The first thing that jumped out at me when I started reading were the words “Health Choices Commissioner,” “Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund” and then all the words about the Commissioner working with the Health Secretary and the Treasury Secretary.  I realized that this whole makeover of our health care system was going to be gigantic.  This thing is going to cost an awful lot just to set up the management structure.  The next thing I realized was that it would require all health care professionals, hospitals, and businesses to obey a whole new set of rules regarding the giving of health care.  The one thing everyone must know is that it will not be free for anyone.   Someone will have to pay for every single health care service.   For the average person or family, you will have to pay according to your ability.  For those who are poor or indigent, they will be required to pay much less.  There is a scale based on income that will be used to determine what you must pay.  And when you fill out all of the paperwork to enroll in the government system, you will be subject to government investigations into your IRS taxes to make sure that you actually make the amount you claim on your forms.   The rich can plan on paying  more than their fair share, and if you try to convince the government that you are poorer than you are, again, they can and will audit your tax information.  As for businesses, if you look at Sec.314, you will find that they will be subject to “periodic investigations and audits” to make sure that they are obeying all the new government rules for paying into the government’s “Health Choices Plan.”  There will also be a tax on employers who fail to comply with the government’s regulations exactly.  In short, the American people are giving up a whole lot of privacy for some Government “services.”  If you ever shuddered at the Homeland Security Department’s wire tapping of terrorist conversations, (which I had no problem with), then you should be terrified at the thought of them probing into your financial and tax records whenever they wish, under the guise of “just making sure you are telling the truth.”

Now, once you realize that you will indeed still be paying for your services as well as having your taxes increased to pay for them, you also must know that when you sign up for your health care, there will be provisions you will be subject to regardless of whether you want to use them or not.  I am all for prevention in the sense of staying in good health and preventing illness.  That is really the key to not needing to use the health care system.  If you are healthy, you don’t need health care, unless of course, you have an accident or some kind of traumatic injury.  Making catastrophic health care affordable is a different issue that could be addressed without a total overhaul of the current health care system.    But on the subject of “Prevention,” if you go to Sec. 1711, you will see the different “preventative” measures which includes vaccines.  Vaccinations are a touchy issue with many people, and there are many questions and concerns regarding the current vaccine list that is routinely administered to young children all the way up through adulthood.   In our family, we have both used vaccines and opted out of some,  and I have always appreciated the freedom we have to decide as parents what is best for our family.  What concerns me about this impending Act is that if the Government is your health care provider, what is to keep it from enforcing what it thinks is best for your child?  Physicians can already pressure patients into taking medicine or using a particular treatment, and if the Government decides that you are putting the nation at risk by not doing vaccines or by declining to use a particular medicine, then what is to stop it from enforcing it?   Socialism is all about  putting the interest of the State over the liberties of the individual.  This is contrary to our Constitution.  On page 776, there is information about the coverage of “family planning services and supplies.”  I made a note of this to go back and look at this more thoroughly.  Family planning covers everything from birth control to pregnancy and childbirth to sterilization and abortion.  Here is another area that should be a red flag to those interested in preserving the family’s authority and liberty as opposed to the Government or State-controlled authority.  If a law-abiding family has 5 or 6 children, the Government -controlled health care system could regulate at any given time the number of children per family they will “take care of”  and put into effect how many children each family can have.  Also, if abortion is merely a family-planning tool, is it not likely to be used even more liberally than it is now?  What is to keep the Government from thinking that the less citizens they have to care for, the better?  They wouldn’t worry that they have less tax-paying citizens to increase revenue for the State, they would simply make the rich pay more.  In due time, we would have a citizenry that is made in the image desired by the Government, obedient to its every whim, and kept within a prescribed cage of activity, income and ability.

I noted also the section that refers to “simplifying and modifying Medicaid and Medicare.”  Two things occurred to me about this.  The first is that if the Government wants to simplify or modify these two entities, they can do that without a Government take-over of the health care system.  The second thing is that perhaps by modifying Medicare, this will make it easier for the Government to cull the ever-expanding pool of elderly citizens.  What is to keep the Government from deciding that all terminal patients, for example,  will only be offered limited health care services (since they are going to die anyway?)

I cannot think of any country that has socialized medicine and has a better health-care system than the United States does.  It is true that we have a less  healthy citizenry than other countries (based on statistics I have read but don’t have before me), but that really speaks more to the way we as a people eat and the habits we have.  Reform of the medical malpractice industry would certainly help lower costs without completely gutting the current system.  Our lawmakers in Congress have before them  a crucial decision to make.  They had better listen to the people of this nation and listen to their constituents.  I have not seen anything that indicates this is a health care Act that people really want.  I urge everyone to look over this “Health Choices Act.”  If you disagree with what I have written, I would really like to know.  Please, everyone check this out:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h3200ih.txt.pdf

