President Obama Adresses Planned Parenthood

I try to stay quiet on political issues on this blog, but there are just a few things that I cannot stay quiet about. Besides, it’s not hard for any regular follower to read between the lines on where I stand on many issues.

Last week President Obama took the initiative to be the first sitting president to address the controversial industry, Planned Parenthood.

He opened up commending Planned Parenthood’s historic standing as the first health clinic nearly one hundred years ago in Brooklyn, New York. (I suppose it would have been an ill-fitted reminder that Planned Parenthood was founded by a Nazi sympathizer who wanted to do away with the “black” and “yellow” peril. So I won’t hold that against him.)

He stated that Planned Parenthood has one core principle, and that is that women should be allowed to make their own decision about health.

He’s partially right, there. Women should have just as much right as men to make their own decisions about health.

Every person, man or woman, should have a right to check-ups and medical exams and, if needed, proper medical treatment. And every person does have a right, as well as accessibility – even outside of Planned Parenthood.

I understand that these things cost money, and oft-times lots of it. That’s why my wife and I save, and don’t spend frivolously, so that we have the money to go to the doctor if need be. You should check out her newest blog post about great ways to build a savings. But, unfortunately, many people believe we not only have the right to healthcare, but rather, free healthcare.

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud the cancer screenings, the counselors (hesitantly), and that insurance can no longer deny coverage because of preexisting conditions through Planned Parenthood. These are good things, and I do recognize that our healthcare system, even before Obamacare, has been seriously flawed.

Planned Parenthood provides these great services, but what is at the core of their industry?

President Obama, in his speech, never once used the word “abortion.” Instead, he replaced it with “contraceptives” at least seven times, and at the very least made two other very clear pro-abortion references (to which one of them received an overwhelming applause out of the blue) in the twelve minutes he spoke.

I dare him and Planned Parenthood supporters to use the word abortion in their talk of “birth control” and “contraceptives.” I’m not even asking that they call it murder.

I’m just asking them to call it what it is. Abortion.

Termination. Of life.

Of rights.

Termination of the right to life.

According to the president, one out of five women turn to Planned Parenthood for healthcare. For many of them, it is their primary healthcare. He pleaded for “more young women … more college students to come through [Planned Parenthood's] doors.”

So why, then, if Planned Parenthood provides free healthcare, would the president pass a law that people shall remain on their parent’s healthcare until they’re 26?

Someone should look into that.

Planned Parenthood and like institutions not only offer the services of the termination of babies, they provide life-long guilt and regret.

They rob the world of would-be greats. (Did you know Steve Jobs was almost aborted?)

They rob prospective parents of a child. (I believe the answer to saving lives is more people making their voices heard through adoption.)

This is the institution our president swore will never go away, and he will stand beside as president of the United States in every way he can. One news analyst commented that President Obama supports Planned Parenthood more than any other institution in the country.

After a few vicious jabs at the Conservative party and their efforts to stop abortion (so much for doing away with party lines, huh?), President Obama said of the current president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, “It’s the only organization she’s been at where her opponents literally get up every day trying to figure out how to keep her from doing her work.”

Count me in as one of them.

Cut the defense budget. Americans will have enough after another attack.

Keep spending our money on frivolous things. Though it will be painful, America can pay it off.

But the buck stops here at abortion. On this I cannot stay silent.

Can you?

If not, then the question I raise to you is,

What do we do?

The Best Post on SSM

With all the commotion and argument exploding around the country, and specifically in our nation’s capitol, over same-sex marriage, it’s difficult for either side to get a word in edge-wise.

(I appreciate you O’Riley, but just shush for a moment.)

And honestly, I’ve been scare to even speak up myself. For two reasons (and I’m being very vulnerable here):

1. I feel like it’s a lost cause.

2. I feel like we Christians have no other leg to stand on other than “God says so.” (Though my wife provided many other facts and statistics against SSM, thus proving that my little fear in null.)

