O Lemuel, Do Not Drink Strong Drink: It Is Not for You.

 “The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him:

‘What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, Nor your ways to that which destroys kings.

‘It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted.

‘Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitter of heart. ‘Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

‘Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.’ ” 

~Proverbs 31:1-9

*************

According to Sky News Australia, Kamala Harris is a ”Low IQ Wine Mom.”

Think about it! Why did they call her that? Why should anyone care whether the Vice President of the United States drinks wine? Why would that be that a scandal?

Not only that, it’s easy to find videos that claim Joe Biden also appears in public drunk and that has to be refuted by left-leaning Snopes. The NY Times claims he has never taken a drink of alcohol his whole life, it’s just his lifelong speech impediment that makes him slur his words and talk foolishness. But why would it be a problem if he were drunk?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was arrested this week for drunk driving. Nancy hadn’t commented on this and it wasn’t clear if she was with him, but now it appears he also ran a red light and his Porsche was struck by a jeep. I know that looks bad, but are appearances the only matter? 

One more: Fourteen years ago, a Carroll County Indiana judge was driving home from a party in Indianapolis. He was observed vomiting along the side of the road and pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. He was not thrown out of the judiciary, he did not resign, he wasn’t even formally admonished, but Judge Currie had lost enough credibility with the public to lose the next election. Who would vote for someone to sit in judgment over drunk driving cases when he had clearly done the same thing?

The stores these days are FULL of alcohol. In many areas of the country, during Covid, that seemed to be the only thing left to people on lockdown besides groceries—they could still get booze, and plenty of it, where they bought their groceries, and they could get takeout from liquor stores. The drinking rate spiked, when people had nothing left to do but drown their troubles. When we decided it was important to put sanctions on Russia more recently, the stores stopped selling Russian vodka. But really that wasn’t too much of a problem, since there’s plenty of vodka made in other places.

Drinking is not a modern problem, of course. My own grandmother died from alcohol abuse at age 47. Here’s what I wrote about it back in 2020:

“Grandma Burchie died on the 4th of July, 1968, at the age of 47, when we were living in Iowa and I was in 6th grade. Somehow Mom was able to make it to the funeral in California, but we didn’t go with her. Mom told us how much she hated funerals. Of course, then I hated them too, along with hating the Beatles. Children are like that—they hate what their parents hate, without questioning why.

“When she came back, we learned that Grandma had ‘drunk herself to death,’ that her mother (Grandma Coopie) had arranged for a Mormon funeral for her, and that Mom heartily disapproved of that and totally disagreed with the idea that Grandma had lived the life of a good Mormon! Grandma Burchie was cremated, and her ashes were scattered at sea. 

“But despite the problems and disagreements with her mother, Mom mourned the loss. I sometimes caught her crying, and she somehow took solace in the notion that her mother was watching over her from Heaven. I wanted to say something about this questionable theology, but decided I should just let Mom mourn in whatever way she needed to.

“Yes, I do have a problem with ‘recreational drinking,’ and I don’t like the fact that large swaths of the major retailers like Wal-Mart and Meijer, and even several aisles in pharmacies, have become liquor stores. I thought it disgusting that liquor stores were open and considered “essential” during the Pandemic of 2020. I have witnessed the devastating effects of the Demon Liquor in a family, and I know that had I been alive in the days of the Temperance Movement, I would have campaigned for it and signed the Temperance Pledge in the family Bible. I would have been devastated to see Prohibition repealed. 

An example of the Temperance Pledge found in family Bibles during the late 19th Century

I’m well aware that there are religious traditions that hold to using real wine in their communion services, and people who would argue that Germans and Irish can “hold their liquor better” than other cultures. But the statistics say something different. And grape juice is just fine for communion. 

A full discussion of this topic would take up more room than I want to use in the end of this post, but suffice it to say, I never want to run the risk of being an alcoholic—or as the Bible calls it, a drunkard. It is far better and safer to stay totally away from a cliff, than to see how close you can come to the edge without falling off. This is something I can take away from the discussion of these, my grandparents. 

Well, it’s high time for a full discussion. Know that I have been unfriended on Facebook for my beliefs, I have seen friends and relatives vehemently defend the practice, I have seen other relatives who grew up in households with drinking parents condemn the practice just as vehemently, and I just found an article addressing the question of whether it is sin to drink, where the author only gingerly stepped around the question and gave it a yes-and-no answer.

