The Reason for the Season

The holidays are here and it's such a busy time. I have a so many projects and to-do-lists that I feel my head is spinning. In my quiet time, when I'm writing this, I stop and reflect upon life's craziness. The good and the bad of it all seems to intertwine together. There is so much beauty, and yet, so much pain as well.
Christmas brings out the "giving attitude" in us all, and also the realization of how many others in the world that need to be given too. I am overwhelmed this time of year with charity after charity needing donations; each one with its own story and crisis; each one touching and pulling at my heartstrings. However, as much as I would love to, I can't give to each one. My heart feels burdened for all the lost and suffering souls that are on this earth. Just this morning, while I was eating my bowl of Frosted Flakes, I opened an envelope that said "EMERGENCY!". It was from World Vision, a Christian Organization that is dedicated primarily to children in Third World Countries. We sponsor a little girl in Indonesia named Butet who has lost her parents to AIDS. Anyway, this particular emergency is about the cyclone that just hit Bangladesh and the thousands of people left homeless and without anything. As I was reading about the devastation, I felt guilty sitting at my kitchen table, in my warm p.j.'s, in my warm home, filling my belly with food. When I feel myself feeling overwhelmed by life's issues, I can only turn to God. I can only lay my burdens (and the rest of the world's atrocities) at Jesus' feet. If I don't, I get depressed.
How does one teach children, who grow up in an affluent neighborhood and school, about the realization of another world? Already materialism is shoved down their throats at such an early age. My son, who's in the first grade, has already made a comment about his 7-year old friend who has a flat screen t.v. in his bedroom. I told him not to worry because he was never going to have a t.v. in his bedroom...flat, round or triangular! He didn't think it was as funny as I did.
We talk to our boys, especially at the dinner table, about other children around the world that don't have any food tonight to fill their bellies, or parents to tuck them in to sleep, or warm clothes or shoes to protect their bodies. It is starting to sink in. My five year-old always includes in his prayers..."Please give the people that don't have food something to eat." It makes a mother proud to know that they are listening to something I am saying.
My prayer for all of us living such blessed lives is to remember to be thankful this holiday season. Remember the true meaning of Christmas. Remember, as my husband always says, "It could be worse." And, of course, remember to tell those people in your lives how grateful you are to have them share this journey with you. Happy Holidays!

Relationships

Relationships are the fiber that threads us together. We all want them. We all need them. Why, then, are they so complex? In reading the book 1st John, it's all about relationships and loving each other. God knew how vital relationships were going to be to human beings (and to Himself) but He also knew how each one was going to mold us into the person we are today. People have so much affect on each other, both positive and negative. Without even realizing it, every gesture, statement, smile or frown can make an impact on those around you.

Raising children allows you to recall your own childhood memories. For instance, when I feel my child is being bullied, it turns me into a fanatic over-protective mom. I HATE bullies! Sometimes as a child I was the target of bullying, but more often, I watched in horror many children being bullied. I felt helpless to do anything about theirs or my terrible predicament. It left a tremendous impact on me. Since I was a tiny girly-girl and an only child, I didn't know how to fight. I didn't want to. The result of that experience (along with others) left a rage growing inside me. To fight to the death for justice! In my 20's I thought I was bad-ass...all 100 pounds of me! Rod used to call me a "Chihuahua" because my bark was definitely louder than my bite. I felt the rage cool in my 30's, but sometimes it sneaks up on me every now and then. PMS, for instance, doesn't always bring out the best in me, especially when children are whiny, argumentative, uncooperative and fighting each other.

Girlfriends are an essential part of my human need for relationships. Since I don't have a sister, and always wanted one, I have searched for surrogate sisters along life's journey. I am so grateful that I have found some along the way. Each "sister" has had a unique affect on me as a person, sometimes good and sometimes bad, but each relationship has left an impression on my spirit. I am so thankful to God that he brought each one of these women into my life to help me grow as a person.

What I have recently discovered is that if my relationship with God is good, then my human relationships are good as well. If I can see people through God's eyes and not mine, then I can truly love that person. I forget about their shortcomings, but focus on their positive traits. I can laugh at my child's trantrum; I can love my husband even when he leaves his clothes on the floor; I don't get offended when a friend calls only when she needs something; I can smile at the stranger I pass on the street; I can love the unloveable.

I'm thankful for relationships. God is good!

Andrew's cool trick!

