Import jQuery

How This Messianic Learned to Stop Hating Easter


When I was younger, I berated other Christians for celebrating Easter.

I had heard the English word "Easter" comes from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. And what do bunnies and eggs have to do with the Jewish Messiah anyways? Besides, the Gospels record Messiah and the 12 disciples celebrating the Biblical Passover. His resurrection occurred right after Passover, on the Biblical holy day First Fruits.

 (You can probably find old posts on this very blog of me saying stuff like that!)

Well, I've grown a bit since then and changed my mind about Easter. It's a good and holy thing that God's people celebrate Jesus' resurrection, even if they call it "Easter." 

I explain why below.

Is the name "Easter" really pagan? Yes.

The main (and only?) source for the "Easter = Ishtar" claims was 19th century Scottish Presbyterian Alexander Hislop in his anti-Catholic work The Two Babylons.

Hislop connected the etymology of the two because they sound alike: "Easter" sounds like "Ishtar." But there is no solid evidence the English word "Easter" derives from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. 

Linking two words from different languages that sound alike does not a real connection make. The English evil and the Hebrew עיבל may sound similar, but the latter is merely a mountain in Samaria.

The "Easter is pagan" folks aren't entirely wrong, however.

The English word Easter probably does have pagan origins. It likely comes from the Germanic goddess Eostre. The evidence we have for this is The Reckoning of Time, a 1,300 year old book by the English Catholic monk Bede. In his book, Bede wrote that Eosturmonath was the month name when they celebrated Jesus' resurrection, a month "called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre."

For some people, the reality that the word "Easter" has pagan etymology -- whether Ishtar or Eostre -- is enough to discard modern Easter celebrations. 

But there's just one problem with that kind of thinking.

Also pagan: everything else

Many of the "Easter is pagan" folks have no issue with other words pagan in origin. One can go out on Wednesday in January, driving their Toyota Atlas while wearing Nike shoes, headed to watch the appearance of Saturn in the night sky. These are words like Easter: tainted etymology, but no longer connoting paganism.

My assumption was that paganism irredeemably corrupted things. My old thinking was, "Yes, we should get rid of Easter, and January, and Toyota Atlas, and Nike shoes, and Saturn, and..." 

After all, God warned Israel in the Torah, "Do not even mention the names of false gods."

However, I later discovered something that disturbed this naive belief. If pagan names irredeemably corrupted things, then we not only must throw out cars and shoes and planets and weekdays, we must also throw out some books of the Bible. More on that in a moment.

I came to understand that pagan names do not irredeemably corrupt things. God is bigger than that.

Glorifying pagan gods is no longer the purpose of these words. And purpose matters.

Purpose matters more than etymology

Given the name Easter is pagan in origin, should God's people discard modern Easter celebrations?

Here's a thought experiment to illuminate an answer.

Suppose a man goes to a congregation on Shabbat and light candles to the goddess Athena.

I hope you'll agree the issue is with the weird false-god-candle-lighting thing. That the man did it on Shabbat is completely irrelevant. Shabbat has good and holy origins, but if one's purpose is to light candles to a foreign god, then the etymology and symbolism of Shabbat matters little. A bad purpose on a day with good etymology is morally wrong. The purpose overrides etymology.

Now put the shoe on the other foot.

A good purpose on a day with bad etymology follows the same rule. The purpose remains the most important, overriding aspect.

And what is Easter's purpose? 

To celebrate Jesus' resurrection. 

Isn't that a worthy thing to celebrate?

The word Easter wasn't chosen to celebrate a pagan god. Its name was chosen because it happened to fall during a month of that name. And by that time, the old pagan names of the months probably sounded as innocuous to them as August sounds to us. (August, by the way, is named after the Roman god emperor Caesar Augustus, worshiped by the Roman Imperial Cult, you heathen! 😅) 

Just as the name "Wednesday" no longer implies pagan connections to the Norse god Wodin ("Odin"), neither did "Easter" imply paganism for the ancient Christians who adopted the name.

Illumination from the Bible

In the Bible, there are pagan names that sneak in. No one cares, and God uses those people and times and places. 

