Two of the many articles and news coverage surrounding the Walmart shooting in east Texas found here and here.
Considering the horrendous massacres of the Batman shooting and now the elementary school shooting I think there is so much more at stake.....things the general public refuses to think about....doesn't want to think about. Because if they do....where do we go from here? We are, sadly, a nation that does not know what it is to stand up and fight. It's easier to play the victim than stand up and fight a tyrannical government. Food Inc, anyone? The government has a way, quick and efficient in every sense, of silencing its opposers or those that would dare question. But I do question. I question a lot. And these are exactly my thoughts on it all. A blog I could've very well written with my own thoughts. Questions that run deep. Deep gut instincts that tell of things that lie buried deep, so much more, an undercurrent of civil unrest and agendas that are far from good and honorable. A nation, leaders that no longer possess a conscience....no matter their political affiliation.....with agendas that will destroy anything and everything to gain the power they seek. I think there is more truth to this than we will ever even begin to know.
My heart grieves so deeply for the families of the children that were lost. I know the government is corrupt and there is no end to its quest for power.....women and children all expendable. Whatever it takes to get the attention of the world and turn the tides in their favor. What better way than fear tactics? I know we live in a wicked immoral society that has forgotten the God on which the founding fathers based this country. I know this nation has become so arrogant and so self centered they think they can actually make it without total reliance on God. Yet when something of this atrocity happens they all turn to God and run screaming...."Where is He? If there is a God than how could He allow this to happen....innocent women and children?" Ummmm....people....you kinda did away with Him over the course of the last 30 years. We've allowed Him to be taken absolutely completely out of schools, you've taken Him out of the government, He is not allowed to exist within our nation anymore....and then you want His protection? It's just sad to me to watch the division of a country that's strongest asset used to be its unity. Christians by far being some of the worst....arrogant, self righteous hypocrites that will turn on each other whenever boundaries are drawn....no one wanting adherence to respect for others...just themselves and their reputation. It has become the demise of the nation. And while the Christians self destruct in their divisiveness between each other and all attention is turned to destroying another with religious rhetoric, who's holier than thou, who's reputation was jeopardized by speaking truth, who has more kids, who doesn't use birth control, who's going to hell cause they do, who has on a dress, who has more Bible knowledge and schooling....they have taken God out of schools, they have taken Him out of the government, they have taken Him out of anything and everything they can...and then everyone sits bewildered and consternated while wondering what just happened when America itself begins to self destruct. We live in a society where people are cruel to one another. Kindness is few and far between. People attain more joy from putting others in their place rather than lending a helping hand. Children are seen as a bother and do nothing but obstruct the isles of shoppers on more important missions. Children are raised by screens, and do not even know what to do when turned loose outside. They don't even know what it is to play without the aid of a device thinking for them or engaging them. When being seated at a restaurant not long ago we passed a table of a mother and father and two children ages around 7 and 9. Two children sat with laptops before them and a movie playing, headphones on.....at their table...while they all ate. What happened to a family meal? It has become so rare to see a vehicle going down road with children not looking at a screen of some sort that children and I have begun to count the ones that are actually engaged in conversation with their children. People watching....it's an amazing thing. Most days we come home with a total count of about 2 vehicles where parents and children were conversing. One day we counted not even one. Parents are usually on cell phones and kids are looking at a tv screen or handheld screens of some sort....no one talking within the vehicle. It leaves me to wonder what is said when conversation does occur. People, not just children, live within the screen these days...a world far beyond the reality of the right here, right now....the faces before them. And my heart just hurts. The motto has become "Don't teach children what to think. Teach them how to think." And while I agree with this 100% it has also been used to fuel the movement of letting them choose their own religion..if they choose one to begin with. What happened to instilling the characters, morals, values and respect for the one and only God into the lives and hearts of our children? Writing His truth upon the tablet of their hearts? While teaching children to think for themselves you don't allow them to run out in the street and then let you know if a car was coming, stand by and watch them step off into a pool and yell at them to let you know if they've figured out if they can swim...or allow them to open the oven door and figure out if it was hot. There's guidance there. We teach them truth, facts, faith, morals, values, ethics and then how to apply it for themselves.