Yes, folks, what you are about to witness is real! This video has not been altered in any way! My 5 year old has discovered the fascinating world of Science. We are thrilled he is so talented...

Super Heroes Unite!

What a concept: Once a year, we all get to dress up as other people and go to strangers' houses and ask for candy. Halloween reveales our alter-egoes...the Super Heroes inside us all! With mom's birthday being on Halloween, it's even more reason to celebrate! Our neighbor friends joined us for chili, bobbing for apples, cake and trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

Does life get any better?

Judgment Day

Sadly, the top news stories this morning was about Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas which was ordered to pay $10.9 million to a deceased soldier's father who recently sued the members for ruining his son's funeral. Apparently, the protesters were going to military funerals and displaying hateful and erroneous signs all in the name of God. Reading the posters with the words: "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" made my heart hurt and my blood boil. What really got me was a boy around 10 held another slanderous sign, not up above his head, but down at his feet, his eyes looking at the ground and his head held in shame. What future lies ahead for this boy? A life filled with anger, hatred, lies and confusion?

I found myself praying for these misguided and terribly confused people, but my heart ached for the boy. My prayer is that someday someone is going to come into his life and minister to him the real message of God. If God "hates" anything it's sin, not the sinner, but the sin itself. Why this particular group decided to fixate on soldiers and homosexuals is beyond me, but everything they are "protesting" is poison and certainly not biblical.

The bible does speak against homosexuality and says it is sinful; however, so is judging others, pride, gossip, over-indulgence, lying, stealing, blaspheme, bitterness, unforgiveness, hatred, foolishness, etc... God does not rank sin like we do, but considers ALL sin equal. Therefore, none of us can escape it. I must confess, and I'm not boasting, I can sin hourly without even trying. Truth be told, we ALL can! God in his unyielding and overwhelming love for us, saved us from ourselves and sent His son to carry that burden for us! All He asks in return is to love Him; to honor Him; to try to follow Jesus' example; to spread the message about His love.

I want to scream to the protesters until I'm blue in the face that God loves them. Yes, them; He even loves them. He "hates" the venom and evilness they are spewing, but He loves them. I mourn for the lost souls who don't experience the love of our Heavenly Father, for it's a love so pure, so undeniable, so strong. And it's because of that love from God that I am able to say, "Father, please forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Withdrawl from the Fires!!!

There is a website I go to often called "Laugh at the Liberals" that posted this commentary on how the Democrats view America and the fire situation in Southern California. I think the most frustrating thing about Democrats is that they are so un-American! Everything is Bush's fault, from Global Warming to the Katrina Disaster to the Immigration Problem to the War. The point this caller makes is so appropriate and fitting of how illogical their thinking is.

Sen. Barbara Boxer was all over the media yesterday talking about how the war in Iraq was causing the California fire to burn out of control due to the lack of equipment and manpower available because of National Guard troop deployment. Of course the commander of the National Guard in Calinfornia said they had all the equipment they needed and have received everything they asked for. (I guess he’s a liar just like Petraeus?)

Sen. Harry Reid said global warming was one of the causes of the California fires and of course we all know thats Bush’s fault.

Have these people no shame? Can honest Americans look at this obvious politicization of a horrible disaster and not be disgusted?

A caller to Rush Limbaugh’s program said it best when he asked, Why are’nt the Democrats calling for withdrawl from the fire, just like Iraq? The situation seems similar. A raging fire being pushed by an unstoppable wind. There’s no way we can defeat the fire. Fires have been burning for thousands of years. All we are doing is occupying the fire’s native land. The fire was their first. We’re only there because real estate (oil). All we want to do is control this valuable commodity. GET OUT! Get out now. Our firefighters (troops) are being needlessly sacrificed in a battle they can’t possible win…I mean they’re the best firefighters in the world, don’t get me wrong, I support them 100%, but they are needlessly putting out small, innocent civilian fires, hundreds of them…and in some cases using water to torture the fires until they reveal where other fires are burning….ALL OF THIS APPROVED BY BUSH!….

While thousands of Marines stand-by in Camp Pendleton, waiting for orders to go out and fight the fire, Barbara Boxer (D), wants to bring troops out of Iraq to fight the fire.
Brilliant Barbara, Brilliant!

Global Warming....the new "Religion"

A dear friend of mine watched an episode of "20/20" the other night about Global Warming. There's another story that the extremists don't want to believe or even be debated. Here's a sample of what 20/20 discovered about Global Warming:

The globe is warming, but is it really all our fault? And is it true the debate is over? No. What you think you know may not be so.

