Choose to Hope

Why I still choose to hope.....

I have seen many people, despite trials and suffering, who still hope and who still trust that God cares for them and loves them. They continue strong and unwavering in their faith despite....

watching a child battle cancer and lose.
watching a child battle cancer and win.
battling cancer themselves.
being abandoned by a husband.
the deaths of 3 family members in one month
having to bury a baby who was 20 weeks premature.
having been addicted to drugs and alcohol.
having to take care of a husband for years while he suffered and eventually died.
being in a wheel chair and doctors cannot diagnose the condition.
losing a job and not finding one again for 6 months.
having to bring children to church every Sunday alone.
struggling with diabetes.
being away from church for 20 years.
the divorce of parents after 25 years.
struggling with an eating disorder.
having a severely handicapped child who will never talk or walk.
having been through a divorce which was no fault of their own.
being abused by a spouse.
being single and pregnant.
having a spouse with a severe mental illness.
having children who choose unhappy paths.
the early death of a spouse.

So our circumstances do not have to control our faith. We can have the faith and hope to control our attitudes in spite of our circumstances. And I choose to look at those who are faithful regardless of what they must go through in this life. Oddly, or rather, not, they are some of the happiest people I know.

Political Two Cents

I don't pretend to be well-educated in the area of politics, but as of late, I have read a great deal about this nation's history and the purpose of it's establishment and government. I firmly believe our founding fathers were inspired by our Heavenly Father to create such an unprecedented way of governing. He has blessed this nation with unique freedoms and circumstances as no other nation has been. But where is our country headed? Can we not see the connection between the moral decay of our country and the increased "intolerance" for the belief in a right and a wrong? If nothing is "wrong", and everything is right because someone desires it, we only find ourselves with more "rights" and no responsibilities, and no virtue. Lately I have seen that our country's own government is only facilitating this idea of "entitlement" without responsibility and without virtue!

“Nowadays, the purpose of government is not so much to secure our natural rights as to provide us new rights, to bestow on us social and economic and other kinds of entitlements – the list goes on and on, and it's still being added to.” --Charles Kesler
"Big Government is intrusive and not liberating…Big Government constrains you for the sake of equality so that your freedom is no greater than anyone else's. It also constrains you for your own comfort and security. Its constant tendency to control and equalize the conditions of life leads it to attempt to diminish the risks of life by which inequalities of fortune, and even of merit, occur. In diminishing your risks Big Government diminishes your virtue, because it (THE GOVERNMENT) assumes responsibility for making things come out well for you despite YOUR errors or, what is more and more likely, your INACTION." --Harvey Mansfield

Is more government the answer to the constant pleas for more rights and seemingly less tolerance for faith and moral values?

Courage and Truth

I came across this on YouTube, and thought it was well worth sharing. How incredible that a person as young as this could be so gifted a speaker and could dictate so boldly on such a controversial topic. What an example her conviction is! I can only hope I can teach my children to stand strong for truth and good in the face of shifting moral values and the emphasis on "rights" rather than "responsibility" world we live in.

http://www.nmatv.com/video/1318/Preteen-pro-life-speech-goes-viral