In this long debate, feathers have been ruffled, feelings have been hurt, and neither side, as a general rule, can really claim that they’ve shut up and let the other side talk.

I ran across this blog post by a woman, Lindy Keffer, my wife and I highly respect from our days at the Focus on the Family Leadership Institute where we met.

I’m humbled that I didn’t write this post myself, but thankful that I found it. Lindy sums up everything I just couldn’t – or wouldn’t – write down and publicize myself. It’s a tad lengthy, but very much worth the read, no matter which “side” you’re on.

I’ve spent the past week thinking that social media is not the place to discuss the issue of same-sex marriage (SSM) because it perpetuates one of my biggest pet peeves: civil discourse being reduced to two opposing sides lobbing soundbites (or red equal signs, as the case may be) at each other, without actually havingany productive discussion.

I appreciated one friend who used her Facebook status to encourage folks to talk about these important issues face-to-face instead. That was going to be my sole approach, except tonight I’ve got some things weighing on my mind so heavily that I feel compelled to post them. Compelled, but nervous. Hence the title:

Hurt people hurt people…

click here to read the rest

5 Tips for Making New Year’s Resolutions

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that if you feel like you ought to make a resolution this year, then that probably means you need to make a resolution.

But the word resolution is overused and not as heavy as a word I am going to propose in its stead for this post. This year, I plan on making a few New Year’s commitments. But how do you decide if it’s worth it?

You know what I mean… you resolve to lose three pounds a month and it’s December before you even realize you gave up on that back in March. But this year, let’s make deeper commitments than just meager weight loss and less video game time. Let’s examine a structure for how we can set commitments for 2013 and actually keep them.

1. Start Now

If there’s something you know you ought to change, we’ve less than a week before New Years; start today. Get a head start and prove to yourself that you can indeed make this change in your life. Don’t wait till New Years Eve. If you plan on drinking less, start now and persevere through December 31st. That way, when you’re tempted on January 3rd, you can look back and say, “If I can make it then, I can make it now.”

2. Replace, don’t omit

As creatures of worship and busy schedules, it’s not really possible to omit something from your life. We’re all completed puzzles, but if you take a piece out, we’re going to search frantically for something to fill in that missing piece. If you decide you want to play less video games, have something positive to fill in that block of time you usually play games. And make it fun! If you can afford it, go out for coffee during that time. If you’re trying to cut back on your cursing, learn to replace curses with blessings or positive words.

3. Commit to add 

When we think of New Year’s resolutions, we often think of depleting something from our lives, like sugar or bad habits or attitudes, or time spent online or in front of the TV. If you’re like me, you read too much, oft times at the expense of my loved one. So, instead of merely reading less, I am going to try to involve her in my reading more, and propose we read more together. If you watch too much TV, try watching things your kids would rather watch and join them in their interests. Add your loved ones to activities that have become solely about you.

4. Commit to fail

I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy. If I fail once, I throw in the sack. But if I make room for imperfection, then I have a better chance at success in the long run. When I started this blog back in March I never made a commitment to post every single day. I just sort of generalized it by saying I’ll post 2-6 times a week. That’s a pretty big margin for failure if I’m committed to to posting every day. But 2-6 times a week – that’s doable, and it’s worked!  Leave room for imperfection.

5. Commit to achieve 

In exactly one year from this very moment, what do you want to look back on and say you’ve achieved? Want to have that book finally written or published? Want to have that degree in your hand? Want to have a stronger relationship with your spouse? Keep this future moment in mind. Every day. All year. And remember how fast a year goes by. It’s but a breath, so you really have very little time to achieve these goals.

Get a head start and begin today, before the 31st. Replace something bad with something good. Add things to enrich your life. Know your potential and leave room for imperfection. And always have the end in mind and imagine how wonderful it will be to reach it with a job well done.

Please help us achieve our goal to foster-to-adopt in 2013 by purchasing my book here.