Here is my answer, as concisely as I can make it: 

Are you an influencer? If so, the word “sin” means “missing the mark.” When you drink, are you exactly on target with what God wants to do through you? If not, that is sin.

In an article in Prophecy News Watch, entitled “Compromised Church Leadership & Preaching Is Contributing To Our Cultural Rot,” author Michael Brown says:

“And how, exactly, do Church leaders influence their followers? They do it by their message and by their example. If they are preaching rightly and living rightly, they will produce healthy congregants. If their preaching is unbiblical and their lifestyle is compromised, they will produce unhealthy congregants.”

What does Revival look like? Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills says, at the beginning of his Real Life program here:

“A nation goes as a home goes. But a home doesn’t know what to do unless the Church steps up. It begins in the Church. By the way, that’s true in the Bible, it’s true in sociology studies, and it’s true in American History. The Church has gotta catch fire. That affects the family. Drunks stop drinking, abusers stop abusing, and womanizers and manizers … uh … and Budweisers … stop, stop doing that. And they make their home work. And then, you know what happens? Then, the community changes, and the county changes, and the state changes, and the nation changes. That’s the only hope for America.” 

Here is a list of influencers, people others will look up to and emulate. See if you’re on the list.

1. Kings and Rulers

2. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Chief Executive Officers

3. Cabinet Members, Ambassadors

4. Governors, Mayors, County Commissioners, Township Trustees

5. Military Commanders and Senior Officers and NCO’s

6. Pastors, Priests, Elders, Deacons, and their wives

7. School Teachers, Coaches, Principals, Class Presidents

8. Judges, Justices

9. Sunday School Teachers, Bible Study Teachers

10. Worship Leaders, Youth Leaders

11. Bosses, Supervisors, Managers

12. Congressmen, Senators, State Representatives

And then:

13. Fathers and Mothers

14. Big Brothers and Sisters

15. All Christians who have any dealings with anyone in The World

I know, some of you were doing fine until I got to the end. I’m sure you have noticed that I left out rock stars, movie stars, TikTok influencers, NBA players, and American Idol winners. But if you are a Christian, you at very least come under these categories:

Priests, Kings:

“Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying: 

"‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.’"

~Rev. 5:8-10

Judges:

“Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

“Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?”

~1 Cor. 6:1-3

Not to mention that we are ambassadors and teachers of various kinds, as well as mothers and fathers, who are perhaps the most influential of all.

The qualifications for a Bishop—in our church, that would be an elder or a pastor—include the ability to rule one’s own household well (be good parents), and at least three times in the list, references to not drinking appear.

“This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.

“A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.

“Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. “

~1 Timothy 3:1-7

This list, folks, does not include in any way, shape or form, a tendency to partake in friendly recreational drinking with those on the outside so that we can show we are “good old boys.” No, a pastor is an influencer. He must be different from those on the outside, so that they can catch a glimpse of what it would be like if they were on the inside too.

Now take a look at the verses I showed you at the beginning:

“The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him:

‘What, my son? And what, son of my womb? And what, son of my vows? Do not give your strength to women, Nor your ways to that which destroys kings.

‘It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes intoxicating drink; lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the justice of all the afflicted.

‘Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those who are bitter of heart. ‘Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

‘Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.’ ” 

~Proverbs 31:1-9

The reason for sobriety, as taught to King Lemuel by his influencer mother, is so that your judgment will not be marred. When you drink alcohol, you kill brain cells. If you didn’t like the brain fog you experienced when you had Covid, why would you purposely kill any of the thinking and judgment resources God gave you when you were created? We must think with clarity during these troubled times. It is not time to “eat, drink, and be merry.” It is time to think soberly.

Only then can we see injustice, and to rise up to challenge it. Only then can we hear the voice of our Lord urging us to be strong, to stand in for another, to be an Abraham Lincoln, a Papa tenBoom, or an Atticus Finch. 

We must not violate our own good judgment by succumbing to strong drink, risking our lives with drunkenness, drunk driving, or liver disease. We must not bring shame to our mother and father, our church, the office we hold, or, in the case of the Vice President or the Speaker of the House, bring shame to our entire nation. This is unspeakable humiliation. But spiritually, drinking puts us on the road to bring shame to our Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of God, and the Savior who bought us. That may be worse.