For example, the famous Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel? Well, their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaria. The Babylonian court gave these men pagan names: Shadrach meaning "Command of [moon god] Aku", Mishach meaning "who is like Aku", and Abed-nego meaning "servant of [arts god] Nebo".

Yet God worked through these people, even with pagan names.

Or consider Esther and Mordechai. We think of these names as almost stereotypical Jewish names, but they are more likely Persian pagan names, honoring the gods Ishtar and Marduk. (Mordechai may have been a variation of "Marduk lives.") 

And yet, not only do we celebrate Queen Esther (named after Ishtar - gasp!), but we even have a book of the Bible named after her. God didn't find it problematic that their names had pagan etymology. Instead, God honored their names and preserved them in the Bible.

Or consider the Jewish calendar. When the Jews returned to Israel from Babylon, they brought with them the names of Babylonian months, including the month of Tammuz. It persists today as a month in the Jewish calendar, even though Tammuz was a pagan god mentioned as an abomination in the book of Ezekiel. 

And yet there is no condemnation of Israel using these names. The names no longer implied paganism. No, when God called Israel to repent, it was not for the etymology of the names of their months. It was because of their purpose: the active worship of foreign gods by burning incense to idols, passing children through the fire to false gods, engaging with temple prostitution.

Easter, Pascha, Passover

Protestants and Catholics celebrate Easter as Jesus' resurrection. But in the Eastern Church, the holiday is known as Pascha. That name should sound familiar to Messianic folks. It's an Aramaic variant of the Hebrew פסח pesach, or in English, Passover.

The Orthodox Christian church celebrates the death and resurrection of Jesus through Pascha. Ultimately, both Easter and Pascha are new innovations spun off from the genuine article of Passover. 

God has brought billions of non-Jews to faith in the God of Israel. He did it through the Messiah, Yeshua. We shouldn't be angered that many of these non-Jews innovate their own celebrations of what He did. 

God has been at work despite the gray vagaries and muddiness of humanity over the ages, and it's a sight to behold! This outlook is better, healthier, and more in alignment with God's character than standing off in the corner while shouting, "That's pagan!"



Is there anything objectionable in Easter?

Certainly.

It remains true that bunnies and chocolate eggs have no authentic connection with the Jewish Messiah. For many people, sadly, egg hunts and chocolate baskets and frivolity have replaced the celebration of the greatest event in history: the resurrection of the Jewish Messiah, God's only Son, the eternal King of Israel, Yeshua.

Names still matter. I hope you'll agree the name Hananiah ("Yah has been gracious") is a much better name than Shadrach ("Command of moon god Aku"). 🙂 

While God can and has used people and events with pagan names, "Resurrection Day" would be a vast improvement over "Easter." Or, given the early Christians observed Passover, maybe just Passover or Resurrection Passover would be a better fit yet.

There's also the ugly reality of replacing God's holy days with man-made, poor replicas. 

The early Christians, notably Polycarp (AD 69-155), held to celebrating Passover. Polycarp refused to recant this belief despite growing pressure to do so, appealing to the fact that he had received this from his mentor, John the Apostle, who had walked with Jesus.

But by the 4th century, the Quartodeciman Controversy (a.k.a, "Should we keep celebrating Jesus' death and resurrection on Passover, or should we stop doing Jewish stuff?") reached a boiling point when the Roman Emperor Constantine ruled,

It appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul ... Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.
That's Christian antisemitism. (And self-defeating, given Constantine's Saviour was part of the Jewish people he so detested.)

Perhaps a good first step towards repenting of Christian antisemitism is Christians returning to the original faith of Jesus. Jesus celebrated Passover and imbued it with new meaning when He said of the Passover matzah, "This is my body, do this in remembrance of Me."

Even if Christianity adds new meaning and new remembrances, Christians would do well to honor God's redemptive work at Passover. God redeemed His people out of Egypt and commanded us to celebrate in remembrance of that every year forever. Christians have a unique opportunity to celebrate at Passover God's redemptive work through both the Exodus and the Passion.

