Newness of Life

 (This is the first post that I wrote on my blog, Prodigal Daughter, in 2008.) I want to share with you my testimony. This is a story of my weakness, and God’s strength. I feel the need to get my story on paper, to have it available to others who are struggling to obey the Lord. I want to tell this story while I still have the chance, for in reality, it is not my story. This story is the story of God’s love and God’s power. I pray that it will find its way to those who need to hear it the most. My story will not appeal to the one who feels strong in himself. He may frown upon this testimony because of the depth of my weakness. I would have felt the same way had I not fallen to the depths that I did-and discovered that it is truly by grace that I stand. The other type of individual who will not benefit from this story is the one who is not concerned about knowing God, or the one who may be seeking an excuse for his sin. But honestly, I am not concerned about the first two. Someone else

  The entire globe is held in the iron-clad grip of a global pandemic. This life altering virus has brought the world to a screeching halt as the earth reels under its cold, dark shadow. Recently, I began to really wonder about the name, Coronavirus. Where did it originate? Who named it? What I found was interesting. There may be more to the name of this virus than first meets the eye. Just like everything else about 2020 and beyond, one must look beneath the surface to understand. The word corona is of Latin origin meaning “crown.”   It was coined by a Spanish astronomer, Jose Joaguin de Ferrer y Cafranga   (1763-1818) who journeyed to New York to observe a total solar eclipse in 1806.   Due to its crown-like appearance, Jose named the spikes of light appearing around the eclipsed sun, “corona.”  The first coronavirus was identified and named in 1968 by a team of 8 researchers at the Common Cold Clinic in Wiltshire, England.  The researchers named the new virus, never before ident