25 year old "mother" kills twins

Booting up my computer today, the first thing I see on the newsfeed is "Lindsey Lowe, Tenn. Mom, Confesses To Smothering Newborn Twins". I was thinking that was a typo and it was supposed to say "teen" mom, then it would make a little more sense. But no. You go into the article and it says she is a 25 year old woman (not girl) living with her parents, working in a pediatric dentists's office. She "thinks" she got pregnant in January, but never went to the doctor to confirm it. Working in a dentist's office, I'm going to take a gander and say it was not because she did not have health insurance. She gave an apparently, relatively painless birth, sitting on a toilet. Article says the baby "fell out", into the toilet, and she proceeded to smother it. Then, a few minutes later, oops, another baby "fell out", and she done the same thing to it.

The anger that is going through my mind right now cannot be expressed, but my mind also is not surprised. This is an example of WHAT has this world has come to. We have encouraged a decade of people to never be responsible for their own actions. I say decade, because I have watched over the last 10-15 years the societal excuses that have become mainstream, that takes away any kind of hint that a person should be responsible for their own actions. I know what a lot of people reading this post will think- "this is an example of worldly child rearing" ... but hold on. The end of the article mentions the family's pastor coming to be with them the evening the woman's father found the babies in the laundry basket. He is quoted as saying "... Lindsey and her sister grew up in the church and were regularly involved in youth activities.".

So here we go. Another (assuming) Christian family in the news, giving the world another reason to yell "hypocrites". Hey world- why not stop a minute. This was a grown woman. Yes, she was raised with (assuming) Christian values, but that does not take away her own responsibility for her own actions in her own life. It would seem obvious she is not living in a manner that is traditionally taught in Christian homes. It is obvious, to me at least, that this woman was not right with God. It makes me wonder if she has ever had a relationship with God. We must not assume that just because you are raised in a "Christian family", by parents who are Christian, that it makes you a Christian. It does not. Only your personal decisions regarding your own salvation makes you a Christian. Religion, appearing to be a "good person", none of that makes you a Christian. Only through Christ, confession, repentance, and acceptance of Him as your Savior makes you a Christian.

So what has this world come to?
Religion and Christianity aside, we have come to a state of mind that we can always blame someone, or something else for our actions. Even murder. I seriously doubt justice will be served for these twin babies. Her lawyers are going to claim she was mentally disabled somehow ... if she was sick enough to kill her babies, would there not be other symptoms of her illness well beforehand? She lived with other people, saw them on a daily basis, and held down a professional job. People are going to blame the missing father. Seriously? The guy obviously did not know, since this birth was a 'surprise' to the woman!

People are going to blame the church environment and 'the shame' that comes with unwed mothers. Not buying it. If you are in a church environment, you know you are doing wrong when you do it. The 'shame' is nothing more than regret that you got caught doing wrong. Do not blame the people who are doing right (or have yet to be caught publicly with their own sin). Then again, we cannot expect people on the outside of the church to truly understand what it is like to be on the inside. (This goes even from church building to church building, I believe!)

Christians are likely going to think it was somehow the parents' fault. Really? The woman is 25 years old. Right and wrong has been learned. Sex outside of wedlock is not a hard concept to grasp. It looks like it was taught well, because the woman did not want to get caught with the result of her sin so she killed it. The parents done their job, at 25, it is the adult's responsibility to do right. Some might even say it was the parents' fault because they allowed her to continue living with them as an adult. No, not buying it. You're grasping at straws here. There are plenty of young adults and twenty somethings who live with their parents and are productive, honorable members of society. Some are going to blame satan and his 'attacks' on Christian families. I'm not buying it. That's too easy.

How about this:
We are born sinners.
We deserve to go to hell because the wages of sin is death.
Jesus come to this earth to die on the cross, to pay for that sin.
We have the choice, repent and accept Christ as our Savior, turning away from the grasp sin holds on our lives, OR, we continue to allow sin to rule our hearts and live in the absence of a true relationship with God.

Lindsay Lowe was living without a true relationship with God in her life. This was why she killed her babies.

IF she ever professed to have Jesus as her Savior, either she was not sincere, or she turned away from Him. (On the basis of "by ye fruits are ye known...", I'm going to lean towards any profession not being sincere because I cannot wrap my head around murder being capable of even the most backslidden of Christians.) Her relationship deficit with God can be corrected. That's what I love about my God. No matter the vilest of sinner, He would have died if they were the only person on this earth. Those babies are with Him right now. Should we be concerned with earthly justice? I believe so. What about spiritual justice? I pray that happens, too.