We have had rain this past week, almost every day.  I am thankful that we have had rain this summer even when it is typically very dry.  It has kept things green and lush here.  We have also seen our share of snakes this summer.  On Saturday Bryan killed a copperhead, and a few days before that we found a little cottonmouth (or water moccasin) in the little filter basket in our pool.  That one had to be killed as well.  Whenever we find a harmless snake like a king snake, we leave it alone as it eats the poisonous snakes.   An interesting note about snakes is that when you decapitate them, both the body and the head still move for quite some time.   The head still opens and closes its mouth as though it were trying to bite.  I suppose it still could bite if you touched it. I think that I had heard this, but I really didn’t realize how freaky and true it is.  It really reminds me of Satan – how he has had his head crushed and has been mortally wounded by our Savior, but yet he is still moving around and trying to bite people!  It may all be over for him, but he is not going down without a fight, and trying to take every last person with him that he can, and he will seek to undermine the Father’s plan as best he can.  But God!  May we all seek God and submit to Him, and resist the devil so that he will flee from us!  Yes, remember James 4:7, and go ahead and read through to verse 10:

Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.   Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.  Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded.  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep:  let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.  Humble yourselves in the sight of the LORD, and He shall lift you up.

I find great comfort in drawing nigh unto God, and it is the safest place to be.  When things get tough and confusing in life, let us run quickly to Jesus like the baby chicks do to their mother.  Let us draw nigh to our Heavenly Father and be safe with HIM!

Blessings to all,

Christine

Today we worked outside planting lettuce, fertilizing the roses and fruit trees, and treating the yard with a natural fertilizer from Gardens Alive. We also turned the soil over in the garden beds and I applied an organic fertilizer that was derived from poultry manure, bloodmeal, and potash. I need to get some lime as well. Our soil tends to be acidic which is good for the blueberries, but not so good for the rest of the garden produce and field grasses.

A book I started reading back in December is by Steve Solomon and called, Gardening When It Counts. The subtitle is “Growing Food in Hard Times.” This is a very practical book. In the book’s introduction, Solomon writes about the “coming hard times.” Although the book was published in 2005, he sensed that with the price of oil going higher and higher, and the housing bubble on the verge of bursting, that an economic crisis was just around the corner. It appears he as well as many others, was right.

Solomon gardens because he wants to grow much of what his family eats. He started a seed business called Territorial Seed Company back in 1979. He ran his mail order seed business from his 5 acre homestead and grew and tested and ate the produce from the seeds he sold. He subsequently wrote several gardening books on intensive gardening. He also began experimenting with row gardening in such a way so as to not need irrigation. That is to say, he tried gardening the old – fashioned way and basically let the rain do all the watering. He found that one could actually grow a garden without having to use so much water, which is what one usually has to do with intensive, raised-bed gardening. He found that even in places that receive limited rainfall, you could still have a productive garden. The book he wrote on this subject is Waterwise Vegetables, which is now out of print. He now lives in Australia and gardens using his own method of semi-intensive beds and plant spacing which allows the growth of the plants to mature using less water. In short, he has figured out how to grow the most nutritious and productive vegetables using minimal resources. He has a fantastic natural fertilizer recipe, tells the reader how to make all kinds of compost, and explains how to start a garden with the barest of means, and then how to enrich even the poorest soil. I have to say that if I could only have one book on gardening, I would have this one. It is actually one of the best ones I have ever read. It is not fancy and there are not any pretty color photos (though I sure would like to see what his current place looks like), but there are helpful diagrams and 323+ pages of pure gardening wisdom. You can start knowing nothing about what you are doing and probably actually grow a nice garden in a year’s time, just going on what this man tells you.

So I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what a garden really needs and how to grow a productive one. Get your copy now while you still have a little time before you need to get those plants in the ground! I got mine at Amazon.com.

Blessings to all,

Chris

I started to write a flowery commentary about the results of this election, but I just didn’t have the heart. The truth is, I am disappointed. Terribly. I am not discouraged, but I just have a hard time trying to understand the people of this nation. Actually, it is not understanding them that is difficult, it is seeing the tragic consequences of their choice that is hard to accept and understand. It is something akin to watching a quarterback try to throw a pass to a receiver who is triple covered – only to have it picked off and returned for a touchdown. You are left with asking the question, “Why did he DO that?” Why did he make that foolish choice? Of course, that is a poor example because that does not demonstrate a pre-meditated choice, but rather a reactionary choice. I guess voting for a person is more of a pre-meditated choice even if it could also be reactionary.

All that aside, the only thing I know to do now is seek the Lord and wait on Him – for everything. This is the charge no matter what happens in life. Always we should seek the Lord and wait on Him. I trust that the Lord heard the prayers of the small minority of people who genuinely sought His heart and will on the matter of this election. Everyone else got what they asked for. So come what may, we are at His mercy, and we humbly implore Him to help us completely seek His face, seek His direction in and for our lives and our calling, and be obedient to Him. What would He have us do now?

