THE ONE YEAR ILLUSTRATIONS CLUB

Crucifixion: Jesus Faced a Horrible Death Crucifixion sometimes began with a scourging or flogging of the victim’s back. The Romans used a whip called a flagrum, which consisted of small pieces of bone and metal attached to a number of leather strands. The number of blows given to Jesus is not recorded; however, the number of blows in Jewish law was 39 (one less than the 40 called for in the Torah, to prevent a counting error). During the scourging, the skin was ripped from the back, exposing a bloody mass of tissue and bone. Extreme blood loss occurred, often causing death, or at least unconsciousness. In addition to the flogging, Jesus faced severe beating and torment by the Roman soldiers, including the plucking of His beard and the piercing of His scalp with a crown of thorns. After the flogging, the victim was often forced to carry his own crossbar, or patibulum, to the execution site. The patibulum could easily weigh 100 pounds. In the case of Jesus, the record shows that H...

The original seven page pitch for friends described the show as a comedy about six people in their 20’s who hang out at this coffee house. As a concept, it didn’t exactly scream success. But as we now know, friends turned out to be one of the most successful sitcoms ever produced. The success of friends is no secret. The simple ideal that each one of us wishes we had the friends and comradery displayed in the weekly episodes. Somehow each week, we could get lost, into a TV, into a world of a virtue of long lost, “friends”.   In today’s day and age, with the business of life and hectic pace we live, friends is a by gone era, but the days of friends and being able to get lost in this surreal environment where friendships were still vital and cherished, this was and still is the secret of the sitcom. Officially it has ended, but unofficially, friends lives on. Next year marks the 20 th anniversary of the first episode of Friends and ten years since the show officially ended. I say ...

Paul Chudnow, 71 and Phyllis Chudnow, also 71 decide after 50 years to get hitched for another 50. The mood was lighthearted before the 7:30 p.m. service. "I figured if you can last 50 years, you might as well look for another [50 years]," said Phyllis Chudnow, 71, who will be married to Paul Chudnow, 71, for 51 years in June. "It's something to celebrate," Paul said. The couple lives in Fort Lauderdale . What happened 50 years ago I’m sure is very special to this couple, but even more special, even more meaningful, is that 51 years later, whatever they felt, whatever moment they had, 51 years ago, it’s still going on 51 years later! This couple, “has it going on” beyond what any deluded teenager thinks about “how they have it going on”, this is the real deal!

The church is not salvation, yet membership in a confessing body is fundamental to the faithful Christian life. Failure to do so defies the explicit warning not to forsake "our assembling together." His understanding of this prompted Martin Luther to say, "Apart from the church, salvation is impossible." Not that the church provides salvation; God does. But because the "saved" one can't fulfill what it means to be a Christian apart from the church, membership becomes the indispensable mark of salvation. "So highly does the Lord esteem the communion of His church," Calvin wrote," that He considers everyone a traitor and apostate from religion who perversely withdraws himself from any Christian society which preserves the true ministry of the word and sacraments." Charles W. Colson, The Body 1992 Word Publising

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. Ever get to church and wish you could just stay in the car? Here, you can. What was once the Neptune Drive-In Theater IS NOW the Daytona Beach Drive-In Christian Church AND allows families to sit in their cars and worship beneath the Florida sky. "We worship just like anyone else does, we just do it outdoors," and inside our cars. Sometimes you're not in the mood for people or shaking hands and this avoids, frivolous and meaningless greetings and small talk with people you don't really know.

On June 6, 1944, now known to history as D-Day, Operation Overlord , the long-awaited invasion of Northwest Europe, began with Allied landings on the coast of Normandy . The task was formidable for the Germans had turned the coastline into a continuous fortress with guns, pillboxes, wire, mines and beach obstacles - and on it depended the outcome of the war. Following an all-night bombardment of the assault areas, the Allies attacked "Fortress Europe" on a five-division front, and troops from three airborne divisions descended by parachute and glider on the flanks of the invasion area. Ahead lay more fighting - very bitter fighting The day of Victory in Europe was still 11 months away. Arlington cemetery was built, in honor of the soldiers that lost their lives in war for freedom But also in hope that we would not forget those that laid down their lives for the freedom of others; That they not be forgotten and their death be in vain. And there is another who ...

