Emmie is speaking in sentences more often now days. This morning, she surprised me with a pretty complex and thought out question. She looked at me and asked,

“Over, Nema’s house, can I?”

Might not sound like a big deal to most, but it’s much more than Emmie usually says.  And she’s talking a little more like Yoda every day.

Aaron: *cough, cough* “Mom. I need to go to the doctor’s office.”

Mom: “Are you sick?”

Aaron: “m-hmm, the doctor teaches me how to be sick.”

Mom: “Oh, she teaches you how to be sick, huh?”

Aaron: “m-hmm, like this, *cough, cough* (forced fake cough).”

Anyone who has more than two kids and goes grocery shopping MUST read this story.  It’s the description of an item up for sale on e-bay.

tinyur.com/2rk98k

Sounds a little too familiar to me.

blah, blah, blah.

Kimm,  if you need further help, refer to my post on yawning =)

If you need even more help after that, watch some of those Clear Eyes commercials. You know with that very boring looking man who says in a monotone voice, “Clear Eyes, gets the red out.”

HTH!

BJ at http://bj77.wordpress.com/ is starting a series about his pro-life convictions and it’s worth a read.  Reading BJ’s first post in the series reminded me of an entry I read some time ago in the Oxford Companion to Philosophy edited by Ted Honderich.  There are many contributors, and it does not say who the author of the entry is.  However, the book is written from a secular point of view and does not have religious leanings one way or another. 

The following is the entry on abortion.

” Human beings develop gradually inside women’s bodies. The death of a newly fertilized human egg does not seem the same as the death of a person.  Yet there is no obvious line that divides the gradually developing foetus [fetus] from the adult. Hence abortion poses a difficult ethical issue.

Those who defend women’s rights to abortion often refer to themselves as ‘pro-choice’ rather than ‘pro-abortion’. In this way they seek to bypass the issue of the moral status of the foetus, and instead make the right to abortion a question of individual liberty. But it cannot simply be assumed that a woman’s right to have an abortion is a question of individual liberty, for it must first be established that the aborted foetus is not a being worthy of protection. If the foetus is worthy of protection, then laws against abortion do not create ‘victimless crimes’ as laws against homosexual relations between consenting adults do. So the question of the moral status of the foetus cannot be avoided.

The central argument against abortion may be put like this:

It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.

A human foetus is an innocent human being.

Therefore it is wrong to kill a human foetus.

Defenders of abortion usually deny the second premiss of this argument. The dispute about abortion then becomes a dispute about whether a foetus is a human being, or, in other words, when a human life begins.  Opponents of abortion challenge others to point at any stage in the gradual process of human development that marks a morally significant dividing-line.  Unless there is such a line, they say, we must either upgrade the status of the earliest embryo to that of a child, or downgrade the status of a child to that of a foetus; and no one advocates the latter course.

  The most commonly suggested dividing-lines between the fertilized egg and the child are birth and viability. Both are open to objection. A prematurely born infant may well be less developed in these respects than a foetus nearing the end of its normal term, and it seems peculiar to hold that we may not kill the premature infant,  but may kill the more developed foetus.  The point of viability varies according to the state of medical technology, and, again, it is odd to hold that a foetus has a right to life if the pregnant woman lives in London, but not if she lives in New Guinea.

Those who wish to deny the foetus a right to life may be on stronger ground if they challenge the first, rather than the second, premiss of the argument set out above.  To describe a being as ‘human’ is to use a term that straddles two distinct notions: membership of the species Homo sapiens, and being a person, in the sense of a rational or self-conscious being.  If ‘human’ is taken as equivalent to ‘person’, the second premiss of the argument, which asserts that the foetus is a human being, is clearly false; for one cannot plausibly argue that a foetus is either raional or self-conscious. If, on the other hand, ‘human’ is taken to mean no more than ‘ member of the species Homo sapiens’ , then it needs to be shown why mere membership of  a given biological species should be sufficient basis for a right to life.  Rather, the defender of abortion may wish to argue, we should look at the foetus for what it is—the actual characteristics it posesses—and value it’s life accordingly.”

 I thought all that was pretty interesting. And I would add that neither are neonatal infants, nor many developmentally challenged persons rational or self-conscious. But no one (yet) is arguing for the right to  exterminate these two people groups.  So, I think we should look at ‘human’ as being a member of the human race as opposed to being rational and self-consious. 
Since there (as was agrued by the above excerpt) is no dividing line in the gradual process of human development at which to declare the fetus human, we need to protect it as being a member of the human race just as you or I.

Convenience should never play a part in the decision to end life. Actions have consequences. If you aren’t ready to be a parent, keep yourself out of situations that would come to that end.  The so-called ‘pro-choice’ advocates, need to understand that the choice does not lie in whether or not to end the life of the child who had no say in being concieved.  The choice lies in the decision to live a chaste life without the consequences that follow selfishness.

