There is not one among us at one time or another that has not felt
hopeless, discouraged or defeated in life. It is at those times no
matter how dark and gloomy things may seem that we must never
underestimate the vast expanse and power of grace.
Hopelessness and failure are founded in our hearts and in not in our
circumstances. We must learn to trust in the power of grace, because it
is grace that causes hope to triumph. In our darkest despair it is the
power of His grace alive in us that causes hope to rise, bringing light
and life to our despair and failure.
In life there will be times when you feel as if you are standing on
the edge of a cliff spanning a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon,
looking deep down into the gorge of despair, as your soul cries out for
relief and rescue, but there seems to be no hope and no comfort. There
are times that your mind seems frayed on the verge of sanity as the
ponderosity of your burden seems to have broken every escape, and
collapsed all hope. But I say to you fear not and be not dismayed as
Christ is ever-present working on your behalf, supernaturally directing
all circumstances and events, rescuing and delivering you from your all
your desperation and doubt.
There are many avenues within secular society that promise to
cure-all with self-help videos and self promotion books that tell you to
be positive, lift yourself up and will your way to win. As we read and
listen to these self-help gurus we will try to will our way to victory,
coming up with plan after plan, method after method, hoping to survive
and trying to improve our lives. We think that if we develop a new
workout schedule to better our bodies; upgrade the scenery in a newer
neighborhood; buy a newer car, change relationships etc., that we can
get ahead. But the reality is that in none of these things there is
comfort or rescue. The truth is, as you are breathing in the desperation
from your bone-dry desert of despair, choking on hopelessness of it
all, while trying to find any way out that you will come to the
realization that you must trust in Christ. He is your Anchor of Hope
that has already secured your victory upon the cross.
If you are finding it difficult to make the right decisions in your
life, you are relying on your own limited vision and insight. Put all
your doubt, fear, indecision, hopelessness, anxiety and pain before the
powerful Throne of Grace and let Jesus guide you in your decisions. He
will guide you by His Spirit to make the right decisions, removing all
that is weighing you down in your parched wilderness of self-doubt. He
will overcome for you just as He overcame the world by the power of His
grace poured out upon all humanity at Calvary.
Psalm 107:29 He calms the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea are hushed.
The relationship between Kylie Jenner and Tyga has been an endless source of controversy since it began, and for good reason.
Kylie is 17 and Tyga turns 25 next month, which means that their romantic involvement isn't just creepy, it may be criminal.
In fact, when Tyga was arrested in Los Angeles last night, it was widely rumored that it had something to do with his relationship with Tyga.
The cause of the arrest is still not known, but sources say it had
nothing to do with Kylie. Still, it's not hard to see why so many
assumed that it did.
After all, Kylie's famous family members are reportedly doing everything in their power to put a stop to her relationship:
"They almost unanimously disapprove of Kylie dating Tyga," a source
tells Radar Online. "It isn't just Kim that doesn't like Tyga. Pretty
much no one trusts him."
Insiders say Kim has tried to force Kylie to break up with Tyga, but not due to their age difference.
Tyga was previously engaged to Kim's best friend Blac Chyna. Like many others, Kim believes Tyga broke up with Blac in order to pursue Kylie. She also reportedly believes tat Tyga is using Kylie for fame:
"Tyga has known the family and Kylie forever," the source says. "It is
strange that he only takes an interest in Kylie now that she has this
minute of fame."
When Karen Marx's husband Adam disappeared, vanishing without a note, a
call, or a trace in 2005, she believed she would never see him again.
One can certainly understand why, but she searched and she searched,
until one day recently, she found the man she married after nearly a
decade.
The twist? He was married to some else.
"I just thought, 'How could he get married again?' " Karen said,
reflecting on her alarming discovery. "Am I dead? What did he do with my
identity?"
It wasn't the first time Adam Marx had done something similar. He left
another woman while still married, and he once left Karen as well,
remarkably.
Karen first met Adam when he was still married. "I figured, 'He's going
to get divorced, and this means he really wants to be with me and the
kids,'" she said.
"We'll be one big, happy family."
Adam did eventually divorce his first wife and marry Karen a year
later, on Valentine's Day. Shortly after, he disappeared. That time, he
left a note.
"The first time he left me, it was like somebody ripped my heart out,"
Karen said. "He basically told me it was all my fault and he couldn't
handle my kids."
"My ultimatum was, 'If you ever do this to me again, I won't take you
back,'" she said, recalling what she told him then. "I did it once. I
won't do it twice."
He did return a few months later, but things soured once again, and
Adam peaced out, leaving no clue where he went but leaving her saddled
with debt.
"I was trying to start a cleaning business, and after he left me, that
totally ruined everything," Karen said, and heard nothing from him until
this year.
Needless to say, she was shocked.
"He told people it was his first marriage," she said. "I think people
need to start doing their job and thoroughly, especially when it comes
to something like this."
"I consider myself married," she said, even after all this time. "I
thought when you married someone, you married him for life, through
sickness and health."
It's unclear how she found him, but Adams Marx faces charges of bigamy, fraud and making a false statement on a marriage license, according to reports.
