Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
The Smell of Rain
A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her
hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to
deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound
nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one" Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived.
She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. "No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-
year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana's underdeveloped nervous
system was essentially 'raw', the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love.
All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of
tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Dana turned
two months old. her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital,
just as her mother had predicted. Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young
girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story. One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Dana was
chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain."
Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain." Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes
as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding
Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
This was sent in an email to me along with the pictures of the tiny baby and her mother I am pretty confident that it was a true story.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
UNDERCOVER STUDENT VIDEO LEADS TO LAWMAKERS STRIPPING PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD AFFILIATES IN TENNESSEE
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Please Pray for Stellan
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Please Pray for Stellan
Hi all, this is MckMama's sister, Hilary.
My sister ended up taking Stellan to the ER this afternoon. As I'm sure you know, Stellan has been having many break-throughs of SVT and performing vagel maneuvers just isn't going to suffice anymore for Stellan's long-term plan.
After a bit of trying, they were able to get an IV into Stellan's foot and successfully converted him by using adenosine. As per Dr. B's orders, they are admitting Stellan into the PICU and will further decide what to do from here. It seems as though some new combination of medicines will need to be tried to keep Stellan's SVT under control.
UPDATE: I just spoke with my sister on the phone (6:30pm central time) and Stellan has flipped back into SVT.
So please join me in praying for healing of Stellan's heart and for peace in the hearts of my sister and her family as they deal with this stressful situation.
Lord, wrap your arms around my sister and her family. Fill them with peace and trust as they travel through this "storm." You are our Comfort, our Shelter and our Healer. We beseech you, Lord, to interevene right now and cause Stellan's heart to beat in the rhythm it was meant to! Help us to keep our eyes focused on You. Amen.
Thank you all!
Blessings,
Hilary
New Stanek WND column, "Abortion vs. cat 'murders'"
... In April someone began mutilating and killing cats in 2 Miami-Dade neighborhoods. The outcry with demands to make it stop were instant.
Animal cruelty is despicable. Only sick people hurt and kill defenseless animals. That's how Jeffrey Dahmer got his start.
But knowing the same sorts of torturous acts are committed every day against human beings in at least 25 Miami area abortion clinics with no public protest makes me a little crazy. These would include... an abortion survivor who was suffocated in a plastic bag and thrown on the clinic roof for a week until he was so infested by maggots he couldn't be properly autopsied....
Mainstream media accounts attempting to humanize, dramatize and describe the cat killings in contrast to how they attempt to dehumanize, sanitize and obfuscate abortion make me a little crazy. Some excerpts:
"At a news conference... city and county leaders... reassured the community that the 'reign of terror' was over." (CBS) "... the killing spree..." (KPLG) "... [M]y heart goes out to those families who have lost their dear kitties 'cause I understand that pet owners feel very strongly about their little family members.... To see them so violated and so mutilated just defies all common sense and is painful for everyone involved. Thankfully... the terror has come to an end. And what of the perpetrator, depraved, demented, twisted." - Miami-Dade Commissioner Katy Sorenson (CBS) "... a slew of brutal cat murders and mutilations..." (CBS)...
Continue reading my column today, "Abortion vs. cat 'murders,'" at WorldNetDaily.com.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
OFL Leads Campaign Against Sotomayor with Online Petition
Sign the petition opposing Sonia Sotomayor at www.stopsotomayor.com
WASHINGTON, June 11 /Christian Newswire/ -- On May 26, the day that Judge Sotomayor was nominated to the Supreme Court, Organized for Life stepped up as a leading force against President Obama's nominee. Organized for Life's PAC, OFL Action, has opened a petition site at www.stopsotomayor.com to oppose the addition of another pro-abortion justice to the Supreme Court.
Sonia Sotomayor, in these few short weeks since her nomination, has made it clear that she is not with the majority when it comes to the dignity and protection of life. This has become more evident with the news of her involvement as a member of the board of a group that filed six legal briefs in support of abortion rights.
Peter Shinn, national director of Organized for Life, commented that, "Sonia Sotomayor is out of step with the American people. Senators Feinstein, Snowe, and Wyden are confident that Sotomayor will uphold Roe and so are we. The pro-life movement must unite to protect the unborn from another pro-abortion justice."
Ruben Obregon, president of Organized for Life, added, "Sotomayor's involvement as a board member of a group that filed six legal briefs in support of abortion rights and taxpayer funding of abortion is a key indicator of how she will cast her votes on the nation's highest court. The pro-life majority of this country does not want to see another pro-abortion activist justice impose abortion on our society. Pro-life activists, the Davids in this epic battle for life, can only stop the Goliath of the White House by banding together and signing the petition at www.stopsotomayor.com ."
