Me at a holiday dinner at my grandparents' house

Five years ago today was the day that Levi was “supposed to be” born. I was pretty sad about it at the time.

It was also the day I turned 30, which I wasn’t sad about.

Five years ago today, I was pregnant with Acadia but didn’t know it yet.

Hidden blessings.

Sometimes things are like that, where you don’t particularly feel the goodness of God, or wonder if He is in control of things or not. You have to believe and trust despite what you feel at the moment, even when “the moment” is more like everyday reality.

If we have been justified by Christ, we can take comfort in knowing that these experiences are truly temporary, yet God is using them to make eternal changes toward Him in our hearts.

Even when we never see tangible blessings here in our pre-eternity lives.

I pretty much agree with what this guy has to say on the subject. The link there is to the first of a series of posts on the topic of why he’s a photographer. Bill Walsh is director of international outreach at Desiring God Ministries, and the view through his lens is inspiring (and I don’t use that word much).

The above photos were taken by Bill Walsh.

I like to look at good photos.  I don’t have a succinct answer for “what makes a good photo”, except to say it’s one that makes me want to get out my camera and shoot, all the while praising God for His amazing creation.  Here are some blogs I read that frequently have such photos as that:

• barebaby
• Blue Candy Photography
• The Pioneer Woman
• Lena Hyde Photography
• The Sweet Life - Sugar Photography
• Trust and Believe - Lisa’s blog

This made me cry. It’s a video highlighting a network of volunteers who offer to help families who have learned that their newborns will likely not survive birth. They’re photographers (including one of my favorite children’s photographers, Sugar Photography) who give their time and skills to give enduring tangibility to the memories these families are making with their beautiful children. The pictures provide evidence that these children existed and had lives that meant something. God, in His sovereign grace, makes no mistakes and is always good.

This also made me cry. The Born Alive Infants Protection Act. When President Bush signed it in August 2002, he said,

Today I sign the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive — including an infant who survives an abortion procedure — is considered a person under federal law. This reform was passed with the overwhelming support of both political parties, and it is about to become the law of the land.

With this in effect, doctors are required to give medical care to a child who is “accidentally” born alive after a late-term abortion attempt. Why on earth does this even have to be discussed? In fact, although it was passed “with overwhelming support of both political parties,” Barack Obama did not support it. Logical, actually, if you set your philosophy on the flawed premise that we are all there is. So maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

For another look at this issue, go here. This has Mr. Obama’s own words about why he did not support this legislation.

The value of life, no matter how short or how long, is a subject that is close to my heart. It’s one of the few things that can set me off (the others being depression and education). Can you tell?

While you’re over at the Desiring God shop for their $5 book sale today or tomorrow, you could also read an article or two. Being interested as I am in teaching my children, I read this article yesterday, called Teaching Doctrine to a Six-Year-Old. That very topic is one that Brian and I think aboutpretty much daily. We have a 5 year old who takes note of new things, and we are often finding ourselves praying for good words to use to explain biblical ideas.

John Piper’s article is not a how-to guide to giving the Gospel to our kids, but rather a defense for Christians to focus on doctrine even amidst their daily lives, which scream out for practical help. Doctrine is practical. And being able to put it in words that a kid can understand often comes from a heart that has seen the truth of the Gospel as the Life and Light that it is. A kid who really gets what Jesus did for them on the cross isn’t going to fall into the trap of “it’s my parents’ religion”. Not that it’s a guarantee, but helping our children know God is my biggest job as a parent, and it brings glory to Him.

Okay, everyone, are you ready for the $5 sale at the Desiring God book shop?

Tomorrow and Thursday those blessed folks are practically giving away their wares to anyone who orders online for a mere five bucks. No limits. My personal faves are included in this sale. Desiring God, Don’t Waste Your Life, Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, When I Don’t Desire God, and The Supremacy of God in Preaching are all there. We have those already, though. There are a couple of other books I’d choose, but I’m not in the position to be choosing books right now, even $5 books.

But you should!

So go! Shop!

While looking for something completely unrelated, I came across this discourse from John Angell James (1785-1859), entitled Female Piety–The Young Woman’s Guide Through Life To Immortality. Quite the auspicious title, eh? Scanning the chapter headings, I clicked on one called “To Young Mothers”. If you fit this category, and are able to wade through some Victorian language, you might benefit from reading it. Especially as a new home schooler, I took so much from this chapter.

