When life feels heavy, blessings can feel hidden. This prayer helps you find God’s goodness, even in the hardest seasons.

At the end of every day when it's time to go to bed, there’s nothing better we can do than to give it all to God. To lay down our worries and cares. To thank him for his blessings and his presence through every hour of the day. To recognize the ways he’s led us, offered protection over our families, and provided for our needs. And though often we know that to be true, it can be difficult to really let everything go. Or we forget to even give him thanks for the constant way he’s at work in our lives.We carry the worries and stress straight to bed with us. We hold on to the wounds and hurt feelings. We wrestle for sleep but can’t seem to turn off the spinning thoughts of to-do lists, schedules, and what we still need to get done for tomorrow. There is no better place to turn than a bedtime prayer to surrender and let God be God.

It’s never been easy being a kid—but today’s culture brings some different challenges than in generations past. As parents, we long to protect our children from hard times, but those hardships are what develop their character and their dependence on the Lord. Jesus promised us that we will struggle on this journey on earth. No one is exempt. John 16:33 says, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”As tempting as it is to try to keep our children’s lives easy, it’s a lot more productive to acknowledge their struggles, point them toward Christ, and walk with them through their trials. We can’t make all their problems go away, but we can lead and offer guidance as parents. But to do so effectively, we must first know what our kids are facing today. While the wisdom of Solomon remains true—there is nothing new under the sun—being a kid or teen in today’s society does present some unique elements. Our children are facing more challenges with peer pressure, cancel culture, and technology overall that is somewhat unfamiliar to our own childhood experiences. Here are eight things kids are most anxious about these days:Photo Credit: © Pexels/Cottonbro

Embracing gratitude as a daily practice allows us to discover that the ordinary is, in fact, extraordinary. Every moment is a gift, and with a grateful heart, you can savor the beauty and wonder of each day.

constantly changing circumstances

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Four early medieval spears, including one so finely decorated that it could be of princely origin, have been recovered from the bed of Lake Lednica. Dendrological analysis and radiocarbon dating found that the spears date to the second half of the 10th and first half of the 11th century. A Piast dynasty stronghold was located on Ostrów Lednicki, an island on Lake Lednica. More than 280 military artifacts, including 145 axes, 64 spearheads, and 8 swords, from the reigns of Piast dynasty kings Mieszko I (r. ca. 960-992) and Bolesław the Brave (992-1025) have been recovered from the lake bed, the largest collection of early medieval weaponry ever discovered at a single site. Scientists have two leading theories as to why so many weapons ended up in the lake. They may have fallen into the lake during the battles for the Lednica stronghold, fought on the bridges during the invasion of Poland by the Czech prince Bretislaus in the 1130s. The second hypothesis, a ritual one, posits that the weapons were placed in the water as an offering to deities or spirits. “Such practices are known from earlier periods in many places in Europe. Water was perceived as a gateway to the world of the dead, and throwing a valuable object into it was a gesture with profound symbolic meaning. It is possible that the arsenal gathered at the bottom of the lake is an echo of both turbulent historical events and ancient beliefs,” the [Museum of the First Piasts in Lednica] said. The four spears discovered this season are very different from each other and have their own unique features. The smallest spearhead is rhomboidal in shape and was found still mounted to its wooden shaft. The shaft is made of ash and survives in several pieces totalling approximately 2.1 meters (6’11”) in length. Only two spears from Lake Lednica have such a well-preserved shaft, and they are longer exceeding three meters in length. The tip has a ring made of antler, a feature never found before in a medieval spear. The second spearhead is longer and slender and is shaped like a willow leaf, a common design in early medieval weaponry. It too has a section of surviving shaft. The spearhead is decorated with a serpentine line of wolf teeth on both sides. Several examples of spearheads of this type have been found in Lake Lednica, indicating they may have been manufactured locally. The third spearhead is the longest of the four and has a triangular profile. It was made using a welded technique that repeatedly forged together soft, low-carbon iron alloys with hard, high-carbon alloys for added strength. This was the apex of combat forging technology in Europe at the time. It too is decorated with the wolf teeth design. Only a few fragments of the wooden shaft have survived. The fourth is the most spectacular of them all. It is decorated along the blade with spiral and triskelion motifs and set in a socket that is decorated with the same motifs. There are wings decorated with braided designs mounted to the socket. The ends are pointed, and may represent stylized claws or beaks. Rows of small dots fill in the space between the woven braid edges. The remnants of bronze plating are still visible, but researchers found traces of no fewer than six metals in the spearhead: silver, gold, copper, tin, zinc, lead and alloys thereof. Three examples of spears with similar ornamentation have been found in the lake, but none of them have this specimen’s incredible panoply of precious metals. This is so exceptional an object that it may have been the insignia of royalty or nobility rather than a use weapon, or perhaps had a ritual purpose. The discovered artifacts, especially the richly decorated princely spearhead, require further research. This will help determine the production technology. Isotope analyses of selected metals found on the princely spear are also planned to determine their origin, which could help determine the origin of this prestigious item. When conservation is complete, the spearheads will go on display at the Museum of the First Piast Dynasty in Lednica.

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