As for me, with God’s help, what I determine to do is take the best care of my family I possibly can. I endeavor to create the best tasting, most nourishing meals I can to feed my precious husband and children. I will seek to keep order in my household and homeschool and challenge my children to do the best of their ability at everything they put their hand to. I will make it my ambition to create the sweetest, most pleasant atmosphere in my home I possibly can – full of pleasing aromas, beautiful music and continual praises to the Lord Of Hosts – to Yahweh. I love that Name. I have found recently that when I am in a bad mood or frustrated or having difficulty that just pausing and then praising God helps to change things almost instantaneously. Lift up the Name of Jesus! He is always worthy of praise!

So, let us put our hand to the plow and push on ever harder. Let us continue to pray for this nation and for some of the congressional races not yet decided. Let us look well to the ways of our households and do what we can to further the Kingdom of God from our own homes, in our own families in the place where God has put us.

All of that aside, I know that there are some very high-stakes issues facing us concerning this election, and I received an e-mail which I will share that gives some good ideas as we go into the last week before this extremely important election:

The Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher

October 27, 2008

With the upcoming elections 8 days away, satan has worked hard to deflect attention off of the real issue. This has been relatively easy through the economic meltdown and an unpopular war. Many Americans, including Christians, will vote based on these two issues. While these things are obviously important, they pale in light of the real issue-the Supreme Court.

The cover story of USA Today, on Thursday of last week, spelled this out quite clearly. It stated that the real legacy of the next president won’t be the economy or the war, but the Supreme Court. The next president of the United States will appoint at least 2, and maybe 3, Justices in his first term. If he serves 2 terms, it could be 5 Justices-there are 5 of the 9 on the Court 70 years old or older! Since the trend is to appoint younger and younger Justices, the next president will most likely shape the court for the next 30-40 years! This means we are not voting only for a president, we are voting for the Court we want for the next generation! The vote we cast on November 4th will do more to shape the culture we give our children and grandchildren than any other vote of our lifetime! Perhaps some succinct bullet points will help us see this clearly:

Without question, no institution, organization, or agency has shaped the current culture of America in the last 50 years more than the Supreme Court. You don’t need millions of people, the majority in Congress, or the President to shape the culture of America. You only need 5 people-the majority of the Supreme Court. Five people can kill 50 million babies (the number aborted since Roe vs. Wade), legalize homosexual marriage, remove parental rights, put God out of schools and government, rob from us our godly heritage, etc.

It is now split-sometimes 5-4 toward life, family, morality, our godly heritage, the intent of our forefathers when they wrote the Constitution; sometimes 5-4 toward death, immorality, legislating their beliefs from the bench (though not their constitutional role or right, this is easy-they simply say the Constitution is a fluid, living document and therefore must be changed to accommodate the times), removing God from our nation, etc.

2-3 Justices will retire over the next 4 years, their replacements chosen by the next president; possibly a couple more will step down 5 to 8 years from now, making it 5 potential Justices that could be appointed by the next president if he serves 2 terms. This will determine how the Court rules for a generation.

The first two Justices to go will almost certainly be Stevens who is 88 years old and Ginsberg who is 75 and ill. They are the two most liberal and are no doubt waiting to retire, hoping for a president that will replace them with 2 more liberals. These two replacements alone, if they are good, conservative judges could shift the Court toward righteousness for many years.

Conclusion: our vote this November 4th will be not for a president, not for the economy, not for ending our involvement in Iraq. Our vote will be for what we want America to look like 40 years from now!

The ramifications of this are staggering! We are no doubt reaping great judgment now in America-diseases, family breakdowns, violence, a death culture, destructive weather, and much more-because of abortion alone – not to mention expelling God and His laws from our schools and government. I don’t know that we can survive another 40 years of this without completely losing our godly heritage and destiny. The economy will recover and the war will end no matter who is elected president-but this is not the case with the Court and the soul of this nation.

If you don’t know where the candidates stand on the Court and the kind of Justices they would appoint, read the USA Today article. It makes their positions very clear. Share this information with every friend and acquaintance you have. And finally, pray like never before for God’s will to be done in this election. We CAN win this war and we MUST NOT lose this war. Pick up your word, go to war and let’s make history together. Here are some practical suggestions to consider:

Fast (a meal a day; a day this week; a Daniel fast; 3 days; TV; etc.) and spend the time praying.
Agree in prayer with someone everyday for God’s will to be done.
Hold nightly prayer meetings
Take time in every gathering to pray. (Take 15 minutes in every service to pray for the elections. Turn an entire service to harp and bowl style intercession-worship and prayer combined.)
Join 2 or more friends on a conference call and pray for 15, 20, or 30 minutes.
Pray on the way to work (and on the way home).
Pray before you go to sleep.
Pray before church services.
Ask God to give you His strategy-He will!