With all those negatives, do you really want to spend time arguing that “Jesus turned water to wine, so it can’t be all that bad”? Do you really want to get off on a technicality?

Let’s not do that. Instead, let us remain sober, tee-totalers, if you will, and be a good influence on our families and other people with whom we come in contact, giving them a reason for hope in Jesus. As Pastor Jack says, it begins in the church. And that is the only hope we have for America.

Finally, let me go back to the context of this passage in Proverbs 31. This whole chapter was a well-remembered and appreciated admonition from Lemuel’s mother, and it came from a mother’s heart. This is the underlying truth of Proverbs 31:

A good mother always wants what is best for her son. 

There is a bond between mother and son that begins in the womb and continues for life. The last thing any good mom would want for her son is to see him waste his life, and if he does, it brings great pain to her. Every. Single. Day. It was predominately mothers and wives who championed Temperance and eventually brought about Prohibition.

And so, as a mother many times over, and as a mother of sons, I make my final appeal, O Christian. Alcohol is not for you. You have better things to do with your life, more noble things. Alcohol destroys, and that is the work of the devil.

Dear Father, I pray for those reading this post, that they will remember the wise words of Lemuel’s mother. We must not give our lives to that which destroys kings, because You have made us a nation of kings and priests. Help us to depend upon You and shatter any dependency we have on strong drink, by the power of Your Word.

In the Name of Jesus we pray, Amen.”

Why Christian Parents Must Homeschool Now!

During a particular time in our children’s lives, our family was on food stamps, and it was helpful since we only had one income. I didn’t really want to do it, but I had come in to sign up for Medicaid and the nice lady talked me into also applying for food stamps. She said it might just be God’s way of providing for our family, but I was glad to be rid of it when we finally could.

During this time, we were told by a friend that it was wrong to accept the government food handout because we weren’t trusting God for our needs, but Eric countered by explaining that we were saving the taxpayers a boatload of money by homeschooling all of our children instead of accepting help by way of the government welfare school system. She didn’t understand, but that’s what it was.

I wish I could say that times have changed and what was fine back when we started homeschooling isn’t fine anymore. But I didn’t think it was fine back then, which is why I homeschooled in the first place, and I can say that things only got progressively worse. If Covid had a silver lining at all, it was that moms and dads finally got to see what their children were being taught, as they were doing their assignments at home on lockdown. Indoctrination into perverted lifestyles and communism that had been done in secret in the classrooms was now out in the open for everyone to see. 

As a result, parents were outraged. They started showing up at school board meetings and then they were thrown out of them. School boards decided parents were Public Enemy #1 and we’re just now finding out that the National School Boards Association wanted Biden to send in the National Guard. The Department of Justice started surveilling parents as domestic terrorists, having decided they were a threat. Finally last week, seven months later, the National School Board Association issued a long-overdue apology, after losing a lot of money and support.

Now, parents are finally engaging with the schools and monitoring the kids’ assignments better, but last week, a mom had her mic cut when she tried to read an excerpt from the pornographic material her 15-year-old daughter had been required to memorize and act out in front of the class. It was too graphic to read in a public meeting, but not too graphic to be assigned to a minor. There is much, much work yet to be done, for parents who still want their children educated in those government schools.

CRT (Critical Race Theory) and SEL (Social Emotional Learning) are two of the biggies. It’s the stuff that used to be called Common Core. We all thought Common Core was a thing of the past, that it had been successfully fought back, but it is now just integrated into every school subject and repeated year after year—even in math. On the surface it seems fine, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, it is expressly anti-Christian and subversive in nature. Hint: When searching for information about these two items, don’t rely on Google, Yahoo, or YouTube. Use DuckDuckGo, or you will only find positive, happy results.

Meanwhile, for many reasons, homeschooling has begun to spike. Some of the reasons have to do with health—people being afraid that Johnny would pick up germs at school and bring them home to his family. Others don’t want Johnny to be forced to wear an oxygen deprivation device in order to learn to read. But underlying it all is that parents want to teach their own value system to their children, instead of leaving it to the Gender Unicorn.

Back in October of 2021, Candace Owens was saying out loud that it’s time to pull your kids out of public school and homeschool them. She said it won’t be long before homeschooling will be attacked by the Left. She said you could see it coming with places like France banning the practice. She said if France sneezes, the US will catch the cold.

