Strange Exchange

Happy Easter!

What it's like

“As weeks went by, it showed that she was not fine

They told me son it's time to tell the truth
And she broke down
and I broke down '
Cuz I was tired of lying” – Ben Folds Five - Brick

A Biblical Response to the question of Abortion.

Abortion is an emotionally charged issue, but one we must address and grapple with in our own hearts as we seek to do God's will. I don’t claim to have a perfect answer for this, but I will explain as best I understand from the scriptures, as God’s Word is what counts, not mine or anyone else’s. So I will briefly discuss what the Biblical stance is on Abortion then discuss what should be the Christians response based on what we know in the Bible.  

Abortion is not a new invention. It’s been around as long as people have been getting pregnant. It’s been controversial equally as long. I think we are all familiar with the arguments both sides make as those argument as just as old as the matter itself.

So, what does the Bible have to say about all of this?

#1 Conception is an act of God.
Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a gift from the Lord.” God is the author and creator of life. All life is an act of God.

#2 Every person is created in the image of God.
James 3:9 “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.”

Every life is created by God in His image, to bear His image and that image should be respected. What of those that will be born with birth defects? The list of people with disabilities who have made major contributions to society is lengthy.
http://listverse.com/2010/01/18/top-10-extraordinary-people-with-disabilities/
I don’t think we’d advocate that any of them would have been better to have never been born.

#3 Everyone has a purpose. Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” The Greek word for workmanship is not that of a stock assembly line but more along the lines of a handcrafted, one of kind, custom made individual. It means that everyone has a plan, everyone has a purpose. Abortion robs an individual of that plan and purpose and who knows what God would have used them to accomplish?

#4 God condemns murder.

Exodus 20:13 “You shall not murder”

Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.”

We know from Exodus 21:22-25 that this applies to the unborn.

To murder someone is to lose your own right to life. You go through the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi and you see all these comments and blood guiltiness, and how the blood of all those slaughtered cry out to God. God holds us accountable for our sin.

#5 Now here is some encouragement. Grace trumps our sin. There is forgiveness available to all those that seek Christ. This is the message of Easter. Yes, even for murderers. There are plenty of those in the Bible. Paul, David, Moses. Yet God used all of them in-spite of their flaws. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: If you hate somebody, you’re as bad as a murderer. So don’t read this and feel smug because you haven’t killed any people young or old. If you’ve ever hated anyone, you’re a murderer. Yes, it can be forgiven. Just ask the Apostle Paul. He was a murdered and blasphemer yet He found grace.

So, with this in mind, what should be the Christians response to abortion? Knowing what we know, how should we act?

“Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom, said he was in love.
He said d’ worry about a thing baby doll I'm the man you've been dreamin' of.
But three months later he said he won't date her or return her call…..
Then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin' through the door.
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whore.
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes.
'Cause then you really might know what it's like to have to choose” – Everlast – What It’s Like

For far too long the church has given the above response to women struggling with the abortion issue. We can’t just throw the issue in the faces of the women dealing with and say ‘You decide and God judge you if you make the wrong decision!” We can’t let them bear the weight of this situation and its responsibility alone. It’s not something someone can handle alone. If we close our doors in the faces women and children when they need us the most, then we close our doors in the face of Christ. Abortion is not an issue of rights but of responsibility.

Will Willimon, the Dean of Duke University told this story about a church. In this church, when a teen-ager has a baby that she cannot care for, the church baptizes the baby and gives him/her to an older couple in the church that has the time and wisdom to raise the child. That way, says the pastor, the couple can raise the teen-age mother along with the baby. 'That, the pastor says, 'is how we do it.'"

He tells another story of a lady named Deborah Campbell. A member of her church, a divorced woman, became pregnant, and the father dropped out of the picture. The woman decided to keep the child. But as the pregnancy progressed and began to show, she became upset because she felt she could not go to church anymore. After all, here she was, a Sunday School teacher, unmarried and pregnant. So she called Deborah. Deborah told her to come to church and sit in the pew with the Campbell family, and, no matter how the church reacted, the family would support her. Well, the church rallied around when the woman's doctor told her at her six-month checkup that she owed him the remaining balance of fifteen hundred dollars by the next month; otherwise, he would not deliver the baby. The church held a baby shower and raised the money. When the time came for her to deliver, Deborah was her labor coach. When the woman's mother refused to come and help after the baby was born, the church brought food and helped clean her house while she recovered from the birth. Now the woman's little girl is the child of the church.

