Woman who died alone while fasting was following God’s call, husband says
BARTOW — Evelyn Boyd was on a mission to pray — for her husband, her church, her city, the nation and the president.
So on Feb. 7, she locked herself in a bedroom to pray and fast. She brought water and prayer requests and told her husband not to bother her.
“This is what I have to do,” she told him.
For more than three weeks, Boyd, 55, didn’t emerge. Her family could have come to her aid if she needed help, but her husband wanted to respect her wish to be alone. He figured she’d be okay, just like the last four times she fasted.
But on the 26th day, family members forced the door open. They found her dead.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office says it appears she died because of the fast. Deputies don’t plan to file charges because they believe she fasted willingly and her family said she was mentally sound, Sheriff Grady Judd said.
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God Cares
A new Canadian study sheds light on why: the vast majority of Americans believe God is directly concerned with their personal affairs, with most assuming a divine reason for everything from job promotions to speeding tickets.
“In American culture — much less so in Canada — there’s a really constant flow of God-talk that references these small, personal interactions. It’s almost like a self-absorbed view of divine will,” says study author Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto.
“The extent that it’s so visible, almost saturating the culture at times, makes me think it’s not just metaphor or symbolism; many, many people believe these processes are real.”
Eight in 10 Americans say they depend on God for decision-making guidance.
Seven in 10 believe that when good or bad things happen, the occurrences are part of God’s plan.
And six in 10 believe God has set the course of their lives.
The study, published in the March issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, is generating considerable buzz online — much of it linked to Schieman’s finding that a third of Americans agree with the rather defeatist statement: “There’s no sense in planning a lot because ultimately my fate is in God’s hands.”
Bag of Randomness
- If there is one thing that WifeGeeding loves about being pregnant, it’s the ability to place a cup or bowl on her stomach. In this case, she’s eating graham crackers with milk.
- Most of our weekend was spent at a “Prepared Childbirth” class at the hospital we plan on delivering at. Overall it was very helpful and answered a lot of questions covering vaginal births, c-sections, epidurals, breastfeeding, and just about everything else that deals with the delivery of a baby and came complete with a tour of all the facilities.
- Several doctors also spoke and answered our questions. From what I remember, a delivery
doc, anesthesiologist, and a pediatrician spoke. - I don’t think I heard the word “vagina” or its variations so much in my life in such a short timespan.
- When the class gather all of us sat in chairs that were positioned in a horseshoe type fashion and as we were going through introductions and each couple stated what they were having, a boy or a girl. Turns out, without any prior planning as we got to choose our own seats, all the expecting boy-couples sat on one side and all the expecting girl-couples sat directly opposite, so the room was divided equally.
- It’s interesting to see how people dress coming to these things. For instance, there was this one diva you came in overly dressed when everyone else was wearing shorts, jeans, and athletic wear. When it came time asking who was considering umbilical cord blood blanking, they were the only couple.
- One question that I thought was a little silly for some of the couples to ask was “Is this your first?” because if you already had kids, you really didn’t need the class. I guess I could see reasons why, but the class is designed for first time parents.
- Of all the couples in the room, only one did not have a husband or male partner, but instead had her mother attend. From the looks of it, and I could be wrong, but it looks like she is going to be a young single mother.
- That mother was quite interesting. She sounded like she smoked a pack of cigarettes and hour and walked in with a matching Harley-Davidson pillow and blanket. For instance there was this one part of class that each couple was given a bag at random, and as went around one-by-one pulling the item out of the bag and discussed how we might use that item for post-delivery stuff. During that time, HarleyMom pulled out a cold compressed and said, word for word, “Oh, this is what you need to put on your taint when you get home from the hospital.”
- You can tell most of the room was trying to keep from laughing, except for WifeGeeding, who actually had to excuse herself from the room because she was laughing so hard.
- The instructor, who was a bit older, had a puzzled look on her face, and said, “Taint . . . I don’t think I ever heard that word before.” She even used the word a few times, as if she didn’t want HarleyMom to feel uncomfortable blurting it out.
- HarleyMom continued to use that word about four more times that day to the chagrin of her daughter.
- It was all reminiscent of this scene in the movie Baby Mama.
- One thing I really didn’t know, or even considered to think about, was that the mamma actually poos during delivery but more than likely never realizes it. Isn’t nature beautiful.
- I noticed there is not as much hand-sanitizer as there use to be, I guess that’s because it’s no longer flu season and the swine flu is pretty much controlled.
- We finally registered for some baby stuff.
- I watched the first episode of the HBO mini-series The Pacific. Darn fine stuff.
- I also caught Celebrity Apprentice as well, and I admit, I like it.
- Man, I had some crazy Glenn Beck comments the other day.
- Peter Graves, I loved you in Airplane!. RIP.
- Agassi and Samprass played in a celebrity tournament with Nadal and Federer as partners. The players are mic’d, and things get a bit competitive and testy. YouTube
- The education department is buying 27 shotguns
- Clips like this makes me want to find stuff around the house and take it to Antique Road Show. I love her reaction when she gets the grand total . . . damn.
- Speaking of education, here’s an update on what the conservative Texas education board decided on curriculum.
- I think my wife wants this Mario shelf
- Best Jobs in America
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