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA explained in a podcast that there was more you could do to support the Conservative cause. “You’ve done everything you’ve been asked to do … you have the pillow … Now it’s “What I’m going to do beyond that? I’m gonna run for office, I’m gonna homeschool my kids …”

And now Kirk Cameron is also saying that it’s time to pull your kids. In fact he believes it so strongly he created a documentary called “The Homeschool Awakening” that is coming to select theaters next month.

“I made this movie because I care deeply about my children,” Cameron explained. “And I care about your children and about their future. And the future of our country.” Here’s where you can see the trailer and get tickets:

https://www.fathomevents.com/events/Kirk-Cameron-Presents-The-Homeschool-Awakening

But Joe Biden, naturally, is all about letting things continue as they are. Addressing a group of teachers, he said that the children don’t belong to their parents, but to the teachers when they’re in the classroom.

And here’s a recent attack on the validity of homeschooling, from Cambridge University as being “too racist” and “too Christian.”

What will you do? “Too racist” means nothing these days, but everything the Left doesn’t like is racist or misogynist or white supremacist. “Too Christian” means that it is the Left’s goal to free our children from their parents’ religion, to erase the knowledge of God from our nation. The only way to perpetuate the true religion of our ancestors is to do this:

“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

“You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

~Deuteronomy 6:6-7

For this kind of close relationship, your children need to be at home with you.

I know many parents are of the mindset that “if it gets too bad, I will homeschool.” But how will you know when that is?

When my grandfather was grooming me as a young teenager so that he could molest me, the one very important and predictable step he took was instructing me not to tell my parents, because “they would not understand.” It would be our little secret. Children are likewise being instructed not to tell their old-fashioned, bigoted parents about what they’ve been learning at school. As a result, children have become sympathetic to the teachers, even going to the state legislatures with them to campaign and lobby for Red for Ed, a wing of the Leftist teachers unions. Undermining the parent-child relationship by means of secrecy is what keeps parents in the dark, and never really knowing how bad things already are.

If you care about your children and what they’re learning, 

If you’re concerned that they might come home from school telling you that they chose a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth,

If you’re concerned that they might be given an abortion, or a Covid shot, or cross-sex hormones without your knowledge or consent,

If you’re concerned that the public schools will convince your son or daughter that the Church brainwashes them and the School can set them free,

If you’ve heard them saying stuff about your country, its forefathers, your ancestors, your nation’s form of government or the free enterprise system that is simply not true,

Then now’s the time to get serious about homeschooling.

Now that it’s May, you have all summer to think about the next school year. You can start here with the Home School Legal Defense Association. When we started homeschooling, they were little more than just a group you would turn to if you were arrested or someone tried to shut you down or take your kids away. Now, they have a very thorough website that can give you lots of help and support.

Go ahead! You know you want to try it. And when you do, you’ll find out that it’s not burdensome, it’s enabling.

“Dear Father, it is a huge consideration for some people who are reading my blog right now, to take the reins of their children’s education away from the government schools. And so I pray that You would speak to these people and confirm in their own hearts and minds whether You want them to homeschool. It won’t do for them to go to that much trouble only on my word. It should be based on Your Word.

“But above all, may our children be our disciples, and not disciples of anti-Christian ideology. Let them be raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

“It is in Jesus’ Name we pray,

Amen.”

How to Read a Book to a Child. Hint: Kids Aren’t Stupid.

 

Grandpa Haley reads to Ambrose

I honestly don’t remember which of our eight kids this applies to, but some of them called Eric’s sister “Aunt Lambie.”  Somehow, they associated Elaine’s nickname, Lainey, with Chris’s toy stuffed lamb that “talked.”  The lamb, of course, with some kind of record in it that was operated by turning a key, could not move its mouth, so when it prayed “Now I lay me down to sleep,” it was perhaps easy to mistake that for “Now I lambie,” especially since “lay me” is a rather archaic usage.

Not being able to see a mouth move and read lips has a sad modern equivalent.  There is a generation now that was so affected by children’s mask mandates during Covid that they’ve never seen human mouths forming sounds and they cannot understand the basic skill of speaking clearly and enunciating their words. Thus, these small children are far behind in their language development and may never catch up properly. This was child abuse, and in some cases, it is still going on.

The following cool picture in one of the books we have been asked to restore caught my attention the other day, particularly the caption:  

“A delicate instrument used for detecting mine operation called the microphone

 is being used by this French officer of the engineering corps.

