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Posts Tagged ‘hope and change’

The U.S. House of Representatives will debate the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act” (H.R. 3) on Wednesday, May 4.  This bill provides desperately needed conscience protections for life-affirming healthcare professionals and the patients they serve.

I encourage everyone to visit the Freedom2Care legislative action center.  Use the easy form to urge your Representative to vote YES on this bill and to oppose any weakening amendments.

Then, please familiarize yourself with the 16,000 member Christian Medical Association.

My personal e-mail to President Obama, my two senators, and representative reads:

With all due respect,

I am a citizen of this country who conscience cannot allow me to condone taxpayer-funded abortions or the force of medical personnel to perform them.  Legalized abortion has already removed 50+ million people who would have boosted the economy of this country in magnificent ways and brought new creativity and hope.  Instead, we have 76 million of my generation (babyboomers) with only 17 million of my sons’ generation.  What were we thinking?

Please listen to your conscience and vote “YES” on HR 3.  Please oppose weakening the amendment in any way.

Future generations of Americans thank you.  Health care providers who do not believe in taking a life — but rather saving lives — thank you.

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May 5 is National Day of Prayer.

Our community is hosting a time of prayer from 6:30 to 7:30 in the city park.  Many people of various faiths will be praying for many things.  On April 8, I posted a blog explaining that I won’t be praying that God make this a Christian nation.  Instead, I will be praying that followers of Jesus Christ:

  • Turn their heads away from deceptive philosophy and deceit (Colossians 2:8)
  • Encourage one another and build one another up (1 Thessalonians 5:11)
  • Train for godliness (1 Timothy 4:7-10)
  • Set an example in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity (1 Thessalonians 4:12)
  • Build our houses on the Rock (Matthew 7:24-27)
  • Bring little children to Jesus (Mark 10:14)
  • Love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31)

If we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ask Him to help us live in ways that bring Him the glory, this country will be a better place.  A safer place.  Institutions of marriage and family, health, law, education, church, and government will be influenced for “the people’s good.”

Generations will know the mercies of God.

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“Calling homosexuality a sin is homophobic,” proclaimed the college student, “and no true, loving God would promote hatred against someone based on how he or she created them.”

But, what “true, loving God” would “create” a person to be homosexual?  What a cruel God that would be!  Would He think it amusing that body parts don’t fit?  Would He callously dunk biscotti in His coffee as He watched the health of men deteriorate and the hearts of women grow cold?

When people claim that homosexuals are “born that way,” I agree.  We are — each one of us — born with sin in us.  But, my choice is to embrace that sin or fight it; to do things that my body wasn’t made to do, or be on guard against harming myself and others; to be “lord and master” of my own life, or to trust that God knows best what I need and is good for me (as well as those affected by my choices).

The God of creation made Adam and Eve perfectly.  She was a “helper fit for him.”  (Literally: “like his opposite.”)  Their “fit,” in the intimacy of marriage, would be complementary and procreative.  The Creator said it was “good.”  God would be contrary to Himself if He created such masterpieces and then set them on a course of abuse and destruction. No, it was not God that brought confusion, struggle, and pain into our lives.  It is human sin — our own pride and disobedience — that makes this world a dark and troublesome place.

The God of reciprocal love did not force the first man and woman to be in a relationship with Him.  He invited them to trust Him and choose life.  The alternative was to trust themselves and choose death.  When Satan tempted Eve with his question, “Did God really say . . . ?” she and Adam both failed to trust God… and sinned.  Sin brought selfishness, deceit, abuse, difficult relationships, fear of children, weaknesses for all manner of harmful behavior (including unnatural sex), diseases, and death.

Can God tolerate sin and its consequences?  No.  But, the God who despises sin does not hate the person who sins.  Adam and Eve chose to disobey God so could no longer stay in the perfect garden, but before entering a now changed and harsh world, God promised One who would win victory over satan, sin, and death.

The promise was kept.  Jesus Christ came down into our dark and troublesome world.  He knew that, left to ourselves, sinful people are alienated from the Holy God… and there’s nothing we can do about it.  So, Jesus cried out,

Whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me.  And whoever sees Me sees Him who sent Me.  I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness.  If anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.  The one who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day” (John 12:44-48).