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Herod’s Massacre

Home Alone and A Muppet’s Christmas Carol are amongst my favorite Christmas movies. And nothing screams “It’s Christmas!” like Ron Howard’s brilliant version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas (which he actually claims should be called Why the Grinch Stole Christmas). But do you want to know what movies put me more in a Christmas spirit than any of the aforementioned?

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Bear with me. The reason The Lord of the Rings puts me in a Christmas spirit isn’t so much because they were all released in the theaters days before Christmas, but because they represent more closely than any Hallmark special could, what the first Christmas was like.

Bloodshed followed on the trail of the first Christmas day. God started a necessary spiritual war, and an evil king started an unnecissary earthly war against children. 

The Lord of the Rings is all about war, is it not? And more than that, it’s about good vs. evil. It’s about finding something precious and either destroying it or using it for great power. It’s about the smallest of creatures changing the course of history and saving the world from destruction. It’s about true love, sacrifice, miracles, hope, and the beauty of evil and evil-doers being destroyed for all time.

I tell you, pour yourself a glass of Fresh Market eggnog, nibble on some puppy chow, cuddle up with your loved one, and  you can’t get much more Christmasy than that.

King Herod, who reigned during the time of Jesus’ birth inflicted a war against children because he was jealous of the future reign of this promised baby, Jesus. Any male child two years old or under were choked, drowned, stabbed, beheaded, aborted…

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18)

A small town in America suffered its own massacre less than a week ago. Many parents now know the feeling of losing a child. They will daily, and involunterily recount in their minds what their child’s last thoughts were just before they were shot.

But King Herods and Adam Lanzas and Pharaohs are more numerous than we would like to imagine. We walk amongst them everyday. We bump shoulders with baby killers all the time. Abortion doctors, pediatricians who offer abortion as an option to confused couples, politicians who support abortion funding, deadbeat husbands and boyfriends who push their women to “get it taken care of.” Women who willfully decide to “get it taken care of.” Yes, even people who drive around with “Pro-Choice” bumper stickers.

Adam Lanza. Pharaoh. King Herod. Pure, unadulterated evil.

But that’s only one side of the Christmas story. You see, God came down as the one thing the king was after. He came down as a baby. I think that’s why our world is so lenient with baby killing, because somewhere deep in our conscious, we associate babies to the long-awaited Messiah. I bet if a study were done (and I’m sure it has), the same people who are proponents of kicking God out of school and the Bible from the White House, are the same ones who advocate for abortion.

But you see, Herod, in all of his rage and madness, couldn’t stop the Christ-child from growing up to be King of Heaven. It makes me wonder just how many other children have been saved by the divine hand of God. It’s easy to point to God when bad things happen and blame Him, but just how many crimes are conceived in minds that don’t bear fruit because of God’s intervention?

Just like in Lord of the RIngs, the smallest creature is chosen to save the world and do away with evil. God chose the most helpless of things, a baby, to grow up and become the most humblest of beings – humble enough to submit Himself to the authority of the corrupt politicians and willingly be stapled to a wooden beam and die an agonizing death, beaten, bloody, and naked, for all to see and mock.

That’s the Christmas story. The baby Jesus was an unwrapped gift from God tucked away under, not a tree, but a manger. And that gift loved the children who came to Him, felt the thumping of a pregnant woman’s belly, and made way for the Kingdom of God to open the gates for all of the children of the world, young in years and young in spirit.

And here’s the best part! The gates of Heaven are opened to the abortionists and corrupt politicians and King Herods, if only they would repent from their sins, turn to God, and accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Make Him the best Christmas gift you will have ever received, and He will forget your sins like they never happened and accept you as a weeping child searching for a home.

That, my friends, is a Christmas story worth hearing.

Please help us get one step closer to adopting a child by purchasing my novel here. We’re trying to sell 1,600 copies by 2013.

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Sandy Hook Massacre

Forty sets of parents are waking up childless for the second time this morning, or one child short. Siblings are waking up without their brother or sister under their roof, some only for the second time in their lives. Many dogs and cats are still sleeping on empty beds, many grandparents lost faith in this next generation. Uncles lost nieces and nephews. Aunts lost best friends. Friends keep waking up from tearless nights.

