Thursday, May 8, 2025

Stop Covering Sin Your Nightly Prayer for May 7, 2025 by Kyle Norman TONIGHT’S SCRIPTURE “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” - Psalm 32:1

 

Stop Covering Sin - Your Nightly Prayer

Your Nightly Prayer

Stop Covering Sin
Your Nightly Prayer for May 7, 2025
by Kyle Norman

TONIGHT’S SCRIPTURE

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” - Psalm 32:1

SOMETHING TO PONDER 

When I was studying for my Doctorate, all students were required to spend two weeks in residency each year.  All the students of the program would descend upon the university and take classes in person. During my first residency, each day began the same way. The students would go downstairs for breakfast in the cafeteria. Breakfast, each day, every day, was always the same; it was a dish which we affectionately termed “The Egg Brick.”  It was an attempt at being a frittata, but it was anything but. The egg brick was eggs and cheese, mixed with whatever the caterers seemed to have on hand, and then baked until it had a rubbery consistency.  During this two-week egg-brick journey, I learned a valuable truth – a truth I keep with me today: Hot-Sauce covers up a multitude of sins.  

I say that, but it’s not actually true, is it? We all knew we were eating an egg brick. We were fooling ourselves, thinking that hot sauce made the egg brick different. Covering up the dish with hot sauce didn’t change anything. 

In Psalm 32, David talks about the difference between covering up our sins as opposed to having them covered.  Covering up our sins, he says, is just to mask them, it is to pretend that they are not there. David describes how covering up his iniquity, masking it, didn’t affect anything in his soul. He still felt disconnected from God, he still felt as if there was a barrier between him and the Lord.  This played havoc on his inner life. Thus, David describes how his bones wasted away, through my groaning all day long, and how his inner strength and vitality felt strained and sapped (Psalm 32:4)

Covering up our sins is nothing more than trying to clean our room by shoving everything under the rug.  We pretend we don’t see it. But the mess remains and keeps us away from God. Think of Adam and Eve covering up their nakedness with fig leaves.   Did the leaves hide the guilt of their soul?

This Psalm, however, is not a lament. Psalm 32 is a psalm of hope – it is a psalm where David articulates the reality of forgiveness. He begins, “Blessed is the one who is forgiven their iniquity, whose sin is covered.”  There is a big difference between covering up our sins and having them covered by the grace of Jesus. The word covered in the Hebrew here means “to put away, or to deal finally with”.  It means that all the longing within, that inward sapping reality, the spiritual need we kept masking by other things, all these things finally get addressed, not just glossed over.  To have our sins covered is to have our sins fully and finally removed from us.

When we allow ourselves to be covered by the love of God, to have God’s love be the defining marker of our life, we no longer feel the need to hide from God. Scripture talks about how those who follow Christ are covered by the sprinkled blood of Jesus. Christ’s death on the cross is the definitive and ultimate place of forgiveness; it is the place where our sin is covered by a divine power that renders it all null and void. 

Freedom and salvation aren’t found in covering up our sins, but in allowing them to be covered by the loving grace of God.

YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER 

Jesus,
I thank you for your sacrifice on the cross, and for the grace that covers me.  I thank you that it is by your cross alone that I can be assured of the forgiveness of my sin, my acceptance as your child, and my place in your Kingdom. I confess the ways in which I continue to step away from your loving presence, and in response, I turn again to you. May your love continue to enfold me, surround me, hide me, and cover me. This I pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen.

THREE THINGS TO MEDITATE UPON 

1. St. Augustin had Psalm 32 placed opposite his bed so that he could meditate on it frequently.  Take some time and pray through Psalm 32. What assuring statement most speaks to you?

2. When we feel overwhelmed by sin, it can be easy to feel that we need to hide from God. David, however, talks about hiding in God.  What might it mean for you to hide in God, allowing God’s presence to surround you and preserve you from trouble?

3. David describes the feeling that the hand of God pressed heavily upon him day and night. This wasn’t a feeling of vengeance and wrath, but a feeling of God’s loving invitation to return.  Where is God inviting you to experience God’s loving presence more in your life?

Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Kinga Howard

SWN authorThe Reverend Dr. Kyle Norman is the Rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral, located in Kamloops BC, Canada.  He holds a doctorate in Spiritual formation and is a sought-after writer, speaker, and retreat leader. His writing can be found at Christianity.com, crosswalk.com, ibelieve.com, Renovare Canada, and many others.  He also maintains his own blog revkylenorman.ca.  He has 20 years of pastoral experience, and his ministry focuses on helping people overcome times of spiritual discouragement.


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Originally published Wednesday, 07 May 2025.

Your Nightly Prayer Archives

Finding Peace in the Storms of Life - Your Nightly PrayerTuesday, 06 May 2025
Living with Great Expectations - Your Nightly PrayerMonday, 05 May 2025
What Is Holding You Up? - Your Nightly PrayerFriday, 02 May 2025
The Power of Names - Your Nightly PrayerThursday, 01 May 2025
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Feminists ‘Safe’ Abortion Pill Linked to More Dangerous Complications Than Advertised May 3, 2025

 

Feminists ‘Safe’ Abortion Pill Linked to More Dangerous Complications Than Advertised


It’s difficult to call a drug safe and effective if it ends in the death of another human being’s life 100 percent of the time — and that’s if it works correctly.

But, as it turns it, it’s even worse than that for mifepristone, the abortion pill that Democrats have been loosening restrictions on and now want to ship across state lines in order to circumvent bans or restrictions on ending the life of the unborn in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned.

According to a study by the Ethics & Public Policy Center — which describes itself as “Washington, D.C.’s premier institute working to apply the riches of the Jewish and Christian traditions to contemporary questions of law, culture, and politics” — complications from pharmaceutical abortions are exponentially more common than the number well under 1 percent that the Food and Drug Administration advertises in medical literature.

“Danco Laboratories markets Mifeprex as ‘the safe and effective abortion pill,’ but our research shows that mifepristone abortion, as currently practiced in the U.S., is not safe and effective,” the group said in a media release Monday.

“The manufacturer and the FDA rely on the results of 10 clinical trials with a total of 30,966 participants, less than 0.5 percent of whom reportedly experienced serious adverse reactions. In contrast, we analyzed real-world insurance claims data for 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions, broadly representative of women who obtain mifepristone abortions in the U.S. today, and we find a serious adverse event rate of 10.93 percent—at least 22 times as high as the summary figure reported on the drug label. In light of this research, we urge the FDA to reinstate earlier, stronger patient safety protocols and reconsider its approval of mifepristone altogether.”

 

The study was conducted by identifying a mifepristone abortion via either a procedure code on a medical report, a prescription for the drug, or a diagnosis code on medical forms.

The adverse events within 45 days of the mifepristone abortion were then analyzed using the National Institutes of Health Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events, or CTCAE, including only Grade 3 (severe) or Grade 4 (life-threatening) events. Grade 1 (mild), Grade 2 (moderate), or Grade 5 (death) were not included.

The study found a serious adverse event rate of nearly 11 percent, as previously stated — although it is worth noting that comparing it to the 0.5 percent listed in the clinical trials may be comparing apples-to-oranges, although that still doesn’t look great for mifepristone.

Why? Well, there were 10 categories of serious adverse events listed, and several women in the study experienced more than one event. Only a few of them seemed to be significantly higher than 0.5 percent: Infection, (1.34 percent), hemorrhage (3.31 percent), repeated surgical abortion (2.84 percent), ER visit related to the abortion (4.73 percent), and other abortion-specific complications (5.68 percent).

The biggest issue is with the last two, as you delve into the methodology of obtaining the numbers of these adverse events. One of the ways? “Other abortion complications include codes specifically related to an abortion or miscarriage, as well as life-threatening mental health diagnoses, etc.” [Emphasis ours.]

Therein lies what’s likely to be the key difference in numbers in adverse events between the clinical trials and this study: Mental health issues probably weren’t viewed as serious adverse reactions in the former.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that this could involve the same issues that inflated coronavirus deaths, when public health officials lumped together those who died of COVID and those who died with COVID. Were these mental health crises because of a recent mifepristone abortion or mental health crises with a recent mifepristone abortion? The same, too, could be said about any of these categories.