PARIS, France -- An elderly man who was declared dead only to be found to be alive after his body had been sent to the mortuary, has died again. This time, it's official. The unnamed 68-year-old Frenchman was mistakenly declared dead last week at a rest home near the southwest city of Bordeaux.  A doctor called to the home issued a death certificate and the 'body' was then sent to a funeral parlour in nearby Macau, where it was refrigerated for five hours.  An employee at the funeral parlor was preparing the body for burial when he discovered signs of life. "When I ... opened the cover, I saw that his stomach was moving," said Laurent Besson on France-2 television. "I don't deny that I jumped."  The elderly man was transferred to the Bordeaux University Hospital and placed in intensive care.

Eyes make us blind, not the heart. If I were blind, I would not be jealous of my neighbor’s fine house, If I were blind I would not be jealous of their fine car, nor their lovely furniture If I were blind I would not be jealous of his fine wife, but because I see, my jealousy is fueled. Why do they have, what I don’t have! Surely our creator new from the beginning that his creation would struggle with jealousy… “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house, nor his Ox, nor his wife, nor anything else of thy neighbor” We have broken this rule over and over to the point where men have done cruel things, to go after the very things and/or people that God told them, not to be jealous over.

Two shopkeepers were bitter rivals. Their stores were directly across the street from each other, and they would spend each day keeping track of each other's business. If one got a customer, he would smile in triumph at his rival. One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, "I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. Would you be rich? You can be very rich, but he will be twice as wealthy. Do you wish to live a long and healthy life? You can, but his life will be longer and healthier. What is your desire?" And be careful because he will get a double portion. The man frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, "Here is my request: Strike me blind in one eye!" Thomas Lindberg.

The most spiritual man in the world still has to do income tax returns, clip his toe nails, has to sleep, do 1 year old birthday parties etc…etc….The most spiritual man/woman in the world must still traffic in the mundane and shallow. The oceans are great, but they are also both deep and shallow. We traffic in both the shallow and the deep and the man that learns to do both,….is wise!

In 1986 Mark Sanderlin had a mountain top experience, he just had this great experience, felt the presence of God and felt impressed that he would one day preach to the nations; by the end of that year, Mark had obtained passports for everyone in his family to be ready for what God would do. 1987 not much had changed, Mark worked a job, he was a repo man and it was business as usual. In 1990, 4 yrs later, Mark is still in the church, working a job, raising kids, etc…but he still has the vision. Before Mark knew it, 10yrs had passed, his passports were expired, he had not once used them once ! But during those 10 yrs., he never lost the vision. The most amazing thing was, in 1996 the passports came due for expiration and Mark Sanderlin had to make a decision. Do I renew these passports or let them expire? Mark renewed all four passports. To make a long story short, in 1998 mark was pastoring in California and in 2000 he was evangelizing in the U.S. and from 2001-2004 he evangelized al...

When it comes to being pure and completely undefiled by bitterness, we have to look at the Dove and Jesus. Luke 3:21-22 “when all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove.” Jesus did not have a raven, a crow or even an eagle descend on Him, but a white dove. The bird, of course, He (Jesus) created and knows every attribute about it. The gall bladder, that holds all the deadly toxins & poisons are person consumes through food. The dove is one of the rare birds that has no gall bladder. It not only has no gall bladder, symbolic of who the bird is, because the bird also has no gall. No gall = no bitterness; as most birds do, term "pecking order". The dove is a unique bird, a bird of peace, no retaliation. An Eagle is a cool bird, but Jesus chose the dove because it was the embodiment of who He would need to be. Jesus, would have to be a man, with no ga...

Late founder of Little Caesars Mike Ilitch quietly paid Rosa Parks' rent for years.      Little Caesars founder and sports team owner Mike Ilitch was known for his number of contributions to the Detroit community, but many were unaware he quietly helped a civil rights icon. Mike Ilitch, who owned the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings, passed away at the age of 87.      It was revealed in an article published by the Sports Business Daily in 2014 that Ilitch had paid for Rosa Parks' apartment for more than a decade until her death in 2005.  Federal judge Damon Keith showed the Sports Business Daily a $2,000 check from Little Caesars Enterprises made out to Riverfront Apartments and dated November 1994. Parks had been mugged and robbed by a burglar at her Detroit home in August of 1994. Keith told the Sports Business Daily he vowed with real estate developer Alfred Taubman to find Parks a safer home.      What contributions, generosity,...

The Civil War took place in 1861, when southern slave holding states, fearing the institution of slavery was under threat in a nation governed by the northern free states, 11 states (North & South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee) seceded from the U.S. after the election of president Abraham Lincoln. The southern slave states of the south got wind of Abraham Lincoln wanting to abolish the slave trade and succeeded or tried to succeed from the U.S. union, thence the Civil War. In Abraham Lincolns’ second inaugural address he said, “with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. An estimated 750,000 A...