For God and Our Great Nation,
Dutch Sheets

This blog was originally set up so I could blog about our experiences living in the country on a small farm while raising and educating 8 children. This is still my primary purpose, and it is also a way to share with others the things I have learned and am learning regarding matters of health. Though I no longer work as a registered nurse, my college degree in that discipline has helped me understand the way professional healthcare providers do things and approach treating patients, but at the same time, I know that disease prevention is the best way to deal with chronic health issues. That is to say, if you can stay healthy and safe, then your healthcare costs should be minimal.

Now in case this sounds too simplistic to you, let me just say that besides catastrophic healthcare costs (that would be accidents and/or trauma injuries requiring hospital care), the next most expensive things are hospital births and then children born with special needs that require continual care. There are also the times when emergency surgeries or illnesses requiring surgery present themselves. These types of surgeries or illnesses we long to prevent if possible, and generally speaking, that is what we should all aim to do. Nevertheless, sometimes they happen. Keep in mind that I am writing this as a sort of overview for the purpose of addressing the healthcare issues in the current political campaign. Last week Sen. Obama said that healthcare was a right, and Sen. McCain said it was a responsibility (when a questioner asked if healthcare was a right, a privilege or a responsibility). Keep in mind also that we already have in this country, Medicaid for younger people and Medicare for the older people, as a sort of safety net for the more vulnerable people to receive medical attention. I don’t know the ins and outs of these programs, I just remember studying them in school, and I know people who are in these government programs. We also have to remember that we already have Health Departments where people can receive checkups, immunizations, home health visits, WIC program assistance, and other things for little or no cost. Again, it has been a long while since I worked as a student in a Health Department setting, and certain things may have changed, but I do know that they are there and people use them.

So for a presidential candidate to say that “healthcare is a right,” I would say that in this country, healthcare is already practically a right. The problem of payment for health services is the problem we are really discussing. Healthcare availability is everywhere, and accessible to most people on some level. But the real problem is health insurance, or everyone’s ability to aquire health coverage for a decent price. As I was pondering this, it ocurred to me that we have car insurance, home-owners’ insurance, life insurance — why is health insurance so horribly high for people who are either not employed or perhaps self-employed, and why is it so hard to find reasonable rates? I have a few ideas. If Congress wanted to, they could inspire insurance companies to re-design their programs, and maybe insurance companies could be enticed to lower their premiums by tax incentives as a way to help make health insurance more affordable to more people. They could do this without taking over the entire job of forming another government entity to socialize medicine in this country. If you want things to get messed up really fast, and government spending to go through the roof, and at the same time, lowering the quality of care, this is a good way to do it. Our government has too much on its plate right now to even think of doing this. It is irresponsible for Barack Obama to even suggest that he would or could do something of the sort if he were elected President.

One of the things you have to look at when trying to figure out why medical costs are so high, is the cost of medicine. Drug companies are the ones who make out like bandits here. In fact, as our country’s health gets worse and worse, people take more and more medicine. The idea is that the more dependent people are on medicine, the more money the pharmaceutical companies make. They make billions and billions of dollars off of sick people. Sickness is big business. It really is. I am not trying to pick on pharmaceutical companies, I am telling you the truth. It is good that these companies make legitimate life-saving medicines, but the idea that people need to take prescription drugs to stay healthy is, well, not the way we should all want to live. It is not the way God meant for us to live, I believe. Many chronic diseases have come about through poor diet and health habits, as well as nutritional deficiencies. When these things are corrected, symptoms improve and many times diseases are healed. I know of people who have been cured or healed supernaturally by God Himself. It is not a forgone conclusion that everyone is going to need prescription drugs, even as elderly people. It would be good if medical practitioners could seel the value in looking for alternative ways to treat people with less medicine. This in itself is a tall order for the medical community, and one that will take time, no doubt. But people everywhere can educate themselves on good nutrition and take an active role in health maintenance. People can pray for healing and for good health and for wisdom in dealing with sickness. Perhaps this will lead to less trips to the doctor, less prescription medications, and better overall health. Maybe there should be rewards for people as there is in auto insurance, (for not getting in wrecks or getting speeding tickets), that if you don’t need to use the doctor that much, you should pay less in premiums. For example, a family pays $550.00 a month for health insurance. If they go for a certain length of time – say a year -and haven’t had to use the doctor, or have gone only once or twice, couldn’t they lower their premiums? After all, if they are paying that much, and rarely need to see the doctor (even with children), shouldn’t they be allowed to pay less for coverage? Isn’t it a good thing to have an incentive for taking charge of your health? We don’t want to punish people with health problems they have through no fault of their own, or special needs children. That is not what I am talking about. I just know there are better ways and any number of options for people to be able to get quality healthcare at an affordable price without socializing medicine. There are also Christian groups that have cost-sharing which works in the same kind of way as making insurance payments, but it is not a company trying to make a profit. When someone has health expenses, the money is there for payment.

