postaday2011 – Page 34

Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom, Wives, Womanhood

The Boundary Around My Pond

Posted on February 8, 2011November 13, 2015 by Katharine

Another view of the pond — Another view of the icy pond

Boundaries are wonderful. Without them we could not have ponds. No ponds, no fish. Yes, we like boundaries. I think the fish do, too.

One boundary we think we don’t welcome is the womb. Wombs are wonderful. Without them we could not have babies. I think the babies like them, too.

But we ignore what we know is true and we violate that quiet, safe place for our growing babies, every day. Over 3000 times per day. It is impossible to violate our own bodies and our children’s lives the way we do, and still feel human.

Look at this:

In Pennsylvania, they’ve found a physician/abortionist who has made a profession and a large fortune from violating the boundaries of our wombs. How did he do it? By accepting payment in cash, not reporting his earnings, storing his money at home instead of in a bank, not disposing of bio-hazards, not sterilizing equipment, not providing gowns for patients, and barely paying staff.

Oh, and he sold drugs on the side. Cash, only, please.

More than half the people who went into his “clinic” died. You know, all the babies died, and several of the moms, too. It was just like the good ol’ days, minus the coat hanger. “Safe and rare”, my foot.

The only good thing about it, if it can be called good, is the wording the Philadelphia reporter, Stephanie Farr, used as she wrote her detailed report about Dr. Gosnell’s goings on:

“How many severed baby spines does it take to pay for a $984,000 shore house? How many severed infant feet is a boat worth?”

I am glad she said it that way. I don’t know how she had the nerve to write this truth in such big newspaper, nor how she got by with it, but there it was, on the Internet, for all to see. For all to think about. For all to try to grasp.

Not only does abortion mistreat women; it mistreats babies, violates wombs, ignores boundaries.

And it can turn us into monsters.

Inspiring, Wisdom, Womanhood

Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries

Posted on February 6, 2011November 13, 2015 by Katharine

Boundaries occur everywhere and they are good. Think of a horse or a toddler without a fence. Think of a dog without rules. Think of your bank account without a PIN. We love these boundaries and use them to the fullest.

We agree with boundaries for others, but for some reason, we cannot reconcile ourselves with boundaries for self. Think of the red light runners. Think of all the overdrawn bank accounts. Think of overweight. We refuse to see the good in boundaries and quickly shrug them when they are imposed upon self.

People who ruin lives overeating, overspending, and running red lights probably would tell you the boundaries are good, but . . . deep down we hope some other rule cancels the ones we don’t like. A friend once actually told me eating cheese with apple pie will cancel the calories in the pie. Another friend told me she divorced her husband because, “divorce is too easy these days.” That’s a reason?

Actually, marriage used to be a boundary for most people. It kept the rightful spouses in and pretenders and diseases out, a good thing. These days, we’re so used to tossing boundaries for perceived convenience, we fall in and out of love, marriage, and all other “affairs” at the blink of an eye.

Do not get me wrong. I do not think every obese, broke, divorced person who accidentally wrecked while running a red light is bad.

I just think with so many, it may be a trend. Just look at all the boundaries and rules we ignore, and their resulting ruinous counterparts:

1. Marriage–divorce
2. Pregnancy–abortion
3. Motherhood–day care
4. Budgeting–bankruptcy
5. Contentment–stress
6. Cooking–eating out
7. Seatbelt and texting laws–funerals

This incomplete list shows how all-encompassing the problem is.

Let’s each work to shorten this list, to add a few more boundaries to our lives.

Inspiring, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – 5

Posted on February 6, 2011February 6, 2011 by Katharine

Boundaries.

The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon. It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter. Psalm 74:16-17 NIV

Blessings of Habit, Inspiring, Sayings, Wisdom

Saturday Sayings – 5

Posted on February 5, 2011August 14, 2011 by Katharine

1. The future belongs to those who will work for it.

2. The best thing you can spend on your children is time.

3. The only thing left after fire is the stuff you gave away. –Nan Snider

4. Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.

5. A ship is safe in the harbor, but that isn’t what ships were built for.

The first Don’t Walk sign began operation on this date in 1952. 🙂

Blessings of Habit, Husbands, Inspiring, Wisdom, Wives

Why not Date?

Posted on February 4, 2011March 15, 2014 by Katharine

: Classic “one-knee” proposal, ca. 1815 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why not Date?

Of course, God must have had some reason for causing us to be male and female, yet also programming us to hesitate, to want to do it right, to hate divorce just as He does. What gives?

God set up the whole marriage relationship as a picture, a sort of parable, of perfection in relationship. You have to admit, when male/female relationships are going right, it can be heavenly, right? And when it all goes south, well . . .