In the movie, for example, Gore says that if we allow the globe to warm, "sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet." Then he shows his audience terrifying maps of Florida and San Francisco submerged under rising sea levels. But the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared last week's Nobel Prize with Gore, said that would probably take thousands of years to happen. Over the next 100 years, sea levels are expected to rise seven to 24 inches, not 20 feet.
Gore also implies that polar bears are dying off, because receding Arctic ice has forced them to swim longer distances. The kids I interviewed were especially worried about the fate of the polar bears. But the polar bears appear to be doing all right. Future warming may hurt them, but right now data from the World Conservation Union and the U.S. Geological Survey show most populations of polar bears are stable or increasing.

The most impressive demonstration in Gore's movie is that big graph of temperature and carbon dioxide levels stretching back 650,000 years. Carbon dioxide is thought to amplify temperature increases, but his graph seemed to show clear cause and effect: When carbon dioxide levels rose, so did temperature. It suggested that carbon levels controlled temperature. But a real inconvenient truth is that the carbon increase came after temperatures rose, usually hundreds of years later. Temperature went up first.

I wanted to ask Gore about that and other things, but he wouldn't agree to an interview. According to Gore, the "debate is over."

I interviewed some scientists who say the debate is by no means over. John Christy and Roy Spencer won NASA's Medal for Exceptional Achievement for figuring out how to get temperature data from satellites.

"We all agree that it's warmed," Spencer said. "The big question is, and the thing we dispute is, is it because of mankind?"

Climate changes, they say, always has, with or without man. Early last century, even without today's huge output of carbon dioxide, the Arctic went through a warming period.
Greenland's temperatures rose 50 percent faster in the 1920s and reached higher average temperatures in the 1930s and 1940s than today's temperatures.
Some scientists argue the warming might be caused by changes in the sun, or ocean currents, or changes in cloud cover, or other things we don't yet understand. The debate is not over.

But who's to say that yesterday's temperature is the perfect one?

"The fact is, when climate changes, there are gains and there are losses," said Tim Ball, who studies the history of climate change. But, he points out, all we generally hear about is the bad news from the IPCC — that massive group of climate scientists.
Paul Reiter of the Pasteur Institute participated in one of the IPCC drafts and Christy was a contributing author. Both say that this Nobel Prize-winning group is not what people think it is.

"The IPCC is the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change," Reiter said. "It is governments who nominate people. You'll find in many chapters that there are people who are not scientists at all." Reiter claims that some of these scientists are "essentially activists" and there are some members with affiliations to groups like Greenpeace.

When the IPCC report came out, not all its members agreed with what was said. "We were not asked to look at a particular statement and sign our names, at all," Christy said.

Reiter felt his objections were ignored and says he resigned in frustration. But in a draft of the report, the IPCC still listed Reiter as a "contributing author" — part of the so-called consensus.
"I contacted the IPCC and I said, 'Look, I've resigned. I don't want to have anything more to do with this.' And they said, 'Well, you've been involved, so you're still on the list.'" Reiter says he had to threaten to sue to get his name removed from the report, although the IPCC denies that.

In all the confusion surrounding the global warming debate, one thing is clear: Global warming activists don't welcome the skepticism.

Those who call their extreme projections into question are compared with Holocaust deniers and accused of being paid off by big business. I've questioned the extreme global warming predictions in the past, and for that I've been branded a "corporate toadie" and a "flat-earther."

I don't mind being called names, but is this what the global warming debate has come to? One side saying, "Shut up. Dissent should not be heard?"

The truth is, that while everyone agrees that the earth has warmed, lots of good scientists don't agree that it's mostly our fault, and don't agree that it's going to be a catastrophe. So when Gore says, "The debate is over," I say, "Give Me a Break!" John Stossel, 20/20

Before I get any hate mail, I just want to add that I'm very pro-green! I recycle (my 17 year old brother accused me of trying to save the Rain Forrest because he saw how much recycling my family contributes); I ask for paper sacks when I grocery shop and sometimes even bring my own sacks; I conserve energy via energy-efficient light bulbs, ceiling fans, car pooling, etc... I totally get that God gave us this Earth to take care of and wastefulness is sinful...but I'm with John Stossel on this one...give me a break! I'm glad that he had the guts to come out and speak on an issue that is so controversial. It's refreshing to hear the flip-side of the story, and fiestiness is always a good thing in my book.