Yet I am met with home schoolers left at home for endless hours, parents who know not what their children do on the internet, large families that breed older children to watch younger ones all day while mom accomplishes busyness and errand running, church goers that find it easier to lash out and judge..tear down and destroy than to affirm and build up, a generation of spoiled, apathetic children that do not know the importance of voting and want the world handed to them on a silver platter. A generation that thinks they are owed every comfort in life, has never known loss, has never known true need, has never been taught how to work, doesn't know what it is to overcome discomfort, and does not even begin to know what it is to suffer for the sake of Christ or what it is to forsake it all and follow Him. They know nothing of total dependency on Him. He has become merely a free ticket into Heaven for most.
And we wonder why America has gone so far downhill. In countries where there is a legal automatic weapon in every household they have no such massacres occurring. In our apathy as citizens we have elected in, over the course of time, a tyrannical government hungry for power. We have ceased to educate ourselves and have allowed the medical profession to dictate our health care.....hundreds upon hundreds of needless cesareans being performed, an absolute overdose in our children of immunizations, prescriptions written out for a a fingernail ache and then multiple ones written out for the side effects of the first one....and we accept this.....we seem to want this...because dr's know best. They have the degree. Never mind the multi billion dollar industry medicine has become. The welfare of the patients has been forgotten while the money hungry, drug pushers and companies behind it all have grown starry eyed in their lust of the American dollar.
While my heart aches beyond words for the families of these children I stay cautious that this is only the beginning of more slaughter to come. One little boy was merely 2 days younger than Garrett. One of them a twin. I absolutely cannot fathom losing one of our twins....the void that would live on in the surviving one. One of them had 2 younger siblings the ages of Gavin and Ivye. That would be like having to explain to the two of them why their best buddy is never returning home. One of them the "baby" of their family. How do you survive that? And I think of all the things I could write about....and it's all just trivial.
To end....begin by just honoring the parents that no longer have this opportunity with their children anymore. Turn off the screens for everybody and just...interact. The agenda of the government may be overwhelming and the motives that fueled the actions of last week may be so far above our heads that it spins the brain....but if nothing else....just engage your children, teach them right from wrong...and know what is going through their head. And for parents everywhere...teach your children kindness. Actions speak louder than any amount of words....and they always have. For those within the church....stop calling church elders for every little gripe about another member, all the wrongs you have suffered, filing complaints with your church board over teachings you dislike, shunning those you have self righteously perceived lesser than yourself. Learn, once more, as an adult, what it is to be kind, to show kindness...and then perhaps you have the ability to model it by example...teach it and instill it....within the hearts of your children. But it doesn't take being a Christian to just be kind. Remember and teach your children that every set of eyes you come into contact with, every physical body mass you pass, is a soul, a person with a story, a person with as much hurt in their life as you have, a person that has seen and experienced thousands of things in life that has shaped them into the person they are. Behind the outlash of actions and words of others lies hurt they've never overcome, rejection that has never been healed, acceptance that's never been felt, insecurities that confidence never overcame, childhood abuse of which they've never spoken, spousal abuse that has enslaved and embittered them. Show kindness wherever you do. Take the time to talk to people instead of seeing anyone in your way as a bother. Look at it as divine intervention that you are there at that time and place in each other's lives....if only for but a moment. That cash register clerk you just treated like shit...is there in your life for a reason...if only for but that moment in time. That mom with the 2 screaming kids occupying "your" space on the isle has probably had a hell of a day and could just use some encouragement instead of the glaring, hellish looks being cast her way. Remember what it is to be kind....find it within yourself, teach it to your children, hold them accountable for their actions, hold them accountable for their use of time, set screen boundaries and engage them, run your errands together as a family, set moral boundaries for yourself so your children learn what it is to be kind and show mercy. Get back to the basics of loving each other and setting appropriate boundaries in life for both yourself and for your children. Embrace life, the people that have filled it, and engage the hearts of your children and those around you....and perhaps it will be enough of a beginning to turn the self destructive acts of this country around. And while it's a little naive to think that kindness, respect for others and attentiveness to our children's hearts are enough to turn this nation around it's sure more of a start than we have going right now.
11 When Solomon had finished the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had succeeded in carrying out all he had in mind to do in the temple of the Lord and in his own palace, 12 the Lord appeared to him at night and said:
“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices.
13 “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my faceand turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. 16 I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
17 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, 18 I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to rule over Israel.’
19 “But if you[a] turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 20 then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 21 This temple will become a heap of rubble. All[c] who pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 22 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’”
2 Chronicles 7:11-22
2 comments:
Well said Nikki well said love you all!
I will have to read this later, it has been quite busy here...but I will....promise...XOXOXO
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