Abortion Series part 4: Some thoughts on abortion and how it affects us all

I continue this series on abortion coming to a personal conclusion that deep down many, if not most, people in America – if they would examine themselves, truly believe that abortion is wrong – that many women really do struggle with deciding to have an abortion and many regret it later and that many men who say they are in favor of “women’s rights” would actually never want their own wife or girlfriend, sister or mother to actually have an abortion. So if deep down most people (I believe) truly know that a baby is what is growing and developing inside a woman’s body, then why do so many people – even women – support abortion? Why do so many people cheer when Wendy Davis filibuster’s her way to a “victory” for abortion? I believe it is called the “dumbing down” of individuals as a nation. I think it can mean dumbing in the intelligence sense, but also in the sense of silencing people.  And at the core, I believe it is all about women being in charge and not wanting to be told what to do – ever.

Abortion isn’t new. Women have been aborting babies for centuries and centuries. What is new is that not only is abortion not frowned upon in our day – it is lauded. How can men – who are supposed to be protectors –push for abortion rights? How can women – who are supposed to be nurturers –push for abortion rights? Because of the slippery slope of sin.  We have already touched on this last post, but I believe much of our push for abortion stems from this hideous thing called “feminism”. The roles of women and the roles of men have become so twisted because of it. If our nation would simply have  helped  women to stop being abused, to stop being second class citizens, to stop being degraded -  because these are women’s rights - that would have been noble, but instead women formed this monster that is a selfish, man-hating, ego-centric, twisted thing known as feminism . We said, “I am not only just as important as a man, I am better. I don’t need man, I don’t need protection and I don’t need to be told what I can and can’t do.” So women have risen to this place where we think is where we belong - at the top, looking down.  And now men are the abused, the degraded, and the second class citizen. And we think this is how it should be. 

I know some who point to the Bible and say that because it says that women are to be submissive to their husbands, it means God thinks women are second class. This is just not true. God does command women to be submissive, but God also gave the woman a place of honor. He commanded the husband to LOVE his wife and to “dwell with her in understanding”. That doesn’t sound abusive, manipulative, or degrading to me. In fact, it sounds pretty wonderful.  I used the illustration of the printer last post – that the ink and the paper are equally important but have different roles. So let’s suppose the ink was sick and tired of being used up on the paper and the paper was sick and tired of always being copied onto and so they switch roles. It doesn’t work. The paper cannot, no matter how hard it tries, copy anything onto the ink and the ink cannot be copied onto. They weren’t designed for those purposes. God designed men and women with specific functions – abilities, gifts. When you mess with God’s design you are going to have chaos every time and that is exactly what we have – a chaotic society.

Now when I say that women and men have specific roles I am pointing to the essence of God’s design for them. This doesn’t mean that men should never stay home with the kids while the wife goes to work. This is sometimes necessary. Or maybe both parents need to work. But women must be women and men must be men whatever their situation might be. We complement each other no matter how much that grates on some people.  This applies to married people as well as single people – how we relate to one another either way.  Abortion isn’t just a “way out” of an unwanted pregnancy anymore. It has become one of the most exclusively feminine rights of our day. A man cannot get pregnant and carry a baby and give birth, this is completely a female thing. So it makes sense to me that women, even women who would never have an abortion themselves, are fighting for this right and rejoicing when it is upheld. To them, this is the one thing that men cannot control and so they bask in this freedom.  And apparently forget that there are lives at stake. Even in the case of Wendy Davis – she doesn’t want ANY infringements on HER rights as a WOMAN and so she will fight against ALL laws, even when a law includes making abortion clinics safer for women – something you would think she would be all for.

The result of all this selfishness and bitterness is the breakdown of the family. With the switching of roles, families don’t know how to function correctly. Everything is upside down. Men and women no longer know what their roles are; what is a real woman and what is a real man? Divorce is everywhere and families are being torn apart all the time. Sin prevails because we have turned our noses up at God’s design. There was a time when there was talk, even in the media, about how detrimental divorce is to children. This isn’t quite what is being talked about anymore. Now we skip over encouraging couples to stick it out and weather the storms and instead go directly to counseling and therapy because it isn’t “If” divorce happens anymore, but rather “when” it happens. Read Romans chapter 1 to see how the Bible describes life when it is twisted around from the way God intended.  