Good Friday approaches.  I am drawn to the Cross where my Savior showed compassion for sinners.  Dare I cheapen His amazing grace or mock His victory over death by claiming that my sins matter not to the Holy God?

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My personal “tour guide” at Planned Parenthood was friendly.  I did not doubt that she genuinely believed she was part of an organization that wanted to help women.  However, two-thirds of the “tour” was was spent explaining where the client has her abortion and how long it takes her to recover before leaving by way of the side door.

So, Planned Parenthood: “Fess up!  You benefit from multiple private donors, yet you fight tooth and nail for my tax dollars.  Why is it so important that government fund and, thereby, endorse you?

My “tour” of Planned Parenthood was many years ago.  It — and countless conversations with women who left your clinics by the side door — influenced me to warn mothers and daughters away from your place of business.  I have read your brochures, become familiar with your recommended textbooks and classroom topics, studied your reports, and visited your web site for teens.  You do not view men, women, relationships, marriage, or family as God does.

So, come clean Planned Parenthood and “fess up!

If you’re all about women’s health care, why do you:

  • Teach the “art and science” of premarital sex to elementary, middle and high school children?
  • Encourage boys and girls to “test their sex savvy” and engage in interactive games such as “Jim Dandy and His Very Gay Day”?
  • Tell boys and girls that even though their parents may not understand, any sexual activity is “normal” as long as the two people involved “give” and “receive pleasure”?
  • Teach the “ABCDs of LGBT Dating” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender)?
  • Help child predators by covering up illegal sexual activity, child abuse, and statutory rape?
  • Drive a wedge between parents and children?
  • Promote promiscuity and sexual disorders?  (Note: My conscience does not allow me to include quotes or paraphrases from Planned Parenthood publications and web sites.  I invite my readers to do their own research and have included sources.)
  • Mislead adolescents and teens with the idea of “safer sex”?
  • Perpetuate the lie that you are a “health care” organization when, in one year alone (2001), you dispensed 458,892 emergency contraception kits (“morning after pill”), performed 213,026 surgical abortions and 25,000 chemical abortions, but in your nearly 900 “health centers” saw only 15,618 clients for prenatal care (1 for every 13 abortion clients) and made only 1,951 adoption referrals (1 for every 109 abortion clients)?

“Fess up, Planned Parenthood!  If you’re all about women’s health care, why don’t you:

  • Show expectant moms the ultrasound of their baby?
  • Inform women that abortion may be legal, but it is not necessarily safe?
  • Applaud the work of caring pregnancy centers that affirm the physical, psychological, and spiritual wellness of girls and women before, during, and after pregnancy as well as to mothers grieving their aborted children — all without government assistance?  (In 1997, I co-founded one of these caring pregnancy centers in my community and continue to serve as a volunteer, mentor, and board president.)
  • Warn women about the connection between abortion and breast cancer?
  • Help build relationships between girls and their parents rather than circumventing parental notification laws?
  • Admit that you practice a form of eugenics even today by intentionally setting up your clinics in the more impoverished parts of town and, percentage-wise, aborting more black children than white children?
  • Admit that you actively lobby for abortion rights and pursue your own interests?  (In 2006, PP hired Cecile Richards [the daughter of Ann Richards, former governor of Texas] as president.  Her experience is not in health care at all, but in political action.  Her previous work as as a union organizer, as the founder of “Texas Freedom network” [formed to battle pro-life groups in Texas], as director of pro-choice projects for the Turner Foundation, and as founder and president of America Votes, a coalition of 32 of the biggest and richest unions and liberal interest groups in the country.)

Planned Parenthood, one of your own clinic directors has been quoted, saying, “If Planned Parenthood had no abortion, it would see its soul unravel.”  (Thomas Webber, former director of PP of Minnesota/South Dakota, The (St. Paul) Pioneer Press, July 27, 2000).

SOURCES: Teenwire.com, Planned Parenthood, Childpredators.com, Pro-Life Action Ministries, STOPP International, Life Dynamics, The Eliott Institute, Silent No More, Word of Hope, The Lighthouse, Ramah International, Lutherans For Life, and Concerned Women for America, Dr. Joe McIlhaney, Dr. Miriam Grossman, and Dr. Meg Meeker — for starters!

