Lily Katherine

A year ago today I was informed of the precious life of my granddarling, Lily Katherine, who was born still on March 16, at 40 weeks, 7 lbs. 9 oz., 21 inches long, the picture of robust health and completed development.  What a year this has been for us all.  God works all things together for good to those that love Him and are called according to His purposes!  Lily, you will be very much missed until we meet again in glory, darling!  Thank you for opening blind eyes to the majesty of Almighty God, as well as to the value, dignity and respect He attributes to each and every life He has created.  Your life, albeit brief, helped restore relationships with Jesus and with others.

CHILD LOANED by Edgar Guest - one of my favorite poets

"I'll lend you for a little time
A child of Mine," He said.
"For you to love the while she lives,
And mourn for when she's dead.
It may be six or seven years
Or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call her back
Take care of her for Me?
She'll bring her charms to gladden you,
And should her stay be brief,
You'll have her lovely memories
As solace for your grief.
I cannot promise she will stay,
since all from Earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there
I want this child to learn.
I've looked this wide world over
In My search for teachers true,
And from the throngs that crowd life's lanes,
I have selected you;
Now will you give her all your love,
Nor think the labour vain,
Nor hate Me when I come to call
and take her back again?
I fancied that I heard them say,
"Dear Lord, Thy will be done,
For all the joy Thy child shall bring,
For the risk of grief we'll run.
We'll shelter her with tenderness,
We'll love her while we may,
And for the happiness we've known,
Forever grateful stay.
But should the angels call for her
Much sooner then we planned,
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes
And try to understand.

Bringing Up Girls in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord

Following is the sweetest letter at the back of Dr. James Dobson's (Godson  :)   ) most recent, wisdom-packed book entitled Bringing Up Girls:

Dear Dr. Dobson,

Today is the sixth anniversary of the day my precious little girl, Delaney, went home to live with Almighty God.  As my family and I remember with tears, smiles and confident thoughts of seeing her again one day, I can't help but think of you as you are writing Bringing Up Girls.

Although we had only sixteen short months with her, Delaney is a special gift.  As the father of one boy already at that time (now two), I can tell you that she was a completely different being.  From the time my boys were old enough to reach out and hug me, I always got the sense that they were practicing their headlocks, which they now use on me every chance they get.  To receive a hug from Delaney, however, was an altogether different experience.  She never tired of melting into my arms and burying her tiny face deep into my neck.  She was pure love.  She was my "Sweet Delaney Pie."

When sharing our story with others, especially parents, I am always careful to convey the most important perspective that God has blessed us (yes, blessed us) with through our tragic loss.  I always say to them, "I can live my life here on earth without my precious Delaney, but I cannot possibly conceive of spending eternity without any one of my children."  God has made the significance of this perspective so very clear to my wife, Becky, and me, and we are eternally (literally) grateful.  I wish this truth could become as clear to every parent without having to go through such a tragic experience as ours.

Even through all we've learned, we are still not perfect parents, but we don't have to be perfect in order to pass along God's eternal perspective.  Our sons speak often and with confidence of  "our sister, Delaney, who lives in heaven."  They also smile as they talk about what they will do together when they finally get to see her.  The faith of children is so pure.  I love that.

I don't know what Delaney will look like when I see her again.  Will she still be a little girl, or will she have grown to be a beautiful woman?  No matter.  We will embrace, and I will weep flowing tears of joy for a long, long time.  I will weep because the pain of her death will be gone forever.  What will be left will be the only thing that matters:  we will share eternity together.

May God bless you, Dr. Dobson, as you write this book, that your readers will take seriously the responsibility of raising, protecting and loving these special gifts - these tender, loving, precious little girls God has entrusted them with.

Your brother in Christ,

Mark

I implore you to please pick up a copy of Bringing Up Girls, as well as his excellent book entitled Bringing Up Boys!

Feminists Unnatural Stance with Islam's View of Women

How, oh how can the feminists at Bitch Magazine think that it's a good thing for a mosque to be erected at Ground Zero???

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/douchebag-decree-anti-muslim-a-holes       http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1222190

Really?  I mean, really?  Feminists can truly concur with how females are viewed and treated according to the so-called religion of Islam?  They think it's OK for men to have four wives at the same time, as well as for a man to be allowed, by the Quran, to beat a disobedient wife??  Do feminists get warm fuzzies over the ahadiths that proclaim that most women will go to hell, while most men will go to heaven?  (Realistically, what woman would get all excited about being in paradise surroundered by beautiful virgins?)  Do feminists truly believe it's okay, according to the Quran, for a man to lie to his wife in order to please her?  As a person who believes in radical womanhood, living set-apart for Jesus Christ, I find this exceedingly disturbing, for feminists obviously do NOT engage their brains to think for themselves.

http://action.afa.net/Blogs/BlogPost.aspx?id=2147497818

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

What do you think?

Misanthrope Emily's Convoluted Thinking (aka killerquill)

Emily Young, http://killerquill.blogspot.com/2010/07/conversations-with-psychotic-and.html, made the sweeping declaration that when one sets no boundaries in one's choice of reading materials, basically being free to read any garbage that our corrupt world churns out, that prevents one from becoming a misanthrope.  Following are her comments to me from our debate on her aunt's ( my friend's) facebook page, as well as from her charming posting on her lady-like blog entitled Conversations with the Psychotic and Intellectually Barren:


We have so-called "depressing" literature on required reading lists because, in a sense, it is soft preparation for the types of situations and people that young adults might encounter in the real world. Literature is not indoctrination. In fact, it is the one thing that prevents narrow-mindedness and indoctrination. Reading (especially reading a wide array of viewpoints) is at its very essence the antidote to ignorance, bitterness, and misanthropy.

Since Emily has engaged in reading that is so varied and open-minded, my question for her is, why then, is she a self-proclaimed misanthrope?  Why hasn't her avid reading proven itself to be her fail-safe method protecting her from harboring bitterness?  She has me scratching my head in confusion.  Following is her last sentence in our battle of words:


"Sigh. And people WONDER why I'm such a misanthrope."

According to her, taking license to fill one's mind with unbridled stuff and nonsense is supposedly the antidote to disliking and distrusting people.  What a contradiction she presents between what she professes and what she actually lives!  Emily, I do WONDER why you are such a misanthrope?  Obviously, her empty, meaningless reading has not worked it's intended magic.

Wisdom from Ravi Zacharias' book * DELIVER US FROM EVIL

I've typed these wise excerpts from Ravi for two in particular, Emily and Cara.

They need to learn to differentiate between opinion and conviction.  An opinion is merely a preference in a continuum of options.  A conviction is rooted in the conscience and cannot be changed without changing that which essentially defines the person.  In a pluralistic culture, an opinion should not be given the same passion as the weight of a conviction.  

Secularists do not take into account that on their own terms no position needs to be defended if a commitment to it is sufficient reason in itself.  If it is believed that all moralizing is purely one's private view then ought not that view itself be kept private?  The secularist never answers how he or she determines whether anything is wrong with anything except by sheer choice.  Secular belief grants itself privileges that it does not equally distribute.  

In a purely naturalistic universe there is nothing to transcend matter - there is no soul or spirit because that would imply the supernatural.  This dehumanizing "net worth" is all that secularism has left when life is seen through the eyes of the Spirit of the Age.  Brain power is not sufficient to explain what the mind and the heart instinctively understand.  If humanity is nothing more than its lowest common denominator, the very philosophy espoused by a valueless creature is valueless.  The ideas we pursue can be classified in terms of worth only if human beings have an essential glory.  Secularism strips humanity of decency because it strips it of common sense first by denuding the mind.

The pathetic, psychological, voiceless posture where shame is excised from our cultural intercourse, leaves behind a hell of possibilities and swings wide the door to evil in any and every form.  All attitudes and all behaviour find avenues of unbridled expression, and no one reserves the right to say, "It is not enough to say you're sorry - you ought to feel sorry and ashamed of what you have done."  Ah!  But this is too much to ask of the postmodern mind where self-congratulation is the mood engendered by irreligious social policies.  It is our philosophical commitment that ends up legitimizing shamelessness that puts an individual on the road to incorrigibility.  For any corrective in behaviour of for punitive measure to be effective there must be some point of hurt or undesired feeling within the one who has done wrong.  Shame or remorse or society's disapproval is powerless today to induce a desire to change, because the ideas that shape our culture make shame a hangover of an antiquated religious world-view.  How then is it possible to reconcile law with liberty when both the sense of right and the sensation of wrong have been eradicated?  Shame is to the moral health of a society what pain is to the body.  The loss of shame in a society is ultimately an attack upon all of civilization.  Loss of shame is an attack upon all of humanity, because shame was given to us as a guardian, not only of ourselves, but of our fellow human being.  The loss of belief in the supernatural,  which secularism implies, has led to an eradication of the sense of shame, which secularism cannot deal with.  The soil of shamelessness gives root to evil in its most violent forms.  With the name of God now unhallowed and His kingdom not welcome does it make any sense to cry, "Deliver us from evil"?