Pride is at the root – obvious in this power-hungry striving of women to be in charge. Pride caused our society to bristle at the woman of the 1950’s – the homemaker, mother, queen of her home.  This bristling led to the “sexual freedom”– just do whatever feels good, regardless of morals.  This so-called sexual freedom caused obvious problems for those sexually active –one of the major “problems” being pregnancy.  Unwanted pregnancies paved the way for abortions to abound. This is that slippery slope of sin. It doesn’t end. And other things have followed and will follow. Will murder one day no longer be a crime? We would all shake our heads no, of course not, but really this isn’t such a far-fetched idea. We are legally murdering our own children every day and before long it won’t be only after 20 weeks gestation or 24 weeks or 38 weeks, but 3 months after birth or 3 years or 10. If we can’t have absolutes in our nation, then who is to say what is and isn’t wrong? Who are you to tell someone that they can’t kill their teenager?

And other than society as a whole and the family, there is the individual who is suffering from abortion, too.  Women who haven’t had abortions, but who support “choice” must live with their decision and women who have abortions must live with that decision for the rest of their lives. Men must live with it also – directly for pushing a woman to get an abortion or indirectly by not standing up for what is right. Planned Parenthood will tell you that emotional problems arise more often from having a baby than from aborting one. Anyone in their right mind knows this is a lie. Of course, some women don’t have any feelings of shame or guilt post-abortion, because all their lives they have been taught the lie – that they didn’t kill a baby – they just got rid of tissue. And it is easier on everyone to just believe that lie – otherwise we have to be held responsible and accountable for some 50 million murders.

Why am I bothering to write this whole series on my blog? I know not very many people will read what I have written and those who do may already agree with me. But perhaps that one person who might read it might start to re-think what they have been taught and bought into. Maybe they won’t change their views – but maybe they’ll start thinking. Maybe a small seed will be planted and that makes it all worth it. We must use the God-given ability of thinking – just because the world, the culture, the society, our peers will tell us that a beating heart means nothing – we must seek truth.  

Next post will be the final in this abortion series and will focus on the beauty of life.

Abortion Series Part 3: Pro-life vs. Pro-choice thoughts and Women's Rights

*Warning – this is a long one! J

The Year is 1861 and America is at war with America. Brothers are fighting against brothers and the North and South – side by side – couldn’t be much further apart. There was a lot more to the Civil War than simply the rights of the states and the rights of black human beings, but those are the two things I am focusing on for now.  There are two reasons I bring up the Civil war. One reason is because I believe there is a significant tie from the inhumane slavery done in our nation to the murder of millions of unborn babies.  Slaves in 1861 were viewed as property, not as individuals with rights. They were thought of by many to be less than human. Babies in 2013 are viewed as property as well – property of the woman who is pregnant based on the argument that the baby is part of her body. They are thought to be less than human because of the argument that they are only tissue or “potential” person until birth.  We’ve already discussed why a baby is not the woman’s body – part of her body in a unique way –yes, but her actual body, no. We won’t go over all that again now, so we’ll just assume you understand that fact ;) A second reason for bringing up the Civil War is the issue of rights. The southern states were not going to stay in a union where they would soon have to give up their way of life – slavery. They felt that the state had the right to decide for itself what was and wasn’t right in this issue.  The same can be said of a woman today in her “rights”.