I think what most angers me about the murder of these children is this: People are motivated to murder by selfishness. They want their hour or so of pleasure, so instead of choosing self-denial for the sake of the child that could be, they enjoy their momentary pleasure, then kill the consequence. Then instead of feeling remorse for their heinousness, they invent ways to defend themselves, i.e. “It wasn’t a baby yet”.

Ok, I’m done now.

Aaron said to me about three minutes ago…

“Hi Mom, I actually love you.”

Last night as I was cleaning up from dinner, the boys were in their bedroom playing, waiting for their bath. Someone knocked at our door. Josh opened the door to a girl telling him that Gabe was pushing the screen off the window of their second-story bedroom! He raced upstairs and pulled Gabe out from between some shelves that are in front of the window. The screen was already broken, and he could have soon fallen out if the girl had not come to tell us what was happeneing.

I put the shelf unit in front of the window for safety reasons, but aparently it was not safe enough.

My heart is still my throat when I think of last night. Here’s one more specific prayer request for our precious little Gabe. Because he sees the world differently that most, he has almost no concept or fear of danger. He was burned once, so he knows about hot things, but sharp things, falling, strangers, cars, etc…don’t phase him a bit! We have had more “close calls” with Gabe than all of our other kids combined. He always keeps me on my toes, which is difficult with my responsibilities to the other kids. So, please pray for his ongoing safety as he learns how to see the dangers present in this big world.

We just recieved a letter of acceptance into the Lovaas program. Gabe’s therapy will start next month sometime, not sure exactly when.

 And once again, Gabriel’s neurologist has increased the dosage of his anti-convulsant. He is now taking twice the amount of meds he started with.  Please pray that this amount of medication will keep his fragile sweet little brain from producing more siezures.  It is still sometimes hard to accept that there is anything wrong with my precious little boy.  The neurologist said that some kids do grow out of  this,  so, I’m hopeful, and praying.

I actually meant to post this yesterday. 

Today Aaron was supposed to be napping.  Even though he had been disciplined already about 4 times during nap time alone…he decided to take a moment to pull little pieces of cotton batting out of my pillow. I came into the bedroom when I heard Aaron crying. Lying atop a bed filled to every corner with little itty bitty pieces of cotton, Aaron is holding one small piece in his fingers. “Mommy, that one just went into my nose!”

I left the room laughing, mostly to keep from crying. I told Josh what had happened, then went back into the bedroom. I started cleaning up the mess. This dialogue followed…

“Aaron,” I said, “Do you think it was very nice to make such a big mess?”

“No.”

“Now Mommy has to clean it up. Was it being nice to Mommy to make a mess for her to clean up?”

“No.”

“Was it honoring to God to make such a big mess?”

“No, but the piece (of cotton) was trying to kill me!!!”

Dear Readers,

Lately I haven’t been doing too well in my sanctification.  I’ve been assessing the lack of everything good in my character and been despairing. I didn’t see any consistent fruit in my life.  A few  Fruits of the Spirit would come up every now and then, but none of them characterized my life.  I was so focused on how little paitience I had with the children, how little yearning I had for the Word and prayer, how little attention I was giving to my husband, etc, etc…

 I had been listening to the lies of the accuser.  I believed that  I was  doing my children more spiritual harm than good by just being in the same room as them. I believed that since I wasn’t keeping the house as clean as I would like,   I was teaching my kids how to live like pigs.  I didn’t realize that every other mother out there who loves God and loves her kids goes through most of the same struggles I do.

I thought I was becoming more and more sinful.  I was afraid because God promises to sanctify those who trust in him and his promises.  Yet, here I was believing God’s promises and falling farther and farther away from him. I started thinking that maybe God’s promises weren’t for me after all.  Of course this terrified me.  How I longed for God’s promises to be for me! But how could they be if I was not seeing them fulfilled in my life?

I asked for prayer for my sanctification last Lord’s Day evening during worship.  After service, one of our loving elders approached Josh and me and I was able to open up a little more with my thoughts and feelings. One thing he told me that I will never forget (Lord willing), something that my dear hubby had been trying to tell me, yet for some reason it didn’t sink in, was that I was not becoming more and more sinful. I was just seeing my sin in a deeper and deeper sense.  In the midst of my trials I have been given a clearer view into the depths of my heart to see the sin that has ALWAYS been there.

Somehow the realization that I was always THIS sinful is comforting to me! Yes, I am evil and impatient and unkind and disorganized and selfish, etc…BUT I am not getting worse! How merciful God is to let me see my sin.  Even seeing my sin in a deeper sense is part of my sanctification.

The trials in my life, however superficial or deep, ARE sanctifying me. Whether I realize it or not. The process isn’t pretty, or easy.  And I pray that as God is sanctifying me through the trials he has hand-tailored for me, he will also give those around me the patience and grace to put up with me.

 Pray for me and my family if you think about it.  I don’t like my trials. I don’t like my sin. I don’t like myself most of the time. This road is temporary and eventually I’ll reach glory.  I believe that’s one thing that is promised to me.  But the road is also long and hard.  I thank the Lord for his promise to preserve me, because if it were left up to me to persevere on my own I would have fallen away long ago.