Much of what is advised goes against current popular thought. Some women I am sure would be offended by James’ statements:

“The woman who would fulfill the duties of her parental relationship, must surrender herself to her mission, and be content to make some sacrifices, and endure some privations… Her children are a charge for which she must forego some of the enjoyments of social life, and even some of the social pleasures of religion.”

and

“In the upper circles of society, the task of educating the infant, is usually is entrusted upon servants [modern daycare providers?]. The nursery is not much, it is to be feared, the resort of many titled or wealthy mothers. Aristocratic habits, in some cases, can scarcely be made to square with maternal ones. Happy are the women who are not lifted by rank or wealth out of the circle of those tender and constant diligences which an infant family requires—out of whose hand ‘fashionable etiquette’ or ‘luxurious indolence’ has not taken her responsibility to train her young children.”

Toward the end, he summed it up this way:

A mother’s charge—an immortal creature.

A mother’s duty—to train him up for God, heaven and eternity.

A mother’s dignity—to educate the family of the Almighty Creator of the universe.

A mother’s difficulty—to raise a fallen sinful creature to holiness and virtue.

A mother’s encouragement—the promise of Divine grace to assist her in her momentous duties.

A mother’s relief—to bear the burden of her cares to God in prayer.

A mother’s hope—to meet her child in glory everlasting, and spend eternal ages of delight with him before the throne of God and the Lamb.

Fathers don’t get off the hook for training their children; James addresses them toward the end, saying that the very young children receive more of their care from the mothers but that fathers are also charged by God with the duties of parenthood.

I feel like I need to write here that I don’t mean to push my convictions on any other woman and I am not trying to heap guilt upon anyone! I do, however, believe in absolute truth. We could debate what that truth is, but you can’t get around the fact of its existence. (Is that delving too much into philosophy for this blog?)

So, if you’re sleeping at night and dreaming that you’re praying, are you actually praying?  I was doing that last night.  When I woke up, I felt like I had been praying, even though I knew it had been a dream…

Whaddaya think?

Coming off my antidepressant has left me feeling vulnerable to those little lies that pop up in one’s mind now and then…the ones that I can usually laugh at, shake off or stick out my tongue at. In particular I feel myself in danger of discontentedly living in the past and having a case of the regrets.

“If only…” is what I hear myself saying. If only we’d been able to stay in our other house. If only I didn’t have this predisposition to depression. If only…and this is the big one…if only I had gone on bedrest when my pregnancy was in danger that January in 2003.

You can imagine where all that could lead. Yeah. I told you it was dangerous.

I’m countering this ugly background hum with things like this:

Psalm 73

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. 24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
28 But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works.

Psalm 42
5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation 6 and my God.

Ephesians 1

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

The “If Only”s are an insidious bunch. If you’re not vigilant, they can creep up on you without you really noticing. Before you know it, you’ll be wallowing in these imaginary alternatives instead of being content, happy, and obedient in the great life you have right now. That’s what I preach to myself, and I will do the same toward anyone who shows signs of the syndrome because I know how hard it can be. Call it regret, call it guilt, call it living in the past. For me it all boils down to not living like I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, which you can read about in Colossians 2.

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

And so I should live, because I have been made alive to God in Christ…when I go along in my “If Only”s, I ignore that life that I’ve been delivered to.

God is sovereignly governing our lives, both at the beginning and the end. Life is sacred that way. Psalm 139 is what David wrote when he was contemplating this truth. Dr. Stan Mast has an article on the Bethany Christian Services website that talks about verses 13-18, and in it he writes this:

“It is God who gives life, and it is God who takes life. At the outer limits of life, we are treading where God rules. When we take life, even at its outer limits, in the earliest moments after conception or in the latest moments of terrible suffering, we are walking in God’s territory. It is holy ground, and we must take the shoes off our feet and proceed not with a passion for human freedom or with the best of humanitarian intentions or with the most advanced scientific precision or even with the authority God has given us, but with reverence and wonder and humility. Above all, we must be pro-God and let God be God, the giver and taker of life at the outer limits, the sustainer and savior of life always.”

He acknowledges that life is complex, and that the terms pro-choice and pro-life bring with them so much emotion and conflict. Overall, we need to be pro-God. That’s what I want to be. The rest, as they say, is details.

Why, so you can snap pics like this, of course! Here’s our 2 year old, doing a little review of Debating Calvinism. The authors of this book are Dave Hunt and James White. I don’t know much about Hunt, but if you’re a serious theology geek, you probably already know most of the Little Known Facts About James White.