Thursday, November 29, 2012

A Salve to My Soul

Here's something about me that may surprise you. I suffer from anxiety. On the outside I probably look like I have it all together. But if you had been standing in my kitchen on Monday morning, you would have thought differently.

It was snack time. The kids were at the counter eating bananas and chattering on about something.  I went to pour them some milk but instead had an anxiety attack. My heart was racing, I was crying and felt like I couldn't breathe. Quickly I turned my back to the kids as to not freak them out any more than I already had and sent Scott a text message. When he called me back, I couldn't even tell him what was bothering me or what sent me into panic land. And when normalcy (whatever that is) returned, I was exhausted, feeling like I'd just run a marathon.

I wish I could tell you that Monday was a one time deal for me. But it isn't. Anxiety stalks me. It's always lurking in the shadows. Sometimes it's nothing more than a fleeting feeling of impending doom. Other times it's tears. And sometimes it's worse.

But it always goes away. God always rescues me from its grip. I always find peace and usually it comes to me through music or sometimes through verses I memorized as a kid.

Tuesday I was in a fog all day. Just feeling tired and run down. As I drove home from homeschool gym, one of my favorite songs came on the radio.
 How many times have you heard me cry out  "God please take this"?
How many times have you given me strength to  Just keep breathing?
Oh, I need you.  God, I need you now.
The next morning, as I sat at the table, in the quiet before the storm of our daily lives, I wrote in my journal, "Your enemy, anxiety, is like a roaring lion, sneaking around to find someone to attack." I remember reading 1 Peter 5:8 in a high school assembly when I was a junior. I never thought it would come back to me like this.

Tonight, though, was my favorite. Locked in our junk room adjacent to the garage, I was sorting Avon for  a big fundraiser I just hosted. I had my MP3 player going when a song from my childhood started playing. My mom bought Amy Grant's "Age to Age" cassette when I was almost six years old. We played it endlessly in her Lincoln and eventually learned every word to every song on that album. So when "Arms of Love" came on tonight, that's exactly what it felt like. It felt like a great big hug from God Almighty. It was like He was saying, "I held you then, I'll hold you now." And all the anxiety just melted as I stood there singing off-key all by myself, surrounded by tubes of lipstick.

These instances are like a balm you rub on a sunburn. They're a salve to my soul.

I don't know why I'm sharing this with you. I just felt you needed to know. Maybe there's something you're struggling with, maybe you battle anxiety or depression or some other variety of the enemy's arsenal. Maybe you just need to be reminded of God's mercy and grace. Or maybe you just need a supernatural hug. Turn up the volume on your speakers and let His arms wrap around you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc0Wkq_DQnM




Tuesday, November 20, 2012

21st Century Genocide?

I am opposed to federally-funded or federal mandates requiring insurance funding of abortion and birth control.

Let's talk about abortion first. I am not opposed to federal funding or federal mandates requiring funding for abortions because I am prolife. I am, in fact, prolife and believe human life begins at conception. I believe ending that life, at any point in the pregrancy, is indeed murder. I understand, however, that extenuating circumstances exist turning a black and white matter into one that is very, very grey. However, my prolife stance has nothing to do with my opinion on federal mandates on abortion.

Similarly, I am not opposed to birth control funding mandated by the federal goverment because I believe birth control is morally wrong. I don't. I know some people believe that using birth control violates God's will and breaks His command to "be fruitful and multiply." I'm not one of those people.  I believe God can make anything happen whenever He wants and a silly little hormone pill isn't going to prevent a pregnancy if God's will is for you to be pregnant at that moment in time. But I digress. The point is, though I have no problems with birth control, namely oral contraceptives, I do have a problem with the government mandating its coverage by insurance.

When I was in college at a very liberal, all women college, a lot of my classmates had bumper stickers on their cars that read: "U.S: Out of My Uterus!" I remember not really understanding what that meant but thinking it was kind of humorous.  Today, I'm shaking my fist in the air in support of such a statement.

Let me break this down for you: if we allow, or in this case ask, the government to pay for birth control and abortions, we are essentially asking them to control our reproductive abilities.

You read that right. We are inviting the government back into our uteruses. But now it's worse. Decades  ago, we wanted the government to give us control of our uteruses, to grant us the freedom and the right to evict any tenant thereof. Essentially we said, "It's our uterus, it's our choice."

But now, we're saying, "It's still our uterus, it's still our choice, but now we want you to pay for it." Common sense tells us what the government pays for the government owns. So we are selling our uteruses to the government. Sadly, we think that getting free or low-cost abortions and free birth control is somehow our right. We think receiving such things gives us more freedom, allows us greater choice, and somehow liberates us.

But it doesn't! You cannot ask the government to pay for something and expect they won't tell you how to do it. That just doesn't happen. Even in the most liberal of socialist cultures, there are rules and qualifiers in order to receive welfare and social services.

So asking the government to pay for abortion andbirth control is the first step to government control of all our reproductive rights. Maybe in a few years the government will require that all women of a certain age or certain race will be required to take birth control. Or maybe they'll be required to have hysterectomies. This is already a part of our history, just google "forced sterlization in US in 20th century." Or maybe several years from now, women will be required to abort girl babies or babies who will be born with a defect. Maybe what seems like a great idea now will actually turn into genocide.

I don't know what will happen in the future, but I know that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  Somebody, somewhere has to pay for it. And we might end up paying for this "choice" with our freedom.