John Piper just posted this link on Twitter. Watch it first, then finish reading this post.
The technology was there. The technology was accurate. It was Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder I didn't even know existed. From what it looks like, Trisomy 18 causes cleft and bilateral pallets, incomplete heart and brain development and I'd imagine some kind of spinal abnormalities. No one survives this. Utterly fatal. Yet with all the information, all the knowledge, all the assuredness that these signs on the ultrasound really meant Trisomy 18, the parents courageously determined to see their son through delivery. And they did, as he was born with abnormalities and deficiencies which marred his face and body, yet somehow still retained the preciousness and beauty which can only be seen in an infant. He was their son. He was one of them. He was Thomas.
My mind is fully incapable of understanding the insurmountable pain this mother and father experienced in five short days. To watch their son gasp and gulp for oxygen, turn blue, think that Thomas was gone yet have him bounce back for a few more hours of life must have been torture. Four times, FOUR TIMES they were sure he had gone home to be with the Lord, yet with a hickup he was back gasping for more.
Then it was time. Resting on his sleeping father's chest, Thomas' heart succumbed to the twisted, tangled genetic code inside his every cell. They awoke to an empty vessel. His suffering had ceased.
The heart can tolerate degrees of pain unknown to the common man. By God's empowering grace, expecting parents can go to the funeral home to pick out a child's coffin who hasn't even been born yet. Financial decisions had to be made, knowing full well that their child just isn't going to make it. What that must have felt like I may never know. All I know is that some how, some way, God was glorified through all of this. His methods of glory are far too beyond our concepts and constructs. I think that is good.
Saturday, August 29
Sunday, March 1
This kid
After meandering around Home Depot trying to find velcro without the adhesive backing (a one hour ordeal), I walked out to my car and a late twenty-something dad pulled up next to my car. He unbuckles his eighteen to twenty-four month old son from the backseat and holds him in his arms. This kid got my attention from the second I saw him. Whispy locks and brown eyes so deep you could sink. I stuck my tongue out at him and he gives me this look with such inquisitiveness, his two year old eyebrows furrowed. As his dad carries his son into the store, with his tiny head bobbling up and down behind his father's shoulder and arm around his neck, I make a more exaggerated silly face with my eyes crossed. He lights up, a smile as wide as the sea, such joy and life in this kids face. I began to chuckle heartily, started my car and drove off. His joy became contagious as my cheeks tired, amazed at the wonder and mystery of children.
What is it about them that brings such laughter and satisfaction? Is it their innocence or ignorance of what surrounds them? I don't know, nor do I need to know. I am content with the experience itself, nothing more. What a task to describe the rich joy of a child's smile, how much more if they are your own? Perhaps He'll allow me to experience it for myself, one day.
What is it about them that brings such laughter and satisfaction? Is it their innocence or ignorance of what surrounds them? I don't know, nor do I need to know. I am content with the experience itself, nothing more. What a task to describe the rich joy of a child's smile, how much more if they are your own? Perhaps He'll allow me to experience it for myself, one day.
Monday, February 23
yikes!
it's not that i don't have novel thoughts or ideas, i just that, well, whatever. there's no obligation here, perhaps some nonverbal expectations i have/had as to the frequency of my blogging.
things are so different now. things are not the way i thought they would be, from the inside that is, not the outward appearance. my heart stirs in different ways, ways i'm not accustomed to. after moving back to florida, i feel i've lost something or perhaps not lost but rather i'm struggling to find what it is i'm looking for in my new context. this new context is eye-opening, to say the least. few things challenge and reveal your convictions as when you are alone, out in the wilderness where, for all intensive purposes, you are free to do whatever you wish. withdrawn from the community that stirs my heart, that surges with such thick love, i find myself waning and realizing i'm not the spiritual giant i once thought. i could throw prepositional excuses validating whatever state you want to call this, but it's merely futile and profits nothing.
where are my commitments?
where are my convictions?
do i really believe the Great Commission?
do i rest on laurels or count all as loss?
amidst all of this, i see a vision resurfacing, a dream drawing the puzzle pieces to itself. i see a way of life which forces all other options to peel off of the corridor of possibilities. constantly surrounded by wealth, glamour and must-haves, these that surround me swing at the air, beating their chests. i don't need a life strapped with money for it leaves its followers with hearts as cold and hard as the cash itself. somewhere along the line i bought into the lie, that i would find purpose, value and comfort if i only had money. perhaps He allowed me to be unemployed for the past few months to allow these issues to rise to the surface, the dross of this Process.