The petition against Sonia Sotomayor be found at www.stopsotomayor.com and will be sent to President Obama and the members of the United States Senate. Let's go out, let's get organized for life, and let's legally protect our children, one Supreme Court justice at a time.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
pain of the unborn
The Pain of the Unborn
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
Warning: The following commentary includes graphic descriptions that may not be suitable for children or sensitive readers.
Undoubtedly many of the great evils of our times have been committed because the cries of the victims were not heard—not heard by those who sat by, comfortably ignorant of the horrors around them. In early nineteenth-century England, few citizens had any real understanding that the lump of sugar they dropped in their afternoon tea was made at the high price of human bondage. The screams of men and women branded or whipped on West Indies sugar plantations were not heard in the fashionable parlors of England. Not until, that is, the great Christian statesman William Wilberforce launched his crusade against the slave trade.
Today, some two hundred years later, there are victims whose agony our ears will never hear. These are the unborn victims of abortion.
While the unborn do not have a voice to scream, science tells us that by twenty weeks a child in the womb is capable of feeling pain. Dr. Sunny Anand, director of the Pain Neurobiology Laboratory at Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, testified before Congress and said: “The pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children . . . the highest density of pain receptors per square inch of skin in human development occurs in utero from twenty to thirty weeks gestation.” Sobering testimony.
To make matters worse, the biological mechanisms that inhibit the experience of pain do not begin to develop until weeks thirty to thirty-two.
Yet ironically, an unborn child has less legal protection from feeling pain than commercial livestock. In a slaughterhouse, a method of slaughter is deemed legally humane only if, as the hundred-year-old law states, “all animals are rendered insensible to pain . . . ” By contrast, D&E abortions, performed as late as twenty-four weeks, involve the dismemberment of the unborn child by a pair of sharp metal forceps. Instillation methods of abortion replace up to one cup of amniotic fluid with concentrated salt solution, which the unborn child inhales as the salt burns his or her skin. The child lives in this condition up to an hour.
These things are uncomfortable to hear and to speak about. That is precisely the point. We should not be comfortable in a society where such things exist and where we have the power to influence change. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act is scheduled to be re-introduced into this Congress. This legislation would require that women seeking abortions are fully informed of the pain that their unborn baby feels when he or she is aborted twenty weeks or more after fertilization. If that knowledge does not deter the mother in what has come to be reduced to a mere “choice,” she must be offered the opportunity to give the unborn child drugs to ease his or her pain.
Pro-abortion advocates dreadfully fear this legislation. It brings to light the difficult questions they do not want to confront, like why livestock have more rights than an unborn child. Questions like these, like the cries of victims, are hard to forget once they have shaken us from the comfort of our parlor chairs.
Take Action
Urge your senators and representative in the newly elected 110th Congress to introduce, co-sign, and vote for the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
Today's BreakPoint Offer
Right to Know: An Intellectually Honest Look at the Abortion Debate (booklet from Stand to Reason).
For Further Reading and Information
Catherine Claire, “The Pain of the Unborn,” The Point, 30 November 2006.
“Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act Loses Vote in House,” Catholic News Agency, 7 December 2006.
Joey Depew, “Child Pain Awareness Act Deserved Notice, Got None,” Chillicothe Gazette, 3 January 2007.
Lynn Vincent, “State Skirmishes: Abortion,” World, 11 January 2007.
BreakPoint Commentary No. 040511, “The Truth Comes Out: The Partial-Birth Abortion Trials.”
BreakPoint Commentary No. 070122, “A Visual Apologetic for Life: In the Womb.”
Scott Klusendorf, Pro-Life 101: A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Case Persuasively (Stand to Reason Press, 2002).
Erika Bacchiochi, ed., The Cost of ‘Choice’: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (Encounter, 2004).
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Do not be discouraged
Peter doesn't tell us that life is fair. He tells us that when times are tough, stand strong in your faith against the devil and humble under God. He reminds us that our Christian family all over the world is having the same troubles we are. And even though we will suffer from time to time, if we stand strong and keep our faith, God who gives all grace, will make everything right. We should never forget that the devil, our enemy, is like a roaming and roaring lion waiting to devour us if we do not stand in faith.