One of the things I noticed during the Republican primaries was that everyone who was running at that time had valuable opinions on nearly every issue. When I saw the Republicans debate, I saw men looking for answers to problems, and debating about the different ways to solve problems. They talked of specific ideas and plans to address different issues. It looked like if you only had that group of men working together, they could probably come up with a sensible solution for everything facing our nation. By contrast, when I saw the Democrats debating, I saw a lot of government-speak, a lot of vague notions and generalizations, a sort of elitist attitude towards the American people. I am not picking on Democrats on purpose, it was just something I saw. If I could have heard something encouraging from them, I would say so. I will give credit anywhere it is due. The fact is, healthcare, like all of the other issues our nation faces, is best addressed by people looking to solve problems by spending the least amount of taxpayers’ money, in the most efficient and legitimate manner possible. Empowering individuals and private businesses or corporations is good for the country as they encourage competition and capitalism. There are probably a lot of illegitimate government programs now, but the Department of Defense is one area that should never be skimped on. It must remain strong, with the best and brightest people working in it. It is a legitimate job of the government as defined by the Constitution. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are some of the inalienable rights that the Founding Fathers said you and I are endowed by our Creator with. These are rights, according to the Constitution. It is our responsibility, then, to take care of our lives, and use our liberties in profitable ways. We can pursue happiness as long as we are not robbing someone else of theirs. We have so much freedom in this country. But with freedom comes responsibility. In fact, freedom demands it. If you have freedom without responsibility, what happens to you? You begin to think everything is owed to you, and you shouldn’t have to work for anything. And in so doing, the lines between right and wrong, good and evil, should and shouldn’t all begin to blur. Everything is relative. The Constitution was not written for that kind of people. This is why a socialist government cannot rightly exist under our Constitution. It won’t work and it doesn’t need to be tried.

I would really be interested in hearing anyone’s thoughts on this matter. I welcome your comments!

The weather is beginning to get a little cooler out here on Fair Hills Farm. It is definitely getting darker earlier in the evenings now. The seasons change, and so do those to-do lists, when you live in the country. Always there is something outside to do! And this brings me to my first point today.

I have been reading lately on the value of vitamin D, and how that nutrient is so necessary to the vital functions of the human body. The two main ways we absorb vitamin D is by getting outside in the sunshine, and by consuming foods which contain vitamin D. Many people are deficient in vitamin D because they don’t get enough sunshine. We actually need something like 20 minutes a day exposure to full sunshine in order to get enough through our skin. But what lie have people fallen for in the last 30 years? That sunshine will kill you, stay out of it, and when you venture outside, slather on lots of sunscreen to keep your skin from absorbing any sunlight. Be afraid! Be very afraid! Now, aside from this whole notion lacking common sense if you just think about it, it has proved to be an outrageous untruth that millions of people have been sold, because the media reported what the “experts” determined.

Now I am not advocating sunburn here, and if you are going to be outside in the sun at the beach or fishing for an extended period of time, you may have to wear sunscreen or wear clothing that covers up the vulnerable spots. But as a general rule, getting outside in the sunshine and fresh air on a daily basis for atleast 20 minutes or more is a good idea. And do it without sunscreen. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to diseases such as osteoporosis (because you have to have vit. D to absorb calcium), melanoma, colon cancer and viruses such as colds and flu and other chronic diseases. And since when have these diseases sky-rocketed? In the last 30 years. And what else has been popular in the last 30 years? Lowfat everything. Lowfat milk, lowfat cheese, fake- fat- not -real butter, and skinless everything. Now let me tell you a secret. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. That means that it is stored in fat and uses fat as its carrier to do the work it needs to do. So when you take out the fat of a nutritious food which contains vitamin D – such as milk and cheese, you rob it of the vitamin D and its ability to do its work.

So the best way to utilize vitamin D in foods is to make sure you eat full fat dairy, real butter, and hopefully meat that has grazed out in the sunshine! Taking cod liver oil is also a way to ensure you are getting adequate vitamin D. In our house, we take Carlson’s Cod Liver Oil in the green bottle which has added lemon. It does not taste bad, and we take it in a little no-added-sugar fruit juice. The young children get one teaspoon, the older children who are adult-sized get two teaspoons (as well as my husband) and I take three teaspoons since I am still nursing my 2 year old and yes, sometimes the 4 year old as well. After all, little ones need raw milk as long as they can get it. We generally take the cod liver oil during the week and skip one or two days over the weekend. This is to give the body a break which is a healthy thing to do when taking superfoods or supplements.

