My faith was really ignited and became the center point of my life through difficult experiences in my early teens. My family lived next door to my mother's parents, her mother passed away in 2012 and her father passed in 2014. After my grandfather's death, many issues arose in the family that remain unresolved to this day. About the same time I started getting very ill and doctors were unable to find anything wrong with me. For about a year and half I no longer did school, any extra curricular activities, or attended church. I was incapable of sitting up for more than a few minutes at a time so I spent most of my days laying around my home, staring at the walls. I experienced many dark emotions during this time period, giving into the delusion that I would forever remain ill and there was no hope for me; it was only because I was seeking an answer from man and not from God. When I finally started praying again, even if it was half-heartedly at first, things started to change. Shortly after that is when we discovered the issue was auto immune and I started taking a supplement to balance out my immune system. A year later and I am better than I have ever been before, not due to my phyiscal healing but to the spirtual. I struggle some days to accept that what God has brought me through is for a purpose too great for me to understand, but the fact that He has brought me this far assures me that He is not going to leave me now. I am grateful to both you and Christian and everyone at Y2AM for helping me as I continue on my path to and with Christ. May God bless you and your ministry, I pray He guides you through all difficulties the way He has guided me. Blessed Holy Wednesday!
Thank you for sharing this beautiful reflection, Eleni! May God continue to give you good strength, both physical and spiritual, and every blessing! Please pray for us!
God came to me through a chaplain. The chaplain came to see me, without knowing me while i was thinking about suicide. He listened to me and shared my pain. He came to tell me that there is always hope and that i may rise from where i was. Christ, through that chaplain, showed me the Way, the Truth and the Life. Lord, please, bless and help my friend and your servant Padré Doiron through all the hardship of his ministry he is doing in Your Holy Name! Please Lord, help him bear his daily cross. Amen!
+Maria Michaelides if you're at all struggling, I strongly urge you to reach out to the Crisis Text Line immediately: Text 741-741. www.crisistextline.org/
Long time viewer but I usually don't comment but I want you to know how important this is to me, my wife, and the many other orthodox Christians for learning and understanding our union with God. Thank you so much and God bless you.
I was at a national competition in year 10 during the Holy Week. Away from home, tired out, anxious and disappointed with my performance, I entered a church and started crying. I didn't pray, I didn't really know how to, so I just cried. Returning on campus, I found out that my peers had befriended a couple of other students from the halls, so I had to join the larger group. They were all so considerate, kind and funny - not a word was spoken about the competition, nobody was being wicked, judgmental, arrogant or a bully. And for once I wasn't thinking about correct answers or prizes, I was making friends! Christ has shown me what it was like to befriend somebody, keep in touch, miss your peers and make the effort to meet your friends again. And I didn't even know how to ask for it! When I heard about Be the Bee, I realised that it was exactly what God wanted me to see: that there is good in everyone, and that you don't have to fear that people have bad qualities even before you meet them. Now it makes sense (in this respect).
I would just like to say that this video ties into my life. i remember someone telling me, because i was presented with a "homework" task. I have to write this journal about "who am I?". i appreciate this videos. thank you for being live. thank you for doing this wonderful work. thank you for sharing.
I'm his rebel son, the wolf in the family & yet he never leaves me. he is my only peace and the only one that makes the world make sense to me. He never gives up on me despite my rebelión.
We've still got a lot going on! Christian has been going great work with our podcasts in particular: www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/weareorthodoxy www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/popculture
God is in the Person asking the Question: Who do you say that I am? The Orthodox Christian often misses making the point that is plain as day, but somehow not understood. Christ is God, in the flesh, in living Personhood with our human nature reconciled in Him and in fullness of both human and Divine natures. Why is this difficult to say in lessons for our little ones? Referring to the OT is fine, but even here we see the pre-incarnate Word of God Who created Mankind and speaks with us in His Holy Scriptures, through prophets and patriarchs; we cannot ignore His presence. Perhaps you can reconsider the "Bee questions", directing the answers to the Lord Jesus Christ, both God and Man (the "God-Man"). Otherwise, as an Orthodox theologian, I don't understand the obvious missing "link" to the "Who is God" question: the very Person of God in the flesh Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Forgive me, I'm not following. The question is a personal one, directed at us each: who do you say that I (Christ) am. That's inherently tied to one's particular story and relationship. Of course Christ is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. But we don't come to know that as an academic fact. We know that in relationship, in the way He's come to us, in the ways our lives relate to the larger story of salvation history. Just like everyone who we read about in the Gospels confessed the Lord after an encounter, an experience, whether a miracle or not. Your comment alluded to this larger story, too: Christ is the very Lord expressed in the Scripture, who spoke through the prophets.
My faith was really ignited and became the center point of my life through difficult experiences in my early teens. My family lived next door to my mother's parents, her mother passed away in 2012 and her father passed in 2014. After my grandfather's death, many issues arose in the family that remain unresolved to this day. About the same time I started getting very ill and doctors were unable to find anything wrong with me. For about a year and half I no longer did school, any extra curricular activities, or attended church. I was incapable of sitting up for more than a few minutes at a time so I spent most of my days laying around my home, staring at the walls. I experienced many dark emotions during this time period, giving into the delusion that I would forever remain ill and there was no hope for me; it was only because I was seeking an answer from man and not from God. When I finally started praying again, even if it was half-heartedly at first, things started to change. Shortly after that is when we discovered the issue was auto immune and I started taking a supplement to balance out my immune system. A year later and I am better than I have ever been before, not due to my phyiscal healing but to the spirtual. I struggle some days to accept that what God has brought me through is for a purpose too great for me to understand, but the fact that He has brought me this far assures me that He is not going to leave me now. I am grateful to both you and Christian and everyone at Y2AM for helping me as I continue on my path to and with Christ. May God bless you and your ministry, I pray He guides you through all difficulties the way He has guided me. Blessed Holy Wednesday!