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“Not a Scientist” has offered ezerwoman the opportunity to hear from someone of a contrasting worldview.  I don’t know “Not a Scientist,” but I am grateful that he’s interested in dialogue.  This society needs more of that.

Twice, “Not a Scientist” has commented on my post, “Questions to Help Us Think (4-4-11).  My pastor and son have also joined in the discussion.  This is a good thing.  That’s part of the reason why I’ve put myself out here — in blog world.  Some say, “Linda!  You’re a target.”  There is no fear in that.  Not if I’m a target for well-thought out words that may — or may not — agree with my worldview.  We should be doing more talking.  Explaining.  Researching.  Challenging.  We should practice building our lives upon what we think and know to be true rather than upon fickle feelings and emotions. 

To “Not a Scientist” I offer the following:

You and I see the world through very different glasses.  Our worldviews boldly contrast.  

  • My worldview is built on God’s Word.  Yours is not. 
  • My worldview does not blow with the wind or shift like sand.  I believe yours blows and shifts a great deal depending upon circumstances.
  • My worldview is built on the created order; thus, I know who I am, from where I come, how I’m to live, and where I’m going when I die.  You don’t appear to believe in any created order but, rather, evolving chaos. 
  • My worldview tells me how God wants men and women to live and relate to one another.  Yours, well, how are men and women supposed to live and relate to one another?  Why? 
  • My worldview offers a future of generational hope built on the backs of fathers, mothers, and grandparents who faithfully teach their sons, daughters, and grandchildren what God says about morality, ethics, marriage and family, “loving our neighbor as ourselves, and serving “the least of these.”  It appears you can entertain your fanciful and humanistic ideas only because fathers, mothers, and grandparents faithfully wove the strong fabric of this nation which you don’t seem to appreciate but certainly enjoy wearing.  
  • My worldview explains that the problems and challenges of relationships, marriages, families, and the whole of society are because of sin which opposes God’s good and perfect design.  I’d be interested to know why you think life is so difficult.
  • My worldview explains that everything — good or bad — has a consequence (you know, like gravity).  Do you acknowledge consequences and can you explain why they exist?
  • My worldview explains why I daily battle with myself and that I’ll never be good enough to save myself.  Do you sense an inner struggle between right and wrong, good and evil?  Even though you say you don’t believe in souls, what if you’re wrong and you really have one?  Where will your body and soul be after you die?
  • I can’t seem to do the good I know I should but, instead, I do the bad I don’t want to do.  This quandary could leave me in desperation.  In desperation, I might be tempted to sacrifice something in order to save myself.  But, I don’t have to.  My worldview assures me that the one and only necessary sacrifice to make me right with the Holy God was made by Jesus Christ on the Cross.   At the Cross, I can lay down my burdens, sorrows, disappointments, and failures.  Jesus forgives me.  Now, He only asks that I use His Word for life that changes lives.  Every day for me is new and filled with hope.  Mr. “Not a Scientist,” how do you start your days?  To what do you look forward?  What hope do you have?  What hope do you offer others?  (I can tell you: You have the same hope I do because Jesus died for you, too.  Can you believe it?)

You have fanciful ideas, Mr. “Not a Scientist.”  But, they are dangerous.  When I expressed concern for the two young men now “joined” in “marriage,” I did so because I am positive they have souls.  Souls that will live forever — with God or not.  I am positive because God’s Word tells me so.  If I’m wrong, there is no loss.  If I’m right, and those created and precious souls are separated from God because of sinful choices, then there is huge loss.  Soulful loss. 

Fanciful ideas, like free-falling without a parachute, are exciting — for awhile.

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A long time ago, I began to wonder: Would the generation that ushered in legalized abortion be ushered out by legalized euthanasia?  Maybe… because so many of the people that could have supported us in our senior years are missing.

Since 1973, over 50 million babies have been aborted in the U.S. alone.  What is the impact of so many missing persons?  So many heads to think?  Hearts to love?  Hands to serve?

There are approximately 76 million in my generation of babyboomers.  There are only 17 million of my sons’ generation.   (Can you get your arms around that one?)

