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Mind-blowing love
Anna Linden's core of strength is her faith in God. “I never deserved the love that he gives me! I’m not worthy of it. And despite all that, he still died for me. It just blows my mind,” she says. Read her "Confessions of faith" story written by Ann Jahns.
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Grace—God’s unconditional, undeserved love—is a concept that used to be foreign to Anna Linden (pictured above with her two daughters). Now it is a familiar concept: She receives grace from her heavenly Father and gives it to those she encounters in her life and work.
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Anna was born and raised in Belarus, an Eastern European country within the shadow of the former Soviet Union. Church wasn’t a part of her upbringing, and she didn’t have friends or relatives who had Christian faith. In fact, in her family, religion was “frowned upon.” The “pomp and tradition” of religion was something to distrust.
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Pictured: (Left) Anna at age 4 in her Soviet school uniform. (Middle) Nine-year-old Anna on the first day of first grade. Note the star-shaped pin she is wearing with a photo of Lenin inside. Each year, the children moved up a step in communism, and the star was for that step. (Right) Anna with her parents in 1996, the year she moved to California for school.
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YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Maybe you’ve never had those actual words directed at you, but you’ve undoubtedly experienced the feeling when someone broke the news to you: “I’m sorry—we can keep only so many players on the team. But please come . . .
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I’m tired. The tsunami from every media platform to accept and approve feelings over God-designed biology gnaws at the edges of credulity. The crumbling of intact families. Screen goblins that capture 30-plus hours per week of kids’ attention and foster attention . . .
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Lay delegate James Lake was one of 84 men at this convention who also served as delegates in 2021. Since about 75 percent of delegates (including Lake) served virtually in 2021 due to the pandemic, all 2021 delegates were invited to serve in 2023 as well—this . . .
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