Miracle of Life

 All of the debate about in vitro-fertilization has made us question again, “What is human life?  When does it begin?” We know that each of us is the result of a single egg from our mother being fertilized by a single sperm from our father. The basis of our existence is amazingly mysterious and beautiful.  

 My daughter was born the year I turned forty. With two sons already thirteen and eight, we were not expecting another child.  In fact, the doctors had told us that having more children was impossible.  But the impossible happened.  The doctor’s first question was, “Do you want to terminate this pregnancy?”  We were stunned.  Such a consideration never entered our minds.  Nine months later my wife gave birth to a beautiful little girl who has blessed our lives immeasurably. I often thought of that doctor’s question when I rocked her to sleep and felt the weight of her slumbering body  against my shoulder. 

 Our daughter is now thirty-seven. Fifteen years ago, I walked her down the aisle.  I then performed their wedding ceremony and danced with her at the reception, one of the highlights of my life. Three years later, they came home and excitedly told us they were expecting a baby, our fourth grandchild.  When they gave us the news of her pregnancy, her baby was no bigger than a small marble. We listened to the baby’s heartbeat as she grew and watched her dancing in the womb.  She now dances around the room with her little sister and brother.

 Before retirement, my wife worked with pregnant and parenting teens in the public schools.  She constantly sought to help them have a healthy pregnancy, healthy birth, learn how to become a good parent, and stay in school to have a better future.  With children and grandchildren of our own and my wife’s occupation, you would think that the process of pregnancy and birth would have become commonplace. But it hasn’t.  In fact, it is quite the opposite.  The more I witness the miracle of life by which children are born into the world, the more I stand in awe. 

 David expressed it best in Psalm 139:  “For you formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb. I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” To the prophet Jeremiah, God said, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”  (Jeremiah 1:5).

 Every birth, every child and every person is a miracle of God.  We are all more than mere flesh and blood, brain, bone and sinew.  We are made in His likeness, with the awesome freedom to choose good and evil, to bless others or to curse them. We have infinite possibilities and an immortal soul that will one day depart this mortal body. We are eternal beings living in a miraculous universe that astounds our senses. 

Alexei Navalny

Alexei Navalny’s death in Russia’s maximum-security prison in the Arctic Circle reminds us that this generation is like all those that preceded it.  Always there have been despots and regimes willing to commit murder, even genocide, to secure their power. Putin’s chief rival joins a long line of potential adversaries who have met an untimely death.

 The public reaction in Russia is muted.  Everyone knows the dangers of resistance.  According to news sources about 400 people in 8 cities were arrested by state Russian police when they attempted to attend vigils or lay flowers in tribute to Navalny.  A priest was arrested for planning a public prayer vigil. Russia is not the United States.  Freedom of speech and public assembly is not protected.

 I visited Moscow shortly after the Soviet Union dissolved.  It was a bleak place  I viewed the corpse in Lenin’s tomb and descended into the depths of the subway system, the deepest subway in the world, built to serve as bomb shelters during the cold war. 

 Navalny’s death reminds us of events almost a century ago, June 30 through July 2, 1934 when Adolf Hitler consolidated his power by killing adversaries who would oppose him, an event that would come to be known as the Night of the Long Knives.

 A few years ago, my wife and I spent the summer in Nuremberg, Germany.  While there, we toured the Dokuzentrum, the Document Center that was constructed in post WW II Germany at the Nazi rally site that drew millions during Hitler’s rule.  The Center was built to document the atrocities of Nazi Germany, including the Holocaust.  We must not forget the depths to which governments can sink and the need for every generation to protect human rights and freedom.

 The Cross of Jesus Christ casts a dark shadow across the landscape of human history. The Cross bears witness to the depths of human depravity, the injustices to which individuals and governments can sink.  Bound up in the Cross is the innocent suffering in every generation.  All of our sins are there, in the darkness that descended upon Golgotha.

 The Resurrection of Jesus dispels that darkness.  The eye-witness accounts of those who saw Jesus, who spoke with him, ate with him and touched him after he rose from the dead bear witness. Life overcomes death. Righteousness triumphs over evil.  Two thousand years of testimony by believers in every age and every nation affirm this truth. 

 As Isaiah wrote, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.  He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither, and the storm carries them away like stubble. ... Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired. They will walk and not become weary,” (Isaiah 40). 

Why So Lonely?

More people live in the world today than at any other time in history, more than 8 billion with another 200,000 added daily.  More people live in the United States today than at any other time in history, over 335 million with 80% living in cities.  We are more connected than ever before, by cell phone, text, email and social media. And, despite all this, we are lonely.

