Making a Difference

"You are the light of the world...." Matthew 5:14

One thing that has always been important to me in deciding how I live my life is the thought that I, one little tiny dot on the face of a planet with gazillions of people who have lived and died, could make a difference for good in my world.

Jesus called it being "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world." The idea was that I add something to the mix, and it is either good or not so good. While it is hard sometimes to characterize an entire life with one label of "good" or "bad," I think it is generally easy enough to look at the life someone has led and say that the way they lived their life either was generally beneficial to others or it was not.

I think a lot of people just give up on this concept. They are led to believe that one life cannot possibly make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. I don't know how one can be so misguided as to feel that way. Just think about some people and how their life has affected so many---for good or for bad. One has only to mention names like Alexander the Great, Noah, George Washington, Benedict Arnold, Jesus Christ, Moses, Mark Twain, General Douglas MacArthur, Teddy Roosevelt, Saddam Hussein, Mother Teresa, Adolf Hitler, the Apostle Paul, Joseph Stalin, Alexander Graham Bell, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jack the Ripper, Ronald Reagan, Charles Manson, Ghandi....and it becomes very apparent that one life can indeed make a difference in the course of human events.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, I have to say that about this time last year, I was totally put out with pretty much everything about this country for the most part. Many of our leaders are not what they should be. Evil things in our society like murder, abortion, terrorism, corruption, filth of all kinds, and all kinds of death and destruction seemed to be prevailing over everything that I had always considered good and right. I saw an alarming trend where good people were just passively sitting back and letting the moral degenerates of our day dictate the next wicked move. Many things happened that led me to believe that we were on an inescapable downward spiral straight to hell.

Many people will sorely disagree with me on this point, but I am going to say it anyway. There are two particular practices that I believe will take a nation down quicker than just about anything. Two perversions of the way God designed things in the beginning have seriously impacted our country in a negative way. First, the murder of babies in this charade that we sterilize by calling it abortion is one sure way to get the God of heaven and earth riled up. Jesus made it quite clear in His earthly ministry that children were quite special, and that the kingdom of heaven would be made up of those who were like an innocent child in spirit. I really do not think that it takes an abundance of intellect to discern that abortion is painful murder of real, howbeit small, people. If you are so uninformed that you believe this statement is incorrect, just Google "products of conception" and get some images of what they scrape out of a mother's womb. It is not a mass of cells. It is a tiny torso and arms and legs and head, etc. And it was painful to the baby no matter how much one chooses to ignore that fact. So-called late-term abortions where people appease their consciences by saying that they are not killing a baby just because it is lodged in a birth canal instead of a baby blanket by sucking its little brain out are merely the icing on one perverted cake. It is as though these people are just daring God to strike them dead where they stand!

The other perversion is homosexuality. We have "cleaned that one up, too!" You don't have to be a practicing Christian to observe in nature that even the dumbest of animals have the sense to mate with the opposite sex, not the same sex. And birds mate with birds, not giraffes. If animals and even flowers which have male and female parts can get it right, why can't we?

Lest I get bombarded by anonymous email calling me mean or closed-minded, I have to unequivocally state that I have relatives and friends who are homosexuals. I love them to death. Some of them are my favorite people, minus this awful perversion they are practicing. If you don't think that God dislikes this sin, just go back to the Old Testament and read how he obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah. They were filled to the brim with homosexuals, to the point that Lot could not even find 10 people who were righteous out of the two cities. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that Sodom and Gomorrah were the only cities that God ever just obliterated off the planet in His fierce anger, excepting of course when he flooded the whole world. I have never understood how people can justify homosexuality from the Bible. If they say that God does not care whether you are gay or straight, they just simply have not read the Bible. There are few things that are clearer in that Book than God's condemnation of homosexuality. There is not even a hint of permissiveness on God's part, through the words of Jesus or the apostles or the writers of the books, for this particular sin. It is always identified as sin, and the sinner is always commanded to turn from the sin. Just because God happens to be so gracious as to love sinnners does not mean He tolerates the sin indefinately. There comes a time when He says, in effect, that enough is enough and has a little cleansing. There is evidence that some New Testament Christians had been practicing homosexuals and changed their ways when they learned God's attitude towards the practice. (See First Corinthians 6:9-11) So don't insult me by telling me it can't be done.