This will detect the faintest sounds.”

When the nations were at war in 1918, there was no capability of calling home with a mobile phone.  But clear communication -- such as with this new instrument of war, the microphone -- was important to the cause.  Equally important is clear communication in the education of our next generation.

Recently Joe Biden complained that “they won’t let me” read any of the stories to the children at the White House Easter Egg event.  It’s hard to know exactly what “they” had in mind when they made that determination, but Biden is honestly not even really good at reading the teleprompter after “they” set it up for him.  So that was probably a good judgment call.  There are many ways to mess up a children’s story.

Copyright 2007-2021 by The Comic Irregulars

So how do you read a book to a child?  Here’s a hint:  Don’t only read the printed words.  It takes interaction to be meaningful.  Make absolutely certain that they understand.  If all you do is point to pictures on the page and voice the nouns that name those pictures for the eager child, you have communicated.  

So here are some good examples:

Eric’s brother’s daughter Carrie posted on Facebook recently that she liked to keep her kids’ attention by reading to them in a high squeaky voice and had done so during the bedtime story the night before.  This was funny so they loved it, and then she said she had to make a split second decision at the end.  Should she continue to do the familiar prayer in the same voice or would that be disrespectful?  She decided to go for it and had good results.  Plus, all her Facebook friends thought she did a good job as a mommy.  High five!

And our Israeli friend Ayelet showed us how to read an English book to a child in Hebrew.  It was fascinating to watch her speak, as her brain processed those English words and automatically interpreted them and verbalized them as Hebrew sentences that a child could understand.  Since I’m not really bilingual, I can only gasp in awe at that skill.

Now here’s my bad example.  Sadly, it was me!

When I was a child, I picked up reading quickly, probably because that was something I could see.  Being horribly nearsighted, picture books were my friendly companions, and sounding out the secret code on the page was a rewarding activity.  But then later on, by the time I was in fifth grade, oral reading with the class bored me.  I could already read the words.  So everyone had their turn, and when it was mine, I whipped through the words so fast everyone’s head would spin.  Did I understand the sentences I had just sprayed everyone with?  Not necessarily.  But I thought it entertaining at the time to leave people so far behind that the next person lost their place.  (Forgive me, Jesus!)

Looking back, I know what the teacher should have done, rather than letting me continue my cruel game.  My attention should have been directed to making my oral reading meaningful and artistic.  This also takes an ability to “read ahead” in one’s mind, before the tongue gets there, so it would have decreased my boredom. What good does oral reading do if it causes both you and your listener to drift off?  

Good oral reading can encompass varying dialect, volume, and speed, adding emotion and intensity, or even some meaningful pauses.  Conversations are lovely.  One could talk in a somewhat normal voice for one character and in a high squeaky voice for another.  Four or five characters can be a real challenge as you quickly search your mental costume closet for appropriate but unique voices.  Bringing new characters into the story keeps your mind alert. Not to mention that “voice actors” can make a lucrative income providing dialog for cartoons.  But, you have to slow down.  Don’t do as I did when I was in fifth grade.

For all my kids, I believe, my Bible curriculum was my Egermeijer’s Bible Story book.  It was a very old book I picked up from Eric’s antiques store and it got even older after several small children so that I even had to order a “new” old copy towards the end.  The good thing about the book is that there were a lot of Bible stories in it, not just the “main” ones, like David and Goliath and the Crucifixion, and the relating of each of them was fairly thorough.  But any of them had the potential of leaving a small child in the dust.  

So, as our kids’ primary teacher, it was up to me to be aware of when the words used would not be or might not be understood by the youngest child present.  Then I would stop after each sentence to explain the meaning.  I might need to ask probing questions to get them started, such as “Do you know what a serpent is? How would you feel if a serpent started talking to you? Would you be scared?”  Sometimes I didn’t even read the words on the page at all, but read ahead and changed them, for understanding.

But always, I would make sure to differentiate between stories that Jesus told that were only stories, such as the Sower and the Seed, and the stories of real people -- biographies like Ruth, Esther, or Joshua.  

Never lie to a child. They must know what is real and what is not real.  We must not blur the lines.  These Bible people are real examples of people who walked the earth before us, heroes of the faith that we can try to be like. Even Samson, with all his failings, is mentioned in Hebrews 11 as a good example of faith.  So read, and teach them well!

