Mandy the Phoenix

I'm a Christian, a homeschool mum, a songwriter, and a former shrink. I’m a lover of books, guitars, gardening, and handicrafts.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@introvertedwife I’m a big fan of forgive but not forget. Forgiveness isn’t for them. It is for you so that you can move on. But never forget because if you give them a complete free pass what stops them from doing it again and again. Forgive, set boundaries and then live your life.

[Andrew Kolvet @AndrewKolvet]

Greg Gutfeld just delivered the single most succinct and cutting indictment of the leftwing media's complicity in Saturday's WHCD attack:

"This guy did hear voices. They were Ted Lieu's, they were Brandon Johnson's, they were CNN's, they were The View, they were MS NOW."

"I think this is a helpful assassination attempt because it is the first one that shows you can be radicalized by liberal smugness."

"He wasn't a crank. He was not deranged. Don't buy into that narrative ... He was just following orders."

Greg nails it.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@Amelia558rs Agnes

[Tanya @tanyaelisabethh]

As a young girl I remember always being told,

“You can be whatever you want to be!!”

From an astronaut to a doctor, a lawyer, a vet, you could do it all. But there was always this pesky little condition: your dreams had to be big. They had to sound impressive.

Nobody ever said they wanted to be a mom, or a housekeeper, or a trash truck driver, or a waitress, or a dad, or a gardener, or a secretary, or anything common, normal, and ordinary.

You could be anything you wanted, so long as it was something grand.

You couldn’t dream of a simple life, of marriage, a home, and a handful of kids, because that was a “waste” of potential. That was “settling.”

So now we have an entire generation of people who think marriage, children and normal lives are failures, when in reality these are the single most important things most of us will ever have, or ever do.

These are the pillars of society, and yet they are the one dream we are told we shouldn’t have.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

I was in Bible college the week before 9/11.

Testimony service. Folding chairs. Fluorescent lights. Mandatory attendance.

Everyone expected the usual: clean stories, safe sins, spiritual résumés.

Then a tattooed giant walked to the front with his wife.

Former heroin addict. Former bouncer.
She’d worked the streets. Met him through her pimp.

Both of them gripping Bibles like flotation devices.

They sang. Badly.
Then he preached for five minutes.

No polish. No structure. No seminary cadence.

The hermeneutics professor winced.
The English teacher checked the clock.

But the altar filled.

Heaven moved while the educated missed it.

That moment never left me.

Because it exposed something most Christians don’t want to admit:

God does His best work in people who are still a mess.

That’s why Jelly Roll scares the industry.

Pills. Prison. Years burned down.

Then he grabbed the Grammy mic and said the one name you’re not supposed to say out loud if you want to keep a career.

“I love you, Lord.”

The crowd cheered.
The suits froze.

They always do.

Because God isn’t finished with him yet.

And unfinished people are dangerous.

Moses wasn’t Moses overnight.

He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Rage took over.
Looked left. Looked right. No witnesses.

So he killed him.
Buried the body in the sand.

Forty years later he’s still running when the bush burns. Still seeing blood on his hands.

“Who am I?” he asks.

God sends him anyway.

Not from murderer to hero.
From murderer to man still being worked on.

Paul didn’t become Paul overnight either.

Stephen preached. Rocks flew. Skulls cracked.
Coats piled at Saul’s feet while he approved.

Years later, after writing half your New Testament, he’s still begging God about a thorn.

God doesn’t say, “You’re finished.”

He says, “My grace is sufficient.”

Your Bible reeks of in-progress redemption.

Exodus doesn’t hide the murder.
Acts doesn’t hide the coats.

KJV. No polish. No PR team.

That tattooed couple went home after chapel.
Monday came. Cravings stayed. Memories stayed.

God stayed.

Jelly Roll will wake up tomorrow with the same demons and the same industry pressure to shut up.

God will still be working.

You’re not disqualified.
You’re under construction.

Same clay. Same Potter. Same wheel.

Build anyway. Fall anyway. Get up anyway.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@_CameronLane Who has prank cheese money in this economy?

[Eric Metaxas @ericmetaxas]

Give me 31 seconds.

Back in 2016 I had a conversation with up-and-coming church protester Don Lemon on CNN.

We were talking about Democrats being the party of Planned Parenthood & selling babyparts.

Then this happened. ⏬🔥

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@cturiano1969 @EstieMaddie than an hour later, I was finally able to see her but she’d already been given a bottle. She would never breast feed after that, refused to drink breast milk and wound up with severe bottle mouth from the formula that required surgery at 18 mo to remove her damaged teeth.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@cturiano1969 @EstieMaddie Same thing happened to me. My now 14 year old was given a bottle while I was in recovery begging them to take me to my baby. I finally got them to answer what they were looking for and they said my heart rate was to high. So I forced myself to calm down. By then, less (1 of 2)

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 HOLY CRAP. JD VANCE IS LIVID!

"Everybody repeating the lie this is some innocent woman out for a drive in MN - YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU."

"What that headline leaves out is the fact that that very ICE officer nearly had his life ENDED, DRAGGED by a car six months ago, 33 stitches in his leg, so you THINK maybe he's a little bit SENSTIVE about somebody ramming him with an automobile?!"

"What that headline leaves out is that that woman was there to interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation in the United States of America."

