Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my grandchildren. I was happy to join the family for dinner. As we were eating dinner the second grader said, “We might be having world war three.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“A boy in my class said that.”
The granddaughter who is in middle school said, “My teacher spent two class hours talking about what is happening.”
We had a discussion of the current news. The grandchildren listened attentively–they were concerned.
I am very glad to be studying Paul’s letters to Timothy at this time. I explained that Paul had sound advice and encouragement for Timothy during a very difficult time.
As I mentioned Paul’s letter to Timothy, the words came to me. “God is sovereign. He knows what is happening. We can pray for our leaders that they will do what is right.”
As I thought about our conversation I am reminded of the importance of time studying the Bible. We can direct our children and grandchildren to be grounded in the Word, sharing scripture with them. We can encourage them to participate in prayer for our country, our President, his cabinet and congress.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2: 1-4
Between Christmas and the beginning of the new year our family had a mini vacation in St. Charles, Missouri. It was such a pleasure to have our children and their families altogether for a few days. The nine grandchildren enjoyed time with their cousins.
We learned that Lewis and Clark left from St. Charles for the Corps of Discovery Expedition in 1804. The town has the Lewis and Clark Boat House Museum with boats that are a replica of ones used by the expedition. The museum elucidates the historical facts about St. Charles, the people of the town and the expedition.
The appearance of the town is reminiscent of New England towns, with quaint shops. St. Charles was the capitol city of Missouri in the years 1821 to 1826.
St. Charles is just outside of St. Louis so we also enjoyed the St. Louis zoo and museums (many have free admission).
The grandchildren had fun climbing on this bronze gorilla.
There was so much to see at the zoo. I only captured a few of the birds and animals.
What happened in Washington D.C. last week? The constant drumbeat for impeachment continues and headlines the news. There are many topics, news relevant to parents and families to report. Congress has many issues that should be addressed for the people.
On November 14th an event took place on the Washington D.C. Mall. It was cold, but hundreds of parents came. They came with concern for the injuries and disabilities caused by vaccines.
It is true that the child mortality rate in the U.S. is increasing. Chronic disease in children is increasing at an alarming rate: asthma, diabetes, allergies, neurologic diseases, autism.
A line-up of distinguished speakers was captured on video-tape by The High Wire. I meant to just check it out, but I couldn’t turn it off. It went on for four hours.
The speakers were riveting. Eventually my husband began watching also. A focus of discussion was on the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Law of 1986.
The law gave pharmaceuticals complete immunity from any lawsuit brought because of injury to a child by a vaccine. It also set up a government court (VAERS) that would pay out funds to families whose child was disabled or died as a result of the vaccine (if the parents were aware of this vaccine court, if they knew how to bring their case, if they had good documentation). To date the government has paid out more than four billion dollars.
At the same time it had provisions that were suppose to insure that vaccines were held to higher safety standards. The bill tasked HHS with overseeing safety studies and developing a plan to identify children who are more susceptible to vaccine risk. Somehow the safety studies didn’t take place. We don’t know why some children are at greater risk of injury. Doctors are not trained to look for side effects or injury.
Between 12/1/2007 and 9/30/ 2009 Harvard Medical School did a study to see how well the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) works in identifying vaccine injury. A report of this study can be viewed here.
. . . fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. Low reporting rates preclude or slow the identification of “problem” drugs and vaccines that endanger public health. New surveillance methods for drug and vaccine adverse effects are needed. Barriers to reporting include a lack of clinician awareness, uncertainty about when and what to report, as well as the burdens of reporting: reporting is not part of clinicians’ usual workflow, takes time, and is duplicative.
Instead the number of vaccines has multiplied.
All of the speakers were good but I found these to be the most succinct:
At one hour and 10 minutes into the video a lawyer, Mary Holland, spoke. Dr. Bob Sears at one hour and 22 minutes. Dr. Andrew Wakefield at three hours and 12 minutes. Robert Kennedy jr. at three hours and 21 minutes.
We settled in our seats to await the beginning of the evening program. We were in the elementary school multipurpose room. The fourth and fifth grade students marched in, led by their teachers, and found their place on the risers at the front of the room.
One of the benefits of being a grandparent is the invitation to special events. Our granddaughter was wearing a sparkling silver dress. All of the students were dressed up. Some years ago we would have said their Sunday best.
The students performed songs from a variety of musicals including TheMusic Man, The King and I, and Hamilton. The boys and girls had learned synchronized hand motions and executed them flawlessly. They were having a good time!
They also performed a tribute to George Cohan by singing Give My Regards to Broadway and my favorite song of the evening, You’re a Grand Old Flag.
You’re a grand old flag
You’re a high-flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave
You’re the emblem of
The land I love
The home of the free and the brave
Ev’ry heart beats true
Under red, white and blue
Where there’s never a boast or brag
But should old acquaintance be forgot
Keep your eye on the grand old flag
I was glad to see children celebrating our heritage in song. Do you remember saying the Pledge of Allegiance at school?
Hans Christian Anderson wrote fairy tales that I read as a child. Recently one of those stories has come to mind.
