But Seriously

Loving as God Loves

A few days ago, I was thinking about the lofty ideal to love others as God loves us and to see others as God sees us.  On our own, it is impossible--like fitting a camel through the eye of a needle.  But with God, all things are possible.  With God, we can love beyond the capacity of our fist-sized hearts.  With God, we can see beyond the capacity of our grape-sized eyes.

My understanding of this concept deepened recently because, about a month ago, I became a foster parent to a little boy whom I plan to adopt.  Fostering isn't easy.  You cannot necessarily raise a foster child the way you are used to raising your own child because in foster care, you are a co-parent with the state and the state has opinions about how it wants its wards treated.  Of course, if we have to abide by state standards for our foster son, we cannot apply a different standard to our first son.  We have to re-learn how to parent.  Oh, and the state and I agree that we need to respect the privacy of our son.  No names will be given while he is in foster care with us and most illustrations will be twisted beyond recognition before they are published here or anywhere else.

Both of our boys are the same age. Of course we have all of the drama you would expect between brothers of a similar age, and we get to add different life experiences, different discipline standards, different hygiene standards, anger issues for a traumatized child (imagine being ripped away from your birth family for whatever reason--children in foster care are traumatized), special medical needs for our new son,a multitude of doctor appointments of every type, school discipline issues . . . well, if you can imagine all of that, you can begin to imagine how much our lives have changed.  All of this is wrapped in spiritual warfare because, as I see it, this foster-to-adopt scenario is the ONE human action that most closely resembles what God does for us.  That brings me back to my original point.

Sometimes my son (my new son) makes choices that baffle me.  Here is an adaptation of an example of a recent incident that did not happen exactly this way:  
Me--Why did you take all of your clothes out of your closet and off the hanger?
Him--I am going to pack them up and leave.
Me--I don't want you to leave.  Why do you want to leave?
Him--I don't want to go to bed at my bedtime.
Me--Do you want me to call your case worker?
Him--No.  I don't want to leave.
Me--Good.  Now put your clothes back.
Him--I can't.  There are too many.
Me--I bet you wish you never took them down. Put them back a little at a time.
Him--Can I get help?
Me--If you can convince anyone in the house to help you, you may certainly accept their help, but everyone else in the house has chores to do, so I suggest you get started on cleaning up your mess.

At times, he seems to think that it is his mission in life to create a mess for someone else to clean up.  Personal responsibility was not emphasized earlier in his life--as it was in my childhood.  What seems as clear as daylight to me is completely foreign to him.

My first thought is to recognize how alien his thinking is to my perspective.  That thought occurs a lot with me and most of the time, it is not about bedtime or clothes.  There are other behaviors we have to overcome and a couple of miracles (real miracles) we are praying about.  Anyway, the moment my mind drifts into the arena of "What in the world are you thinking?" I start to realize that this must be how God sees me.  Track with me:

1. I was raised "in the world," not in direct communion with God.
2. My standards of discipline, hygiene, right and wrong, etc are far different from God's. 
3. I was a spiritual orphan in need of a Heavenly Father.
4. He called me out of the darkness, and into His marvelous light.
5. I have to adapt to an eternal life of security, love, and grace that I did not know before him.
6. I have issues related to my time growing up in the world that I need Him to help me overcome. 

Jars of Clay made a song called, "Light Gives Heat" and at one point the lyrics read,

Will you teach us how to love;
To see the things you see;
Walk the road you walk;
Feel the pain that you feel? 
At your feet I kneel.
I want to see you shine;
See your light not mine;
'Cause light gives heat.

In raising my new son, I begin to glimpse the way God sees us when we enter His family.  When I ask God, "Why does he . . ." and am answered with, "Why do you?"  I learned a few years ago that the answer to the question "Why?" is seldom satisfying.  It is more often empty, disappointing, and discouraging. In this, I am reminded not to focus as much on what my son is doing or how to control his behavior.  Rather, like my Heavenly father, I am to be faithful in giving love and grace; and patiently focus on touching my childs heart.  I have determined that if I can reach his heart, I can change his behaviors but if I focus on changing his behaviors, I will only succeed superficially and I may never reach his heart.