That being said, this is too large of a variance to be explained away simply by lumping together ICD-10 codes and calling it a day; if anything, it puts the lie to the idea that there are no mental health effects from carrying out an abortion — and that “unwanted pregnancies” are the real mental health crisis.

Another caveat: This study was carried out on cases between 2017 and 2023, after the FDA relaxed the gestational age mifepristone could be prescribed until up to 70 days from 49 days. In addition, during the final year of the study, the FDA allowed retail pharmacies to start dispensing the drugs provided they had certification, although it’s unclear whether that would have increased the incidence of side effects.

Still, the results are damning: This isn’t just swallowing a pill or two and, presto, that lump of cells goes away. Many of those visits for hemorrhage were likely from women who didn’t realize killing an unborn baby involved so much blood and went to the emergency room. Then, there are the unspecified visits from women who thought this wouldn’t bring mental anguish but found out they were wrong.

Ultimately, harping on the safety profile of mifepristone can miss the point. Remember, this drug kills 100 percent of the time. That’s its point. Having a debate over the safety of it, for the pro-life contingent, should take a backseat to the real problem, which is the killing of the unborn itself.

That being said, this study marks yet another sign that the abortion culture that’s been sold to us by the left is based upon lie upon lie being piled on top of each other, one by one: a Tower of Babel being erected in honor of Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. This is feminist freedom, apparently: death and ignorance. God help us all.

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‘Seed… for Next Generation’ Arrested in Sickening Child Sex Sting May 4, 2025; A Georgia Democrat who ran twice for state office was among 19 people arrested in a sting designed to arrest individuals who sought to have sex with children.

 

Dem Politician Who Had ‘Seed… for Next Generation’ Arrested in Sickening Child Sex Sting


A Georgia Democrat who ran twice for state office was among 19 people arrested in a sting designed to arrest individuals who sought to have sex with children.




The Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office identified Carl Sprayberry, 32, as one of the 19 people arrested, according to WTVM.

“These predators will travel from near and far to victimize your children,” a statement from the Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office said, according to WAGA-TV. “We take these crimes against children very seriously.”

In a Facebook post related to Sprayberry’s 2020 campaign, DemXMedia wrote that Sprayberry “has that seed that is the key to creating a better planet for the next generation.”

 

In 2024, when seeking a state Legislature seat, his campaign website said he was “looking to restore sanity to the state legislature.”

Sprayberry was charged with trafficking a person for labor servitude according to the Georgia Gazette. WAGA listed the charge as human trafficking.

Earlier this year, Sprayberry called for the death of President Donald Trump.

“It takes a sick individual to want to take away a right that a child has — and the freedom and the safety and the comfort that a child has — to bring harm to these children,” Muscogee County Sheriff Greg Countryman said, according to WTVM.

“There were no children at harm at all in this,” said Brian Johnston, Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agent in charge.

Johnson said that “had we not been there as law enforcement working in an undercover capacity, these very same perpetrators that were arrested would have been talking to our children in our community, and they would have been talking about sexual acts and meeting up for sexual acts and exchanging pornography.”

“An operation like this takes months to prepare,” District Attorney Don Kelly said. “Protecting our children from these kinds of predators is one of the most important things that we can do both as law enforcement and as prosecutors.”

“These are folks who acted,” Kelly said, according to WRBL.

“They went to a specific location to meet a child, often times to exchange money for sexual activity,” he said.

Countryman said the bottom line of the sting is that parents need to monitor the online behavior of their children, according to WTVM.

“I can’t stress enough for the parents — please monitor your children and what they do on the computers,” he said.

“It’s OK to be a nosey parent. Know who they’re speaking with because we’re not going to stop until they stop preying on our kids.”

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Shri Thanedar’s Evil History of Animal Cruelty Comes Out After He Filed Trump Impeachment Articles May 5, 2025 0 Comments

 

Shri Thanedar’s Evil History of Animal Cruelty Comes Out After He Filed Trump Impeachment Articles


Michigan Rep. Shri Thanedar isn’t the first Democrat to file quixotic, attention-grabbing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on entirely specious grounds.