"What that headline leaves out is that that woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job."

"If the media wants to tell the truth, they ought to tell the truth that a group of left-wing radicals have been working tirelessly, sometimes using domestic terror techniques, to try to make it impossible for the president of the United States to do what the American people elected him to do, which is enforce our immigration laws."

"You people in the media have been LYING ABOUT THIS ATTACK. She was trying to RAM THIS GUY with her car! He shot back. He's already been seriously wounded before!"

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[Daniel Cohen @DanielCohenTV]

“Girls were forced to prostitute themselves in prison just to get food—to get a piece of bread...and where were all of you, liberals? You said nothing! You did nothing!…do not tell Venezuelans how to feel about being freed from a dictatorship.”

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@bushontheradio The ventihood on my stove. Literally

[Collin Rugg @CollinRugg]

JUST IN: JD Vance fires back at reporter who asked him about Susie Wiles' alleged comment that he is a conspiracy theorist, starts listing off every conspiracy theory he believes in.

"I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true."

"I believed in the crazy conspiracy theory back in 2020 that it was stupid to mask three-year-olds at the height of the COVID pandemic..."

"I believed in this crazy conspiracy theory that the media and the government were covering up the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job."

"I believed in the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden was trying to throw his political opponents in jail rather than win an argument against his political opponents."

"So at least on some of these conspiracy theories, it turns out that a conspiracy theory is just something that was true six months before the media admitted it."

[Goldie Ghamari | گلسا قمری 🇮🇷 @gghamari]

Pro-Tip from an Iranian: Part 30.

(Muslims attacking Christmas Markets)

[Defiant L’s @DefiantLs]

"Are you aware of the leading cause of death for pregnant people in the US?"

"Women, moms?... Are we talking about women?"

"Whatever terminology you want to use."

"You're a board certified physician and you're telling me men can get pregnant..."

[Based Jessica @RealJessica]

Newsweek asked RFK Jr. "why don’t you stop promoting conspiracy theories?"

RFK Jr’s reply:

"My father told me when I was a little boy that people in authority lie and the job in a democracy is to remain skeptical. I've been science based since I was a kid. Show me the evidence and I'll believe you, but I'm not going to take the word of official narratives."

"The way you do research is not by asking authoritative figures what they think. Trusting experts is not a feature of science, and it's not a feature of democracy. It's a feature of religion and totalitarianism."

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

“Why are folks getting dumber?” Because they don’t read. “Why aren’t men as romantic & poetic as they used to be?” Because they don’t read. “Why are people so vulnerable to propaganda?” “Why is everyone a conspiracy theorist?” Because they don’t read. Because they don’t read.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@MarjorieYo46257 @MrMBB333 I lived there for three years. Up to that point I had been wearing contacts for abt 30 years, no problems. Soon as I moved away, I was able to wear contacts again. I couldn’t wear my contacts while living in Houston for more than an hour or two before my eyes BURNED constantly.

[Mandy the Phoenix @thephoenixmandy]

@legaltweetz I thank God I’m old enough that when I went through the same crisis due to the same causes there was zero approval in my world for transitioning because every good thing I have in my life is the result of having made peace with my gender.

[Kaeley Triller @KaeleyT]

John MacArthur to bold women: “Go home.”

Joel Webbon to bold women: “Bake me a pie.”

Jesus to bold women: “Great is your faith.”
“Your story will be told wherever the Gospel is preached.”
“Go and tell my brothers.”

[Jason Howerton @jason_howerton]

A rebuttal to “DINK” (dual income, no kids) lifestyle that seems to be catching on:

You are correct. Having no kids to care for is “easier.” No question.

I don’t have many bottomless mimosas brunch dates with these days.

But, it’s easier in the way sitting on the couch eating ice cream is easier than going to the gym. It feels easy in the moment, because it is… but 20 years later when you’re 50 pounds overweight, things get hard.

Few have ever said a grueling workout is “fun.” It’s not. It sucks. But how you feel AFTER you’ve achieved is what makes it worth it.

That’s being a parent. Sure, there will be epic tantrums and you will sacrifice much of your instant gratification for their happiness.

You’ll feel depleted, like you’ve got nothing left, when suddenly your child will look at you and say something like: “I’m so lucky God gave me a daddy like you.”

Your battery suddenly recharges to 100% - it keeps you going.

And in those moments—the good ones—you’ll realize that there is more happiness and contentment to be found in THEIR joy than you ever found in your own. This is a wild realization — and an important one.

And you’ll be willing to give up even more of what you “want” to see that joy shine through them again.

It’s also a significant part of your legacy that when you die, you’ve left God-fearing, people-loving human beings behind who are capable of making the world a little brighter. This is PURPOSE. It’s why God created the family.

I’m just trying to point out that doing the thing that is “easier” is hardly ever the thing that is best for you in the long term.

Maybe in the short term, living for only yourself feels worth it. But when you’re 60 years old and you’ve finally figured out what actually matters in life… you’re going to want grandchildren running around while you sit in your rocking chair.

You’re going to want to see the humans you raised loving their own families and carrying on a bloodline legacy - and hopefully correcting some of your own parenting mistakes.

To the *vast majority* of people who read this, trust me… Get married. Have kids. Lead them to Jesus. Win.