We have only been fostering for just more than a month, but we are already seeing signs of trust.  I am excited to what God will do in the coming months and years.

Better to Give: Christmas 2011

I recently moved to a new home.  In the process, I discovered that packing is the primary reason that people hate to move--the second reason is unpacking.

There is nothing like a move to show you that you have too much stuff.

We began packing about 6 weeks before our move date.  The process began at a slow and leisurely pace. We identified things we wanted to give away and we would take a trunk-load to Goodwill, the ARC, or the Springs Rescue Mission as we identified enough to drop off.  The process seemed to be going smoothly until we took a serious look at our basement--the black hole of the house where everything seemed to end up if it was not used daily.

We discovered that we not only had too much stuff, we had shamefully too much stuff and there was no way we would be able to take all of it with us to our new home. To relieve our overstuffed state, we had a garage sale.  We sold a garage full of items--a bed, a treadmill, clothes that no longer fit, books, toys, old video games and movies.  Afterwards, we looked at our belongings: still too much stuff.

We filled a dumpster.  We filled a moving truck.  We still left some stuff behind.

I never want to be owned by that much stuff again.   I have not completely unpacked and I can see that I took too much stuff with me.  Worse, I can see "International Stuff Day," I mean "Christmas" coming around the corner.

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas.  I love the reason we celebrate--the gift of Salvation through Christ Jesus.  I love parties with friends and family.  I love seeing delight in the eyes of my loved ones.  Christmas isn't the problem, stuff is.

Taking seriously Jesus' exhortation that it is "more blessed to give than to receive," I have decided to celebrate Christmas differently this year.  I want to do something radical and counter-cultural--no, I am not going to protest outside a bank--I also want to do something relevant. Who knows, you may want to join me.

This year for Christmas, I have a single Christmas gift request.  I want my loved ones to donate my gift to Children's Hope Chest.  I want to raise $1,000.00 or more for this ministry.

Children's Hope Chest feeds orphans, and that's good, but that's not all they do.  Much like Compassion International, they have child sponsorships, whereby you can meet the needs of a child in poverty and communicate with the child via letters to instill a sense of hope, but Hopechest does something else that is amazing.  Their operation in Russia actively rescues girls from the sex trade industry.  Do you know what happens to an orphan when they age out of the system in Russia?  They go to the street to look for their own job and housing.  Some of the young girls who age out in Russia are met on the street by men and women who promise them grand jobs over seas, but sell them as sex slaves.  Hopechest not only provides guidance for orphans who age out, they also actually rescue girls from brothels.

Imagine waking up Christmas morning.  Under the tree, you have a few small boxes or envelopes.  Instead of receiving some new sweaters, PJ's, ties, and maybe an electric razor, you open an envelope.  Inside the envelope is a note that tells you that $30.00 was donated in your name to feed a child.  The small box contains a note that says $100.00 was given in your name to get a girl out of a brothel.  $50.00 to support a care-point in Swaziland, $25.00 toward feeding kids in India and on and on it goes.  That's what I want for Christmas this year.  I want to try to raise at least $1,000.00 to save lives--after all, saving people is the reason Jesus came over 2,000 years ago.  Saving people is the reason for Christmas.

 Maybe, this month, you will look around your house and see if you too are "overstuffed."  If so, maybe you want to make this a year where you are more blessed to give than to receive--can I encourage you to request your gifts be given to Hopechest.org like me?  Maybe you have another favorite ministry--how much would you like to raise for them?

Some of my family are concerned that I won't have anything to open that day.  Let me assure you, I will be thrilled to open notes telling me how someone else was helped on my behalf.  I have never celebrated Christmas this way, but I am really excited (more excited than ever as an adult) for Christmas day.  Please, if you plan on giving a gift to me this year, give it through Hopechest and know that you not only brought me joy, you brought joy to someone in poverty too.