Ask anyone in my family and they’ll tell you I’m not good with numbers.  But, with some 2008 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social Security Administration, Guttmacher Institute, and National Center for Health Statistics, I’ve got some big numbers for your consideration.  If abortion had not been legalized in 1973 . . .

  • 17,250,839 more people would have been employed
  • $398,900,760,733 earned by those employees
  • $11,105,397,179 contributed to Medicare
  • $47,485,146,558 contributed to Social Security
  • 3,432,000 more retired workers could receive average monthly social security benefit check
  • 2,165,707 more people could receive Medicare Hospital Insurance

What is the economic impact of abortion?  What do 50 million + missing persons mean?  It has been said that the basis of any economy is its population, or human element.  Consider that the parents of 50 million children are not shopping for diapers, toys, or school books.  50 million children won’t require teachers.  50 million children won’t grow up to work, spend, save, marry, start families, build houses, invest wages, be innovative or use their skills.  50 million children won’t become adults who pay taxes.  50 million children won’t think, love or serve.

Perhaps, in missing these persons, we will be sorry and ask for forgiveness.  A Cross beckons us to journey from hopelessness to hopefulness.  From deception to truth.  From death to life.  When I look at my grandchildren, I see the promise.  I see heads to think.  Hearts to love.  Hands to serve.

It’s true that the consequences of our sins carry to the third and fourth generations.  But, God’s mercy in Christ is to thousands of generations that love Him.

(I am grateful to my friend, Chuck Asay,
for his editorial cartoon.)

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While union members and politicians are “acting up” in Wisconsin, perhaps 10,000 men, women and children have died in Japan.

While we use our time to worship at the altar of “me,” the very earth is groaning.

Even as the earth groans, we seem obsessed with either disposing of or putting our children at risk, destroying marriage, weakening the family, legitimizing all manner of unnatural behavior, collectively bargaining for Viagra, serving ourselves rather than our neighbor, and doing whatever is right in our own eyes.

This is only the third month of a new year.  Think of what has already happened in 2011:  The shooting in Tucson, continued murders along our southern border, civil unrest in Egypt and Libya and Saudi Arabia, a massive earthquake in New Zealand and, last Friday, the deadly tsunami which followed a 9.0 earthquake in Japan.

Even the rocks cry out.   Yet, Planned Parenthood unashamedly begs funds to abort more children.

I wonder what the parents of five-month-old Baxter Gowland would have to say to that.  Baxter was the youngest to die in the Christchurch, New Zealand, earthquake.

I wonder what the Creator and Father God thinks.  After all, He so loved the world that He sent His only Son to value each human life — on a Cross.

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My grandparents had common sense, and generally used it.  It served them so well that they faithfully passed it on to my parents.  It served them well, too, so they shared with me.   But, whenever I’m about to use the term these days, I hesitate.  Sense isn’t so common anymore.

Tonight, while sitting at the intersection of six lanes from four directions, I looked at the traffic lights with new appreciation.  (I was also grateful for my driver’s ed instructor who had schooled me in how to properly navigate my vehicle in the midst of other vehicles.)  And yet, when it comes to healthy and safe relationships between boys and girls, there is this ridiculous notion that we should take down the traffic lights and let the children do whatever “feels right.”  (Planned Parenthood, is there something about children you don’t like?)

Oh, silly me.  I forgot that Planned Parenthood is the same organization that has helped abort 50 million of this country’s sons and daughters.  Unfortunately, the very generation that ushered in legalized abortion could very well be ushered out by euthanasia.  It’s impossible, you know, for aborted people to support 76 million aging baby boomers.

No wonder the AARP is driving Congress and pushing for national health care.  My generation forgot about tomorrow!  We were so focused on our rights, our pleasures, OURSELVES… that we didn’t want to be inconvenienced by the very people that would have generated new households, jobs, labor, goods and services, consumers, investment, innovation, new life… well, you know, all the things necessary to keep civilization moving along in the direction of hope.

Can anyone even imagine the impact of 50 million lost Americans?  Maybe, as we begin to recognize that choices have consequences, we’ll pray for Common Sense: 101 to be mandatory for graduation.  It will bring new life!