“Dear Father, Holy and True, You have given some of us children to teach in Your ways.  Let us also be devoted to the Truth, and never break faith with our kids so that they mistrust our word.  We want this to be true in our lives:

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. ~3 John 1:4

For it is in Jesus’ Name that we pray, Amen.”

Mothers Day: Matters of Death and Matters of Life

Three of our children will be having babies in 2022, should the Lord tarry.  Another, who hasn’t the ability to have any more of her own, has begun the process of adoption. The best argument for Life is women having babies.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

~Jesus Christ, John 10:10

In 1998, I was pregnant with my eighth baby.  But we had a problem.  Eric and I could not agree upon a girl's name, and back then we didn’t have routine “gender reveals,” so we had to be prepared for either of the two sexes.  We wanted to know what we would name the tiny child in the womb as soon as he or she emerged.  We had a boy's name, but the girl's one was just coming harder.

We didn’t have internet searches back then to find out what was the coolest new name; we had no desire to name our child something weird the way Elon Musk has done with his poor kids; and some names we presented to each other were rejected because “I knew somebody with that name once, and they came to a bad end.”  It was August and the baby was due in a couple months. So, with the name decision still on our plate, we packed the well-worn Baby Names paperback book in the car along with all our other kids, and headed north, where we intended to have a fun time at the beach on Lake Michigan.

It was stressful for me to cross the state line.  Michigan was the state where “Doctor Death” (a.k.a. “Jack Kevorkian”) lived and was literally murdering people openly.  Kevorkian was challenging society’s norms about so-called “doctor-assisted suicide” by providing his little invention that could, by activating it, cause death in his “patients.”  He would visit his victims with his death machine and allow them to push the button to inject themselves with lethal drugs, and then when they were dead, he would drop off the bodies outside the morgue.  They didn’t know what to do with him because “physician-assisted suicide” was not illegal in Michigan.

This gruesome current event, coupled with my experience of life in my womb, led to the eventual discovery of a name beginning with a “V”, having exhausted every name on every page of the Girls Names half of the book up to that point.  “Vivian” meant “Alive,” and I was very cognizant that our baby had escaped the fate of so many of her peers.  She was vibrantly alive and kicking in my womb, safe from death.

For a middle name, we chose “Belle,” which meant “Beautiful.”  “Alive and Beautiful” was my baby whom I had not yet seen, but I knew she would be.  And I was right!

Fast Forward to 2022

Now, twenty-four years later, the Left is screaming bloody murder concerning the Supreme Court leak, which foretells their monumental decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and threatens to undermine the constantly flowing blood money, from the taxpayer to the abortion industry, and from the abortion industry to Democrat candidates.

Yesterday morning, there was news of a fire-bombed pro-life ministry, and that Justice Alito and his family had been removed to an undisclosed location to prevent his harm, since the White House was peculiarly silent when anti-life forces doxed those justices and encouraged people to illegally protest outside their homes.

If this Twitter comment, concerning the burned pro-life ministry isn’t criminal rhetoric by a so-called “journalist,” I don’t know what is:

While “Dr. Death” himself died eleven years ago within the prison system, our nation’s culture of death has only grown stronger.  Those responsible for the Molotov cocktail in the building had also painted symbols and slogans on the outside including “If abortion isn’t safe, you aren’t either.”

Prophetic Grandchildren?

Regarding the Haley babies that are due in 2022, two of them will be bearers of the Haley family name, so we call the one due in June “The Crown Prince” and the one due in August “The Duke of New Mexico.”  Actually, assuming the ultrasound and the gender reveal can be trusted, the babies’ names will be “Amos James” and “Ezekiel James,” both named after Old Testament prophets.

“Amos” means “Burdened,” and these days are sometimes hard to bear.  With the attack on the family and the active recruitment of school children into the forces of evil, our nation groans under the current oppressive regime.

“Ezekiel” means “God Will Strengthen,” which is the only way we can safely navigate through these perilous times.

“James” is a derivative of “Jacob,” who, as you must know, was the famous “heel catcher” of Bible times, the “supplanter” who was at odds with his twin brother and cheated him out of his inheritance.

In Bible times, babies were not accidentally named.  And we see several who were named long before they were born.  I see these two Haley grandsons, named after prophets, as prophets themselves, and before uttering a word or even breathing air, their names tell a story.