Facts are, God is all about loving relationship. He says He IS love. He is a relationship. Love is everything. Love is all you need. And almost every problem on earth is a relationship problem.

Marriage is so important to God. He set up everything in His kingdom with the idea in mind of it being like a marriage. (Or maybe marriage is like His kingdom?) In fact, in all of His creation, out of all the things He created, there was only one thing He said was not good: That man should be alone, single. Man could never picture Heavenly things if He had no counterpart, no one to love, no one to become one with and be fruitful with.

But what is dating? Is it a loving thing? Or is it using someone just to have a good time? Or is it pretending to be married? Are we fools?

The Bible speaks of only two types of relationships between unmarried, non-familial men and women. One is betrothal. The other is over-anxious, questionable men hanging around loose women.

Guess which one we practice these days?

Differences Between A Boyfriend/Girlfriend Relationship and Biblical Courtship

Blessings of Habit, Husbands, Inspiring, Pre-schoolers, Wisdom, Wives

About Dating

Posted on February 3, 2011February 3, 2011 by Katharine

Humans have been practicing dating on a large scale for around, 50 to 75 years. Before that, no one dated. Some snuck out, but that was sneaking out; it wasn’t dating.

The very idea of two unmarried people spending any time together, alone, was unthinkable to most people, once upon a time.

Why? At least for three reasons.

Of course, the obvious reason most people think of is the unwed pregnancy, illegitimate child, and ensuing ruined lives. It may be hard for some to believe, but when parents and legislators guarded a young woman so closely back then, it was for her benefit as much as anything.
Political reasons also factored in; not national politics like we think of these days, but human politics of the family, the estate, the wills, etc. Marriage strengthens families, and thereby, communities, cities, and countries. The foolishness displayed through the ins and outs of the dating mess weakens us all. People and families who desire to get somewhere choose marriage and its strengths, not foolishness.
Religion forbade it. We cannot really blame Christianity because all religions have strict rules requiring single-mindedness about marriage and deterring the weakness inherent in youthful foolishness. Even someone who would boast of being the most irreligious, and who had a “special friend”, would call it cheating if that friend stepped out on him. That’s because the whole idea is universal.

And there was a time, not so long ago, when all people heeded this universal idea, whether they liked it or not. While there always have been a few out-of-wedlock babies, they were few, just enough to soften the blow of infertility for other people. And people hid the trouble as much as possible. And they were regretful.

Why is marriage universal?

A better question might be, why did God build this program into all people? It is because His Son is a Bridegroom, waiting for a pure bride.

Wisdom

Are You Afraid?

Posted on February 2, 2011March 14, 2014 by Katharine

Cat watching birds (Photo credit: rarvesen)

We had another cat, once. It was fond of hunting and spent long days away, causing us to never-mind when it was gone. We reasoned that the Ma cat was teaching it to hunt and it came and went when she did. The Ma cat often spent time away, was not altogether tame, in fact.

We always called this cat “the other cat” because it so resembled Black Jack that we had trouble telling them apart. It was not Black Jack, though, did not have Jack’s and Earl’s hilarious dominance gene.

The Other Cat always held back, if there was a tussle for the food dish. It usually did not prefer petting and seemed somewhat afraid of touch, in general. It ate and hung around with its siblings, but was the odd man out and didn’t seem to care.

I’ve known people like this, too. With people, long ago, we used the term “wallflower”, indicating the loner, the shy one who held back. I remember a classmate who hung around like The Other Cat. Her short hair had transformed nearly into a helmet with hairspray. She wore beige makeup all over her face, including beige lipstick, and didn’t wipe the excess off her eyebrows, which made her face pale and featureless, as if she were about to pass out. Like many popular girls, she sewed her own clothes, but they were—I don’t know—somehow blank-looking. Maybe color hurt her eyes, or something. She probably bathed every Saturday, but she often glistened with the need for a midweek dunking.

She never arrived first and always took the leftover seat. She never spoke much—only if called upon in class. She offered correct but lifeless answers, parroting the textbook but seeming unable to think aloud. When, at the bell, others bolted with gusto from the classroom, she gathered books with limp hands and slipped out onto the fringes of the hallway melee.

No one flattened her, which, now that I think about it, amazes me. Yet, this, too, adds to her persona: A collision, at least, would have proved she existed.

No one took offense at her. Sometimes the kind girls reached out to her, but no one kept it up. Her wan smiles hardly rewarded us enough and we were too young and untrained to care deeply. Boys would walk around her, embarrassed to make eye contact, but never insinuating the ridiculous remarks they saved for targeted girls.

I wonder about her, now. Now that I care about the downtrodden, now that I invest time to draw women out of themselves, I wonder about her home life. Did her parents encourage her? Did they abuse her?

She was absent from our 40^th reunion . . .

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