The sudden realization of that forever-lost sort of feeling crashed into more than 27 homes again this morning. And it will continue to happen long after the rest of us move on.

Friday, death reigned. But it reigned the day before and the day before that, and it still reigns today. At least in an earthly sense.

But soon, Satan will be de-throned and cast into the fiery pit for all eternity. In the end, sin and death and tears and sorrow will be destroyed forever. And God will comfort His children, young and old. And rest assured that God is comforting many children as you read this.

This is probably why The Hobbit was such a perfect movie to watch at a time like this because it’s a great comfort to see good triumph over evil time and time again.

Our hearts are breaking, and will be broken for a long time. We are also more scared than we ever have been. Our country has entered into a new phase of perversity. Over the last fifteen years we’ve seen our homeland sink deeper and deeper into depravity, starting with the Columbine shootings, the first massive school shooting we had ever heard of.

We’ve gone from high school shootings to college shootings to airplane takeovers to movie theater shootings – and we thought that was the lowest people can sink. Until Friday.

But remember that kids have been killed since the time of Pharaoh. All over the world kids are deliberately killed on a daily basis. Babies have been shamelessly murdered in the womb in our own country longer than we care to remember. There is nothing new under the sun. And people, by and large, are no less evil than Adam Lanza.

That is not to diminish the terror of Friday’s events. An age-old monstrosity, that has been committed since the time of Moses, simply stepped into the spotlight on the most prominent stage in the world, and gained a worldwide audience.

This will continue to happen all over the world, though we will not hear about every instance. There will be many prescriptions to curbing these heinous acts, laws put into place, and security will tighten around every school campus at least for the remainder of the school year.

But let us be clear, as good as some of those things are, it all comes down to the depravity of the human heart. And the only remedy to that is the redemption and love of  a Father who hates this sort of sin more than even we possibly could.

Remember that when we fall into fantasizing about personally punishing the Adam Lanzas and James Holmeses of the world, we are falling prey to the same depravity that they started out with when their crimes were first conceived. Thus our hearts are just as wicked as theirs in God’s eyes.

We must respond to this in love. Pity the murderers who are burning in Hell; resist the temptation to laugh and rejoice over their eternal torment. It does no good to pray for their souls now, because what’s done is done. But know that they are not in Hell because of this, any more than a man who committed one sin early in his life is in Hell.

Adam Lanza is not only paying for his sins from Friday. He’s not even paying for the many curses he uttered under his breath or the white lies he’s told. He’s in Hell for the same reason the other inhabitants are – refusing to place their faith in Jesus Christ.

Not only would he have experienced salvation, but twenty sets of parents would not have woken up childless again this morning. This is part of what we mean as Christians when we say that Jesus saves, and that He has an alternative plan for our world and for humankind.

Detach yourself form the company of Adam Lanza and Timothy Mcveigh, and join with the One who firmly stands against these monsters. You may be concerned for the lives of children and innocent people, which is commendable, but if you are not concerned about their souls, then you care only for what cannot be saved.

Do not be concerned for your own life as you go to the movies or to school or Christmas shopping at the mall, but be concerned about where you will go after your life has ended. We were reminded all too brutally that life is but a vapor, but our souls live on forever. Now is the opportunity to decide where. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and your prayers for the victims, for your friends and family, for your life, will be heard.

Grace, peace, and love be to all the Sandy Hook victims and their families. May they be drawn to Jesus through this unspeakable tragedy. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many lives may be saved” (Genesis 50:20).

Come, Lord Jesus. But only once all your children are gathered. Amen.

Please read this blog post by Dr. Albert Mohler concerning Friday’s tragedy.

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The End is – Still – Near

There’s a lot of talk flooding the Web about the End of the World being just days away. My friend and Bible Study leader, Adam has the best response to this:

“So the Mayan calendar stopped. The calendar sitting on my desk ends too at the end of December and we’ll keep on going just like normal.”