Conclusion

I no longer hate Easter. God is not so small that He cannot redeem things tainted with pagan names. If it weren't so, we'd have to rip out from the Bible numerous heroes of the faith and even whole books.

Two thousand years ago, the apostle Peter stood in front of the early Jewish leaders of this new sect of Judaism, called the Way, and he said something powerful. What he said applies today to this Easter question. He said,

Brothers, you know that in the early days God chose that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the message of the Gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, testified to the Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit—just as He also did for us. He made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts through faith.

God knows the heart and has purified the Gentiles through faith. That's how I look at Easter. 

While the name is tainted by paganism, God has purified it.

While the Gentiles used to be pagans, God made them new creations through the work of Messiah.

Because of this, billions of people now follow the God of Israel and called the Hebrew Bible their Scriptures. This is a work of God, and I stand in awe.

Some Thoughts on the Days of Noah by Aaron Hecht

Painting of the animals entering the Ark by Bassano (Wikimedia Commons)


I have to start this blog with a disclaimer. The thoughts I express here aren't very original. Almost everything I have to say about this subject has been said by others before me. But I feel the need to write this blog to draw attention to this subject because it's becoming very urgent, in my assessment. Also, there have been some recent developments which I think shed some fresh light on it, so with that in mind, here goes.

The 24th chapter of Matthew's Gospel is dedicated to the answers Jesus gives His disciples to the questions they ask Him about the end of the Age. He lists many prophetic signs, including an increase in "wars and rumors of wars" and "pestilence" and "earthquakes" and so on, saying "These are just the beginning of sorrows."

He also warns that those who identify with Him will face persecution for it. There will be "false prophets" and "false Messiahs" and a great deal of deception and "lawlessness" and so on.

These warnings of Jesus have been much discussed down through the centuries and in modern times, that discussion has been kicked into overdrive for various reasons. The two biggest reasons, I believe, are the invention of nuclear weapons in 1945 and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

The first of these two events caused a lot of people to start thinking about "the end of the world" and the second event gave people an excellent reason to open their Bibles and see what they could find on the subject. Matthew chapter 24, and the beginning of chapter 25, is one of the passages that aroused a lot of interest because it contains many signs Jesus said would be visible in the world just before the time when this Age would be nearing its end. You've probably heard a few sermons, and maybe even read a few books, about these passages.

But there's one passage in Matthew 24 that I've rarely heard any sermons about, although there are a handful of books and movies out there about it. I'm talking about verses 37-39, which say; "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Most of the commentary about this passage says that this is simply a warning that the return of Jesus Christ to this earth will be unexpected. That's a valid point and certainly, there were plenty of people who ignored Noah's warnings about a coming catastrophe just as there are plenty of people who ignore warnings about it today. But I think there's more to it than that.

What did the "days of Noah" look like?

In Genesis chapter 6, we get a glimpse into what "the days of Noah" were like, and why God sent the Flood upon the earth at that time.

Genesis 6:4-6 says;  There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

We know that one of the reasons God chose Noah to build the Ark was because he was, as verse 9 tells us "pure in his generations" which, in the context of the rest of the chapter, seems to mean that his lineage did not include any demons, but only human beings.

As a side note, I read an article in a secular publication back in the late 1990s that speculated that this passage is describing an alien life form that visited this planet in ancient times and interacted with humans. This article also speculated that this event is what inspired much of Greek mythology, implying that the stories about Zeus, Hercules, Athena, etc. were based on real beings, called in this passage the "mighty men who were of old".

The second part of that theory is an intriguing possibility, especially since some of the Greek myths included "special" people who were the product of sexual intercourse between humans and "gods".

But the first part is just a typical example of the New Age mindset which takes passages from the Bible that describe supernatural activity (especially demons) and attributes it to extra-terrestrials.

In any case, this verse indicates to me that one of the things happening in "The Days of Noah" was that demons were interacting directly with the natural world, trying to corrupt it in ways that would frustrate God's plans and purposes for His creation. This is the first way that the era of human history we're currently in is comparable to "the days of Noah."