Now let’s hash out the issue of “Women’s Rights”. I just happen to be a woman and I am very thankful that I have the rights I have as an American citizen and as a person. I have the right to vote, to work, to be treated with respect and dignity. This was not always the case. I believe the feminist movement, if I can call it that, began with very noble intentions. Women should be treated with equality in the right to vote, to have a say in things, to go to work if so choosing, to go to college and be educated to whatever level desired, etc….however, somewhere along the way women forgot that they are women and not men. We are very different from each other – beautifully so. Men and women have unique and distinct characteristics – physically, emotionally, and mentally.  We were created equal in some sense, but very different in another sense.  For example, my printer is a great machine – it has ink and it has paper. They are equally important, but they do very different things. Without the ink, the paper is blank and without the paper, the ink has nowhere to go. Or the sun vs. rain – equally important, but very different. It is the same with men and women. In our day, however, women seem to think that we aren’t just equal in our importance, but that we should be treated the same exact way – which I think is ridiculous. And actually it seems more and more that die-hard feminists seems to think that women aren’t equal, but better. Anyway, abortion supporters are constantly saying that if abortion is outlawed, women lose their rights. I don’t think so. What right do women have to kill another human being? Why do women feel that by having a baby they are losing their rights? Rights aren’t being lost; you are being given the opportunity to give life to another. And how many of those millions of babies are girls? That certainly seems ironic – she is losing her rights before being born, but where is the feminists’ outcry on that?  And I know someone is saying, yes, but what about the rape cases and the incest cases or when a woman’s life is in jeopardy? Well here are some very interesting statistics on those very concerns:  According to the CDC about 1% of abortions are due to rape or incest and about 3% are due to concern for the life of the mother.  This is an astonishing percentage to me considering how often these 3 concerns are brought up in arguing for abortion rights. And how many of the women who are in these percentages go through with an abortion simply because they’ve grown up being taught that a baby is only tissue anyway.  So if only 1-3% is for rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, that means that 97% of abortions are for other reasons. What are those reasons? Here is a list from sources such as the CDC, planned parenthood, and Johnston Archive:  too young, too immature, not enough money, not responsible enough, would interfere with education, not good with relationships, pressure from parents or partner( very small percentage on this one), not married or don’t have a support system, too many children already, sex selection.  Every single one of these reasons can be answered by either not being selfish or by means of adoption. So in the end of all this feminism and pushing for women's rights, women actually end up on the losing end. We have turned ourselves into men - instead of embracing our femininity and actually being women, we try so hard to not be seen as women. (I could go into so much more on this topic, but that is for another post.)

So I believe abortion is wrong and I believe women have a choice – the choice to give life, to allow an innocent child the chance at life. Who are we, as women, to say who does and doesn’t deserve that chance? That is not up to us. There is a simple cure, by the way, for women who feel they are too young to have a child. Don’t have sex. It is that simple for them. If you aren’t married, don’t have sex. Our culture thinks this is the most restrictive, old-fashioned thing to say, but what is so incredibly awful about abstinence? Nothing. Why do parents not only think their kids are going to do it anyway, but now they arm their kids with condoms and talks on how to be “safe” when (not if) they engage in sexual activity. (To me it is as crazy as not wanting your kid to go kill someone, but they will probably do it so we might as well teach them how to use a gun properly.) This is a ridiculous mindset. There was an article in the local paper not that long ago about this uproar over a local pro-life organization that was in the schools teaching kids about abstinence. One of the kids was excited about this concept and when he told his mother, she was up in arms – furious about it. What?! Are you kidding me? So parents WANT their kids to be sexually active? Besides avoiding pregnancy when it is not desired, you also avoid a myriad of STD’s and emotional baggage. Please – inform me of just one positive affect premarital sex has on our kids, on our families, on our society, because I can’t think of a single one.  There was a time when pregnancy was kept hush hush and sexual activity was not talked about. I am not naïve enough to believe it wasn’t happening, but there was a general disdain for it. Now we not only talk about it, we flaunt it – flashing our so-called “sexual freedom” in everyone’s face. There really ought to be a balance here.  Parents of the 50’s, for example, were ashamed of their pregnant teenager so much so that they would at times send her away - a “confinement” for the duration of her pregnancy – anything to hide the “shame”. I believe this way of thinking was a critical part of leading up to abortions being performed left and right. If you can just “get rid of it” then no one will be the wiser.  And we justify our actions with lies like “it is only tissue”; it isn’t really a “person”.  And this is so easy to do when the life inside is just that – inside. You can’t see it and we all know that seeing is believing. Which explains why ultrasounds are so very powerful!  So we went from a wrong attitude toward pregnancy in the 50’s (example, I realize there are other decades with the same attitude) to a just as wrong attitude in our current time. Now it isn’t a “shameful” or “disgraceful” thing to be pregnant. Not it is “inconvenient”.  And no wonder we don’t view the baby as a baby because we’ve spent years justifying abortion. The word abortion is a nicer word than what it actually means. Stop. Cease. End. Cut off. This is what abortion does – stops a beating heart, ceases to allow life to continue, ends a life  - cuts it off.

