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Pastor’s six-year-old daughter dies on vacation

Pastor’s six-year-old daughter dies on vacation

Last updated on: June 11, 2024 at 6:22 am by Jim Denison

Pastor’s six-year-old daughter dies on vacation 2024-06-11T06:22:29-05:00 Jim Denison

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jesse Morgan is the pastor of Green Pond Bible Church in Rockaway, New Jersey. He and his family were on the first week of his sabbatical, vacationing in Maine. According to his six-year-old daughter Lucy Morgan, it was “the best week of her life.”

Then tragedy struck: the kids were playing badminton when the racket being used by her ten-year-old brother came apart and the shaft flew into her skull. She was rushed to a hospital but died four days later.

Four weeks earlier, she asked her mother “how to be with God and be saved.” Her mother explained the gospel, then Lucy went into her room, where she trusted in Christ. She wrote in her prayer journal, “God is so amazing and he is the true God and he created everything and he died on the cross for our sins.”

Now, as her father wrote, she is “with Jesus.”

Sharing the gospel on Fox News

What was your first response upon reading this story?

Mine was to ask how God could allow such a precious girl to die so tragically. Then to ask how he could allow a pastor and his family to go through such heartbreak.

Only then did I thank the Lord for his providence in helping Lucy trust personally in him a few weeks earlier and then document her new faith in ways her family will treasure forever. And only then did I thank God for parents who would tell their daughter’s story on Fox News so the gospel could be proclaimed around the globe.

Every person who is drawn closer to Jesus through Lucy’s faith will extend her ministry until the Lord returns.

And every person who reads of her faith through her family’s courageous compassion will see the difference Jesus makes in a crisis when he is Lord.

The “greatest wave of mass intercession in history”

As the world paused to remember the eightieth anniversary of D-Day last week, there was a “telling instance of amnesia,” according to the Wall Street Journal: the religious significance of the event was “largely ignored.” The article reports that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked “the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” As news of the invasion spread, “houses of worship filled for services, perhaps the ‘greatest wave of mass intercession in history,’ as one magazine described it.” The success of D-Day was then “naturally and widely taken as providential.”

That was then, this is now.

In his latest New York Times column, David Brooks explains one reason so many graduates of elite universities have become so monolithically “woke”: they come from privilege, but they are taught by Critical Theory that privilege in our system is accrued by oppressors who exploit the oppressed. As a result, they must take up progressive culture war mantles to feel “engaged, purposeful, and good about themselves.”

However, Brooks writes, “It seems to me that these battles are often more about performative self-validation than they are about practical policies that might serve the common good.”

Earthquakes don’t produce fault lines

Crisis reveals character. Earthquakes don’t produce fault lines—they reveal them.

However, they also widen such fractures. D-Day not only mobilized Christians to pray—it also drew others to join them. By contrast, those who are convinced that post-Christian progressivism is the answer to our problems are likely to respond to the next challenge by doubling down on their secularism.

As a result:

The best time to prepare for tomorrow’s crisis is to be right with Jesus today.

When Lucy Morgan was struck by a badminton racket, she didn’t have time to respond to the gospel. When the tragic accident happened, her parents didn’t have time to prepare their souls for the worst crisis any parent can face.

But when we are prepared for what might come, our faith and faithfulness become a transformationally powerful witness to our lost world.

“Our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda”

St. Ignatius of Antioch was identified by early church historians as the child whom Christ took into his arms (Mark 9:36). He was also widely known to be one of the disciples of John the Apostle and was appointed by Peter to be pastor in Antioch. When the storm of emperor Domitian’s persecution broke upon the Christians of Syria, he was arrested and taken to Rome, where he was thrown to the lions in the Colosseum and martyred around the year AD 110.

Along the journey to his death, Ignatius wrote seven letters to various Christian congregations, encouraging them to remain steadfast and courageous in their faith. To the Romans he included this request: “Just beg for me the courage and endurance not only to speak but also to will what is right, so that I may not only be called a Christian, but prove to be one.” He noted that “our task is not one of producing persuasive propaganda; Christianity shows its greatness when it is hated by the world.”

How will your faith show the “greatness” of Christianity today?

Tuesday news to know:

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“If we are to better the future we must disturb the present.” —Catherine Booth

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