When Life Happens

One quiet night in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago changed everything.  Jesus is the right for every wrong. He is the answer to every woe. He is the light in every dark place. He is the joy in every kind of sorrow. Christians rightly rejoice in the birth of our Savior during the Christmas season.

As I was gazing at a nativity the other day, I started thing about Mary- the teenage unwed virgin in a strict Jewish culture who found herself pregnant and afraid and unsure of how all of this was going to play out. How would her fiancé react to this news? What would her family think? This was not part of the plan.

The Lie

Almost nothing is as life altering as having a child or for some, not having a child. Both bear witness to our complete lack of control. There is nothing we can do.

Whichever want is not being met, facing a “planned” or an “unplanned” pregnancy or not being able to have the baby we so desire, our tendency is to shake our fist at God as if to say, “I know better than you!”

We believe the lie that we are, or should be, in control of our own lives, our own wombs. “My body, my choice.”

In truth, God can be so unAmerican sometimes. Our pursuit of happiness is not utmost to Him; our pursuit of holiness is, and God is relentless in doing whatever it takes to make us more like Him. 

I have walked with close friends through infertility and adoption and those who have been faced with an unplanned pregnancy. These are hard roads. The resounding and often painful truth behind procreation is that none of us ever control or decide when we conceive or adopt a child; It is only God.

Every pregnancy or adoption is unplanned by us, and always planned by a sovereign God. We may plan and chart and implant and use cutting edge science toward that end, but it is ONLY God who plants the seed and causes growth. 

“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:7 

The Choice

Let’s look at Mary, the mother of Jesus, and her choice in the pregnancy she did not plan.  

“But the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; His kingdom will never end.’

‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.’ 

‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ Then the angel left her.”  

John 1:30-38

Did the angel knock on her door and say, “Hey, by the way, umm Mary? Can God use your womb to grow His only Son Jesus? Will you raise this child that you didn’t plan to have? I know you are not sexually active, and I know it is your body and all, but could I borrow your uterus? Pretty please?” 

No. The angel said, “You WILL conceive and give birth to a son…The Holy Spirit WILL come upon you…the power of the Most High WILL overshadow you.” God even picked out the name. Talk about not being in charge of your body.

Mary would be the prime candidate for an abortion in today’s world. A single, unwed mother, who would be disowned by her family for having a baby and who would have no way to support a child. 

How does Mary respond? Mary chose life because God chose it for her first. She submitted to His choice instead of rejecting His will. She reacts with obedience and trust, willing to endure cultural shame and fear of the unknown for God’s plan and God’s glory. 

Even though God was in it, it was not glamorous. She rode on a donkey for miles and miles while nine months pregnant. She had her baby in a barn and he slept in a feeding trough. No epidural, no hospital nurses, no ice chips, no nursery. 

The Son of Man had no place to lay his head, and later she watched Him suffer and die. God would serve Mary the most bitter pill any mother could have to swallow. And yet God was in it all, was there with her, was glorified, and the faith He gave her to endure it all was enough. Where God calls us, He equips us. 

The Plan

God gives lots of air time to two unborn babies in the first chapter of Luke. He could have skipped to the birth, but the unborn matter infinitely to Him. 

There is great value in their stories from conception and birth into life and to death. God had a plan before their parents ever planned or conceived them. 

The angel appeared to Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah in Luke 1:11-17.  

“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Mary visited Elizabeth in Luke 1:41-44 and “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.’”

Let it not be lost on us that the first person to recognize the Son of God was an unborn baby. 

John leaped for joy in his mother’s womb! He had emotions and physically responded to the presence of unborn Jesus. God again gave a name to the child and had a plan for his life even before conception. The unborn baby, John, whom we know as John the Baptist, was filled with the Spirit of God.

The Body

Our bodies are either created as objects of our possession for our glory or they are vessels of grace for God’s glory. There is no middle ground. 

“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” 1 Corinthians 10:26

“Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NLT)

You do not belong to yourself. Your body is not yours; therefore your uterus is not yours.   A baby inside of your uterus is not yours, either. To believe that our bodies or even our children belong to us is a well crafted lie. His body, His choice. 

Mary easily could have scoffed at God. She could have rejected His ownership and control over her body in the name of “choice.” She could have seen her body as her possession for her own glory. Or, she could submit herself to God’s control of her body, which is already His, to use for His purpose and His glory. 