I know many are aware of President Obama’s recent speech supporting Planned Parenthood. He pledges that he will stand behind them and in very strategic rhetoric makes us believe that Planned Parenthood is in the business of giving “health care” to women. Baloney. They are in the business of killing babies – plain and simple. Sure, they provide health care to women, but what is being "backed up" isn't health care, it is the abortion aspect. Abortion is a multi-million dollar industry.  And like it or not, abortion has very much become a political issue. And even though President Obama asked God to bless Planned Parenthood, I am pretty sure that is not going to happen. God is pro-life and PP is not. How can we possibly think we can ask God to bless something completely and totally in opposition to His Word?? Don’t get what I am saying wrong. I am not trying to say that God will bring down fire on their clinics or anything of the sort, but simply that we can’t expect God to “bless” (meaning allow them to prosper and flourish) that organization as our President apparently expects. I would say God bless those who work there and show them the truth of what they are doing.

Anyways, I am going off on a bit of a bunny trail. The point of this entire post is to try to point out to you that women do have rights, but those rights should not interfere with another individual’s rights in the case of pregnancy. If you are pro-life, then speak up! Say what the truth is and do it in love. If you are pro-choice – well, this is America and (as my Dad would say) you have the right to be wrong.  ;) Just kidding.  If you are pro-choice I hope you will open your eyes and truly try to see the truth of the lives that are being snuffed out by the hundreds of thousands each year.  And one more thing – the Civil War, in the end, decided that state’s rights didn’t trump human life. A slave was a human being and needed to be treated as such. State’s rights were important – are important, just as a woman’s rights are important. But when it comes down to life, life wins.

Abortion Series – Part 2: The Facts on the Actual Procedures of Abortion

This is the 2^nd part of the abortion series I am doing and quite honestly this one makes me sick to my stomach. It is difficult to grasp how anyone – after hearing what abortion really is and does – could ever seek out an abortion. The intent of this part is not to simply gross you out or to be as graphic as possible, but to educate and hopefully open some eyes of those who have been blinded by soft, cushion-y words on this form of murder.

There are many ways to perform an abortion and keep in mind what abortion means. Abort – to stop, to bring to a halt, cut short. Abortion stops life, it cuts short a baby’s life. So here are several methods of abortion.

Planned parenthood has a section of their site devoted to reassuring women about their abortions. 2 of the “in-clinic” procedures they discuss are 1. Aspiration (also known  as vacuum aspiration) and 2. Dilation and Evacuation.  Aspiration takes place before 16 weeks – a woman is given a form of sedation and then once the cervix is dilated a speculum is put into place. The Doctor will then insert a tube into the uterus and will suction it out. Planned Parenthood puts it this way - “gently empties your uterus”. This is the softened way of saying that the baby who has been growing for up to 16 weeks inside your womb – who has developed to the point of looking very obviously “baby” – even having eyelids!! – is being sucked out – ripped from your womb and obviously dying as a result of this horror. This procedure takes 5 -10 minutes. That’s it. Life snuffed out in less than 10 minutes time.

Dilation and Evacuatin – D&E – takes less than 20 minutes and is not that different from aspiration, but it can be used after 16 weeks – on an even further developed human being.  “Medical instruments and a machine gently empty your uterus” – quote from Planned Parenthood. Perhaps this procedure, as the aspiration above, is gentle on the woman – I don’t know – but it most certainly is nothing close to gentle for the innocent life being killed.

Fortunately, Partial birth abortion has been banned in our country. This is a particularly heinous method where the head is “decompressed” prior to “evacuation”.  The way this procedure works is that the doctor, using forceps, pulls the baby’s legs out through the vagina (partially “born”) and then makes an incision in the base of the skull and inserts an instrument and twists it making the opening larger in order to suction out the baby’s brain to make the head smaller to “deliver”.  I applaud those who had any part in banning this procedure in the USA!!