Karen plans to file for divorce. No surprise there. Hopefully she can
accomplish that goal legally, having spent so much of her life without
any closure.
A 25-year old lottery agent, Olawale Salau was on Wednesday last week
stabbed to death by his childhood friend, Kamoru Kushimo on Alafia
Street, in the Iyana Ipaja area of Lagos State for asking him to change
his ways.
A resident who spoke to Punch said the deceased had threatened
to end his relationship with the suspect if he did not change his ways
after he facilitated his bail for attacking a neighbor.
“In the afternoon of that fateful day, he
verbally assaulted him for hours while we were all drinking at the club.
Salau did not answer him and people asked Kushimo to stop, but he
refused. Then he said he wanted their friendship to end. Salau told him
that if that was what he wanted, he was satisfied with the decision. But
we all became surprised as Kushimo said he wanted to fight with him.
While we were all trying to settle the
quarrel, Kushimo grabbed a bottle and smashed it against the wall. The
splinters fell on me and injured another friend of ours. But Salau held
him from using the bottle. I tried separating them,” he said.
They reportedly went their separate ways after some community leaders
intervened. However, unknown to Salau, his friend had gone to waylay
him in the dark, armed with a knife. A resident said he had gone to
attend to the injured friend when he was returning to the street and saw
the suspect racing towards him…
“I didn’t know he had stabbed Salau in the
chest and armpit with the knife. But I ran after him. He wanted to jump
the fence of a house into the next street, but I grabbed him. He pleaded
with me to release him, but I told him he was going nowhere. It was
then I saw Salau screaming that he had been stabbed. I handed Kushimo
over to an elderly man and tried to help Salau up. But he was down and
nobody even came near because it was dark.”
The victim’s boss, Taofeek Olaoye, said the 25-year-old could not make it as he died before he could get medical help.
Lagos State Police Command has
arrested two teenage boys identified as Gideon Harrison and Ifeanyi
Ezeorji, for allegedly having s3x with each other in Ikotun area of
Lagos.
According to reports, the boys were caught in the process
of carrying out the act. Gideon, 19, was reported to have allegedly
penetrated Ifeanyi, 14, through the anus.
They were arrested on October 23, 2014 by policemen from the Ikotun Police Division.
It
was gathered that Ifeanyi is student of Igando High School, Ikotun
Road, while Gideon has already completed his secondary school education.
Reports say Gideon is in the habit of sleeping with boys in the area.
An
eyewitness, Toheeb Adekunle, who stays on Muka Street, Ijegun Road and
works inside the Ikotun Motor Park, disclosed that he caught the two
boys in the act, and reported the matter to the police.
Lagos
State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Kenneth Nwosu confirmed the
arrest and it was gathered that the two teenagers have been taken to the
State Criminal Investigations Department in Yaba, Lagos and would be
charged to court soon.
Ifeanyi’s mother, Mrs. Chinyere Ezeorji,
claimed her son was a responsible boy who would never indulge in such an
act. She added that her son is still undefiled.
The powerful couple spoke
candidly about their love story and gushed about their fondness for each
other and how they fell in love at first sight!
On how he first met
his wife, Linus said,
"I met Stephanie while doing some Business
Consulting work for a Middle Eastern Company that wanted to berth in
Africa; they needed an African female celebrity ambassador for their
brand; Liya Kebede from Ethiopia and Stephanie were the two candidates
on tab for the role; so I reached out to her; So yeah…it was “Love for
business at first sight”.
The visibly excited husband also revealed how he copes with being married to a superstar actress. "Being
married to her is an ever glowing experience; a tale I some day, would
write a book about; Stephanie is an absolute blessing!
“A loving,
selfless, patient, positive being; someone I have made my lifelong
pursuit to make her truly happy because her heart is in the right place.
It is one thing to say you believe in someone; it’s another to live it.
We are friends, lovers, husband and wife.
“Pressure from fans and
the likes comes with the territory; it’s even worse now with the advent
of new social media, if it’s not PINGS, it’s instagram likes, if it’s
not that, it’s facebook beeps, twitter alerts or linkedin invites. But
it’s a world I understand, so for us, communication is key and that is
what defines the boundaries of our relationship." He narrated.
Linus described his wife in three words; Selfless, Smart and Spirited.
On her part, the screen goddess described how she was attracted to her husband.
"He
had a magnetic presence that was very captivating. He didn't beat
around the bush, he knew exactly what he wanted and was upfront about
it, which I found charming and sexy!
“He is very tender and
protective, a man’s man. He is sweet, humble, driven, has a close
relationship with God, very loving and takes good care of me. We respect
what we have and as a woman, when a man loves you, you just know. You
know that you’re in it together, regardless of any situation. With him,
there was a conviction in my heart that this is it, she said.
Mali’s Ebola scare is not yet over. But with a quick
diagnosis, extensive communication, and no shortage of luck, authorities
and partners may be able to limit the number of cases to one.