He break new ground, however, in being the first known mass serial animal abuser ever to do it. Take that, Al Green!

Thanedar, a first-term Democrat who’s already facing a tough primary challenge — thus, you can probably guess at the why behind this stunt — introduced seven articles of impeachment against Trump this past week.

The reasons including obstruction of justice, usurpation of appropriations power, violation of First Amendment rights, creation of an unlawful office (the Department of Government Efficiency — which technically isn’t a new office, but this isn’t a guy who cares about details), and “bribery and corruption,” among other things.

Basically: Everything short of shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die. (I really shouldn’t give the guy ideas, even if they’re technically Johnny Cash’s.)

 

“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit to serve as president and represents a clear and present danger to our nation’s constitution and our democracy,” Rep. Thanedar said in a media release.

“His unlawful actions have subverted the justice system, violated the separation of powers, and placed personal power and self-interest above public service. We cannot wait for more damage to be done. Congress must act.”

Democrats in Congress did act … by pulling their support from Thanedar’s articles where it existed. Co-sponsoring Democratic Reps. Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, Robin Kelly of Illinois, and Jerry Nadler of New York all pulled their name from the package once they realized it had less support in reality than it had on paper, and it had virtually none on paper.

But it gets more darkly comic — albeit sickening, if you’re an animal lover. Unique among Trump impeachment-mongers in the House, Thanedar has long been attached to animal abuse allegations after an animal research facility he owned in New Jersey closed in 2010.

As the HuffPost reported in 2018, when Thanedar was a Michigan gubernatorial candidate, AniClin Preclinical Services was forced to close after its parent company went under. When it did, roughly 170 dogs and monkeys had to be rescued from the lab his company ran after they were left to rot inside the facility.

From a USA Today report about the group that rescued the abandoned beagles at the facility:

They had lived the most sterile, regimented lives imaginable.

Day after day, month after month, year after year, they were confined to plexiglass crates, fed and watered on precise schedules, kept clean. But with no opportunity to leave their solitary little boxes and spend time with others like themselves, with nothing but the most antiseptic contact with humans and no time outside the gleaming, climate-controlled facility, the 118 beagles — lab dogs used to test drugs and chemicals—displayed nothing of the much-acclaimed breed characteristics: joyful, noisy and curious.

Another 55 long-tailed macaque monkeys also were left to fester in the facility.

At the time, Thanedar said that Bank of America had taken control of the operation and it was their responsibility.

“I have no knowledge how well the bank took care of the animals,” he said.

“It is my understanding that Bank of America made arrangements to assign caretakers for the animals and secure homes for them, but those decisions came from the bank after I left the company,” Thanedar said. “I am an animal lover and completely understand the sensitivity of this issue.”

Yes, because the please stay on the line, your call is very important to us, but not really people are going to take fantastic care of lab animals. That’s his excuse? Would you like to phone a lawy… er, friend, Shri?

I get it: lab animal testing is brutal but necessary. Once it ceases to become necessary, however, one has a certain responsibility — and that responsibility is not to hand care of over a hundred dogs and 50 monkeys to Bank of America, especially when nonprofit rescue groups were more than capable of handling the task once they heard about it.

And none of this would matter if it weren’t for a mote-in-your-eye, log-in-mine thinking that went behind these impeachment articles. They’re less than non-substantive; they’re anti-substantive, given that none of them are high crimes or misdemeanors or true.

This would just be inane if it had come from one of those clean-as-a-whistle backbenchers both parties have. (Hi there, Rep. Massie!)

Instead, it came from an opportunistic, embattled mass beagle-abandoner. Dems really have a knack for picking the worst heroes possible, don’t they? I mean, say what you will about Al Green and his stupid cane-waving antics, at least he doesn’t have to defend keeping over a hundred dogs in cages when there was no reason for them to still be there and insisting, by way of an excuse, that he figured they’d be in good hands with Bank of America. That’s next-level insulting, and not just to dog lovers.

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