Think on this, won’t you, next time you’re stopped at a traffic light.  Then say a little thank you to those who had the common sense to put it there.

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Hitler once said to the parents of Germany, “What are you?  You will pass on.  Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp.  In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”

Much of the older generation in Germany kept quiet.  Good Germans trusted authorities, minded their own business, and steered clear of conflict.  But do you know who spoke up?  Do you know who publicly went on record to oppose Hitler?

It was the  young people!  One of the few organized public efforts to oppose the Third Reich was a small group of university students who called themselves the White Rose Society.  These students had been politically indoctrinated from childhood; some were trained as Hitler youth.  Nevertheless, these young people resolved to take a stand against evil.  How is this possible?  How could these young people resist the Nazi culture?  Because they were idealistic and willing to rebel against bad ideas; they were influenced by families who opposed Hitler; they were medical students who knew about medical atrocities; and most had Jewish friends or classmates.

Two of these students were executed — beheaded — for their resistance.  They were a Lutheran brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl.  Hans and Sophie knew the time had come to act.  The printed and distributed leaflets called Leaves of the White Rose, telling others about the mass extermination of human life and calling for resistance.  They called for a “freedom from evil” and a “rebirth of German life devoted to truth.”  One of the leaflets read: “We seek the revival of the deeply wounded German spirit.  For the sake of future generations, an example must be set after the war so that no one will ever have the slightest desire to try anything like this ever again . . . We shall not be silent — we are your conscience.  The White Rose will not leave you in peace.”

You and I know young people like this who speak to our conscience and who could rise up to oppose evil.  They are the generation who knows exactly what abortion is, and they don’t like it.  They have witnessed the failures of modern feminism and sex education, and they want something better.  Their souls long for truth.

It’s no wonder Planned Parenthood is afraid.   The younger generation could demand that America cease its barbaric ways.  The younger generation could demand that the Church be the distinctively different Church it is supposed to be.

There are generations of hope.  Though God has promised His judgment on the third and fourth generations, His mercy is to thousands of generations.

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Do you have a friend, professor, or neighbor who claims to take the moral high-road, yet stubbornly defends abortion?  Take a breath, and keep your composure.  Don’t make statements; rather, ask questions.

Mike Adams (Townhall.com 3/7/2011) offers 35 questions he gleaned in large part from Scott Klusendorf (www.prolifetraining.com).  Here are 18 of those questions:

  1. If abortion is not murder because the fetus is not a person then why make it “safe, legal, and rare”?
  2. If a woman were raped and got pregnant, which one would you kill: a) the baby, b) the rapist, or c) both?
  3. Are you comfortable with the fact that “a” is the only answer you  may choose according to (the present interpretation of) the Constitution?
  4. Abortion advocates frequently focus on the size of the fetus.  Why is that relevant?
  5. Do tall people have more rights than short people?
  6. Is murder permissible when the victim is sleeping and hence unaware of the surrounding environment?
  7. Should a woman abort a baby because it may be expensive and time-consuming to raise a child to adulthood?
  8. Should a woman be able to kill a puppy because it may be expensive and time consuming to feed and care for a dog?
  9. What gives human beings more value than dogs?
  10. Who do we expect better behavior from humans than from dogs?
  11. Which one of these is not like the others: a) Adult, b) toddler, c) unborn baby, d) dog?
  12. Does secular humanism assume that humans are inherently different from other life forms?  If not, why is it called humanism?
  13. Can a thoroughly materialistic (or Darwinist or secular humanist) worldview explain how or why anything has value or a right to life?
  14. Does the “right to choose” come from man or from God?
  15. If man grants rights can he also take them away?
  16. It has been said (by three Supreme Court Justices) that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”  Does that mean a woman can define a baby’s rights out of existence because a woman is more powerful than a baby?
  17. Or does that mean a man can define a woman’s rights out of existence because, in a patriarchal society, a man is more powerful than a woman?
  18. Rights often confer power.  Should power also confer rights?

A long time ago, I learned the wisdom of asking questions.  Questions don’t condemn.  They just help people think.

I want to be a thinking person, don’t you?  (Thanks Mike!  Thanks Scott!)

(Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.  Scott Klusendorf is a Summit Ministries faculty member and vibrant pro-life advocate.)

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