Now that is living up to Matthew 25:40 "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me"

In Uganda, a local pastor was talking about the AIDS epidemic there, and how many of the tribal customs only serve to promote promiscuity and spread disease. One region has an old tradition where the father of the groom gets to sleep with the bride on the night before the wedding before the groom does, and everyone in that region continues the practice to this day. I was stunned to hear some of their stories, and I asked the pastor, “What do you do to combat this?” His answer was simple and yet profound. He said to me, “Simple. We tell them about Jesus. When people know Jesus, all of these problems tend to go away.”

I believe God has given the church a powerful tool to use against abortion. It’s called the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the only tool or method known to man that is guaranteed to deal with abortion in a way that is effective and God pleasing. We have Jesus, and people need Jesus, ESPECIALLY the single pregnant woman who is filled with fear for her future or reputation! I believe the responsibility of the church as an organization is to declare, teach, and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and allow Jesus to deal with problems in the lives of the individuals He touches. There is simply no more powerful tool that can save the life of the unborn child than the gospel, planted in the heart of that child’s mother. The first question anyone should ask himself or herself in the fight against abortion should be, “How do we get the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ to these women who are considering abortion?” You find the answer to that question, and you are in a position to effect great and lasting change.

Glen

That's right the boom is here

As promised!

                                You better get to the floor cause the room is about to get packed!

Enjoy! - Glen

Sleeping with an Octopus

I'm not talking about Glen, although . . .No, I'm talking about my snugly second born. She loves to hug, and cuddle, and be on your lap, and be held, and just in general be touching in some way. So at some point I thought it would be a good idea to take a nap with my snugly girl.

Granted, it is a rare day (like I can count the occasions on 1 hand) that I actually get to lay down and take a nap with one of my kiddos. So, Saturday, Glen and I made a plan silly us. I was going to take a nap with snugly second born while he made sure first born was asleep (third was already asleep), then he was going to Lowes to get lawn mower parts.

Well, I get in the bed with snugly second born who immediately transforms into an octopus, out of water, desperately trying to get back to the ocean. What happened to my snugly girl? Why is this sea creature attacking me in bed? Where did all these legs and arms come from?

After about 15-20 minutes of thrashing, flailing, and general struggle the sea creature settles her fate and drifts off into a peaceful sleep. Yes. This is the moment I've been waiting for. I relax. I thank God for this precious sea creature.

Meanwhile, the firstborn has played a clever rouse on her father. She was not asleep. And he was gone. So as I begin to doze into my long awaiting nap, I hear the familiar sound of foot steps approaching my door. I hear my door slowly creak open and quickly shut. Then I hear heavy foot steps, in what I can only assume, was running from one end of the house to the other in shear delight.

In order to ensure that #3 and #2 stay asleep, I get up and address my clever girl. She soon realizes that her reign is short lived and lays back down. At this point I'm still thinking of how I can preserve my nap. I'm thinking I'll stay out here until firstborn gets to sleep and then I'll dash back to my room and sneak into bed with the octopus and maybe get 30 minutes. Again, silly me.

Just as firstborn drifts off into her peaceful dreamland. My little guy wakes up. So now, I need to entertain and amuse #3 to ensure firstborn and octopus finish their naps. We stay in the bedroom and play. I thank God for this handsome little fella.

Eventually, Glen gets home and the girls wake up from their naps. While all three kids did take a nap, and I count that as a win, I would not recommend trying to sleep with an octopus.

Lindsey

Disciplined Breakdown - Pastor Glen

"It seems I'm losing ground
Welcome all to my disciplined breakdown" - Collective Soul.

We were discussing doing a blog and discussing titles and I asked if obscure geek references were OK. This was frowned upon as it is frequently in my house. So, I started going through Collective Soul album and song titles since Collective Soul is my favorite band. We eventually settled on "How do you love?" However, Disciplined Breakdown was a close second at least in my book.

Disciplined Breakdown is both a song and an album by Collective Soul. The Album was released shortly before I graduated from high school in 1997. I would come to know the Lord in Feb of 1998. So this album was played heavily during a very critical time in my life. I just felt an instant connection to it and I still play it frequently today.