My wife Mary and I recently had dinner with a longtime friend and surgeon. Clark is a rising star in the medical profession, god looking, wealthy, and a great deal of fun to be around. He has been searching for a wife for nearly twenty years. Since my wife and I agree that most women would classify Clark as quite a catch, I asked why he hadn’t found someone. Clark’s response astonished me. He told us that he dates women frequently, but the relationships always seem to end the same way. He said, “all the women I meet don’t just have emotional baggage, they have cargo! Clark who loves to laugh and enjoy life to the fullest, seems to find himself repeatedly in relationships with women whose lives are entrenched in deeply toxic emotions: resentment and bitterness, anxiety and fear owing to past experiences, depression, grief, gloom, and despair. After Clark had told us of several experiences, he held his arms over his black curly hair and boomed out in his deep voice, “isn’t anyone happy a...

What happens when you strap yourself to a billowy cape and jump off the Eiffel Tower? Exactly what you think will happen – though nobody warned tailor Franz Reichelt, who dreamed of inventing a fashion accessory that would allow users to float safely from great heights. Everyone tried telling Franz he was loon but undeterred, he planned to demonstrate his “coat parachute” by leaping off the Eiffel Tower in 1912. Four seconds later, the tailor reached a descent velocity of 128ft per second, before splatting to the ground. Luckily for us, Franz’s ludicrous “I-Fell Tower” attempt was captured on video, and would presumably have been a huge viral hit, had YouTube been around 95 years ago.

It wasn’t until this past century where heart transplants were becoming a more common and successful occurrences, that doctors began to take notice. Of a phenomena that was taken place inside of the patients that were receiving somebody else’s heart. Numerous stories have been chronicled since the procedures starting taking place. One of the cases was with David waters. David waters after receiving his heart transplant found himself developing a new craving for a snack food, a snack food he had never heard of before. Just like the young man whose heart now beats in his chest. Mr. Waters 24, cannot stop eating an Australian made snack food called burger rings, and he has now found out that the teenager whose heart he received was always eating the same snack. In another example, an eight year old girl received the heart of another ten year old that had die. A short time after the heart transplant, the young recipient of the heart began having terrifying dreams about a man murdering her....

If only I hadn’t left the house that night in a fit of rage If only I hadn’t gone to the bar that night If only I hadn’t drank so much If only I had called a cab If only I hadn’t driven so fast I might have been able to stop If only, If only I was the one that had died Instead, I killed an unsuspecting mom and dad Coming home from an innocent night out And left two kids without parents If only, if only will be the words that haunt me to the day I die, how I hate those words, the echo in my mind every day, if only.

Job Shaming ….Owens who played Elvin Tibideaux, the son-in-law of Bill Cosby's character, during the final five seasons of The Cosby Show which aired between 1985 and 1992 was caught working at Trader Joe’s in New Jersey, the picture quickly surfaced on social media and the Job shaming begun. I was really devastated about the reporting of his job. Owens - who has worked on TV shows It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and That's So Raven - said he had worked at Trader Joe's in Clifton, New Jersey for 15 months. He added that he had been recognized by shoppers several times previously. No job is better than another job, I did what I had to do. Body Shaming ….After a tabloid published paparazzi photos of Tyra Banks on the beach criticizing her body, or body shaming, as it has come to be know, Tyra Banks made talk-show history with her moving response. She told off the haters in front of the live Tyra audience with the now-famous line, "Kiss my fat ass!" It's b...

In jury selection, The key in voir dire is to identify extremists and understand what it will take to satisfy those who are left and to make sure that you are left with jurors that will be fair and impartial and unbiased towards your client. A surgeon sits at the defense table on the first day of her malpractice trial. Looking at a jury that includes a retired data entry clerk, a bus driver, a construction worker, college student, a housewife, a mother who lost a son in a previous malpractice suit, a motorcycle mechanic and an accountant – but no doctors, no nurses, nobody in the medical profession – she whispers to her attorney, “This is not a jury of my peers!” Jury selection certainly can have dire consequences. A case can be won or lost in voir dire. All you need is one or two strident enemy jurors sitting in that jury, to pull you down. If you can prove you had an enemy in the jury, you are almost guaranteed to have a mis-trial. Imagine if you were in court for a sin you committe...