Needless to say, though no one will voice it, people are worried, deep down inside. I guess we’re always worrying about the inevitable, aren’t we? With Hollywood reminding us that it’s not a matter of “If” but “When,” and the Bible itself prophesying about hail the size of basketballs falling from the sky and worldwide earthquakes and widespread wars.

The Israel/Iran crisis doesn’t seem to sooth our fears either, what with Israel being tied to so many prophesies concerning the apocalypse, U.S. spies being crucified in Yemen, not to mention North Korea and its missiles and snow in Southern California (my origin).

National affairs don’t seem to be much of an encouragement either. With the oncoming fiscal cliff drop off, investors are withholding their money, the working class is scrounging around for every penny to save up so they can get through the tsunami of taxes headed their way, riots breaking out over Union labor… the list is endless right there alone.

As unsettling as all this is, this is not new. “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). In fact, things have been worse in the past, before and after Christ, and even in America (I keep hearing about the detestable Jimmy Carter days).

Let’s not forget the horrors of the Holocaust and the Gulag, Nero’s persecution of the Christians, the Colosseum’s glory days, the earthquake of 1906, Egypt’s plagues, Noah’s flood, the Y2K panic, e coli, mad cow disease…

So all this worry over the end of the world happening in just eight days is just silly. The Bible is clear that the angels in Heaven, nor Jesus Himself knows the hour at which the world will stop turning (Matthew 24:36). Only God the Father knows. And He knows where you’ll be – if you’ll even be here at all – and precisely how it will happen, and just how long it will take.

There’s all this talk about being premillennialist, postmillennialst, or amillennialist, Left Behind-ist, zombie apocalypse vs. vampire apocalypse, global warming, or an EMP explosion.

I’ll tell you what. I thought that by last March (of 2012) the stock market would crash and there would be anarchy in the streets. Obviously, I was wrong about that. So there is no need to worry about the end of the world any more than a newborn baby has to worry what college he’s going to get into. He may live long enough to have to figure that out, he may not. And once he’s there, it will be over before he knows it.

The only thing that matters is, are you ready? Because when the end comes (and it won’t be in eight days …it could be in four, or three thousand twenty-four), that will not be the time to choose sides. C.S. Lewis famously says, “There’s no point in choosing to join the winning side after the war is over!”

After all, you don’t undergo surgery for the doctor’s sake. No, you undergo surgery in order to have an improved quality of life afterward. If you are a child of God, the end of the world, or just simply death even, is a necessary procedure to bring about your redemption begun by Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Put your trust, hope, fear (yes, a healthy fear), and confidence in that. And anything else that comes your way will just be a fleeting memory or a non-issue, because you know, as any Christian does, that “The End” according to Hollywood’s or the Mayan’s definition is not the end at all, but the beginning of Life the way it was meant to be lived.

Purchase my suspense/fantasy novel here.

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Christian Thoughts on the Election

The elections are now over and Americans have decided to stay the course the president charted for us four years ago.

I believe readers, on both sides of the political and religious landscapes will find the following posts enlightening. My sentiments are exactly in line with what’s being said in both of them.

Christians, Let’s Honor the President by Dr. Russell Moore

The American people have decided that Barack Obama should have a second term. And, behind them, in the mystery of providence, God has decided that Barack Obama would be re-elected. So how should Christians respond to our once and future President?

Click here to read the rest: Moore to the Point

Aftermath: Lessons From the 2012 Election by Dr. Albert Mohler

The 2012 U.S. election is over, and more than 100 million Americans participated in the great exercise of democracy — fulfilling the franchise of the vote. Even with some votes not yet counted and some issues as yet clarified, a general picture of the election is clearly in view, and the impact of this election will be both massive and enduring.

Several lessons emerge in the immediate aftermath of the election and Christians should consider them carefully.

Click here to read the rest: AlbertMohler.com

After reading one or both of those posts, please feel free to comment bellow with questions or sentiments or your overall feeling about last night’s results.

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