Dear LFTP: second wife, tattoo wedding bands, and combined ashes
- How can we honor our marriage vows with tattoo wedding bands and a plan to combine ashes?
A remarried woman asks how to honor her marriage vows when her husband keeps the tattooed wedding band from his late first wife, and whether she must accept his plan to combine his ashes with the first wife's. A host shares his own family's experience: his widowed mother remarried, and both partners gracefully agreed each would be buried with their first spouse. The advice: have the adult conversation, wear a ring over the tattoo or on another finger, and revisit wishes as the marriage grows. The secular answer says talk to the husband about his current wishes.
More on Grief
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Holy Spirit experience: healing, cessationism, and testing the spirits
- Is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today?
The central hard question: is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today, and what does it mean for a follower of Jesus?
From No. 593 · Do You Hear What I Hear
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Dear LFTP 3: Mom's false teeth
- What should the family do with their late mother's false teeth?
Mike reads the letter: the family found their late mother's false teeth — creepy to keep, wrong to discard?
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
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Dear LFTP: should I attend my murdered niece's funeral?
- Should I attend my murdered niece's funeral after thirty years of family estrangement?
Mike reads a letter from a woman estranged from her brother's family for thirty years whose niece was murdered by her husband in a murder-suicide.
From No. 587 · Coffee After Sunday
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Dear LFTP: AA member who witnessed a life-support withdrawal
- How do I come to terms with accidentally witnessing a fellow AA member's life-support withdrawal?
An AA member writes that while visiting a hospitalized fellow member with cookies, he arrived at the exact moment doctors withdrew life support and witnessed the family's raw grief; he now fears he intruded and caused harm.
From No. 568 · Like Jesus