there is a lot i'm trying to say in so few words, yet i'm finding it incredibly hard to form some of these thoughts right now. there are changes i want to see in my heart, in my mind, some which are seemingly contradictory or paradoxical. i want to be more unsure about things while knowing what i know all the more a divine dance between Mystery and Truth. i want to be less overt yet louder still. i want to grasp love and hate in healthy doses, understanding their delicate balance. i eagerly look forward to the changes ahead and the struggles within.
things are so different now. things are not the way i thought they would be, from the inside that is, not the outward appearance. my heart stirs in different ways, ways i'm not accustomed to. after moving back to florida, i feel i've lost something or perhaps not lost but rather i'm struggling to find what it is i'm looking for in my new context. this new context is eye-opening, to say the least. few things challenge and reveal your convictions as when you are alone, out in the wilderness where, for all intensive purposes, you are free to do whatever you wish. withdrawn from the community that stirs my heart, that surges with such thick love, i find myself waning and realizing i'm not the spiritual giant i once thought. i could throw prepositional excuses validating whatever state you want to call this, but it's merely futile and profits nothing.
where are my commitments?
where are my convictions?
do i really believe the Great Commission?
do i rest on laurels or count all as loss?
amidst all of this, i see a vision resurfacing, a dream drawing the puzzle pieces to itself. i see a way of life which forces all other options to peel off of the corridor of possibilities. constantly surrounded by wealth, glamour and must-haves, these that surround me swing at the air, beating their chests. i don't need a life strapped with money for it leaves its followers with hearts as cold and hard as the cash itself. somewhere along the line i bought into the lie, that i would find purpose, value and comfort if i only had money. perhaps He allowed me to be unemployed for the past few months to allow these issues to rise to the surface, the dross of this Process.
there is a lot i'm trying to say in so few words, yet i'm finding it incredibly hard to form some of these thoughts right now. there are changes i want to see in my heart, in my mind, some which are seemingly contradictory or paradoxical. i want to be more unsure about things while knowing what i know all the more a divine dance between Mystery and Truth. i want to be less overt yet louder still. i want to grasp love and hate in healthy doses, understanding their delicate balance. i eagerly look forward to the changes ahead and the struggles within.
Friday, November 28
Bogus Black Friday?
I wanted to post something I've been thinking about for the majority of the day today, well after my mind was sated with the glorious candied yams. Ever since I appeared on this earth twenty-two years ago, Black Friday has always been know as the "largest shopping day of the year". If I remember correctly, we as Americans spent $7 Billion on Black Friday in 2007.
$7,000,000,000!
That's an absurd amount of money. And the thing that I can't figure out is what are they buying? Local network news stations around the country will be reporting from their local Best Buy and Wal-Mart in four hours to interview the ravaged shopper who denied himself thirds on the turkey to get in line early to pick up their new LCD TV. Perhaps it's just the hype surrounding it, perhaps it's the culture, but are the deals really that good? I perused some sites of the big stores to see what their Black Friday deals were, and I was hardly impressed at all. It seems that the internet has changed the way people shop and many of the "deals" touted can readily be picked up during the other 364 days of the year on any number of websites.
So what is it that's driving sales to incomprehensible levels on one particular day of the year? Are a majority of Americans genuinely uninformed when it comes to online shopping? Are a majority of Americans utilizing this culture of consumption to justify their expenses on this one day of the year? I'm not sure what it is. What do you think? What sociological reasons could there be to make sense of all of this?
$7,000,000,000!
That's an absurd amount of money. And the thing that I can't figure out is what are they buying? Local network news stations around the country will be reporting from their local Best Buy and Wal-Mart in four hours to interview the ravaged shopper who denied himself thirds on the turkey to get in line early to pick up their new LCD TV. Perhaps it's just the hype surrounding it, perhaps it's the culture, but are the deals really that good? I perused some sites of the big stores to see what their Black Friday deals were, and I was hardly impressed at all. It seems that the internet has changed the way people shop and many of the "deals" touted can readily be picked up during the other 364 days of the year on any number of websites.
So what is it that's driving sales to incomprehensible levels on one particular day of the year? Are a majority of Americans genuinely uninformed when it comes to online shopping? Are a majority of Americans utilizing this culture of consumption to justify their expenses on this one day of the year? I'm not sure what it is. What do you think? What sociological reasons could there be to make sense of all of this?
Thursday, November 27
Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation
Taken from Crossway's Blog
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Taken from the collection of Lincoln’s papers in the Library of America series, Vol. II, pp. 520-521.
The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
—Abraham Lincoln
--
Taken from the collection of Lincoln’s papers in the Library of America series, Vol. II, pp. 520-521.
The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
—Abraham Lincoln
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