With Love from The Reagans

I saw this letter on Valentine's Day, but why should love be confined to one day a year? I thought it was so beautiful, I had to share it. It is a picture of faithfulness from Ronald Reagan to his wife, which is what God has called us all to be.





"My Darling Wife,

This note is to warn you of a diabolical plot entered into by some of our so called friends --(ha!) calendar makers and even our own children. These and other would have you believe we've been married 20 years.
20 Minutes maybe -- but never 20 years. In the first place it is a known fact that a human cannot sustain the high level of happiness I feel for more than a few minutes -- and my happiness keeps on increasing.
I will confess to one puzzlement but I'm sure it is just some trick perpetrated by our friends --(Ha again!) I can't remember ever being without you and I know I was born more than 20 minutes ago.
Oh well -- that isn't important. The important thing is I don't want to be without you for the next 20 years, or 40, or however many there are. I've gotten very used to being happy and I love you very much indeed.

Your Husband of 20 something or other."

And Call it Love

God-Forsaken

(Webster's Dictionary) Forsake – verb: to quit or leave entirely; abandon; desert. To renounce or turn away from entirely.

What has come to be known as one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century swept down on the unsuspecting city of St. Pierre early on the morning of May 8th, 1902. Mt. Pelee, on the French island of Martinique, released its deadliest weapon, a Nuee Ardente, which incinerated the entire city and killed approx. 26,000 human souls within mere minutes.

I read through the records with horror, going page by page through the accounts of those who had seen people be burned beyond the point of recognition, contorted, maimed, and seemingly struck down dead in an instant by the immense heat. Very few lived to tell of the horrific things they had witnessed within the city that spring morning.

But woven through it all, I saw the providence and goodness of God. A group of women was standing to chat on the road, and those with their faces turned to the volcano were killed, but the one with her back to it was thrown down in the mud on her face and survived. A girl on a ship dove into her maid's skirts and went unconscious during the eruption to wake and find that she and her maid were alive and the rest of her family were lying dead. A man in prison – the most famous survivor – lived. A shoemaker - a nobody - lived.

Those who went to see the burning city in the following days were stunned. The smell of the thousands of rotting corpses was ghastly, fires were breaking out randomly due to the incredible heat that lingered; the city was a pile of ash and rubble.

And they called it God-forsaken.

For how could a God cause this to happen? How could a good God be here? In such a place of devastation and sorrow?
We've all heard it. On screen, in print, in actuality of someone standing beside us: this place is God-forsaken. This house is God-forsaken.

This life is God-forsaken.

When I read the story of Mt. Pelee, I did not see a God forsaking. I saw the power and majesty of a God to save the lives he willed and to strike down the thousands that he had called to die that May morning. What other more glorious display of God's power is there then the catastrophes he allows to happen in His creation? Volcanoes erupting. An earthquake trembling. A tidal wave sweeping up from the ocean. They are terrible, but they are exactly what God has ordained.

A man observing Mt. Pelee days before the Nuee Ardente said in a letter to his wife:
“Imagine two storms together. One is volcanic, with pale glows of an indeterminate blue that assume fantastic forms between dull rumblings and have not a second between them. The other is atmospheric, with brilliant zig-zagging flashes of lightening, cutting across the sky and strident noises like a canvas bag being ripped by a tireless hand..it is really beautiful, gripping, and sublime! I am ashamed of being so small, so ignorant, so 'insignificant' in the face of all the powerful forces that these elements unleash.”

A friend once told me, “My husband likes to stand on the porch in a thunderstorm because he is so overwhelmed with the power of God at those times. He says it is like he can feel God moving when the trees blow and the rain falls.”

Devastation displays how utterly in control God is, because it is then that we are in utter confusion and realize how small we truly are.
It is in the times of terror, the times of fear and uncertainty and when humans feel so small, crushable, crushed, and grieving, when God is in complete control. He sends the catastrophes. He knows exactly who is going to be facing the volcano and who is, providentially, going to be turned away that they may live. We don't always understand why his mercy falls on some and not on others that we think should have survived.
God's will is perfect. We have to trust there is a reason for this unexplained mercy.

