The ultimate sacrifice: LIFE

Pro-life, pro-choice, pro-capital punishment, anti-capital punishment, pro-euthanasia, anti-euthanasia, etc.

All of these revolve around the issue of life.  You could even throw in pro war/anti war issues too if you wanted to.  But I am really exploring the issue of euthanasia.  I heard a radio host talking about a guy named Garry Phebus.  Mr Phebus is a man from Georgia that wants to donate his organs-- now.  He has Lou Gehrig's disease.  This is a terminal illness.  Right now he is fairly healthy as far as the illness goes.  He cannot walk much and his vision is poor.  But his organs are in good condition.  All he wants to do is donate his organs now.  He knows he is dying and his life will only get worse.  He wants to have surgery to remove his organs and donate them.  This will kill him of course.

He talked it over with his family and wife who all understand what he wants to do.  No doctor will do it.  Only three states offer assisted suicide.  He is also looking into other countries that might do it.  Our current way of looking at this issue is that life is the most important issue and must be preserved even if the individual does not want to live. 

I must say that this shakes a few of my thoughts about life.  I work in health care and have seen people in suffering conditions.  You don't know how much pain you can feel when you are caring for someone who lays there dying.  The sound of their breathing.  There vacant look in their eyes.  The lack of movement.  Cleaning up any waste (there usually is none), swabbing and moistening their lips.    Death is hard to see.  Suffering is worse.

But should we help people die?  I am inclined to yes.  If you think about it this way, they have nothing much to live for except to make their family feel better.  The dementia patient that has no clue who they are or their own family.  They cannot talk.  They cannot comprehend.  The cancer patient whose organs are failed or failing.  The Lou Gehrig's patient who has nothing but suffering to look forward to.  If the only reason they continue living is to make their loved ones feel better, is that good enough.

This host believes that this guy should be allowed to donate his organs now.  I may not agree with every point he made but I have to consider one:  what about that person who needs a liver?  Are they not important?  If that person gets a liver, they will live a good quality life.  Garry will not if he lives. 

I am in fact, thinking that what he wants to do is more Christ like than what we all do.  It may just be the ultimate sacrifice.  What do you think?  Thoughts, comments?
 

The trouble with girls.....or is it me?

As a boy, I always wanted to get married.  I loved the idea of being married because I wanted kids.  I wanted a wife too but I don't think I really joined the two together.  Partily because I was scared of girls.  But mustly because I liked girls for a TOTALLY different reason I liked kids.   But it is hard to have one without the other. 

But I often felt that I would probably not have a family.  I never thought I would have a girl who would marry me.  I was ugly.  A nerd.  A reject.  Me talking to a girl would have been amasing.  Atleast intimantly.  So I thought that ultimantly, I would be single all of my life.  My desire was to have someone to love.  A wife, and a kid or two.  I had a few girlfriends through the years of puberty.  Most were because they liked me and voiced their feelings.  My way of dealing with the fear I had, and justifing not facing that fear, was to say that if she really liked me, she would ask me out.  Fact is, I was just too scared. 

As a matter of fact, I remember in high school, a gorl named Michelle and I started talking a bit and then she started dating a guy named Chris.  After that, I was talking to her and she confessed she had a crush on me once.  But, she said I never acted on my feeling and so I missed my chance.  I was dumb.  You se, I had crushes on so many girls in school.  I just never acted on them.  Paula, Michelle, Nikki, Kelly, Rea, Karla, April, Ect.  I could go on and on and on.  One of them, Danyelle, did get my number and called me.  We started dating and were going to get married.  That is a different story.  Key is, she called me first.

Perhaps, the strongest feelings felt towards a girl in high school was Ann (name changed to protect her privacy).  She was the girl I crushed on the hardest and longest.  And we became very close.  We shared private feelings and emotions.  But I never acted on my feelings.  I just loved her.  I was sure even to this day, she never felt the same.  We did "date" once.  For a week.  You know, the whole, "we are going out" thing but never really going out.  She broke up with me because she said, "I was the kind of guy she could fall in love with."  I don't know if I believed her.  Still don't know.  That was the begining of my senior year. 

