Dear Itty,
The pregnancy test confirmed that I am pregnant…but probably with only one baby. We’ll never know if it is #6 or #7 who lives on within me, so we have decided to call you Itty. And today, although we are so delighted to be housing and mothering Bitty, we want to say goodbye to you.
Itty, I never had the chance to tell you in person, but there is a holy God who made you—at a level much higher than the scientists who joined sperm and egg in the lab. This God loves you very much, and He put His stamp of affection on you by creating you in His own image! His ultimate desire for every person is to be with Him, enjoying Him and worshiping around His throne (which is like a huge and fancy high chair). But we are all born into a disobedient family, even you, Itty, who will never properly be born at all. So God sent His Son Jesus to live a perfect life and be killed as a punishment for the sins of those who believe in Him by faith—making it possible for us, though we are not holy ourselves, to be together with our holy Creator God. That delightful, sunshiny presence that you now bask in—whether as an embryo or as a full-grown person I do not know—is this loving God, who has brought you near to Him by forgiveness through Jesus.
We love you because He first loved us. We wish that we could have had the chance to meet you and see you grow… Goodbye for now, Itty. We love you and miss you already.
love,
Mom and Dad
Showing posts with label child. Show all posts
Showing posts with label child. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
A Disturbing Picture of Love
A friend posted a link to this family's blog post. I do not know the family, but I'm a sucker for pregnancy stories so I decided to check it out. It was very sweet and exciting to read until I got to this part:
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Pastor Promotes Punching Children
Read this article and listen to the audio clip, then read what I write below.
What this pastor says is appalling. Listening to him as he preaches, hearing the raised voice and authoritative words... it brings back memories of many pastors, speakers, whatever that I have heard in my lifetime (all Fundemental Baptists). There are many times I can recall them getting hot about this issue or that and essentially putting their foot in their mouth and saying something outrageous or ridiculous - just like this guy. I am actually somewhat familiar with this particular church - Berean Baptist of Fayettville, NC - and know many people who think very highly of it. I also know that, if someone were to get up and preach like that in the church I grew up in, there would be some laughter, several shouts of "Amen!"... and then the few people scratching their heads and wondering why it's alright to punch a child. Why is it even alright to joke about punching a child (not that this preacher was joking)?
The older I get, the more I question the rightness of corporal punishment. A scene from Little Women stand out in my mind, when the mother writes an angry note to one of the girls' schoolteachers. The child had been hit on the palm of the hand with a ruler (hard enough to leave visible marks). The note made this point: If you hit a child, you teach the child that hitting is okay. I'm not a parent, but I was a child once, and I have done some research into other ways of disciplining children - ways that do not involve violence. If I do ever have the privilege to be a mother, I will not hit my child. There are plenty of other methods that do work - research it.
In regards to what the Bible says in Proverbs 23:13-14 - "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." - I find the logic, particularly in that first verse, to be sad. Beat your child with a stick, don't worry, he won't die from it. Besides, you have to keep him from going to hell, so stay really tough on him! Yeah... no.
Discpline is very good and very necessary, but hitting a child, someone who is in the initial stages of learnig what is right and wrong, seems like an oximoron. Don't do bad things, because if you do, I'll hit you to make you learn it's bad. Words and actions that show great anger usually make people become defensive. It's hard to learn if the method of teaching seems more like you're trying to beat the ignorance out of them instead of helping them learn how to live.
What this pastor says is appalling. Listening to him as he preaches, hearing the raised voice and authoritative words... it brings back memories of many pastors, speakers, whatever that I have heard in my lifetime (all Fundemental Baptists). There are many times I can recall them getting hot about this issue or that and essentially putting their foot in their mouth and saying something outrageous or ridiculous - just like this guy. I am actually somewhat familiar with this particular church - Berean Baptist of Fayettville, NC - and know many people who think very highly of it. I also know that, if someone were to get up and preach like that in the church I grew up in, there would be some laughter, several shouts of "Amen!"... and then the few people scratching their heads and wondering why it's alright to punch a child. Why is it even alright to joke about punching a child (not that this preacher was joking)?
The older I get, the more I question the rightness of corporal punishment. A scene from Little Women stand out in my mind, when the mother writes an angry note to one of the girls' schoolteachers. The child had been hit on the palm of the hand with a ruler (hard enough to leave visible marks). The note made this point: If you hit a child, you teach the child that hitting is okay. I'm not a parent, but I was a child once, and I have done some research into other ways of disciplining children - ways that do not involve violence. If I do ever have the privilege to be a mother, I will not hit my child. There are plenty of other methods that do work - research it.
In regards to what the Bible says in Proverbs 23:13-14 - "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." - I find the logic, particularly in that first verse, to be sad. Beat your child with a stick, don't worry, he won't die from it. Besides, you have to keep him from going to hell, so stay really tough on him! Yeah... no.
Discpline is very good and very necessary, but hitting a child, someone who is in the initial stages of learnig what is right and wrong, seems like an oximoron. Don't do bad things, because if you do, I'll hit you to make you learn it's bad. Words and actions that show great anger usually make people become defensive. It's hard to learn if the method of teaching seems more like you're trying to beat the ignorance out of them instead of helping them learn how to live.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)