I say this all because it struck me last night while reading that when something horrible happens, we cannot conclude that it is because God has forsaken! God is in control, even in our earthly chaos. It is in these times when the world likes to look at the mess nature has created and say that the world is God-forsaken. And they say this because the world doesn't like this kind of God. They like the loving God who promises angels and gives them puppies that lick their cheeks. They say that this kind of God, who brings such destruction, cannot be good.

But God is good: ALWAYS!

“The goodness of God endureth continually.” Ps. 52:1.

“O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” Ps. 34:8

God's goodness isn't always in the form of warm fuzzy feelings and smiles. God's goodness can come in the form of terror and pain, and we will not like it. We won't like to feel the agony, witness the death, and go through the hardships he has laid out for us and for the world.

It may sound strange, but we know that in all of this, God is good. He sank the Titanic. He flooded the entire earth. He allowed many to be murdered in the Holocaust. He sent Katrina. He ripped the earth apart in Haiti and he did it again in Japan.

Our hearts ache to see the pain. We don't understand.

But He has not forsaken, and He will never forsake His children, those that love God and are called according to his purpose.

Quoted

50 Million Murders

The Truth
No one likes it. And no one wants to own up to it. But that doesn't mean it ceases to be there.

- In the last 39 years, approximately 50 million babies have been aborted in America.

- It is estimated that 3,322 babies are aborted every day.

- 93% percent of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient.)


There is a boy in our church named Jeff.
His name is nothing unusual. His voice isn't weird. He jokes and laughs and makes conversation and has an appetite for donuts to match no other.
Some would say that he isn't normal, though
But who decides what is normal?
If he isn't normal, then I am seriously messed up, because he is one of the most genuine people I have ever known. He is not chained by petty inhibitions, he loves Jesus, and he is filled with authentic joy.
Jeff is a bit stocky, blond-haired, and his almond-shaped eyes are framed by glasses as he tells us what he's going to do when he graduates highschool.
Jeff has Down Syndrome.
And every one who knows him is blessed by it.


- Down Syndrome occurs in one out of every 733 babies born in the U.S.

- Over 80% of unborn children who are tested positive for Down Syndrome are aborted.

80% of the beautiful people like Jeff are murdered. Because they are inconvenient. Because they are too hard to care for. Because they aren't "perfect."

Perfect?

Right. Like you and I are perfect, and have the power to decide when to kill another innocent human being.
How prideful. To think that we know better than the God who created this child.
How selfish. To put our convenience over the life or death of a living being.


50 million voices have been silenced.

And somehow, the world thinks that it's okay.
But we do not.


For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13

You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13





~In honor of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, January 22~

Quoted

Being a Christian is more than attending church on Sunday. It is living out our faith, day by day, in our words and our actions. If we proclaim to be Christians, we need to proclaim it every single day.
Not just on Sundays.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

{Dear Sunset}

Dear Sunset,

I saw you last night. I saw the gold and the purple and the pink you streaked across the sky, so slyly preparing the world for pitch darkness which would over us like tar. Your beauty knew it wouldn't last: knew it was the forerunner to a blackout.

Children see you and remember that they are afraid of the dark.

You see trench coats and daggers, pistols and masks. In a facade of glory you light the last few minutes for the preparations of what happens what happens once you fade. In a charade of iridescent comeliness, you scheme with the men of the earth as they twiddle their thumbs and crack their knuckles and bide their time until you whisper goodnight and they can begin their reign of terror.

The innocent know, in that moment, that their streets are no longer lit.

You invite shadows to reappear. You beg fright to take hold. You cheat restless souls out of peace.

The smile your colors hold is deceiving as the plots are laid, the nocturnal wake up, and the chase begins. Your warmth and your beauty melt as quickly as the promises of the criminals who, in daytime, said they would amend their ways.

Night always comes after day. You always make sure of that.

I saw you last night, and I shuddered, because I finally know what it is you do. You pave the way for darkness.

And sunset, I am writing you because even though I know who are, you do not scare me.

I refuse to be afraid of you.

I refuse to be afraid of the dark.