Another interesting thing I have been reading up on is the role of lecithin in keeping your arteries clean. I saw recently that Dr. David Williams advocates taking lecithin to melt the plaque in arteries instead of going through chelation or taking cholesterol medication that doesn’t even address plaque formation. This got me to thinking about what foods naturally contain lecithin. I already knew that egg yolks have a wonderful concentration of lecithin, but other foods which contain it are milk, peanuts,garbonzo beans, cauliflower, and wheat germ! So if you regularly consume these foods, there is a good possibility that you are helping your body keep your arteries clean. Now I know there are lots of soy lecithin supplements out there and I would never venture to try to figure out which ones would be good to take, for a few reasons. Soy as a food product is best consumed in small amounts as a fermented condiment. This is the way the asians consume it. (For more info on this see www.westonaprice.org) Secondly, the majority of soybeans farmed in this nation now come from genetically modified seed (recent figures I saw were 80%). The only way you can be sure the soy is not genetically modified is if it is labeled “organic.” Thirdly, most supplements contain additives that I am not comfortable with and I would really rather get the nutrients through food. My husband’s grandmother (she is 90 years old) and grandfather (he is 93 going on 94) have eaten eggs and bacon and white bread toast every morning for breakfast for atleast the last 50 years if not more like 60 or 70. They don’t eat nitrate-free bacon either. And they eat white bread. They have been through a lot medically, but neither have ever had cancer. Grandmother has broken her hip and had 2 corrective surgeries and she had a bypass surgery years ago. She had a stroke after she had an exploratory catheterization which revealed her arteries looked fine for her age. She probably would not have had the stroke if the doctors had left well enough alone. Papa Joe and Grandmother Mary used to have a huge garden and ate lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, canned and froze alot of the produce and made the best homemade icecream. Years ago when grandmother had a young son (my father-in-law) she milked a cow every day and had to haul water to the house. Years later they used to go on fishing trips to the Gulf every Fall and enjoyed having suppers with fried fish, tomato relish, coleslaw and french fries. It makes me hungry just to think about that! My point in sharing all of this is that here are two elderly people that grew up working hard and eating good food and even in their nineties when they are no longer out and about very much, they still have a strong underlying constitution that is surviving even though they are taking probably more prescription drugs than they really should.

And finally, I can’t seem to get away from the political environment and the recent meltdowns in the financial and housing markets. It is a hard time for this country to be taking on more debt through bail-outs. I want you to be very careful and discerning when you look at what is going on in this country. There is a lot of lies and untruths being told in the name of politics right now, and the facade needs to be stripped away and the reality seen. If one even tries to be objective and sort out facts, it is not hard to see what is going on. The Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae debaucle was started back in the 1990’s by the Clinton administration. The policy to make mortgages available to people who would never be able to pay them back was a way to equalize housing opportunity with no regard to credit risk. The current democrat-run Congress has drug their feet on the offshore drilling for oil issue and has made no attempts at encouraging energy independence in this nation. When Pres. Bush tried to make progress on this issue a few years ago, it was blocked by the democrats by one vote. And when President Clinton was in office and the Republican -controlled Congress tried to make an energy law for offshore drilling, Pres. Clinton vetoed it. And just within the last year, when the U.S. was making a deal with Iraq to contract with U.S. oil companies to drill in Iraq for oil, three democrat senators (Sen. Shumer, Sen. Kerry and the woman from Missouri (can’t remember her name just now) wrote to Sec. of State Condi Rice telling her not to do this deal until Iraq can implement some environmental regulations.

Of course, the Bush administration was going to ignore this, but the press got wind of it and made enough of a stink about it that Iraq decided instead to go and make the deal with China. This was from an article in the Weekly Standard. I should compile a list of sources for all of this and will try to do so. But what it all amounts to basically is that democrats seem very adept at screwing the government up more and more; the more opportunities they get, the better they do. I am just being objective here. The problem with the Republicans is that they either let the Democrats get away with it, or they don’t do enough themselves when they have opportunity. We need stronger, righteous people who will do what is right and not be out for self gain. I think this is going to require a miracle. May our God who is Yahweh help us. And may we all work at discerning the truth in everything we see on the media and read in print! ]]> http://fairhillsfarm.com/2008/09/17/discerning-truth/feed/ 1 http://fairhillsfarm.com/2008/09/03/we-need-to-be-praying/ http://fairhillsfarm.com/2008/09/03/we-need-to-be-praying/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:59:36 +0000 Christine Read http://fairhillsfarm.com/?p=47 It is a strange thing indeed to see conservative evangelical Christians aligning themselves with the liberal media and leftist hacks. I never thought I would see the day.

Oh I understand all the arguments and vote-your-conscience pleas, but what I do not understand is the arrogance, judgmentalism, anger and self-righteous tongue-wagging that I have witnessed in the last few days. I hear out of the mouths of liberal reporters (who make no effort to hide their bias), all of a sudden this “concern” they have of a mother of 5 children, one of whom has Down’s Syndrome, and one who is pregnant out of wedlock…how can she possibly have a role in government and mother her children at the same time? What is she doing and who does she think she is and isn’t John McCain a fool for asking her?

And then many anti-feminists are condemning this woman and pointing fingers at her failures as a mother (you know, the pregnant daughter and trying to go to work after giving birth just three days prior, and “she’s not tending the hearth at her home”…) I tell you it feels like the crowd is gathering around and the stone piles are getting higher…and pretty soon the pelting will begin. Or maybe we will just burn her at stake.