For the believer in Jesus submitted to God’s will, we know deep down that we never know better than God. His plans are always good, even when they don’t feel good. His plans are always for hope and a future, even when life feels hopeless and the future looks bleak. 

We cannot see the whole picture, but we can put our trust in the One who sees all, is in all, and works all things together for our good and for His glory. All things! The wonderful things, the inconvenient things, the painful things.

Yes, even a baby. Especially a baby.

We don't need an angel to come down and tell what to do when we are afraid or when things don't go according to our plan. God gave us His Word and He gives believers His Spirit. 

There are only two choices for all of us- one leads to life, one leads to death.

We can learn from Mary's example that the answer to poverty is never death. The answer to inconvenience and unwanted circumstances is never death. The answer to disability is never death. We can look at humanitarian efforts all over the world and see that this is universally true. 

Fear and pride and disobedience lead to death. 

Submission and trust and obedience lead to life. 

Mary chose life for the Author of life. 

She rejected death for the One who would conquer death. 

She bled for the baby who was born to bleed- not on the cutting room floor, but on a cross, giving His life as a ransom for many.

And the very best news is that Mary's crying baby Jesus will one day wipe away every tear from every eye. No woman will ever feel the need to choose between life and death for her child. 

I realize this is not exactly a Christmas message. This is not a popular post by any stretch. It likely stirs up deep emotions in you. But as we reflect on Christ at Christmas, we must consider why He came- not to destroy life but to bring life. Not to give us autonomy apart from Him, but to bring us under His loving and perfect lordship. 

His Word is clear: The wages of sin is always death. The way to God is always the path of life. 

God rescues. God reconciles. He is Himself the light of LIFE. Jesus said,”I have come so you might have life and have it to the fullest.”  

Choose life for yourself in Jesus. Choose life for the unborn whom God created with great purpose and love. This is when true, abundant life happens. 

Jesus is the GREAT JOY that has come for ALL people. 

My prayer this Christmas is to let every heart big and small, born and unborn, have the chance to prepare Him room. 

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

-Charles Wesley

****************************

If you are reading this and have had an abortion, this is not meant to shame you or to inflict additional pain or guilt. There is hope for us all only in Jesus who covers all of our mistakes and shortcomings in His perfect blood. He died on the cross for our sins- all of them- even the ones we struggle to forgive ourselves for- so that we would no longer live in bondage to our past and present imperfections. We have freedom in Christ when we trust Him, when we repent, when we follow Him. He gives us confident access to the Father, God, who has a great plans for your life. We all sin. We all fall short. But when we submit to Jesus, we can walk in newness of life and He will use our stories for His glory. Will you trust Him with yours? 

Tomorrow, Christian

Tomorrow, the eyes of the world will be upon us.

Tomorrow, Christian, we must live and love as those who have a hope that will never find its strength in the ballot box or in any man or woman. No matter how you feel tomorrow, ours is a hope born out of faith and bought with the blood of the One who will never disappoint us.  

Tomorrow, with our lives might we proclaim an everlasting kingdom whose citizenship does not hinge on any one nation or government or the success or failure of a grand experiment. 

Tomorrow, let us collectively gaze heavenward at our perfect Ruler who cannot be contained in a White House or in an Oval Office.

This we know for certain: 

Tomorrow King Jesus will be on the throne and His dominion will have no end. 

Tomorrow, we will have a merciful and perfect Supreme Judge whose vengeance and justice are swift, thorough, and accurate, and lacking in nothing. 

Tomorrow we will have a Defender and Protector who is “clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God” whose armies in heaven are readied to follow Him on white horses. (Revelation 19:14)

Tomorrow we will have a righteous and holy Leader before whom none can stand on their own merit, and at His very name, every knee will bow and every tongue will one day confess He is Lord. 

There has been much doubt and unrest leading up to this day and what we are to do at the polls, but we know with absolute certainty how Jesus wants us to proceed from here:

Tomorrow we come boldly before the One whose mercies are new every morning and whose steadfast love never ceases. 

Tomorrow and every day, we put our trust in the only One who can save us, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 

Tomorrow, let it be said of us that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and we love our neighbors as ourselves.