The rest of the passage kind of doesn't need any elaboration, nor does verses 11 and 12;

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

I think these passages from Genesis chapter 6 that describe life on this planet "in the days of Noah" also describe life on this planet in the present day.

Demonic activity breaking through from the spiritual to the natural realm is taking place more and more. If you've ever read a biography of Adolf Hitler, not to mention his own book "Mein Kampf" you must have recognized the demonic fingerprints that were all over his life and the ideology of the Nazi Party he created and led. That was an obvious example of the phenomenon, but there have been many other less obvious examples both before and since. 

The current massive increase in anti-Semitism worldwide, including in places like China where it's never been much of an issue, is another example of this. There is NO logical explanation for anti-Semitism to become such a big problem in China unless it's a result of demonic influence in that country, which is officially atheist but has all kinds of pagan idolatry as part of its cultural heritage.

As for violence, there have always been wars and there has always been crime. But the decades since the US Civil War started in 1861 have seen more violence, and more intense violence, than any other period of time in the preceding centuries of recorded human history. There were years when it was in the news more or less than other years, but taken as an aggregate whole, it's been the most violent period in all of human history. Also, although large-scale industrial wars between nation-states slowed down for awhile before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 brought that phenomenon roaring back, civil strife, rioting, and violent crime within countries and across national borders have increased steadily, more than making up for the less frequent wars involving uniformed soldiers and armies.

Riots (Wikimedia Commons)

Corruption of all kinds is also getting worse, and it's appearing in areas that no one could even have predicted. For thousands of years, no one anywhere, in any culture, political ideology, religion, economic system, or whatever, questioned the fact that there were only two genders and that every single human being was either of one gender or the other from the moment they were born until the moment they died. Anyone who would have suggested otherwise wouldn't have been taken seriously by anyone else.

Now, somehow, we've arrived at a place where suggesting otherwise is not only taken seriously, it's become mandatory. It's become completely unacceptable to say that there are only two genders and that God created the world this way. A very large percentage of the human race has decided to start believing catastrophically absurd ideas and demanding that everyone else believe them as well.

This is a "corruption" of reality itself, and it's something that we've never seen before.

For all of these reasons, I believe it's reasonable to believe that we are indeed in the time just before Jesus' Second Advent on this earth, and we need to be URGENTLY about the business of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. If you (or I) have been saving anything, whether it's time, money, effort, energy, attention or whatever, for the right time, I think that's a mistake.

There might not be much "later" for us to save up for, and the time to invest what we have in the Kingdom is right now.

Some Thoughts on Demographics by Aaron Hecht

 


World population map (Wikimedia commons)

A few days ago we had municipal elections here in Israel. If you're reading this blog, I would imagine you're aware of the fact that there was a heartbreakingly low turnout for these elections. There was, however, a massive number of Israelis who took advantage of the fact that election days are paid days off from work (and school) by flocking to the malls and other leisure venues for a day of shopping and fun.

In other words, they didn't stay home, they just didn't go to the polls.

Turnout for municipal elections is usually lower than for national elections, but this was low even by those standards. Most commentators said it was probably because people are just upset and tired about the war and they'd rather take the opportunity of a paid day off from work to go have some fun rather than vote.

As for me and my wife, we both voted in this election. It was easy to cast a ballot because our polling place is a short walk from our home, in the school our children attend. My eldest son might have wanted to sleep in that morning but he woke up at the usual time because his dog was whining and begging him to get up and play with her before school like he usually does. She didn't know it was a day off from school, she just wanted someone to throw the tennis ball for her.




I was also awake early because my body just woke up at the usual time whether I wanted to or not. My wife doesn't have an internal alarm clock like that and my youngest son can sleep for as long as he wants, so it was just me and my eldest that morning. After several minutes of playing with the dog, I told my son to get dressed and come with me to help me vote. He protested that it was a day off from school so he didn't want to go there (on principle since he likes going to school most of the time) but I told him to stop complaining and come with me.