I say all of this because this is what I see plain as day. I am disgusted. I looked today at the Constitutional Party website and Ron Paul’s too, to see what the hype is over these people whom so many godly people have flocked to. The Constitutional Party platform is not all that different from the Republican Platform. They claim to be Federalists, but so is John McCain. Ron Paul has some good economic ideas, but he is not that far off from his own party’s platform, either, except that he is clearly a Protectionist, which would be fine if the world weren’t so dangerous. That is kind of like saying it was better before women could vote, which maybe it was, but it is never going back to that, so the godly women had better vote. People are still mad about the Iraq war, and the liberal media feeds that anger, and buddy, it sure works. Let me tell you something. The war has stirred up a spiritual hornet’s nest, but it had to happen. It had to happen because God ordained that it had to happen. Nobody likes it, especially the military families that are making the sacrifices. I am sure the children of Israel didn’t like it when they were involved in so many wars because they are expensive and people die. But I am telling you God has a purpose in it. Do not forget that. And do not fall for the bait when people demonize George W. Bush. He was the ruler that God used, like it or not.

If you had the most perfect President imaginable – just make a list of attributes and ideology and perhaps color in his family and his theological doctrine, you would still have one huge, major problem. Congress. If Ron Paul or Mr. Baldwin were President, they would still have to deal with Congress. And with the liberal majority in Congress, they would not get very far. It would have to be the Republicans doing the fighting, because they have the same values and ideals. Most Democrats do not, excepting a few individuals. Perhaps they would be able to get Roe v. Wade overturned, but then, so could McCain and even more so perhaps with Palin on the ticket because of her raising national awareness. So this notion that Ron or Mr. Baldwin could solve all of your problems and secure God’s blessing on this country better than McCain is probably not sound from a political standpoint. The only way to change Congress is for the people of this country to put so much pressure on them that they force issues to be dealt with. But we are a lazy people. We talk the talk but don’t walk the walk and that is evident when you look at our government. And there are lots of people in this nation who don’t want anything to do with Christianity and don’t want people telling them how to live. They believe in their Constitutional right to worship or not worship as they please. And don’t even start telling them how women are supposed to live, because they don’t want to hear it. The only way you can reach them with any legitimacy is to live the way Christ calls you to live. Try modeling true womanhood instead of preaching about it. You don’t have to tell the world that you are against feminism, just live it. Demostrate there is a better way and do it with the love of Christ.

We need to be praying. If you are not specifically praying for Yahweh’s perfect will to be done, the Enemy might just sneak in and snatch the victory. The Enemy is already stirring people up to bite and devour one another and to quibble over foolish controversies and get totally distracted. I am begging for you all to pray. Get down on your knees and pray if only one minute. Pray for our sister in Christ, Sarah Palin. Even if you don’t like her or don’t think she is biblically qualified to serve in government, pray for her and her family, because of the love of Christ. Stop tearing her down. If God does not want her in office, be assured she won’t get there. But if He does, we need to pray for her and this nation and wake up and get serious about our responsibilities in a modern day federal republic.

Ever since I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984 (I wasn’t quite old enough in 1980), I have seen the political/governmental scene pretty much in black and white. That is, it is not hard to take a stand on an issue when you fully understand it, have convictions, and can understand the implications. Most political issues are not hard to decipher, and choosing good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, efficient vs. wasteful, etc. is not a difficult thing, except that people make it so. It used to be that governing was fairly simple. Would that we could get back to that as a nation.

It is ideal biblically for righteous men to rule countries. It is preferred that every family would have a godly husband, a godly stay-at-home wife, and a full quiver of believing children. It is prefered that there would be enough income for the wife to hire household help or a cook or an assistant or a gardener so that she could devote more time to educating the children, or more time to running her business from home. It would be nice that the godly man could be independently wealthy enough so that he could hold political office and see to it that his city, state, or country is being run in a righteous manner and in a way that would secure God’s blessing (Proverbs 11:12). Would that all of us could live like that, right?

