“Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.” –Rabindranath Tagore
[Via A Child Chosen.]
Tag: love
Those other issues certainly affect a country’s safety, prosperity, and greatness. But I’ve come to believe that a nation that tolerates destruction of innocents deserves neither safety nor prosperity nor greatness. We’ve descended into barbarism, and it poisons how we treat the elderly, the incapacitated, even ourselves. We shouldn’t be surprised, having made life a utilitarian calculation, that more and more humans become inconvenient.
It’s certainly true that there are other issues that ought to concern Christians, like the sanctity of marriage, and how we treat the mentally ill, the elderly, and children who have been born. But abortion is, in my view, the touchstone. Get this one wrong and your moral compass can guide you in nothing else.
Tony Woodlief, with words I need to take heed of:
Cast aside what you think you know is right, the church marquee urges, and consider the God-breathed Word. Give yourself over to it and these seemingly large things–tax rates, economic growth, wars, and rumors of wars–will diminish. Meanwhile, those seemingly small things–the anger in our hearts when we, say, confront someone whose ideology we dislike or the fact that we find it so much easier to spend time with those we like rather than those who need us–will become grievous to our spirits.
This is the Word that cuts through every heart, through the very heart of darkness, illuminating the world as it is and will be. Beside it every politician ever born is remarkably inconsequential. Our business on Election Day is brief, and regardless of who wins our work remains the same–seeking and serving the lost, losing our own lives in the doing, and clinging to the Cross that shatters nations, tribes, and creeds.
Dr. Wess Stafford, President and CEO of Compassion:
“The cure to cancer might be in the slums of Kenya or Indonesia.”
In other words, you don’t know what the children of today are capable of tomorrow, how God may use someone like me, someone like you, now to change the lives of scores, hundreds, thousands, possibly millions, years from now, just because we help change the life of one child today.
Please consider sponsoring a child.
“I can think of nothing more unfair to an unborn child than to come into this world unwanted,” declares the Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith, senior pastor of Advent United Church of Christ in Columbus, Ohio. And that’s the difference between those of us who are pro-life, and those who aren’t: we, the former, can think of something much more unfair.
Rebecca Walker is the daughter of founding feminist, and The Color Purple author, Alice Walker. Rebecca recently reflected on her life, and her disownment by her mom because she decided to become a mother herself. After reading this article, I’m left wondering what kind of person Alice Walker must be, to have been so selfish, and most recently, so hateful, toward her own daughter and grandson. She has never seen him.
Then I recall that selfish pride is the oldest sin in the Book.
Here are some choice bits:
The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother – thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.
You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.
In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life.
I’m so grateful I never had to experience, as a child, being told by my mother that I was enslaving her, that she bore me as if a millstone.
I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel children need two parents and the thought of raising Tenzin without my partner, Glen, 52, would be terrifying.As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.
Walker goes on with a litany of how her mother’s feminist ideals robbed her of a normal childhood: divorce; being at the bottom of her mom’s priority list; being left when relatives while Alice vacationed for two weeks in Greece; feeling utterly alone in her femininity, not having an attentive mother to talk to and connect with; having sex–with her mother’s knowledge–at the age of 13, and becoming pregnant at age 14. She had an abortion, which “haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I’d never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.”
When she learned she was pregnant, Rebecca was hesitant to tell her mother, but she did:
Although I knew what my mother felt about babies, I still hoped that when I told her I was pregnant, she would be excited for me.Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes housesitting, and told her my news and that I’d never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed – she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?
I could go on and on, to the point where I’d quote nearly the entire piece, and I encourage you, dear reader, to read all of it yourself.
Ultimately, Rebecca has abided by her mother’s wish to not have contact with her. She’s accepted it for the better, that despite the good things feminism has done for women, for the well-being of her son and herself, “I can no longer have this poisonous relationship destroy my life.”
It’s a shame a child has to say that about her parent.
“[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.” –Dwight Eisenhower
Moments like this are reminders for me that the songs and trappings of Christian culture are not the hope of the world–Jesus is! We need to make him known. We need to love and seek to serve the world around us through prayer, through faithful evangelism, and through Christ-like service of those in need. Our goal is not building a more air-tight evangelical bubble. Neither should our goal be hoping that our subculture will burst out into the broader culture to great acclaim.
Instead, our goal should be to proclaim Christ and him crucified to the people we go to the school with, work with, and live next door to. Our goal should be to preach the gospel and live lives worthy of that gospel. Our goal should be to use our gifts in every sector of society so that God is glorified.
This past weekend, we spent a few days visiting my parents in the suburbs of Birmingham. (That would be Alabama, not England. Just in case it wasn’t clear.)
My dad pulled my old rocking horse, Donut, out of storage, cleaned up the parts, and assembled him in the basement, all for my son to ride while we were visiting.
If you want to see a slightly larger version, click on the video.
I got Donut about the same age as the little phisch is now, roughly 1974. The nostalgia from watching my own child ride the same horse I did thirty-three, thirty-four years ago, was overwhelming.