What ever you are facing today... what ever lion's roar you are hearing in your ears today..... Don't forget that God, who gives all grace, will make everything right.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Your Pregnancy: Week 7
"How can I feel like I'm hung over all day long when I've had nothing to drink in three weeks?"Your BodyYou're supposed to be "eating for two" but instead, it's hard for you to swallow water. As a result, you're "praying to the porcelain god for two." Morning sickness can leave a pregnant chick exhausted, weak and wondering what on earth she got herself into. Don't throw in the towel just yet, here's how to cope:There are a whole bunch of tricks that pregnant women swear help to reduce nausea caused by morning sickness ... such as sucking on lemon drops or any other hard candy.Sometimes certain foods can help relieve the symptoms of morning sickness. Also, blaming your partner for everything has been known to comfort many women in the throes of nausea. Even if you're experiencing frequent vomiting, try not to worry, as your baby needs very little nourishment this early in the pregnancy. Good thing, since all you've eaten today is two boxes of saltines.If you're noticing weight loss or dehydration, you could have hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of morning sickness that occurs very infrequently. Check with your doctor.
Your BabyThis week your baby's brain is growing at a mind-boggling 100 cells per minute within a see-through skull. If you could peer inside, you'd see those tiny brain cells growing and growing and growing (about as quickly as you feel like yours are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking with your "pregnancy brain"!). More high points include: Your baby's face is becoming more defined this week. A tiny mouth hole (which will be ready to wail before you know it!), tongue, nostrils and ear indentations are visible. His or her eyes are wide open, but he doesn't have irises (the colored part) yet. Baby's arm buds are growing. At this point they look more like microscopic ping-pong paddles than arms. Baby's leg buds are also forming and will look like tiny paddles by the end of the week.The umbilical cord—the connection between your baby and the placenta—is now visible.Your baby is now between 1/3 and 1/4 inch long—about the length of a Tic Tac and about as heavy as an eyelash. While that sounds tiny, he or she is approximately 10,000 times bigger than at conception. Crazy, huh?
Your Life Keeping the cat in the bag for the next five weeks will be tough. But the relief of finally telling your coworkers that you're pregnant—and not gaining weight at an astounding rate—will be a total relief. Begin to form a plan on how to tell your boss you're pregnant. (Hint: Tell your supervisor before you tell the office gossip!)Talk to human resources so you can be sure of your benefits and legal rights as a pregnant employee.
Entertain in your home while the living room is still free of baby toys. If you're too zonked to cook, make it a potluck!Take a moment to appreciate your clean upholstery. With years of parenting ahead, you might never see it this pristine again.Buy It:PsiBandsPretty puke prevention.Eat It:Ginger Cakes Ginger is nature's secret weapon against nausea, but gnawing on a piece of it isn't tasty. Luckily, tossing it in pancakes is. By the way, when you're pregnant, it's perfectly acceptable to eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.Know It:One Way to Calm a Queasy StomachDiscuss It:Chat with other expecting parents on our Pregnancy Board.
Abortionist Tiller Dead
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Fr. Pavone, following news that abortionist George Tiller was shot to death today in Wichita, Kansas.
"I am saddened to hear of the killing of George Tiller this morning. At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution. We should not jump to conclusions or rush to judgment.
"But whatever the motives, we at Priests for Life continue to insist on a culture in which violence is never seen as the solution to any problem. Every life has to be protected, without regard to their age or views or actions."
George Tiller died from the same philosophy by which he lived. And we in the pro-life movement regret his death as loss even as we regret and mourn the deaths of those tens of thousands of innocent children whom he killed over the last 35 years. We regret his death because we seek the conversion of the soul, the restoration of the person and the recognition of wrongness of ones actions so that reconciliation can occur for that person.
We have seen former abortionists realize the evil they had done and seek the forgiveness of both God and their fellow citizens. Leaders such as Joe Scheidler have reached out for years to those who worked in the abortion industry and have brought them out of the hell they were living. In such remarkable events one finds additional proof of the supremacy of the pro-life perspective over the selfish calloused approach promoted by the abortion proponents.
But let us keep everything in perspective. George Tiller made a living killing babies and harming women. He danced with death every day. Tragically someone with Tiller's mentality thought that he or she could act with the same impunity that Tiller claimed in his actions. And as Fr. Pavone noted, at this point we do not know who acted and for what purpose or motive.
Let this event remind this nation why abortion is ultimately a destructive act for all involved. Let us pray for the end to abortion in our nation and throughout the world.
Cross-posted: Jacubczyk on Life
Categories:
Abortion,
Commentary