When we are burdened with a heavy weight of concern for the current generation and its culture of death, …

We must pray and seek God, who will strengthen our hand and strengthen our spirit. …

In that way, we can supplant all the evil plans of the enemy against us. Jesus is already victorious.

Several weeks ago, I mentioned how we’d been praying at 3:00 every day that God would shut down Planned Parenthood and I wondered if that would ever happen.  Then, after that, I wrote that … maybe God didn’t do that yet because He had something even better in mind -- maybe to overturn Roe v. Wade completely?

Now I am writing that the answer to prayer may have happened; that the 3:00 prayers and those from Life Chain and 40 Days for Life were heard after all, along with all those of other praying Christian soldiers; that the Supreme Court has developed a backbone; and that they may actually stand up for what is right.  It looks like they will overturn both Roe and Casey and stop trying to compromise to avoid conflict.  Doing what is right often does cause conflict, but it is preferable to be on the right side of the conflict.

What Do We Do Now?

What should we then do?  Well, the battle is far from over.  Roe vs. Wade nationalized a fake “abortion right,” which was a grave injustice in our nation, nullifying all the states’ protections for unborn life.  The end of Roe only means handing it back to the states again.  Each state, if it wishes to protect life, must enact its own laws again.

Tomorrow, Wednesday May 11, the Senate is poised to vote on extreme abortion bills that the leak was supposed to push to the finish line, to beat the actual ruling in the Supreme Court.  Pro-life organizations like ACLJ are swiftly doing all they can to stop this bill and preparing to challenge it in court, should it succeed.

We must pray, support these groups, and stay on top of matters.  In a nutshell:

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

~Jesus Christ, John 10:10

Killing is what the abortion industry does best.  Destroying is what the anti-life forces tried to do to the pro-life ministry’s business.  Look for more of that.  Stealing, such as passing horrific extreme anti-life laws contrary to the will of the people, is done by trickery and bribery, when we are not looking.

Next week is the opening of a very timely movie, The Matter of Life. My link will take you to where you can buy tickets for yourself and friends, so that others who are still unpersuaded can consider this crucial matter for themselves.

But the other way to push back against the attack on the family is to firmly take the reins of power away from the Government and insist on doing things God’s way.  And so I say: Have babies!  Have many babies!  Every baby is unwanted -- by the devil.  He wants them all killed because they are created in God’s image and he is a God hater.

Here’s a picture of a friend of mine that I snatched from her Facebook page.  Courtney (in the blue-green shirt) played Mother Mary in our homeschool co-op’s small Christmas production of “Wise Guys and Starry Skies” a long time ago.  Now she is mother to 13 kids.  (Yes, this is an old picture.  That’s her mom and dad in the picture, along with her and her husband.)

Every time Courtney and Denny add another baby made in God’s image to the earth’s population, it is a slap in the face to the enemy of our souls.  As a mom, she and her family are having a quiet revolution against the tyranny of our times.  She’s too smart to fall for the gaslighting that says they are crazy and they can’t afford so many children.  

Courtney is a Mama Bear, an influencer, a fighter. This is what Mother’s Day is all about.  Women are empowered when they appropriate God’s power and strength, to do those “normal” day-to-day things like feeding the family, keeping the house from falling apart, and teaching their children right from wrong, and thereby, they supplant the plans of the enemy.  This is an act of war, and it is an act of faith.  In and of itself, having children in a two-parent family (man with wife) is a sacred and beautiful act.  

Dear Father in Heaven,

We know full well that You love children because You have adopted so many of us into Your family.

We pray for those who are seeking to pull the plug on Roe vs. Wade, a badly-decided anti-life ruling that has had over 60 million casualties.  We thank You that when we were burdened with those deaths, You heard our prayers and sent us President Trump to appoint three good pro-life justices, and then You answered 50 years of prayers by allowing these justices to rule and overturn Roe and Casey.  We pray for their courage, that You would strengthen their resolve, and we pray for their safety and that of their family.

We also pray for those who are vigilant about not letting the enemy sneak through the back door while we’re watching the front door.  Empower them with your Spirit and give them good success.

And we pray for those who are mothers, whether they have one child or 20 or more.  We pray for stamina because it is hard work to even keep up with the laundry.  Strengthen their resolve to be Mama Bears, to push back against the tide of anti-life tyranny and raise up a family unto You.

This is their time!

In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen!