Monthly Archives: January 2014

How many are 56 million?

Aside

Fifty-six million lives were snuffed out before they had a chance to begin, all because prideful people ‘rewrote’ the Word of God. So how many is that? After researching the populations of individual countries, here is a glimpse:

What if everyone in Canada, Israel, and Switzerland–or Spain and Switzerland–were suddenly killed? Would that be more of a tragedy than the 56 million Americans who met an equally, if not more horrendous fate in the U.S. since Roe vs Wade?

What if the lives of every man, woman and child in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Ireland, New Zealand and Greece were snuffed out? Would those 55 million lives be mourned simply because they have names?

I am sad for the children, sad for the parents, sad for our country–that we are prejudiced against babies that God did not have time to ‘fashion in their mother’s womb’ before He had to take them home.

What might our country have accomplished with those 56 million lives? Would one of those children perhaps have grown up to discover a cure for cancer? Would one of them have been inspired by great men of God to take up the mantle and lead hundreds of thousands more into a living relationship with Jesus Christ? Would one of them have been a great politician with the kind of values that would have united this country rather than divide it?

No one knows but God, but someday I think we will know just what our self-centered society has robbed our country of. We should all be ashamed and on our face before a Holy God, asking Him to forgive our wayward nation that for a time was accurately portrayed as a Shining City on a Hill.

In his farewell address to the nation on January 11, 1989, President Ronald Reagan said, “I’ve spoken of the shining hill all my political life…. And how stands the city on this winter night? … After 200 years, two centuries she still stands strong and true to the granite ridge, and her glow has held, no matter what storm. And she’s still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places, who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.”

Oh, to believe it once more.

Waiting for the Storm

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The wind is calm, permitting the softly falling snow
to reach the bosom of mother earth,
thickly veiled in purest white.
Every twig, every shriveled leaf, every pine needle
becomes a perch for snowflakes,
fashioned by the very Breath of God
to fall with sweet abandon just beyond this warm room
where Peka and Boo sleep in the near silence,
broken only by ticking clock and the heater’s gentle whir.
I rejoice in the peace–and breathe a heartfelt thank you
for days that begin and end with You.
The snowplow rumbles by, indication of the coming storm
that has been in the forecast for days.
I am reminded that few of the storms of this life
come with a forecast but almost always
descend upon us with fury’s speed; and
with an unexpected blast that chills our very soul
and leaves us exposed, we are left
fighting for our very lives with no thought of anything
save survival.
I breathe in the relief that it was He who fashioned me
in the womb of a mother I have never known
only to place me in the arms of another,
who led me to the One who loves me like no other.
Because I have found my real home in Him,
there is no consternation when the blizzards of this life
threaten–or descend.
I am, instead, secure in the warmth of His love,
listening for the still, small Voice within to say,
“This is the way, walk ye in it.”