So, seeing America very openly and abundantly practicing these two evil things and a whole host of others, I was one depressed girl last year. I felt like maybe this was the beginning of the end for us. Maybe it still is.

But in the meantime, I purposed within myself to do all I could on an individual basis to "stop the madness" that has entangled our country. I figured that if enough would have the courage to take time out of their busy lives to just stand up for one issue at a time, maybe we could make some difference. Some strides have been made which encourage me.

Earlier this year, NBC decided to run a hideous t.v. show called "The Book of Daniel" which glorified homosexuality, promiscuity, drug abuse, and ridiculed tenets of the Christian faith. I thought to myself, "now here is something I can do! I can get on the phone and raise my voice in protest, and I can write letters. " A few, and I mean, relatively speaking, a very few, raised their voices in protest of this show. I personally emailed over a hundred people asking them to stand with me in protesting. I got personal responses from about 2 people stating that they would do something. More may have done something, but I was shocked at how many just plainly did not care. I did not email a bunch of Hell's angels down at the bar. I emailed my friends and family who call themselves religious people. Still, enough people cared that collectively, the voices raised across the nation got an unprecedented (at least in our times) reaction from the network, who gave up on the show and canceled it. Before the national outlet called it quits, our local station canned the program, stating that it was not the kind of thing that people around here wanted to see. I was proud of our region for standing up for what is right.

In February, unlikely "little" South Dakota passed a law to ban abortions in the state, even in the case of rape and incest. If I understand it right, abortion could only be practiced to save the life of the mother. Other legislatures in other states are now considering following suit! I just about choked on my supper the other night when I heard that debate had already started in the legislature of Tennessee. For the first time in a lot of years, there is some hope that Roe vs. Wade could be overturned; this is only right considering "Roe" herself now fights for the rights of unborn babies!

Automaker Ford is starting into considerable scrutiny for its active promotion of the gay agenda. Many folks are about to decide if Ford is still as truly American as apple pie or if they have lost touch with the feelings of most Americans. It would seem that some Americans are finally waking up and smelling the coffee that goes with that apple pie! It will be interesting to see if groups involved can pull off an effective boycott of Ford and bring them to the same place where NBC found itself.

Today I heard that the FCC announced it is fining 111 CBS stations $32,500 each for broadcasting "Without A Trace," complete with an extended teen-age orgy scene. This is the largest fine ever against the networks and their stations. In addition, the FCC reaffirmed a $550,000 fine against CBS for Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the 2004 Super Bowl. I am hopeful that some of these stations are finally going to get the message that decent people won't tolerate this stuff forever!

Most agree at this point that we are winning the war on terror. After all, there has not been another incident on American soil since 9/11. Whether or not you agree with the current war, you have to give George W. Bush his dues for keeping the homeland locked down so far. We have come a long way in some areas we knew little about before 9/11.

Then, there is the very controversial area of all these weird "disasters" which are happening all over the world and even here in America. I personally have come to take the position that I believe that God may be issuing a wake-up call to the Gulf Coast states who have quite blazenly started playing host to such evils as Spring Break shenanigans, practically naked sunbathing, an inordinate number of sex crimes carried out against children and elderly people, gambling, and of course, all the perversion that happens during Mardi Gras, etc. You don't see some of the Bible Belt states getting pummeled, do you? I realize that this fact alone does not make it so, and who can truly know what God's thoughts are? Yet, it is something to think about and something to watch.

Christians have been silent for too long. We are the majority, not the minority in this country, and we need to start acting like it. That does not mean that we become a bullying bunch of vigilantes. I think what it does mean is that we stand up and demand our right to pray at ballgames if we want to. We push for the return to decency and family values. We promote righteousness instead of every perversion, and we hit those that want to destroy the foundation of America in the pocketbook and by doing so, suck the life right out of their godless plans. The wonderful thing about a free society is that there are plenty of unrighteous countries to go live in if you don't like our "apple pie." It would be wonderful if all the ones who want to draw the wrath of God down on humanity would take it somewhere else. I just am really not in the mood to be conquered by another nation any time in the near future. I have 4 children left to raise, and we solicit God's approval and His numerous blessings on our lives.