Funny thing is that we continued to be best friends.  We talked all the time on the phone and even passed a notebook of notes to each other back and forth in school.  I remember that I kissed her once.  It was the sweetest softest kiss I had ever had.  Of course she was the third girl I had kissed.  The first girl almost didn't count since she was very agressive in wanting to kiss me and I did not really like her.  The second was Danyelle and I certainly wanted to!  But with Ann, it happened at a class party at school and never went anywhere.  I still had Danyelle and she had a boyfriend.  We just got too close while dancing.  But I could have acted.  I could have pursued it.  But she had said she just wanted frienship when we broke up.  I respected that.

Now, 20 years after I graduated high school, I am married to the most beautiful woman and have three kids.  Did I ever get over my fear of girls?  No.  They still scare me senseless!  But some how, I had a brief moment of courage, or insanity, and asked my now wife out on a date.  After that, she has made it easy to be myself and not fear her.  I say insanity because I liken that act with jumping of a cliff.  I did it when I kissed "Ann" and when I kissed another girl when I was in the Marines.  I did it when I asked Charity out.  And kept doing it with her because she drew me to do it.  Like that light to a moth.

So is the trouble with girls or is it me?  I would say it is me.  Because I of this I sometimes wonder if any of the girls in my past ever wonder what would have happened if that cute but slightly off nice guy had asked them out.  Or if "Ann" ever wished things were different.  If I had acted on my feeling, I would never had known my wife.  But I would not have cared.  I couyld have gone out with Michelle.  I could have done a lot.  But now, I know.  Now I have a lot.  Now, facing the fear is worth it.

Oil Spoiler

Father's Day 2010

It was pointed out to me today that I do not blog about my kids.  I don't.  I do post about them on FB but I usually blog about issues that I am dealing with or are of an interest to me.

If that is the case then I should blog about my kids.  They are the loves of my life.  So, here it goes....

I became a father 10.5 years ago.  My baby was born Sept.  20th of 1999.  I scared to death.  I was afraid of her!  But my wife was semi patient with me.  I got through it.  Then we went and had a boy.  I was scared of him too!  Hugging and kissing and cuddling a little girl was one thing.  But I (I never had much physical affection as a kid) had an issue with doing that with a boy.  Well, now I am heart broken because he has it in his head that it is wrong for a boy to kiss his dad.  It is funny how things turn around on you.  I now have a third child.  My Bug.  All three have a special place in my heart.  All three are mine to love.  All three are precious.

And maybe that is why I feel so depressed this Father's Day.  I have put these kids through so much because I can't get my life striaght.  I can't seem to get it right to provide for them.  I don't want to be rich.  I don't want to give them anything they want.  But I want to give them more than I do.  More that I can. 

This has been my struggle with God recently.  I want to give them a house and yard.  I want to give them a home.  But it aludes me.  God alludes me.  I allude me.

So with thay said, Let me tell you about me kids.  Rebekah is the oldest.  She is our Boo.  Bekah Boo.  At 10 yrs she has been through a lot.  She has epilipicy.  But she is a good kid.  She gets over stimulated easily but enjoys herself most of the time.  She has the most beautiful smile and the brightest eyes.  That is my Boo.

Caleb is the little gentleman.  Mama's Little Man.  Daddy's Little padawan.  His dedication to things like cubscouts and his family is a trait I wish I had myself.  It is amazing how you can look at your kids for the very traits you yourelf desire.

Last is my cuddle bug.  Sarah is my youngest.  She is bright and cheerful.  Very loving and affectionant.  Yet intense when she is mad!  The perfet blend of stuborness and bullheadiness.  I don't know she gets those traits from!  LoL.  Seriously, I could not imagine life with out her.  Kind and loving are her defining traits.