Tomorrow love the Trumpeter, the Never Trumper, and the ones with her. As fellow image bearers, love deeply and sincerely, especially those who oppose us. 

When we wake pray for our leaders and let blessing and not cursing be on our tongues. 

Tomorrow, come and lay our burdens at His feet. 

Tomorrow, put off our red and blue shrouds and take up our crosses and follow Him wherever He may lead us.

Tomorrow, continue to seek justice, fight the good fight, and finish the race. 

Tomorrow, choose faith and not fear. For if we are submitted to Christ, there is nothing anyone can take from us that we have not already freely given to God. All of it belongs to Him: our money, our possessions, our happiness, even our freedom. 

We are released from despair and freed to praise Him because our inheritance is secure and His kingship is not in jeopardy. 

Tomorrow, Christian, let us prove our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ love and righteousness. We dare not trust in our vote or leader or government, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. 

Tomorrow and every day, Christian, proclaim to the watching world "’tis so sweet to trust in Jesus."

Oh for grace to trust Him more. 

“And the government will rest on His shoulders. And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore.” Isaiah 9:6-7

“Some trust in chariots and some in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Psalm 20:7

Stuck on Friday

It started as a very bad Friday. 

Jesus’ death was horrible, grievous news to those who loved Him. He was going to save them. He was not supposed to die. Not like this. He didn’t deserve to die so young. 

He was mocked, spit on, and beaten. Think about mourning the violent death of your dearest friend, but One who never wronged you, who washed your feet, poured His life into you, and loved you with a perfect love. 

It is hard to imagine. 

On this side of the cross, we call today “Good Friday.” 

It was not so on that day. It was the worst day. 

The closest earthly thing I have to relate to how the disciples felt is how I felt the day my dad died and the days immediately following. Those hours were crushing, devastating. The sky turned black. I just wanted to pull the covers over my head. Forever.

I have come to a strange crossroads in the grief of losing my dad nearly three years later. The grief is ever-present, but I have more control over my emotions. 

At first, I felt like I was being dragged behind a locomotive, chained up, unable to break free, captive on a path leading me deeper into sadness. I could not steer it or stop it, and I became bloody, banged up, and broken on the journey. 

I find myself still thinking about my dad daily, but I now come to this confusing new intersection:

The road straight ahead is sunny with flowers and a blue sky. It’s Oz in technicolor, but with fleeting, happy remembrances of my dad. 

The perpendicular road to the left and right feels dark and cloudy. It is ominous grey with a swirling black tornado on the horizon. It is the reality of deep loss and pain. I know I must go there at some point to continue healing. 

I choose every day if I want to continue on moving straight ahead, or if I will allow myself to turn, taking me down a road of tears and suffering. 

Tough choice. 

I usually keep moving straight ahead, out of convenience (grief can be extremely inconvenient, among other things). 

But on Good Friday, when we remember the death of Jesus, I am forced to think about suffering. The tears flow fast and easy today. 

Tear-filled eyes often give the most clear sight. 

I know which road Jesus chose. He chose the suffering. He engraved me on the palms of His hands. 

In my loss, sometimes I feel like I am alone and stuck on Friday. Losing my dad still hurts. It often takes my breath away when I remind myself that he is gone. 

Friday melts me. 

The truth is that I am never alone in my grief. He bore my sadness! He carried my grief with Him to the cross. Bad Friday, in hindsight, became Good Friday because He took it all upon Him- our sin, our sadness, and death itself. 

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5

Jesus did not stay stuck on Friday. 

Sunday, He rose. 

Sunday gives HOPE. It brings peace. 

Sunday heals. 

The difficult truth is that healing is always superseded by pain. Healing is reserved solely for the people who have been hurt, cast out, beaten up, and pummeled.

The path to healing is always through pain, never around it. 

Don't stay stuck on Friday. 

In truth, I can’t always see Sunday.

I believe in faith and remind myself daily that Sunday is coming. I have the beautiful words in Scripture, and I believe every letter is true. We will be fully glorified and resurrected. We see in part now, but one day we will see fully. 

The Good News is Jesus died and is risen. He conquered death— this terrible thing that was not supposed to be— the consequence of our disobedience to God. Death. 

Death crushes our hearts. But for the follower of Jesus, it has no sting, no victory. 

My resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ, is my only comfort in life and in death. 

CS Lewis said, “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him, everything else.” 

I know this to be true. 

Jesus is the fulfillment of every prophecy. He is the Redeemer, the Passover Lamb, slain for us. Our Savior. 

Look for Jesus today. Seek Him with all your heart and you will find Him. 

Not on the cross or in the tomb, for He is risen. 

Sunday is coming for all of us who trust in Christ. 

He is risen, indeed.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed what he has heard from us?1

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2  For he grew up before him like a young plant,

and like a root out of dry ground;

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3  He was despised and rejected2 by men;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4  Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

mitten by God, and afflicted.

5  But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.

6  All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

8  By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

and as for his generation, who considered

that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

stricken for the transgression of my people?

9  And they made his grave with the wicked

and with a rich man in his death,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

10  Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

11  Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied;

by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

make many to be accounted righteous,

and he shall bear their iniquities.

12  Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many,

and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,

because he poured out his soul to death

and was numbered with the transgressors;

yet he bore the sin of many,

and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Ode to My Minivan

(for Alexis)

Your kid-friendly features called me like an afternoon nap,

Window shades, automatic doors, I fell prey to your trap.

For eight years and three kids, we rolled around just fine,

To the beach and the mountains, we rocked the double yellow line, 

Then one day I awoke to find I hadn’t showered in days, 

I binge-watched Downton Abbey and was eating Chick-fil-a,

You were pushing 150k miles, it was time for something new,

And then it hit me, an epiphany, there was just one thing to do, 

So we sold you to another family with babies and a dog,

But I wanted to properly thank you for your service on my blog:

In your cupholder, I once found a congealed delight,

Made from last week’s goldfish and spilled over Sprite,

Your tires were never rotated and unevenly bare,

Your bumper was shopping-carted, and I didn’t even care,

My daughter's projectile wretch resided deep in your pocket,
No fear of theft, I never felt the urge to lock it, 

Half the time your doors jammed and closed back on my child,

The scent of your leather was putrid, yet mild,

The orange that rolled out of my grocery sack,

Was found a month later, green rotted mold in the back,

Your DVD player we swore to only use on trips (LOL),

Was like medicine for this momma, for my kids it was the drip,

Dried vomit and diaper leakage crusted between your seats,

Baby Einstein and Barney were your only sick beats,

Princess stickers melted on your back windows, all I could do was sigh,
Your steel mobile prison is where former glory goes to die.

To the extreme we rocked parenthood like a vandal,

But to keep driving you would be worse than a scandal,

It’s mommy graduation, they’re almost all in school,

I’m not wearing a jean jumper yet, I can still be cool,

I’m truly grateful for any wheels with my family by my side,

But I finally got my swag back in my NEW. DOPE. RIDE. 

SUV= Stay-at-home-mom Upgraded Victory,

And that is the happy ending to this mommy story.

(special thanks to the hubs, Marcus, who funded said new ride)

Left Behind

It's interesting the things that mean the most when someone is gone. I remember when my mom asked me if I wanted any of his clothes. A little taken back, I said "no."

Was it morbid? Not really. It was uncomfortable and strange. It was the business of burying the dead, as you know all too well when you have lost someone. There are practicalities that seem cruel, unnatural, and awkward, but things that must be done nevertheless.

I'm so thankful she saved for me one of his old Georgia t-shirts. It is red, and an XXL, with the painted word "Georgia" on the chest cracking and peeling off in places. It is perfectly flawed, much like the man himself.

I have struggled at times to make sense of my dad, in an unbiased way. I'm afraid I have failed miserably. I just simply can't see him as anything other than what he was to a little girl turned grown up: larger than life, a lover of people, a seasoned laugher, a generous giver, an unpretentious country boy, a grace giver, a life speaker, an incredible encourager, my hero.

Do I know his flaws? Yes, of course I do, but they have always paled in comparison to his strengths. For the good things in him were so much more staggeringly great than in the average man. They could never be overlooked in the interest of his imperfections.

Mom also saved me one of the Hawaiian shirts he wore when he went on speaking engagements. Thank you, Kim, for not cutting it up and making me an apron out of it. Seems an improper use to make ruffles and ties or anything fashionable out of a shirt belonging to the most unfrivolous man on the planet.