Thank you for sharing this beautiful reflection, Eleni! May God continue to give you good strength, both physical and spiritual, and every blessing!
Please pray for us!
Eleni Sfanos PS can we send you a t-shirt or mug or something to say thanks? Email us at Y2AM [at] GOARCH [dot] org
These videos just keep getting better and better! Keep up the good work you two!
God came to me through a chaplain. The chaplain came to see me, without knowing me while i was thinking about suicide. He listened to me and shared my pain. He came to tell me that there is always hope and that i may rise from where i was. Christ, through that chaplain, showed me the Way, the Truth and the Life. Lord, please, bless and help my friend and your servant Padré Doiron through all the hardship of his ministry he is doing in Your Holy Name! Please Lord, help him bear his daily cross. Amen!
today you helped someone else who contemplated suicide. God bless you
Maria Michaelides
All glory goes to God. If you need to talk, please PM me. May the Theotokos protect you. Lord have mercy on us.
+Maria Michaelides if you're at all struggling, I strongly urge you to reach out to the Crisis Text Line immediately:
Text 741-741.
www.crisistextline.org/
Long time viewer but I usually don't comment but I want you to know how important this is to me, my wife, and the many other orthodox Christians for learning and understanding our union with God. Thank you so much and God bless you.
Thanks +Demetrios Manos! Please pray for us. May God grant you and your wife good strength during Great Lent!
Thank you!
I was at a national competition in year 10 during the Holy Week. Away from home, tired out, anxious and disappointed with my performance, I entered a church and started crying. I didn't pray, I didn't really know how to, so I just cried. Returning on campus, I found out that my peers had befriended a couple of other students from the halls, so I had to join the larger group. They were all so considerate, kind and funny - not a word was spoken about the competition, nobody was being wicked, judgmental, arrogant or a bully. And for once I wasn't thinking about correct answers or prizes, I was making friends! Christ has shown me what it was like to befriend somebody, keep in touch, miss your peers and make the effort to meet your friends again. And I didn't even know how to ask for it! When I heard about Be the Bee, I realised that it was exactly what God wanted me to see: that there is good in everyone, and that you don't have to fear that people have bad qualities even before you meet them. Now it makes sense (in this respect).
+Miru Be Glory to God!
Glory be to God for all things!!
+Linda Boutris Amen!
Christ came to me as a light in the darkness
He came to me through my brother. God is Good
Amen!
That moment when Our Lady of Guadalupe and Martin de Porres get featured in an Orthodox video. Nice
I would just like to say that this video ties into my life. i remember someone telling me, because i was presented with a "homework" task. I have to write this journal about "who am I?". i appreciate this videos. thank you for being live. thank you for doing this wonderful work. thank you for sharing.
Thanks for making these!
I'm his rebel son, the wolf in the family & yet he never leaves me. he is my only peace and the only one that makes the world make sense to me. He never gives up on me despite my rebelión.
Well, God answered a fairly direct prayer and then proceeded to keep me alive for nigh on a year.
Lord have mercy!
Steven Christoforou God Bless!
Need both you and Christian back again...🤓🤓🤓
We've still got a lot going on! Christian has been going great work with our podcasts in particular:
www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/weareorthodoxy
www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/popculture
That's a picture of our lady of Guadalupe in the thumbnail !!! I wonder if western Christians know about the miracle of holy light in the holy land
I would like more depth. I have taken probably a hundred hours of ancient Christianity given by Ryan Reaves doctor Ryan Reaves use me.
God is in the Person asking the Question: Who do you say that I am? The Orthodox Christian often misses making the point that is plain as day, but somehow not understood. Christ is God, in the flesh, in living Personhood with our human nature reconciled in Him and in fullness of both human and Divine natures. Why is this difficult to say in lessons for our little ones? Referring to the OT is fine, but even here we see the pre-incarnate Word of God Who created Mankind and speaks with us in His Holy Scriptures, through prophets and patriarchs; we cannot ignore His presence. Perhaps you can reconsider the "Bee questions", directing the answers to the Lord Jesus Christ, both God and Man (the "God-Man"). Otherwise, as an Orthodox theologian, I don't understand the obvious missing "link" to the "Who is God" question: the very Person of God in the flesh Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
Forgive me, I'm not following. The question is a personal one, directed at us each: who do you say that I (Christ) am. That's inherently tied to one's particular story and relationship.
Of course Christ is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. But we don't come to know that as an academic fact. We know that in relationship, in the way He's come to us, in the ways our lives relate to the larger story of salvation history. Just like everyone who we read about in the Gospels confessed the Lord after an encounter, an experience, whether a miracle or not.
Your comment alluded to this larger story, too: Christ is the very Lord expressed in the Scripture, who spoke through the prophets.