Critical Realization

I came to a critical realization about two or three weeks ago. I was discussing some issues of my son's lessons with my husband, and concerned as to whether I was doing the right thing for him, I was planning his lessons with excitement about what the next days and weeks would bring, I was considering new resources...and I was having fun. I loved it. I absolutely loved what I was doing and would not, could not consider changing one little thing.

I looked back over the last three years (pre-K, K and 1st grade) and realized all the "running" I had been doing. Something in me felt incapable of taking on this task of educating my children and I was doing everything I could to avoid it, without actually appearing to avoid it. I was struggling with other things as well--at first it was a new baby and a new home, getting settled in a new community, then it was facing uncertain and emotional transitions in our family life, and then it was demons from my past coming to rear their head at me. Nevertheless, God gently and lovingly guided me through it all, though it wasn't without pain. Somewhere in there I found peace. I catch myself saying, "I'm finally at peace with myself," but this is utterly incorrect. Perhaps for the first time in my life, albeit a long life of devotion to God, I am at peace with Him.

When I looked around myself and saw myself enjoying my husband, my home, my kids, the work I'm called to do as a wife and mother, I thought, "what on earth is different here?" Actually, nothing is different. I'm different. Much different. I am at peace. I still believe that this journey of profound service to our children is a call to deeper relationship with God and of healing...I hope for all of us that we can learn to submit to this process and not resist.

So You Need to explain "Redistribution of Wealth" to your Kids?

This is hilarious. Perhaps you've seen it. A perfect illustration of how marxism slips through the cracks in our society.

Dirty Money to Clean up Education

Last night i saw a disturbing ad on television (Yes, we do have television service until the election is over and I can't wait to get rid of it). It was an advertisement that was decrying the exit of dollars from Maryland into West Virginia and other states by means of slot machines. Oh, dear. What are we to do? Marylanders are funding other states' education systems by pouring Maryland dollars into their greedy little machines. The voice narrating the ad was sincere and gentle, and it exhorted citizens of the state to vote "yes" on question two on the ballot in the upcoming election. Doing so will bring the money back into Maryland and fund their own education system by approving slot machines in their own state.

Ah yes. A secular state gently and lovingly chides its citizens to bring their money home so they can fund their secular schools with money obtained by morally questionable means. This is most certainly the solution. Call me weird, but I have a thing about "dirty money." I see money that is obtained by immoral means, be it gambling, organized crime, preying on people's inability to pay their debts, being as good as dirt. Yes, a dollar is a dollar and it pays the bills, but the spiritual implications of such money are huge. Funding an already crumbling system with money obtained from the crumbling morality of our society is a recipe for disaster.

Leave it to me to look below the surface of an issue. I hope anyone facing such a ballot issue this fall will vote "HELL no..." because that is just where we're headed these days.