 A recent headline in USA Today,  proclaimed, “Americans are lonely and it’s killing them. ”The article went on to say, “ America has a new epidemic. It cannot be treated using traditional therapies even though it has debilitating even deadly consequences. The problem seeping in at the corners of our communities is loneliness.

 Perhaps our drive to gather in huge numbers is a symptom of our loneliness.  Stadiums and sports venues are overflowing.  The Taylor Swift Eras tour has packed out stadiums worldwide, averaging 72,000 per concert in the US. Swift jetted home from Tokyo to join more than 61,000 at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, while more than 200,000 packed the Waste Management golf tournament in Phoenix.

 At one time or another we all feel lonely. Even though we are surrounded by other people.  Sometimes it stems from a feeling that no one seems to understand, that no one knows who we really are “inside.”  Sometimes it stems from having no one in whom we can confide. 

 Sometimes we feel like we just don’t fit in.  This can be especially acute for teenagers trying to find their way, searching for their own identity.  The urge to dress alike, look alike, talk alike and act alike can be overwhelming and leave us with a feeling that, for all our efforts to be accepted, we don’t belong.

 At other times, loneliness is the result of isolation. This can be especially true for the home-bound, the disabled and the elderly, widows and widowers.  Days may pass without having a visitor or someone with whom to talk. 

 So, how do we respond in this age of loneliness.  There are several simple starting places. 

 First, know that God knows you. He knows you better than you know yourself. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” (Jeremiah 1:5).  “Lord, you have searched me and known me.  You know when I sit down and when I get up; you understand my thought from far away.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways, (Psalm 139:1-3).  “

 Second, seek out a faith community.  Go to church.  Participate in a small group where you can be known and loved.  “Not abandoning our own meeting together but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching,” (Hebrews 10:25).   

 Third, be there for someone else.  Seek out the isolated, the ostracized and the rejected.  Be a friend to someone else.  Visit the homebound.  Pick up the phone. Call someone. 

 God never intended that we should be alone or feel lonely. From the outset of creation God saw that “It is not good for man to be alone,” (Genesis 2:18).  “A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows, Is God in His holy dwelling.  God makes a home for the lonely,” (Psalm 68:5-6).

Order Bill Tinsley's newest book, We Beheld His Glory, a Novel, FREE eBook on Amazon Feb 13-17.

Accepting One Another

 Most of us know what it is to lose a pet: cats, dogs, birds, hamsters, others.  They are all short lived compared to our own life expectancy.  In our lifetime we will likely experience the emotions of burying one or more of our furry and feathered friends.  Two years ago we laid down our tri-color Corgi, Buddy.  We never forget these special friends who share portions of our life-journey.

 When we found Buddy at Corgi rescue, he had been picked up off the streets.  He was skinny and sick. They called him, “Tex.”  But he quickly informed us that his real name was “Buddy.”  In fact he has a children’s book, Buddy the Floppy Ear Corgi that tells his whole story, not just about his name, but how he was lost, picked up by the “dog police” and rescued.  I wrote it “just the way he told it to me.” According to the story, he learned to accept himself and others just the way God made them. Throughout his life, he continued to teach me lessons.  Those lessons included trust, patience, and perseverance.

 But one of his most important lessons, however,  was “acceptance.”  In an era when humans are increasingly aware of their differences in race, language, culture and national origin, Buddy ignored all of those.  He just saw people, and he accepted them all.

 I took him for a walk through the park.  An entire group of teenagers interrupted their volley ball game and rushed over to greet Buddy.  They surrounded him, laughing and smiling as they stroked his Corgi coat.  We went to Estes Park.  Four times in the space of two blocks, teens, children and adults asked to pet him.  We passed a homeless person. Buddy stopped and waited until a smile spread across the person’s face as they patted his head.

 It didn’t matter to Buddy.  He just grinned his Corgi grin, and accepted them all.  Young, old, white, brown, black, homeless, handicapped, straight or gay.  He didn’t care. It is a lesson humans have to work at.  We tend to look for people like ourselves and suspect those who differ.

 Like the rest of us, the disciple Peter grew up with his own prejudices.  He was a fisherman and a Jew from Capernaum.  After he left his nets to follow Jesus he was constantly having his prejudices challenged.  He followed Jesus through Samaria, a region he had been taught to avoid as a Jew.   He watched Him visit with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well near Sychar.   He saw him touch and heal the lepers, the blind, the lame and beggars. 

 It took a miraculous vision and a visit to a Roman’s home in Caesarea for Peter to finally understand the lessons Jesus sought to teach him along the way.  Peter concluded, “I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10:34-35).