In The Emperors New Clothes swindlers approach a self-indulgent King with a proposal. They have devised a very clever lie with their plot. They tell the King that the magical clothes they produce will only be visible to wise and educated people. People who are fools will not be able to see the clothes. The King is intrigued and agrees to their proposal.
The swindlers go about weaving imaginary cloth and sewing the “cloth” into a suit of clothes.
When court officials are asked to view the progress of the swindlers they are afraid to say that they don’t see anything—because they would be admitting that they are fools.
Eventually the King parades his new clothes in a procession. The people of the kingdom stare, but are afraid to say that they don’t see the magical clothes. They don’t want to appear as fools.
At last a little boy says, “But he has got nothing on.”
We need to pray for our country, for families and for the health of children growing up today.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Psalm 25: 4-5 ESV
At the back of the book there are 57 pages of notes. Erik Larson has written a meticulous history based on government documents, letters and diaries.
The book, In the Garden of the Beasts, provides a view of Nazi Germany through the eyes of the American ambassador. William Dodd was a history professor. He was an interesting choice for ambassador to Germany.
The Dodd family (William, his wife, daughter and son) arrived in Germany in 1933 when Hitler was ascending to power.
As I read the book I was dismayed to see the difficulty that the Dodds had in picking up alarming signs. Dodd’s daughter viewed the atmosphere in Germany with warmth and cheerfulness.
Rabbi Wise was listening to accounts by refugees in London and Paris and informing Dodd. The American consul general, George Messersmith had been in Germany longer and was sharing his concerns.
At first the Dodds thought that perhaps the Jews had brought this on themselves. Violence against an Aryan woman who was engaged to a Jewish man was passed off as an isolated event.
At the end of the first year William Dodd began to be troubled. He raised concerns with the U.S. state department but he wasn’t taken seriously.
After the defeat in WWI the German people wanted to believe that their country was on an upward trajectory. The German government began to censor any unfavorable news. What happens when news and different points of view are censored?
It scared me to see how deception moved forward like a mist. Can it happen now?
Currently there are topics that are censored and policies are being forced forward.
If you have been following my blog you know that I have concerns about the current vaccine schedule. More and more vaccines are being added without concern for side effects and longterm consequences. I sympathize with parents of a child who was disabled or died as a result of vaccination.
My children had side effects from the MMR. My daughter developed fibromyalgia after the Hep B vaccine.
On Monday (September 9) a bill was signed into law in California despite the protests of hundreds of parents and grandparents. Sb276 mandates the vaccines recommended by the CDC for all children who attend public school without concern for their health history. No exemptions. If a doctor writes a medical exemption, the exemption must be approved by a government bureaucrat. If a doctor writes as many as five medical exemptions in one year he will be placed under surveillance.
Over the past few years fear of the measles has been ginned up. Measles is a common childhood illness that lasts 1—2 weeks. It is a serious illness in third world countries because of nutritional deficiencies and sanitation issues. We have learned that vitamin A supplementation during the illness helps with recovery.
The vaccination program has actually created an issue. When children developed the illness and their God given immune system was exercised in fighting the disease, they developed lifetime immunity. The vaccine does not give lifetime immunity. That is why we are seeing adults get the measles now.
Instead of listening to concerns of researchers, doctors and parents, legislators are bowing to pressure from the pharmaceuticals. (Pharmaceuticals are the largest lobbying group in the U.S.)
Have you heard about the protests in California? None of the news outlets are covering it. And Google is censoring the topic of vaccines in its search engine.
Del Bigtree covers this issue on his website: theHighWire.com.
Also this week, on September 10 Steve Scalise held a congressional hearing on infant born alive protection. Jill Stanek testified and you can read about it here.
The Speaker of the House has blocked the bill, Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, from going to a vote multiple times.
What do we do? Are our convictions important? We must be willing to speak up and stand for what we believe.
Our pastor has begun a series of messages from the book of Exodus and he pointed out the strong women mentioned in the first two chapters of this book.
When the Egyptian King decreed that the Hebrew midwives should kill all Hebrew male babies Shiprah and Puah did not obey the decree.
Pharaoh and the Midwives by James Tissot circa 1896-1902
But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. Exodus 1:17
So they were called before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and questioned.
The midwives explained that the male babies survived,“because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” Exodus 1:19
Were the midwives lying? They were circumventing the king’s command. Their answer indicated that they had experience attending Egyptian and Hebrew women.
Women that are physically active—the Hebrew women worked hard as slaves— are in better physical condition, more likely to have a labor that progresses well—more likely to walk, squat and change position throughout labor. The Hebrew women may have given birth with the assistance of relatives that had learned basic skills from the midwives.
And then Pharaoh made a new decree. He asked the Egyptians to be on the alert and to throw any Hebrew male babies into the Nile.
One Hebrew woman (Jochebed) realized that her three month old baby boy was becoming increasingly hard to hide. So she made a little basket sea worthy, and asked Miriam (the baby boy’s sister) to place him in the river.
Illustrators of the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach us by Charles Foster
Jochebed instructed the Miriam to watch him.