We arrived at the school almost at exactly the same time we usually get there every morning and walked inside to discover that the room where I'd be casting my ballot was actually his very classroom. He made some more ritualistic complaints about having to be there on a day off from school, but then he cheerfully accompanied me inside. I told the crew that was checking ID's (yes, a person must present their ID to vote in Israel, and no one complains about it being "racist" or otherwise inappropriate) that it was his classroom and they laughed and then one of them said "not today" but I impulsively replied, "today there's a different lesson."

Then we went behind the screen, put the little slips of paper into the envelopes, went back out and together we put them into the big cardboard box. 



On the short walk home, I told him a few more things about the process of voting and how it all works. He listened attentively, asked a few questions, and we had a good discussion. When we got home, his little brother was eating breakfast and he was very upset that we'd gone without him. So I told him that he could go help his mommy vote as soon as she was ready.

My eldest son sat down to eat his breakfast and we continued our discussion, with my youngest asking some questions too (I had to repeat the entire lesson for his benefit) and that discussion took about a half hour.

As it was concluding, I reflected on the fact that despite this not being a school day, it had probably been very educational for my sons, and that made it a good day. By the time the younger one was ready to go help his mother cast her ballot about an hour later, he was bubbling over with excitement, telling her all about what he'd learned about the democratic process. It was very cute and heartwarming.

However, I'm not just telling you this story because it's so cute and heartwarming.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says; “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up."

Being a parent is one of the most important roles anyone can have. Raising up the next generation so that they will become emotionally, psychologically, and physically healthy, as well as spiritually mature, is immeasurably important. Success in this area is vastly more important than success in one's career, ministry, or anything else.

No one says on their deathbed that they wish they'd spent more time at the office but MANY people express regret that they didn't spend more time with their children and families. But it's not just time, every single resource one has should be directed at this all-important task.

Of course, the most important lessons we must teach our children are about the Kingdom of God, the Word of God, the Body of Christ, and the roles and responsibilities each one of us has in all this. But there are also more pedestrian things we need to teach them, like the importance of etiquette, manners, and common courtesy. It also includes the basics of civilized behavior, things like eating with utensils instead of picking up food with our hands, wiping our mouths with a napkin rather than on our clothes, etc.

It also includes taking opportunities to teach them more sophisticated lessons about voting, managing money, making sacrifices for the community, setting a good example for younger people, being a good Witness for the Kingdom, etc.

In other words, if we want our children to grow up to be functional adults, contributing to both society and the Church, it won't just happen by itself. They won't learn what they need to know at school or even at the congregation. Most of the input that will go into forming them into what they will become as adults will be "caught" at home, rather than "taught" to them somewhere else.

That's the good news, and it's also the bad news. It's good because it gives us hope that our children will become what we hope they'll become despite all the negative influences they might be exposed to out there in the big, bad, scary world. But it's also bad news because it means we've got to work VERY hard and be VERY intentional to make that happen. The other bad news is that we're competing against a lot of other forces that would like our children to grow up and become something very different from what we're trying to help them become.

With all that in mind, let's zoom out and take a look at what this means for the broader societies in which we live.

Demographics is destiny

There's an old saying that "demographics is destiny". Another old saying among anthropologists and social scientists says "Civilizations will endure as long as everyday people continue to do everyday things every day."

Teaching children the things they'll need to know to carry on with a political, cultural, economic, and even religious framework when they're old enough to do so is one of those "everyday things". But for children to be taught, they must first be born.

If you want to know what the situation in a country, or a people group, will be like in a few years, all you have to do is look at the birth rate. If the birth rate is below 2.25 babies per woman, that country is in demographic decline. The lower the birth rate drops and the longer it stays low, the less of a chance that this country, culture, or entire civilizational group, will recover.

Almost every day, there's a story in my news feed about the precipitously declining birth rate in one country after another all over the world. This is true in Western democracies such as Canada and France and it's also in autocracies such as Russia and China. Some countries, notably Japan and South Korea, are simply disappearing as the number of babies born declines every single month and the number of older people who die of natural causes skyrockets.