I found out later that the album was recorded during a difficult time in the band's career, when they were going through a long lawsuit with their former management, and they had to record the album in a cabin-like studio due to lack of money. Despite, or possibly because of, the challenges they faced they ended up creating on of their best albums.

I struggle constantly with anxiety and depression and I have for quite sometime going back as far as middle school. Everyone has their own struggles. Everyone has to go through the daily motions of life such as getting up for work, doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, take care of the kids and tend to general life even when their heart is breaking.

It's a bit different for Pastors. For not only must we merely get through the day to day with a broken heart but we must preach through it. Pastoring, in it's purest form is a matter of the heart. How do you go on when your greatest tool is broken? How do you love?

"The question for us is not, How do you live through unremitting criticism and distrust and accusation and abandonment; for us the question is also, How do you preach through it? How do you do heart work when the heart is under siege and ready to fall?" - John Piper

The answer is in the Lordship of Christ. I look at Lordship in the same way that Spurgeon did.

 "The placing of the eternal God at the head of all things. I look at everything through its relation to God's glory. I see God first, and man far down in the list ... Brethren, if we live in sympathy with God, we delight to hear Him say, 'I am God, and there is none else'"  - Charles Spurgeon

Our focus has to be on the Lord and He has to be that in our lives. Lord. If He isn't what do you depend on when everything inevitably and repeatedly falls apart? Nothing that can handle the weight. It' a lesson I have to learn far to often.

Sorry that this first post was kind of on the downer side of things. Maybe I'll make the next one more cheery and may even involve a tap dancing bear!.

One last thing the next song after Disciplined Breakdown was titled Forgiveness and the song ends like this:

"So I wash away stains of yesterday
Then tempt my heart with love's display"

Glen

A Big Thank You!

Having worked in a hospital for the last 10 years in various capacities I have certain expectations for level of care, customer service, cleanliness, etc. On Monday, a dear friend of mine went into preterm labor at 33weeks. She was about 4 hours away from home, having traveled here for a baby shower. We went to Durham Regional Hospital (where I worked for 5 years) and my expectations weren't just met, they were exceeded. Now before you think she got special treatment because of me, that is not the case, no one in labor and delivery or postpartum knows me or knows that I worked at DRH.

Each step of the way she was met with smiles, kindness and compassionate care. We were discussing how great everyone had been and she (a nurse herself) said "I can tell that they love what they do." The doctors, nurses, techs, food services, environmental services and everyone else in between has done a fantastic job making sure she and her husband were comfortable and well cared for.

Can you imagine being 4 hours away from home and going into labor almost 2 months before your baby is due? Can you imagine how scary it must have been to think about respiratory, feeding, temperature regulation and infection risk? I am so thankful that my DRH family helped to calm those fears through excellence in care and service. Thank you for treating my friend, that I consider family like your family.

Despite the best medical attempts to get baby Charlotte to delay her entry into this world, she was ready to come. She was born Wednesday, March 20th weighing 4lbs 9oz and 17in long. She's doing great! She's breathing on her own and working on this whole feeding thing. She's still got a few more weeks in the special care nursery, but we are thankful to know she's getting the best care. Thank you Durham Regional Hospital! And thank you to all the friends and family for your continued support and prayers for this sweet family!!

Lindsey

Welcome

Well, here we are. I've talked about starting a blog for a long time.

In my "fake family" I have a terrific blog. So, here's to making real life look, more like my fake family (you know the pretend perfect one in my head) well, however God wants it to look. As Glen and I were debating titles for this blog we're going to share, he suggested Disciplined Breakdown. We've had a crazy, oh, lets say, last 8 months. It could have been worse, but it was a hard time for us. We've also done a lot of growing and stretching and learning to rely on an all powerful God.

Anyway. We've decided to document some of the things we're learning, some of the moments we're experiencing, and what it looks like to love like Jesus in this messed up world.

So if you're looking for a blog with awesome pictures, fantastic recipes, phenomenal kid activities, or fashion savvy advice . . .that's great, but you won't find that here. Here you might find: funny kid stories, weird geek things, pastor/church stuff, frugal finds, marriage moments, and thoughts on life and love. Welcome!

Lindsey