Pharaoh’s daughter saw the unusual floating basket and asked her maid to bring it to her. The Princess realized that the baby was a Hebrew boy whom her father had ordered to be drowned. She ignored her father’s decree.
When Miriam saw the Princess holding her baby brother she offered to get a nurse from the Hebrew women to breastfeed the child. She offered to bring the baby’s mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter agreed.
The five women (midwives, Jochabed, Miriam, King’s daughter) were disobeying the King’s order. They were defending life! Despite the possibility that harm might come to themselves, they nurtured the baby boy who would one day be a leader of Israel.
Women have been entrusted by God with the gift of bearing and nurturing life. These five women offer examples of faith and courage as they persevered, defending the life of a baby. They were gutsy women.
World Magazine recently published the story of a missionary woman who stopped the practicing of killing twin babies in a Nigerian tribe. In her mission to save lives she adopted children. She lived in the 19th century, and her name was Mary Slessor.
In our own time nine men, Supreme Court Justices, decided that a woman has the right to abort (kill) her unborn baby based on a right to privacy. Roe v. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973. The law opened the opportunity for boyfriends and family members to urge a confused and panicked woman to end an unplanned pregnancy with abortion.
Exactly one year after the Roe v. Wade decision 20,000 people showed up in Washington D.C. for a March for Life. Nellie Gray, another gutsy woman, organized this first March for Life that took place on January 22, 1974. The protest of Roe v. Wade has taken place every January since then. Icy cold weather, snow and wind, have not deterred thousands of men, women and teens from participating in the March for Life.
The moms in California fighting for the health of their children are also gutsy women. Who are the strong women that you know?
During WWII children were being evacuated from France and Paris. I just finished reading Until We Find Home, a historical novel by Cathy Gohlke. It is a story of unexpected hospitality.
When Claire arrives at her aunt’s home in Windemere England with five French Jewish children she completely surprises her aunt who has become somewhat of a recluse.
Everyone is challenged in making this household work. England is rationing food and petrol. Three more children, this time from Germany, arrive. The household has cultural differences that all must learn to accept.
It is good to look back at difficult times in history and learn from them. The book has lots of meaning for my daughter (she recommended it to me). She and her husband are involved in foster care. They have adopted children from foster care.
Our situation is different from WWII. But we have needs for hospitality and self sacrifice. The church has a great opportunity to grow in hospitality by participating in or supporting foster care. There is a great need for foster care families in the United States.
Kate’s prompt for Five Minute Friday is: FIVE. Once inspired, we write for five minutes (more or less).
At first I considered writing about my five favorite herbs, or maybe five summer recipes. And then I made another connection. I have three grandchildren that are five years old. Children are a blessing.
Being a mom is the best thing I have done. There have been moments of wonder. There have been hard times. Sometimes I have stumbled. I have learned my need for God’s help and have been blessed by His presence. My adult children are a source of joy and blessing. And now there are grandchildren.
Children are a gift from God. Here are five Bible verses that instruct us.
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Psalm 127:3
Jesus said, “Truly I say unto you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3
But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Luke 18:16
Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart . . . Make them known to your children and your children’s children. Deuteronomy 4:9
Grandchildren are the crown of the aged. Proverbs 17:6a
For the past several years the leaves on my cherry tree and raspberry bushes have been devoured by beetles. Only the veins of the leaf remain after Japanese beetles have had their feast.
So I have been devising strategies to rid my yard of these pests. I tried the pheromone traps that brought more beetles to my yard. Then I did walking tours to tip them off the leaves into a bowl of soapy water. I have shaken branches and jumped when one of the beetles fell down my shirt.
This year I sprayed my tree with neem oil and continued the walking tours with my bowl of soapy water. It is working.
In the midst of my annoyance I have to admit that I have a bit of wonder over the Japanese beetle. They have a metallic green/brown color that catches the light.
Sometime they fall in my bowl of water when I tip a leaf—other times they get their wings out in an instant and fly off. The female beetles emit a pheromone that attracts the male beetles. So a few females on the leaves of a plant soon becomes a party.
The beetles have wiry legs (I have felt them on my hand). The female beetle is able to dig down into the earth to deposit her eggs and then climb out. Over a summer she may deposit as many as 60 eggs. The eggs develop into grubs and in one year—sometimes two—they will be an adult beetle. They are unique insects.
Yesterday, while I was with the grandchildren I showed them how to tip the beetles off a raspberry bush into soapy water. The boys were fascinated, the girls said that beetles were gross. We captured 20 beetles.
A little while later I was sitting with the children while they had bedtime snacks. The two year old pointed to the top of my head. I was in the middle of a sentence when my granddaughter said, “Grandma there is a beetle in your hair.” She giggled when I picked it out of my hair and put it into our bowl of soapy water.
Later that I night I was praying with my grandson. I thanked God for the blessings of the day and the interesting beetles. And then these words slipped out of my mouth, “but God I don’t know why you made them.”
After praying we talked a little more about the beetles. Some things in our world are puzzling. The beetles do so much damage to plants. My grandson said, “Maybe they do something good that we don’t know about.”