That one stays wrapped in plastic in my closet. I have never taken it out. He is wearing it in many of the pictures I have of him in recent years. It is shades of blue and white with palm leaves, with buttons all the way up the front ending in a collar in the middle, and has a big pocket on the left breast. If you knew him, you know the one.

In the pocket he never failed to keep a pen and a notepad-- the kind with white paper lined with blue and a metal spiral across the top. The weight of it pulled at the pocket so that it hung at an angle drooping away from his body.

He often scribbled in it at inopportune times. We teased him about it. He wrote notes about things he needed to do, funny things he heard or noticed, kept a list of people to write letters to, dreams and ideas he had.

It seemed prematurely old man-ish to me when he began to carry it in his forties. Maybe even embarrassing when I was younger and still trying to be cool. So did the reading glasses he kept around his neck on a string that he got when he turned forty and for the first time in his life couldn't read the paper without holding it 12 inches away.

He was not technologically savvy and the carrying of those items- the pen and paper and the glasses- was a writer's insurance, so to speak.

Now I totally get it.

I wish I had more of his shirts, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the American way- that more is better. When we all know deep down it is not.

Maybe it is because I feel small when I wear them. Like a child again. Wrapped in him, or something of his. It is a poor substitute, a counterfeit really, for the real thing.

I also carry one of his handkerchiefs in my purse. After two and a half years, it is now peppered with pen marks and crumbs of various child's snacks smashed into its fibers-- much like the lining of every one of my purses. I would never offer it to anyone in its present condition. It's more of a momento of the memory of him, of the many times he offered this hanky to me.

Like the handkerchief, he is still scattered about my everyday, his likeness appearing in the art of my children, his love of food present in their snacks. Parts of him are still tucked away in the lining. It is a little faded and scarred, but present with me everywhere I go.

Like me, it carries many tears inside of it, filled with sorrows yet not overcome by its scars.  I have no plans to restore it to its former glory. It's not my job or within my skill set.

For when it is finally cleaned, unblemished, and washed and pressed, there will be no evidence of the pain it once contained. Every tear will have already been wiped away. Its former use will be no more. The vessel of sorrow will become a beacon of glory.

There will be only joy and completeness and the memory of what once was broken and hurting.
Like going to sleep on a pile of bricks and awakening atop a shining castle.

I was thinking today, because the busyness of Thanksgiving kept me from really reflecting until now, about what Jesus left behind. What did he want us to hold onto two thousand years after he was gone to remember him by?

And two precious things come to mind. His Word, the Bible. And His Spirit.

He also left us the practice of meeting together in fellowship and community of the church. He left us the practice of taking the Lord's Supper-- to proclaim his death until He comes. And a bunch of other things.

But the Bible and the Spirit are overwhelmingly the tangibles/ intangibles that come to my mind.

And unlike my Dad's shirt, both of those are not just "things" that remind us of him. They actually ARE Him, or a part of who God is.

John 1:1-2 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

Jesus IS the Word.
Jesus IS God. The Spirit IS God, too. 

When I sit and try to wrap my mind around those three sentences, I can't. They are too deep, too rich, to sacred for me to understand fully.

But I do know this. What Jesus left behind for me gives me way more comfort, way more hope, than a Georgia shirt, a Hawaiian shirt, and an old hanky ever could.

Jesus sent another form of God, the Spirit, as a deposit guaranteeing what is to come, and He gave the Word as the roadmap to help us find the Way. To find more of Him.

What Jesus left simultaneously gives contentment and discontentment, satisfaction and longing, comfort and discomfort, because one taste of Jesus only leaves us longing for more. And the more we get of Jesus the less we want of this world.

I thought about my dad yesterday, feasting with the King of kings, and that, deep down, is what I am most thankful for...

That those in my extended and immediate family, my husband, my children, my mom, my brother, and his family, will be there, too.

I'm thankful for hope in the middle of hard things. I'm thankful that Jesus didn't just leave us a stained shroud or a crown of thorns or a stick he used to draw in the sand. Or a Georgia t-shirt (no doubt He has one).

He left us more of Himself. More of God. No counterfeit. No remnant. No marred possession.
The Spirit. His Word. Living and active.

God with us. The pinnacle of our gratitude rests on everything that is fulfilled in Jesus. He is in all and through all. He is the most we could ever have to be thankful for. I pray He is with you today and in the life everlasting. 

I pray that you see all your blessings today as given to you by the hand of a loving Father. He has already given us His very best. We need only have faith to believe it. 

Women's Rights Activists, You're Whiffing the Ball

Women’s rights activists, where are you? Frankly, I am disappointed. You have a high hanging ball right over the plate, and you are whiffing. It’s embarrassing. 

Does a woman’s right to choose only extend to an abortion procedure or does a woman also have the right to choose (or have knowledge of) what happens to said “fetal tissue” after the procedure? Does she have the right to the knowledge of its sale for illegal profiteering? Does she have the right to consent of such use? 

Does it violate a woman’s rights for a women’s health organization to illegally sell her donated "fetal tissue” for profit?

Planned Parenthood’s mission is “to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.” The great champion of a woman’s rights and her right to choose has effectually denied her exactly that. The hypocrisy is palpable. 

If I am a women’s rights activist, I am angry. Angry that an organization I have put so much energy behind and held up as the great defender of women’s rights has jeopardized it all over illegal activity while simultaneously violating women’s rights. 

If you are going to be about women’s rights, then be about women’s rights. If women are consenting for research that follows federal law and then that consent is being abused by illegal activity, then women are being victimized. They should be able to choose whether they want someone to profit from the sale of their baby. They should also have the confidence that their procedure is being done in the standardized way-- not illegally altered for the sake of profit.

I wonder how many women have watched the video of the baby parts in the petri dish and wondered…is that mine? Is that my boy? There may be thousands of women out there wondering if the baby donated from their womb was chopped up and sold for profit or maybe even sold “fully intact” (not all women who get abortions believe it is merely fetal tissue). Sadly, they may never know. 

The question is, do they have a right to know? This is a separate issue altogether from whether the "tissue" should have been extracted in the first place. This is not just a pro-life battle. 

If Planned Parenthood’s self-imposed conundrum was not so closely related to the abortion issue, feminists and women’s rights activists everywhere would be crying, "foul!" Instead, they are standing by Planned Parenthood, illegal activity and all, while losing ground for women they fought so hard to gain. The extreme left would love nothing better than to spread the misinformation that Planned Parenthood’s illegal sale of fetal tissue is another pro-life/ pro-choice war. That is a war they believe they can win. 

Is the pro-life issue a part of it? Sure it is. Depending on which side you are on, it’s a huge part of it. But while pro-lifers are reeling in horror at inhumane feticide, at the very least pro-choicers should be outraged by the empty promises of an organization which claims to stand for women's rights yet profits by illegally taking advantage of them. Aside from the moral issue, there is the looming legal one. And that one transcends party lines. 

We corporately laud these same ethics requiring a financial institution that fraudulently misuses our money to be held legally responsible and punished accordingly. Why have we lost our gusto on this one? What supporters of Planned Parenthood are effectually saying is: We give women rights up to a certain point as long as we can keep them ignorant. As long as they don’t really know what we are doing. 

It’s like the civil rights movement saying— hey, we are fine with equal rights in practice as long as we don’t have to become intellectual equals. Let us use the same restrooms and sit where we want on the same buses, but you don’t have to give us equality in education. Heck, we don’t even need to vote. It’s beyond absurd. 

If you are selling women’s rights, shouldn’t those transcend the physical practice of what she does with her body? Shouldn’t she be allowed to know? Shouldn’t she be consulted? 

Planned Parenthood is happy to keep her in the dark. Give her rights…but not enough freedom to interfere or to have a say about what monster her donations are feeding. And apparently, the majority U.S. Senate and President Obama support her oppression.  

Don’t for one second make this only about the moral issue of abortion. Whichever side you are on, make Planned Parenthood accountable for the legal boundaries they have crossed here. Stand up for the women whose rights are being trampled under the false banner of protection.

And choke up on the bat already.


(And if you don’t believe this is factual, go watch the series of videos put out by the Center for Medical Progress. Hear it from the mouth of Planned Parenthood’s Mary Gatter haggling over the price of aborted baby parts because she wants a Lamborghini, haha. This isn't about covering the cost of research, friends. The cost for research plus travel expenses is a fixed cost, not one to haggle over).