisation, racism, or sexism, we tear down the monuments of our past, while building no new heroes for our future.

The problem with this way of viewing the world is that it is alienating and self-defeating. It is also wrong. By any objective standards Elon Musk is a great man of history, who is influencing the course of human civilisation for generations to come. As one party-goer told me “he caught a fucking rocket with mechanical chopsticks.” Yet despite his achievements, Musk is more likely to be scorned than celebrated by the Democratic establishment.

This tension between achievement and resentment explains much about our current moment. The young men I met that night in Manhattan weren't just voting for policies. They were voting for a different view of history and human nature. In their world, individual greatness matters. Male ambition serves a purpose. Risk-taking and defiance create progress.

This is why the Trump victory transcends conventional political analysis. It represents more than a rebuke of border policies or inflation rates. It signals a resurrection of old truths: that civilisation advances through the actions of remarkable individuals, that male traits can build rather than destroy, and that greatness—despite our modern discomfort with the concept—remains a force in human affairs.

The elderly woman on the subway, the Manhattan professionals, and the young men at the underground bar all sensed a shift. They saw in Trump not just a candidate, but a challenge to a psychosocial orthodoxy that has dominated American institutions for a generation. Their votes marked not just a political preference, but a cultural correction.

As the final results came in that night, it became clear that what I witnessed in New York was playing out across the nation. The election wasn't just a victory for Trump. It was a victory for a way of seeing the world that many thought dead: one where individual achievement matters, where male ambition serves a purpose, and where great men still shape the course of history.

Read the full article here-->

https://t.co/rSoptfam9o

[John Mason @LivingGodsTruth]

If your response to the election is,

"I have a daughter"

Please come out of your delusion.

Abortion is not:

Healthcare
A Constitutional right
Reproductive rights
Women's rights

It's murder.

Teach your daughter to value sex with her husband, not to murder your grandchildren.

[The Journey Church @tjclebanon]

The only One who gets full allegiance and devotion from us is Christ. Politicians come and go but Christ is steady, eternal, and ruling and reigning over all.

@ErikReed

[Rachel @pilgrimsprose]

@Rach4Patriarchy I know my parents no longer sleep in same bed nor did my grandparents (both blamed snoring) but they seem like roommates rather than have intimacy. My husband and I share bed and enjoy snuggling close + intimacy *at least every other day.