*Deliver Us From Evil by Ravi Zacharias, 1997, Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson

Emily's Poison Pen Blogspot

I should also mention that Ginny DOES keep a blog. Enjoy the pure, undiluted 100% crazy! 

Oh, and her adult daughter has an entire blog dedicated to a stillborn baby. Okay, before you unleash the tide of "you heartless bastard!" -- just hear me out: please don't get me wrong, giving birth to a stillborn baby is extremely heart-wrenching and devastating. That woman has every right to grieve. But there is something EXTREMELY disturbing about setting up a PUBLIC blogshrine to a dead baby, replete with photographs of the deceased. I mean, for fuck's sake, the poor thing in the photograph is so far gone that it's already showing livor mortis. And to think that everyone went around posing for photos and mourning over this stillborn for... how long, Hours? Where is the respect and dignity for the dead? Since when did heartfelt grief for a lost child become an extremely public affair with photo albums and countdown clocks ("it's been 4 months since we said goodbye")?

I've noticed that there is a strong trend among religious right fanatics to set up blogshrines to their stillborn babies or anencephalic, dying babies. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm guessing it's a combination of: "pro-life" (anti-choice) fervor, the belief that a woman's duty is to be an incubator, religious delusion (and thus an incapability of coming to terms with natural death/dying), poor emotional coping skills, and the chance to become a "martyr mom" among fundies. I think that is why these women SNAP when they realize their pregnancy is not viable and they decide to carry to term any way to show off their martyrdom. And there is mental illness involved. I'm not the sanest person in the bunch, but I feel sorry for Ginny and her daughter, as there is obviously a lot of psychological instability between them. But what can you do?

Sigh. And people WONDER why I'm such a misanthrope.


http://killerquill.blogspot.com/2010/07/conversations-with-psychotic-and.html?showComment=1280782231539_AIe9_BFDI20sUGV7rXBjJ65KIMOHlqWlKrTd0zJypctHuxU-J-orlLQiAQ5zIAcf8PXzQqZtDaN3EZEQUHkrhWjQ2P1bRHGxAsra0aABePxVVgeevS-UaISw9jNxii3NsETykuc3ur5yARS2921lAmLDU0q2_hY3n4ZoFzL9wdStDb8EqDr5P7kJWiwdBLWR-9KkRfMfu_pquZf_9w96rFNk6lWdZdKd4XiLrvjj-qjgMdgn9EnflmDlYPcRRkarm2kd4NqEc2auSv6IHeQ1YwZDK-jPIuiOof5T9WpUBAuF_TghUe1NuVgXUa9GDMz9mHZjZB5rbSw51THgJ9CK7BVySSxJ1SXRHOF-W5bkvs_F0uqLm0xDvmQ6Hk-Yi96gJ3JJX2U-KRNi-swIT4DHipy128sKcLAV0DkQZeMFLgxLUp0g3ZsMP8KOr5gfkMiyTY3n9xI9fwHzbL2DbHigVErQA-Xdbq0pvvDNZdFl0RdoBJINARK1Cs7F0w1iH14Dvfex6Y34TlReJ3vFHiphMtFi6lwLrZ8JU55c6hZ_LoIUn9ch-mHFXQQHOUM0uLx10jdLT4l5E9wYtd--BBwDrycSKzHM50aD5uaf9qVsY_lmrzThVjAFARK1dkEU3xTM6Dp_JuXNbBYWzDFHl-0PgV22WUvuRTx-_fVaV7wAoazLXiroSi8y0QU#c171550418610441405