There are also pills that can be taken early in pregnancy to terminate the pregnancy. Some argue that this is not “abortion”, but I say it is. In order to be pregnant, a life needs to be beginning inside of you. In order to “end a pregnancy” you take a pill. How is that not abortion – ending a life? Since life begins the moment the sperm and egg unite, taking a pill to end it is killing a life.

There are other types of procedures used in abortion, but they are mostly just slightly different forms of the ones mentioned above.  Regardless of the type, the outcome of abortion is always the same –  the death of a baby.  Our country is responsible for 50 million babies being murdered and this is something planned parenthood views as a “success”.  They also say that 1 in 3 women will have at least one abortion by the time they are 45 years old – that is astounding to me. It also tells me that abortion touches many lives all around us. Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice advocates will tell us that they are concerned with women and their safety and that they are saving lives by performing abortions safely, but in the next part of this series I will show how abortion is actually anti-women and how the options women have in a pro-life scenario is actually pro-woman.  In my next entry, I will answer this question: Why is our world so incredibly obsessed with “Women’s Rights”? ……

Abortion Series -Part 1: When and How Does Life Begin?

When does life start? Is a baby not a baby until it breathes outside the womb? Is it only a baby once you find out the gender or is it when you detect a heartbeat? Does life begin at conception, the first missed period or somewhere in between? Is it after a certain gestational week?
So many people have so many differing opinions on when life actually begins. So let’s begin with the “how” it begins and then go from there. There really isn’t too much debate on how life begins. Here are the basics: the sperm joins with the ovum and forms what is known as the zygote. The zygote attaches to the uterine wall and develops rapidly from there. Now if the sperm doesn’t find an egg (ovum), there is not fertilization taking place – so no baby. That is the simple “how” life begins.
Now onto the more controversial “when”:
I have given birth to 3 children. Every time I saw my Dr. he would tell me how many weeks pregnant I was. When I first discovered I was pregnant with each child, I was between 4 and 6 weeks. Now it makes sense to me that the reason we are told “you are 4 weeks pregnant” or “10 weeks along”, that means there has been life growing inside for the past 4 weeks or 10 weeks or whatever number week it may be. By the time a baby has reached the 6 week mark, he or she has a beating heart, flowing blood, arms with fingers, legs, developing brain, lungs, cranial nerves, eyes and ears. My first pregnancy ended at this stage – 5-6 weeks. I grieved for my lost baby and we named him or her Riley. It amazes me just how developed that little life was when it ended. And it can only end if it had a beginning, right? I believe its life began the moment the sperm joined the egg. 46 Chromosomes came together in that instant to create a new and unique individual.
Now I realize we live in a very …..well, odd place in our society because on one hand everyone goes around saying “just believe” or “just have faith”…..not sure WHAT you are supposed to just believe or have faith in….but then on the other hand we are so visually oriented. We have to see to believe. I think this is why so many women who would have had an abortion, but first see an ultrasound of their baby change their mind and don’t go through with it.
Today’s culture and the generations of today are being taught that abortion is a “woman’s right”. I am here to say it is no such thing. If you are a parent, think for just a second that your precious child could have been someone else’s child. What if that person wasn’t ready for a family? What if they were “too young” or “too poor” or “too busy” or “too whatever….” And that person chose instead of giving birth to your precious child to end his or her life. What gives them that right? The argument is that the baby is part of the mother’s body and therefore she can do with her body what she wants. That is one of the most ridiculous and false arguments I have heard. A – The baby is NOT part of her body – inside her body, yes, but as a temporary resident not as a permanent resident. B – A woman’s claim that it is her “right” to do as she pleases may be valid when she is the only individual affected, but the baby isn’t her, isn’t her body, and therefore isn’t part of her “rights”. And the fact that there is a new set of chromosomes within her rapidly developing ought to be obvious to us all that that’s not just a part of her body.
As I wrap up this first part, please think hard about life and our responsibility to be educated to the truth. No one is going to brainwash me into thinking that a baby is not a baby until it is born or until you hear a heartbeat or until you know the gender. A baby is a baby. A baby is a person and needs our protection. In the words of Dr. Seuss, “a person is a person no matter how small”.
POSTSCRIPT: 10/27/13 I would like to clarify, because someone is bound to notice, that when I say how many weeks pregnant I do realize that most dr's refer to weeks pregnant from the last date of a woman's menstrual cycle and not from actual fertilization. I do not think a woman is pregnant until the egg is fertilized, so I mean actual age of the baby from the moment of fertilization forward. Hope that is clear enough :)

