Who Will Be Their Voice?

There's been a cold chill in the air lately, and it's not all coming from the stiff arctic winds that have been blowing south with the coming winter.

The chill is coming from Washington DC, wrapped - oddly enough- in the toasty warm blanket of healthcare for all. It sounds so all-inclusive, so caring, so sacrificial.

Beware. Please, please, beware.

I don't usually like to speak of things that might be interpreted as politics - striving, instead, to walk and talk the grace of our Lord. Besides, both sides of the political realm are rife (or is the term "ripe" more appropriate?) with corruption and scandal.

So I want you to know this isn't about politics. This is personal. The cold wind chilling my bones is blowing off the icy fingers of death...the death, that is, of compassion. We are seeing the frightening end stages of a national and worldwide trend to value human life according to its usefulness to society, and to refuse or remove care for those deemed worthless. As resources have become more scarce, we are already in the process of moving quietly toward allocating care to those most likely to benefit from it in restored contribution to society.

Don't get me wrong. The current atmosphere of death didn't begin with the current administration. The long slide down the slope of dehumanizing healthcare began decades ago, when we began throwing innocence in the trash along with unborn babies, nativity scenes, and school prayer.

I'm not a fire-breathing nut shouting "death panel." I know what I'm talking about. I've been there. I've seen it. Nearly twenty years ago, I was fighting to keep the doctor from making my disabled mother die because, in his words, "Her life is worthless." This was not a woman in a coma, but a woman simply crippled and silenced by strokes. When she first knew something was going wrong in her body, she had told me, "Pam, give me every chance to live." When the time came to give her that chance, the doctor didn't even ask what she would want. She was worthless, no longer counted.

Twelve years ago, I was fighting to keep the doctor from pulling the plug on our son after his spinal cord injury. Kevin also wasn't in the mood to die, but that doctor didn't ask his opinion, either. Evidently, he no longer counted in the economy of life.

One fight occurred in America; one in Canada; but both were part of the deliberate parade toward exterminating those who do not fit our definition of "useful." This march transcends nations, politics, and administrations. But it's not being orchestrated by doctors, nurses, or even politicians. It's the heavy bootstep of an unseen enemy with only one goal: to destroy all humanity and thus hurt and rob the Creator who made us.

He's found plenty enough help from us. Our society is sick; in fact, our world is sick. As we fall collectively farther and farther from God, the compassion and care for others that naturally flows from His heart falls with it. Life no longer has dignity by virtue of being. The body is no longer considered the temple of a living soul, but a glob of throbbing tissue and random brain waves. Life itself is open to interpretation.

It's all been complicated by the advance of medical technologies that have blurred the lines between living and dying. When to give up has become harder and harder to decide. I understand the pain endured by many families in making the tough medical decisions necessary for their sick and injured loved ones.

This isn't about those issues.

This is about speaking for those without either voice or choice. It's about remembering that we are made in the image of of the great I AM; valued because we are. It's about those with power using that power to protect the powerless. No one should have to prove that they can be useful on order to deserve life. And no one should be given that much authority over the medical care of another without proving that they have that patient's best interests at heart.

No one but God has the right to give and take life. Nor does anyone have the right to decide who is worthy of our care. The more I learn about what is being done today in the name of medicine, the more I mourn.

For those without a voice: I must speak.
For those whose limbs are silent, I will, by the grace of God, be their hands and feet.
To a hurting world, I long, with all my heart, to be the expression of His Comfort.

This is my passion. And this is God's to charge to us all:

Learn to do good;

Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:17 NASB

Breaking Free

He was a little boy when he had his first taste of raw cruelty. His dad had just come home, and he was excited. He went running to his father with his arms stretched out to him, calling "Daddy."
Just as the boy reached his father, the tall carpenter inexplicably turned on him. The man hit the boy with all his strength, so hard that the boy fell backward and involuntarily soiled his pants. The boy never knew what he had done to deserve a beating.

But that was only the beginning.

The boy grew to manhood under the constant shadow of a father given to alcohol, promiscuity, and violent, drunken rages. The entire family suffered, but the boy was the favorite target of his father's wrath. When the man wasn't beating them, he was often gone for long periods of time, during which the boy had to support the family with his meager earnings from odd jobs.

The family often had little to eat and threadbare clothing for the cold Wisconsin winters. The boy had to wear his mother's shoes to school, since he had none of his own. He grew up learning to fight the boys that made fun of him.

He had every reason to grow up just like his dad. He had learned all the wrong ways to live. He had every excuse to victimize others as he had been victimized. But he didn't. He grew up like his mother, gentle and kind. He finished his schooling in the Navy, married a lovely young woman, and started a family. He adored his children and worked hard to give them the stability he had never had.