Governments all over the world are trying all kinds of incentives to try and get young people to marry and have more children, but it's not working. Israel is the only country in the entire OECD where the birth rate is above 2.25 babies per woman.

But it's not just the OECD. The birth rate is below 2.25 babies per woman in many developing countries as well. In fact, almost the only countries in the world where it's higher than 2.25 are in highly dysfunctional places, where poverty is rampant, crime is high, educational frameworks are weak and the economic outlook is bleak.

In other words, the places in the world that export stability are shrinking demographically while the places that need help are exploding demographically. This does not bode well for the future of our planet.

How do you know if you've got a demographic problem?

The changes to a country from a low birth rate don't take long to be seen and felt. It starts when governments realize they don't need as many schools, so they start shutting schools down and laying off teachers and staff. Before long, there are not enough young people graduating from school to take job vacancies caused by older people retiring. This leads to economic contraction, which makes young couples more cautious about having babies, and so on.

This has all kinds of ripple effects.

The decline in economic activity which follows a decline in population means there's less tax revenue for governments, which means governments must either become less active or borrow more money to maintain essential functions. The longer they operate in this way, the more debt they accrue, and eventually, this debt makes everything more difficult for everyone.

(Here's a link to a website that tracks the debt burden that some of the world's biggest economies have accumulated. Make sure you're sitting down when you click on this link, and if you have heart and/or blood pressure issues maybe just don't even click on it at all.)

Some countries try to solve the problem of not enough babies being born by importing immigrants from other countries. If managed properly, this can work. If it's barely managed at all, which is what we see in most countries today which are experiencing a large influx of immigrants from other countries, then it just leads to additional pressure on the system. Soon, all kinds of things start changing, mostly for the worse as the system becomes more and more dysfunctional. If this goes on long enough, it can lead to the system collapsing.

This has happened several times throughout human history, on every continent where human beings have built civilizational units. There is absolutely nothing special about the period of history we're living in that makes it impossible for this to happen to us.

What is to be done?

It's easy to feel helpless in the face of this demographic train wreck which now seems all but inevitable. But as is true with so many other things, most of us can't do much about the big-picture stuff. All we can (and MUST) do is pray for those who DO have some power over these issues.

But we CAN (and MUST) take responsibility for our own immediate surroundings, especially our own children. As Deuteronomy 6:6-7 says, we must always be on the lookout for opportunities to teach our children, to give them an identity, to let them know who they are (and just as importantly, who they are NOT) and what God wants and expects from them. This includes teachable moments about both spiritual and secular subjects.

Most of all, we need to simply spend time with our children, acting the way we want them to act, speaking the way we want them to speak, and showing them how it's done.

If your children have friends, make sure those friends know they're welcome in your home, and be as kind to them as you can. They might be from a broken and/or dysfunctional home, so being in your home might be the only opportunity they will ever have to see what a functional home and family look like.

Volunteer to coach sports teams, lead scout troops, go to PTA meetings, and otherwise be intentional about helping the next generation. The kids you help by doing this will be the adults your own children live with when they're grown up. One of them might even be the person your child marries someday.

To sum up brothers and sisters, demographics is destiny. In order for your country, your city, your church, your community, and even your own family, to have a good destiny, it will take a consistent and intentional effort on your part to invest your time, money, effort, and energy into helping the next generation. It won't happen by itself, and you can't leave this work to someone else. You have to be in daily prayer and do as much more beyond that as you possibly can.

Look for opportunities to teach the young, nurture them, and help them in every way you can. Everyone can do something.

I'll end with a footnote on this topic.

A year ago my son wanted a dog for his birthday. I had resisted the idea for a long time because I didn't want the hassles and expense. But my son had been praying earnestly for over two years that I would let him have a dog, and when my wife told me that I couldn't say no anymore.

It has ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made. This little dog has been a huge blessing to everyone in our family. My sons are enjoying their childhoods much more because of her, my wife loves having another girl around the house and I've just simply fallen head over heels in love with my furry little four-legged daughter.

So if you want to bless your children, a good place to start is by getting a dog.




Appending "You might like" to each post.