Planned Parenthood Director's Conversion Draws National Attention

The day Abby Johnson witnessed an abortion with an ultrasound was the day her life changed.  Johnson spent 8 years of her life working for Planned Parenthood--an organization that provides family planning services as well as abortions.  She says she thought she was helping women, but when she saw through an ultrasound how a baby in utero reacted to the abortion, she could not be a part of it anymore.  PP was not a family planning organization that occasionally did abortions, it was an organization that survived on the slaughter of the unborn.  An article on lifesitenews.com (linked below) reveals that Planned Parenthood's abortion profits carry the weight of the companies other endeavors:

The latest financial report Planned Parenthood, for the year 2006-2007, shows that the abortion behemoth increased the number of abortions it committed from 264,943 in 2005 to 289,650 in 2006.  Total revenue amounted to over $1 billion dollars, with the organization's profit margin - "excess of revenue over expenses" - soaring from $55.7 million in 2005 to $112 million in 2006. The organization typically receives over $300 million in taxpayer funds every year.

Johnson said she became involved with the clinic "to help women and ... [do] the right thing."  The idea of increasing abortion numbers to increase revenue was repugnant to her. She said that ideally the facility's director would provide "so much family planning and so much education that there is not a demand for abortion."

But this ideal was not shared by the rest of Planned Parenthood, she said, because "abortion is the most lucrative part of Planned Parenthood's operations."

"With the family planning corporation really suffering," Johnson said, "they depend on the abortion corporation to balance their budget, help get them out of the hole and help make income for the company."

She continued, "They really wanted to increase the number of abortions so that they could increase their income."

via www.lifesitenews.com

Having now spoken out against the abortion giant, Johnson is under attack. Planned Parenthood has obtained a court order to keep her from talking. At the same time, leftist websites like Salon.com claim to have inside information from unnamed "confidential informants" who claim Johnson did not really have a conversion, and that she quit her job for the money. (Really!?!) That does not sound like such a good plan to me--but even if it is true, does it matter?  If she is speaking out against the abortion giant for money, does that discredit her witness?  Does it make her worse than the company that aborts babies for money?

Forgiveness

It takes great faith to forgive.  

I don't know if someone famous has already said that, but I do know that I have been through the fire and I have just begun to plumb the depths of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a concept wrapped in humility.  We must be humble if we ask for forgiveness, and we must humble ourselves to forgive others.   Who is humbled more: the man who says he is sorry and wishes the event never happened or the man who says you are forgiven and I release my personal claims against you? When we engage with forgiveness, we appropriate our faith to act in humility.  Either man runs the risk of being trampled--either by punishment, or by being offended again.

Yes, it takes great faith to forgive.  I have learned to forgive things I never thought possible two years ago.  God, however, has extended grace to me and in response, I want to extend grace to others.  That grace of forgiveness does not necessarily interrupt justice and it is no guarantee that I won't be hurt again, but for today and today's circumstances, I have forgiven and I am not required to carry the chains of a hardened heart.  Ancient hurts and recent trauma's--in forgiving both, I find myself living a better life.

With faith, I also have hope.  I hope for better circumstances -- stronger families with better men to lead as fathers, husbands, and citizens.  Ultimately, my hope on earth is a pale reflection of my greater hope in heaven -- where today's trials purchase eternal glory.

It takes great faith to forgive and I exercised that faith today.

Obama to Vets: We're Better Off Without You

I thought I was outraged by the concept of "End of Life Counseling" as part of healthcare reform but I had not seen the depths of my rage until I heard about a Wall Street Journal article that exposes EOL counseling for our courageous veterans.  Bad enough that the Commander and Chief advocates suicide for veterans, but VA Secretary, General (ret.) Eric Shinseki is also culpable as he fully supports the "death book" for U.S. Veterans.    

I can't say I am surprised about the Obama administration.  I truly believe Obama's concept of sacrifice is "something other people do for me."  I don't think he has the capacity to empathize with our soldiers and their self-sacrifice.  Shinseki?  He is another matter entirely.