Memories

Memories are funny things. I have a lot of them. Most of us do. Memories from yesterday and memories from 20 years ago. Some good, some bad, and some so fuzzy i am not exactly sure what I am remembering. If I try very hard to think back to my earliest memory I am not sure it really is the earliest...I can remember getting my ears pierced very vividly - the monstrous sized stapler-looking thing coming at my ears and then me begging my Grandmother to "not hit the bumps" on the way home and I can remember having to turn the gold heart studs to keep my ear from growing back around it. Did that happen before or after my memory of hiding from my Grandma in the circular clothes racks in the department store and getting the scolding of my young life when she found me - which at the time I thought was highly uncalled for because it really was an ingenious place to hide. But was that first or was it my memory of dancing on the dance floor with my Grandpa? And then there are those "memories" that we have come to believe are our own...like my "memory" of falling down the steps when I had followed my Dad up the stairs to get the laundry without him knowing. He picked up the hamper and turned around knocking me down the entire way. I was fine, but I remember sitting on the bottom step with my knee bleeding and my Mom putting a band-aid on it. I know this isn't correctly my memory because my Mom was in the hospital when I got knocked down the steps (otherwise Dad wouldn't have been doing the laundry, haha). And besides the fact that my Dad says there wasn't any blood involved, Mom couldn't very well put a bandage on my hurt knee from the hospital. So my mind has heard the "falling down the steps" story so many times that i think I remember it when I don't. And apparently my mind linked it to a separate incident where I somehow got a "boo-boo" on my knee that my Mom treated.
I have memories of family vacations, trips to Grandparents' houses, holidays together, losing teeth, field trips, and birthday parties. I remember people - even people I don't know. I used to be homeschooled - 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade and previously my Mom taught at Bloomsburg Christian School. So we had yearbooks. Kelly (my sister) and I used to look at those things ALL the time, so I "knew" a lot of the people in there. I recently met someone who when she told me her first name and that she had gone to BCS, I immediately knew who she was even though she graduated from the school when I was in kindergarten. It can be embarrassing sometimes to be like "Oh yeah you are so and so, I remember you!" and they don't have a clue who I am or how it is that I "remember" them. Oh well. Some of my memories have become favorite bedtime stories for the kids - like the time Kelly and I saw a mouse in the house and we were both screaming at the top of our lungs as we perched safely atop the living room furniture. We were loud enough that Mom - who I think was visiting the neighbor could hear us on her way back to our house. Or the time Kelly and I were home alone (I believe I was somewhere between 13-15ish) and we heard this horrible sounding buzz-like noise coming from my parents' room. We both got as close to the door as we dared and still couldn't figure out what was making the racket, but we were pretty sure it was some kind of very large - likely hideous looking - bug. I was too scared to go in there, so Kelly who was probably 10-12ish) said "My name means brave" - and very resolutely marched off to the kitchen to retrieve the broom and then courageously, but cautiously snuck into the bedroom with me following not so courageously behind her. Turns out it was my Dad's pager that was set to vibrate and it was on their desk where some loose change was also setting and the vibration was rattling not just the wood on the desk but the money as well making it sound pretty awful. We were relieved and a little sheepish about our fear, but it makes for a good memory and Evan's favorite story.
Memories can make us laugh and they can make us cry. Sometimes a memory is so embarrassing we don't want to remember it or so painful we push it away, but memories can be a great source of wisdom. We can learn from them - funny or sad. Our own personal history. History is a good thing usually. Mistakes made in the past will hopefully serve as a reminder to not repeat those same mistakes. On the other hand we can get too wrapped up in our memories that we aren't living in the present. We think things were so much better "way back in the day" and we don't allow ourselves to be content with where God has us now. Or we are so wrapped up in our past regrets that guilt is overwhelming us -pulling us under to sink in our despair. The Bible says in Philippians 3:13-14: "13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus". - Paul is the one who wrote this and he certainly had plenty of things to look back on with regret. Before he became a follower of Jesus, he persecuted those who followed him. Guilt could have overwhelmed him and make him totally useless for serving God, but he knew he was forgiven and he pressed on.
Of course, I am not saying we should never look back at all. We learn a lot from looking back - look at Peter. Peter followed Christ - one of the closer disciples to Jesus and yet he denied he even knew him at Jesus' most critical moment of needing friends. Peter was completely and totally forgiven by Jesus and he wasn't overtaken by guilt - knowing that he wasn't as strong as he thought he was probably helped him in future decisions.
So hold tight to those beautiful memories of good things and people and not so tight to those past sins and mistakes - and keep learning from both.