I love each of them.

Politicas and Religion: Banned

I had a thought.  What do people talk about?  It has been said that you can talk about anything except Poiltics and religion.  It is presumed that it is because of the heated disscussions that can insue.  Yet when with my friends, we talk more or less lightly about various things but never too deep.  As a matter of fact, while gathered the other night, a friend said that we could and should make a radio show of our random discussions.  "It would be funny,"  was how it was discribed.  So it occured to me that at one time people did not have TV, radio, or even much in the way of books, not to mention the light at night to do so.  Did they sit around making cude jokes and picking on each other?  Or did they discuss the day's work?  Maybe they broke the rule and discussed politics.  I tend to believe that they discussed inportant issues like wether the US should get involved in the war with Spain of Mexico.  I know that would sit and disscuss the latest news from big cities.  So why was it good for them but we have refrain from it?

I simply believe it is because we don't want to make  a stand.  These folks knew less that we did becausethey did not have the rapid flow of info that we have today.  But they had oppinions about politics and religion.  They were wrong at times but atleast they stood for something.

Do you stand for something?  Do you speake out about it?  If not, don't let the "rule" of politics and religion: banned get in your way. 

A battle to be fought.

I have been stuggling with the idea of violence and killing.  It may seem obvious that killing is wrong.  The ten commandments say so.  So do the laws of all most all of the countries in the world.  Yet, people kill people.  Sometimes it is justified and sometimes not.  But how do you justify a sin?  But alas, this is not strictly about killing but about violence.

John Elder teachs about men needing a battle to fight.  I have been wondering about this since I have been addressing the issue of war and killing.  I war is wrong and not justified, then how can we justify "battle"? 

I think I understand.  Reading in a book by Dave Wolverton, Star Wars:  The Courtship of Princess Leia, Luke explains the difference in using the Force as the "intent".  You see, his view of the Force is how you intend on using it.  Selfish use leads to the Dark Side.  Using it in anger does as well.  But if your intent is for good, then it is the Light Side of the Force.  Fighting or battling I think is the same way. 

Now I know that you could apply this to war and killing as well, and I agree.  But war and killing should never happen unless it is needed in the defense of others.  A fine line but those who seek God's wisdom first should be able to distinguish between the two. 

So what about this Battle to Fight?  Is this where we men get dressed up in our suit of armor and get lifted onto our horses and try to stab each other with a spear on seriods?  Or maybe it is when we face each other in the middle of a dusty street winking into the sun with a tough grimince on our face waiting for the other person to "draw" first.  Maybe it is like a scene from Good Will Hunting when Will and his friends get out of their car and starts a fight on the basket ball court just because one of the guys had said something about Will.  It was man against man and no holds barred.  But then maybe it is none of that and it is the  man and car against man and his car racing around the tract just to see who drives best and fastest. 

Honestly, I think that it is the challenging things that we battle against.  I have fought to get where I am now and I am fighting still to go farther still.  It is our fears.  It is ourselves we must fight.  You see, I am where I am (which is not too far) not because I have fought others but I have fought the fear with in me.  I have fought myself  I am my own worst enemy.  And instead of excepting myself the way I am, I am excepting only that inwhich God made me to be.  And I am not there yet.  But I am fighting to get there.

The battle to be fought is the daily battle for our own selves.  Our own hearts.  Go and fight the good fight young paddiwan.  Go.

Standing tall

     For my last post, I was feeling very depressed and ashamed of myself.  I still feel that way deep in side.  I know that God and I are addressing the issues and I can stand tall knowing that He is with me.  In me shame and discust, He has not judged me.  He has not rejected me.  I have a long way to go on my Journey with Him before He calls me home.  But He is God and He will be with me.  For anyone who read the previous post, know that I am ok.  I have these bouts at times.

    Though I am not strong like Him, He is holding me up.  I may be desiesed on the inside, but He is healing me.  I love you, Lord!