Shinseki by Reuters; Obama by AP

I served in the Army when Shinseki was active duty and even got to hear him speak at Fort Carson, CO.  At that time, he spoke of our soldiers with pride.  Today, he treats them as disposable parts.  I don't know if he is putting political ambitions above his duty to his soldiers, but making this book mandatory is beyond disgusting; it is tantamount to fratricide.  Regardless of the outcome of this "death book" mandate, Shinseki needs to go.

Our veterans need to be met with dignity and appreciation for their great sacrifices.  Their lives are inspirational and many of them claw through the depression that comes with severe injury to overcome their circumstances and give hope to the injured, ill, and wounded.

Here is an excerpt from the WSJ article by Jim Towey:

Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing.

"Your Life, Your Choices" presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions, much like a political "push poll." For example, a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."

The circumstances listed include ones common among the elderly and disabled: living in a nursing home, being in a wheelchair and not being able to "shake the blues." There is a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."

When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?

Be A Voice

This week, January 18th through 25th, is Sanctity of Human Life Week.  January 22nd will commemorate the landmark Roe v. Wade court decision 36 years ago to make abortions legal in the United States.  Aside from bringing back alley abortions into the light, the decision created a multimillion dollar industry based on dismembering babies.  (Coincidentally I'm sure) It  also includes our nation's day of remembrance for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I am certain that Doctor King, who gave his life to promote his dream that all men (black or white, Jew or gentile) could live together in equality, would be marching again today to stop the senseless slaughter of helpless innocents particularly considering allegations of targeting minority races for abortions.

A plethora of resources are available to educate us on the far reaching consequences of unrestricted abortion on demand.  This week, a number of events are planned to educate our government representatives on the crucial nature of the abortion issue.  For instance, on January 22nd, Blogs4Life has a packed day of scheduled speaking on the subject "Times subject to change."  Check out their schedule at

Other initiatives this week will tackle more than just the Abortion problem.  BeAVoice.nethas resources, public service announcements, sermons, and videos promoting a culture of life.  Addressing abortion, euthanasia, drama presentations, and counseling resources, this website has a lot of useful tools.

The problem is not just one of "sexual freedom".  It is a culture that embraces death and accepts death as a "viable" solution to social ills.  You don't want your baby? Abort it.  You've been injured or have a fatal illness and won't be able to sustain your desired "quality of life"?  End the your life.  Your elderly parents are too much of a burden?  Don't pay for a nursing home when you can just throw them away like refuse.  And yet, many of the pro-abortion, pro-euthanasia, pro-eugenics crowd have the nerve to protest against war and demand the release of convicted violent criminals.  At least the atrocities of war are obvious . . . The atrocities of abortion are cleverly disguised behind words like "fetus" and "women's rights."

Won't you do something this week to take a stand for life?

Banned From YouTube

Planned Parenthood digs yet a deeper hole for itself.  Aside from allegations of racism and the federal funding they recieve for abortions, now there is the implication of infanticide.

The Family Research Council published the following in it's most recent newsletter:

Using an undercover camera, Students for Life of America (SFLA) has produced new evidence that infanticide "does happen" at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. When asked by a pregnant mother if her baby could be born alive at a New Jersey clinic, the nurse responded, "It does happen, but it wouldn't be able to survive on its own so eventually the baby does die." The tape, one in a long line of incriminating videos released to the media, was posted on YouTube to show Planned Parenthood's refusal to comply with the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. Just days later, YouTube removed the post, saying it "violated the website's terms of use." YouTube may turn a blind eye to these injustices, but the U.S. Congress should not. Time after time, the leadership on Capitol Hill has refused to investigate Planned Parenthood, one of the biggest beneficiaries of your taxpayer dollars. Instead of freezing its funds, liberals are seeking ways to increase them! Before you vote for the next class of congressmen, make sure you know where your candidates stand on taxpayer-funded abortion.

Or check out the video here.

Do you want to get Planned Parenthood out of your community?  Get the plan from STOPP International.