I pray this woman will realize she is lost, be saved, and live the rest of her life- be it in jail or not, living closer to God than she could ever imagine.

(read the article here)

John 7:24
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

It IS that simple

A friend of mine posted a verse on his Facebook page today:

“Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” Leviticus 19:2

someone replied to him:
"Can you be a sinner and holy at the same time? It is said that we all are sinners."

to which I replied:

"When God looks at me, all He sees is the finished work on the cross by His son Jesus Christ. Yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I have a Savior, therefore, I have the ability now, through His power, to be holy; because He is. ♥"

Yes. The gospel IS. that. simple.

Homeschooling, Unschooling, Public Schooling

This year we made the big jump of bringing out kids our of the private school they have attended their entire school careers minus eight months. They are in the 4th and 7th grade. Toni, the Happy Housewife, posted this morning "Why do you homeschool?". Well that's a good question. Honestly? The truest, honest answer that is most accurate is, we sought the Lord, and He revealed His will for us. It was very easy to yield to, which I found VERY ironic considering three short years ago, I prayed and prayed and prayed for peace about homeschooling and found NONE. (See first link in post.) Then you go into the "sub-reasons" for homeschooling (in no particular order of priority) a) it's much lesser expensive, which will afford our family more opportunities to do things that can honor the Lord b) I'm tired of being "poor" (oh, did I say that out loud?) c) it will work better with my at home work schedule when the 2012 election season gets in high gear ... oh there's more, those are the highlights.

I thought Toni made a good point, that I will add to my own reasons, when she said:

"The bottom line is that the system is broken. As a homeschooler we’ve chosen to flee the system rather than try to fix it and many people think that is the wrong solution... Teach your child to think, to question, to solve problems, to challenge the status quo. Focus less on grades and grade levels and more on learning experiences.
When they ask Why teach them how to find the answer."

We've only been at it for four weeks, but I have already had this revelation. One of my kids become paralyzed when they get to a point where they do not know an answer. I found this really surprising and we've been working on this for the past week. At first glance it just seemed they wanted to have you give them the answer, but the Lord revealed their lack of confidence in their own selves to start figuring out the solution on their own. WOW!

Toni had linked to this article on Seth Godin's blog, which is a very good article with valid points that anyone who is responsible for the education of children should read. That article, made me think about an article I read some time back on Jessica's blog (Bohemian Bowmans), that contained a video. I highly, HIGHLY recommend spending a few minutes in her post, and for you to watch that video. It makes tons of sense, and if it doesn't to you now, it will make you think about the ideas and it will eventually make sense :) Not to mention, in this article, Jessica hit on the very "heart reason" that made it so easy for me to say "yes" to homeschooling, when I was the one who said for years "I do not have that kind of relationship with my kids to be able to be with them all day, much less do school":

"I was becoming painfully aware of how quickly their childhoods were going to be over and what a sucky job I was doing as a parent to pass on to them what I actually thought was important. None of which was found in this place called “school” that I was sending them away to 8 hours a day...It was to create an authentic loving relationship with them that would go beyond parent and child, to discipler and disciplee."

Now, for my 'local' friends of mine, as you know, we are not doing anything near close to 'unschooling'... this year. I'm not even going to say whether what we're doing is actually working. I believe it might be too soon, because there have been too many extremes of emotions going on in this house in the past four weeks to know whether what we're doing is positive or negative at this point. I do know, I love getting up in the morning and not having to be anywhere, and know that we're late when we get there. That's awesome :)

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I give up

Ten months ago I bought a couple of domain names that suited my interests. The idea was, that  was going to create my own sites and get on to the business of blogging, because that's what I enjoy. People, perfection will kill you. Costs have been tight this year, especially since the Spring, and the little it would cost to pay for a year's worth of hosting, keeps getting pushed back because I frankly think it's more worth going out on date night with hubby. Soon, though, I feel it in my bones, the hosting is going to be here. Meanwhile, I'm tired of not writing, not exchanging ideas, not having an outlet for myself. So i give up. yes, here's my humble little blogger hosted blog. Reactivated. There's no bells and whistles, just me; because I need to write. You see, we started homeschooling four weeks ago. My eyeballs are about to start bleeding! I need this outlet, so I'm taking it. Forget what the pros say about having your domain name, and not having the latest and greatest plugin. Oh. Well. That will come later. Until then, I hope you will still comment and give feedback. Welcome, to my little blog :)