This is my very first attempt at blogging and I am excited about it! I hope to be able to post on a variety of topics - marriage, children, favorite foods and places to eat, favorite stores and online sites. Personal interests like poetry, music, thoughts, etc...Since this is the first of hopefully many more entries, I think I'll keep it light and fun. That being said, this post will be on my kids. Ryan, my daughter, is 8 1/2 and in the 3rd grade. She is a fairly independent girl and very strong-willed, which we all know can be both a struggle and a joy. A struggle at times for obvious reasons, but a joy knowing that she has a mind of her own and isn't as easily swayed as some might be. My prayer is that she would be able to hone that strong-willed spirit into a positive thing. I hope peer pressure will be slightly easier to deal with for her because of this and that she will stand strong for Christ because of it, too. The struggle, however, for now is doing what she doesn't want to do. She has refractive amblyopia (sp?) and when she was 4 she had to start wearing a patch for about 5 hours every day and believe me it was not a pretty picture trying to get her to keep that patch on. Many tears were shed by all and we were all rejoicing when she no longer had to wear it. At her last appointment we were told she needs to start wearing it again - about 2 hours a day 5 days a week or about 3 hours, 3 days a week. I could not believe the difference in her response. :)Now she isn't enjoying wearing it - who would? she can't see very well out of her bad eye - but she is wearing it and trying very hard and I am so proud of how far she has come! Ryan is also a very sensitive girl and can be hurt very easily, so I am SO SO glad she is not supposed to wear it at school - I think that would have been torture for her. She is growing into a responsible, caring child and I am excited about what God might have for her future.
Evan, my middle child, is 6 - turning 7 in June. He is a very sweet and thoughtful child and something of a comedian. He is very interested in finding out all he can about a subject. When he was 2 1/2 or 3 he became infatuated with the 7 dwarfs and most people who know Evan saw him quite often with his yellow knit hat on (even in the heat of summer, with sweat pouring down his face) and a pair of slippers on his feet and a "pick ax" (actually a blue plastic golf club) thrown over his shoulder, sauntering down the hallway in perfect dwarf form sometimes "whistling" the hi-ho song. He moved on to animals and lately he has added Super Mario. Evan has been known to say things like "I miss the toddler years" or "Mommy, maybe you could use that" in reference to a commercial for a "fat burning pill". He tends to say what he thinks - again, something that can be a struggle and also a blessing. My prayer for Evan is that he will think before he speaks, but keep his honesty and candor using them in appropriate times and places.
Levi, the youngest, turned 2 February 1st and he is like a fireball. He is constantly on the move, has more energy than I can keep up with, and has a fiery temper. He is starting to finally understand that it is not ok to retaliate or to bully his way into getting what he wants. He keeps us laughing as he learns new words and uses his facial expressions in a variety of ways He is a lot like Ryan in his strong will and a lot like Evan in his comedy. My prayer for Levi right now is that he will simply grow into a strong man for God.
Well, that is it for now. That may have been rather boring for you, but maybe my next post will be more interesting for you