Using old-fashioned detective work, public health workers in Mali, one of the world’s poorest nations, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
and the World Health Organization, tracked and quarantined 108 people
in two cities and a few roadside towns who may have had contact with a
2-year-old girl from Guinea who died of Ebola on Oct. 24.
There
was even a car chase: The last bus the family traveled on during a
700-mile journey from Guinea was stopped on a rural highway, emptied out
and disinfected.
A
21-day quarantine since the little girl’s death on Oct. 24 is almost
over, and 41 of the 108 Malians in quarantine are due to be released
Tuesday, and the remainder by Friday. Since none are showing symptoms,
health officials are allowing themselves to hope that their quick
response has kept Mali’s first outbreak to a single case.
If so, Mali will join Senegal and Nigeria
in having proved yet again that rapid reactions can stop Ebola. In
contrast, the initial outbreak in Guinea festered unaddressed for months
before it exploded.
“I’m
actually feeling very good right now,” Dr. Rana Hajjeh, who led the
C.D.C. advisory team, said Friday. “We feel reassured that most of the
danger is over.”
The
case also illustrates how even people in close contact with victims do
not necessarily get the disease, which spreads when infectious fluids
get into an open cut, or a nose, eye or mouth.
Nor,
apparently, are any of the dozens of bus passengers, taxi drivers,
family friends or other contacts she had while traveling.
The episode also drew attention to an unusual decision by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta: Unlike most West African countries, Mali has not closed its border with an Ebola-affected neighbor — in this case, Guinea.
That
is partly for practical reasons. There are so many gravel roads
crossing the long border that closing it is probably impossible.
Dr.
Abdou Salam Gueye, a C.D.C. investigator, explained that closing the
border would violate an honored Malian principle of diatiguiya
(pronounced JAH-tih-GEE), the belief that hospitality to friends and
even strangers is obligatory. It extends back centuries, to the days
when Mali was the core of a great West African empire, and travelers
with introductions were welcomed like family.
Mali’s harrowing brush with Ebola
began last month with a woman’s selfless act: trying to rescue two
young girls in her family from the disease. Aminata Gueye Tamboura, 45,
fetched them from their ailing family in Guinea,
the cradle of the epidemic, then took them aboard buses and taxis, back
to her home in Kayes, in northwest Mali. (Mrs. Tamboura, although
called Fanta’s grandmother, is actually the second wife of Fanta’s
grandfather in polygamous marriage.)
Fanta had a 104-degree fever and an unstoppable nosebleed
by the time she was hospitalized. Health officials feared she had
seeded the virus all along the route, potentially turning Mali into the
fourth nation engulfed by the disease.
The
child’s family in Guinea did not believe the virus existed and rejected
medical help, even as relatives began to die there, including Fanta’s
father, said Dr. Ibrahima Soce Fall, leader of the W.H.O. team in Mali.
Fanta’s mother remained in Guinea with a 3-month-old baby because she
had to observe 40 days of mourning for her husband, Dr. Koungoulba said.
Ms.
Tamboura, the girls and an uncle left Beyla, a small city, on Oct. 18
in a 10-passenger “bush taxi,” and crossed the border the next day. Some
passengers said Fanta was given acetaminophen to lower her fever and avoid detection. Ms. Tamboura denied it.
During
a three-hour layover in Bamako, Mali’s capital, the family took taxis
to and from the compound of family friends, and rested there. That
compound is now also quarantined with 25 people inside; the government
delivers food and has posted guards to make sure no one leaves.
In
Kayes, Ms. Tamboura took Fanta to two different traditional healers,
known as marabouts, and then to a neighbor, a former doctor, who urged
her to go to Fousseyni Daou Hospital, which she did on Oct. 21.
Initially,
Dr. Koungoulba said, she told him Fanta was a local child, so he did
not suspect Ebola. He did wear gloves, but no other protection. That
evening, Ms. Tamboura’s sister admitted that Fanta was Guinean, so he
ordered an Ebola test. But it took 24 hours for a car to arrive from
Bamako and fetch the sample.
When
it turned up positive on Oct. 23, Dr. Koungoulba kept asking himself:
“Did I do everything I should? Did I touch her dirty diaper or the blood
running from her nose?”
Dr.
Hajjeh, who had just finished helping Mali devise a response plan in
case the disease ever arrived, said she was at the airport when she
heard the test results were positive.
“I canceled my flight and stayed,” she said.
At
the hospital, about a dozen staff members were quarantined, as were
Fanta’s family and all 40 patients and their families, who sleep under
trees on the dusty grounds to help care for the sick.
The
quarantine was partly for their own protection, doctors said, since
there had been angry reactions elsewhere in Mali to earlier suspected
cases, which turned out to be false alarms.
Beyonce’s little sister Solange
Knowles will exchange vows with her boyfriend Alan Ferguson in New Orleans,
Louisiana this weekend, according to reports.
The 28-year-old singer and DJ, who has kept her
engagement under wraps, will stage the ceremony and reception at the home she
shares with her 10-year-old son Julez, according to Us Weekly.
This will be Knowles’ second marriage – she wed her
son’s father, Daniel Smith, in 2004, when she was just 17. They divorced in
2007.