He became a musician, a newsman, a broadcaster, a businessman, a county commissioner, and pastor. He redeemed the family name and made it a name that his children never had to be ashamed to wear.

This man is my father.

If anyone ever had an excuse to give up, it was him. He had absolutely nothing going for him, except a mother who loved him and the desire to be different than his father and his father's father before him.

Instead, he taught my brother and I that it doesn't matter from where you come; what matters is where you're headed.

Just Like His Dad

Like most everyone else, I was enthralled by the vision of the saucer-like balloon that careened around Colorado this week. I prayed earnestly that the little boy thought to be inside would somehow, miraculously, be found safe. And I felt as cynical as many when we discovered that the boy had been hiding in his parents' garage attic the whole time.

We don't know yet if the parents' angst was real or an elaborate publicity stunt. But I was struck by the words of the woman who had spent time in the house as part of the reality show "Wife Swap." She said that the boy was energetic and impulsive. Home video showed the boy running on top of a car. The woman mentioned that the boy was "just like his dad."

Of course, how a person is "wired" comes partly from our DNA. Some people are born naturally calm; some are high-strung from the start. But it's also true that a child comes to this earth in a form much like PlayDough. He's going to become basically what he is formed to be. As we've said before, he's going to live what he learns.

Kids watch everything. They're smarter than we think. They're also very impressionable (think PlayDough). They think we are cool (remember that this passes quickly, so work fast!), and they desperately want to please us (believe it or not, this never passes).

Let's give them an example that they can be proud to follow. Let's give them Jesus.

Your Song

Some mornings I awaken with a song going through my head, and it follows me the entire day. I've heard the expression "earworm" used for the experience. I agree that when "Proud Mary" invades my life, I wish I could find the off button. But I love the days that a lost fragment of a hymn, praise, or contempory Christian song surfaces and accompanies me throughout my day.

Recently, I heard the song "I'm Not Alright" by Sanctus Real again, and it promptly became part of my inner ear playlist for a few days. The interesting thing is that the entire weekend that the music was "playing," God placed me in situations in which the theme of brokenness and transparency before Him were addressed. It was as if the Spirit were giving me an internal prompt to share with others.

The prompt? Just that it's okay for a Christian to be broken. It's okay to admit vulnerability and pain. And God's people need to be quick to listen and slow to preach when others are hurting.

When God plays a tune in our heads, it's no worm. It's time to listen up.

And now I'm curious. Maybe you have songs that go through your head. Maybe not. But we're all supposed to be singing for Him. Some love to sing of His redemption. Others just love to praise Him. What is the theme of your life as you live it for Him? What comes out of your mouth each day?

What's your song?

Living in the Light

I was once in a church service where the speaker urged the people to free themselves from "generational curses" by lifting up their arms and metaphorically "chopping" the accursed link as one cuts a root with an ax. The speaker then declared the people free.

She was about two thousand years too late.

The Lord Jesus accomplished this feat completely, thoroughly, once and for all, when He hung between heaven and earth on the cross and rose again in victory over death and hell. Thank God, there is no need for a supplemental curse-lifting by any one of us lesser beings. Jesus, the One who holds the keys to death and hell, has done it all. We're free.

We're free from the generations of drinking.
We're free from our mom's child abuse.
We're free from our dad's sexual abuse.
We're free from a bad name and bad blood.
Need I go on?

Of course, it can take years to heal from the sins that were perpetrated on us. It can take years to learn how to live in the Light. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live in eternity, after all.

But neither we nor our children are sentenced to carry the sins of our fathers into the next generation. We will live what our Father in heaven teaches us. Our children will live what we teach them.

Oh, the freedom.
Oh, the responsibility.

Next: My father, my example

Making the Connection

The figures in the last post would point to our connection: Children learn what they live. Remember that old poem? I used to have it hanging on our hallway wall when our children were little, and it often inspired me to try harder be a good example for them. Although the author has since produced an updated version, this is the one I love.

Children Learn What They Live (1969)

BY DOROTHY LAW NOLTE

If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
He learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.

From Father to Son

This brings us to our next question. Why do some families seem prone to certain sins?


First, some sobering statistics from childhelp.org:

-Abused children are 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy

-Children who experience child abuse & neglect are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult, and 30% more likely to commit violent crime.

-Children who have been sexually abused are 2.5 times more likely develop alcohol abuse

-Children who have been sexually abused are 3.8 times more likely develop drug addiction

-Nearly 2/3’s of the people in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused as children

The Link Between Abuse As a Child & Future Criminal Behavior

-Fourteen percent of all men in prison in the USA were abused as children

-Thirty-six percent of all women in prison were abused as children

Next: Making the Connection