The truth is, not enough of us do live like that. We might have the ideals or the structure, but not the income. Perhaps there are a lot of godly men that would like to run for office, but they feel they can’t leave their jobs or businesses to run a campaign. Or they don’t want to put their family through the trouble. So the good men sit out of the game, while the lesser men get to play, and make up the rules the good men then have to live by. It doesn’t matter if they make bad rules, the good men can’t do anything about it because they can’t make the sacrifices that are required to challenge them. And some good men try to run for office, but they are never serious contenders because they have tried to make a party (a team if you will) that isn’t even good enough to get in the game. Other times it just takes time and several elections before a man can get elected. But the truth is, most irresponsible and down-right wicked legislation have come into being in the past, because the righteous were not paying attention, and were not involved politically when they had the chance. They were sequestered in their churches, distracted with trying to earn a living, worrying about taking care of their children the way the humanist experts were telling them they had to, and looking forward to when the kids were out of the house and they could retire and travel or have an easy life to do what they wanted to do. Somewhere along the way, humanism and socialism crept into the Church and the Government, and the average common man and woman decided politics was dirty and that he or she had no real say anyway. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that pre-born babies did not have any constitutional right and under the “right to privacy” a woman could abort her baby legally for any reason, at any time. No one noticed that women’s lives were being wrecked, leaving a blood trail that led to, well, the Church, for its failure to speak up for the innocent without a voice, and to those that had appointed the Justices, as well as those Justices that were sitting on the Court. Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty was not only not being won, but was sending the country spiraling into a black hole of debt. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s temporary social programs to help get the country back on its feet after the Depression in the 1930’s, had taken hold on the U.S. Treasury like a malignant growth that would only spread and never go away. The lie of evolution and atheism flourished in the 1960’s and the educational system has never recovered. Even worse, it bred a generation of skeptics that now teach that skepticism in universities across this country. And by the late ’70’s, we realized that thanks to Jimmy Carter and his wisdom, women began wearing combat boots which caused a whole new world of problems, the effects of which would not be fully seen for another decade. At the same time, a new big threat to our country in the form of the massive Soviet Union, was hovering over our debt-laden, ill-prepared, morally- depraved country. Our military had become so weak, beaten down and ridiculed by the spoiled hippy generation and their Marxist leaders in Congress that there wasn’t a whole lot of enthusiasm on the part of young people to serve in the Armed Forces. I honestly believe that if Ronald Reagan had not run for President and put forth some sensible values and ideas that resonated with the majority of Americans, this country would have been on the verge of destruction. This is when some conservative Christians began to wake up and get serious about trying to shape policy in Washington, instead of being shaped by the policy of a minority of Marxist politicians. If you think Marxist is too strong of a word, do a little research and you will see how liberalism is Marxism re-heated, warmed over and microwaved. It is anti-God, anti-family, anti-capitalist, and anti-liberty, with the notion that those elitists ruling over you know what is better for you than you do, hence, you don’t need liberty – you just need them. So if you don’t think we have done enough wrong in this country to provoke the judgment of God, think again.

So enter John McCain and Barack Obama. I guess you could say enter Bob Barr, too, and whomever is the Constitutional Party candidate, and Ralph Nader, and anyone else that just thinks it would be cool to be on the ballot. I think that although any party that wants can run for President, it is really only a choice between 2 parties for the actual winner. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but that is the way it is. You can vote your conscience anyway you want. I heard Glenn Beck tell Mitt Romney that he didn’t have to vote either Republican or Democrat, that he could vote a third party like Bob Barr. He said, “It is not a wasted vote if you vote for something you believe in.” I think it depends on what implications a vote for a third party candidate will be. In 1992, Ross Perot received almost 19% of the popular vote. Bill Clinton won that election with 43% of the vote. Ross Perot’s presence in that election very likely threw the victory to Bill Clinton, when otherwise, Pres. George H.W. Bush would have won. People that voted for Ross Perot, and many I know were Christians, helped get Pres. Clinton elected. Pres. Clinton appointed 2 very liberal Supreme Court Justices.

But back to Barack Obama and John McCain. Folks, we are running out of time. Perhaps in 30 years, after everyone with large, homeschooling families have raised their children and their children have children that are of voting age, perhaps this country will be able to elect only godly men to political office, and make over this nation in the image of its Founders to whom the godly mandate to subdue the land and pursue life, liberty and property ownership was the essence of their vision of a free nation under God. But if Barack Obama is elected and able to put into practice his policies which are guided by principles he learned being a disciple of Saul Alinsky (who by the way dedicated his book, Rules For Radicals to Satan), then that opportunity likely will never come to godly families in this nation. His policies will set this nation back so far it may never recover. Furthermore, is not the voice of millions of aborted babies’ blood crying out to the Lord from this nation? Would we not be guilty, those of us who vote for Obama or a third party candidate who hasn’t a prayer of winning, of having blood on our hands? Are we going to get so hung up on finding some kind of fault with Mrs. Palin or Mr. McCain that we abdicate our responsibility and give the enemy an opportunity to take some more blood? Can someone please, anyone, give me the wisdom in this?

As for Mrs. Palin, a Christian woman, a mother of 5 children, a wife who admires her husband more than anyone else in this world, well, is it just possible that she is doing the will of God? Let us look at Judges 4 and 5 at the account of Deborah. As a general background, the book of Judges records the accounts of Israel’s deterioration after the death of Joshua and its failure to complete the conquest of Canaan. During these times the people go through cycles of oppression and deliverance, lack of faith in God and lack of obedience to Him and drift eventually into moral depravity. The male leaders are failing to lead the nation, and allow compromises and adopt the pagan practices of Canaan. The judges are the military and civil leaders during this period, and Deborah happens to be one of them. How she got to her position we are not told. We know she is a wife, and we know she is a mother. Here is an example of how God used a righteous woman to move reluctant men to obedience to His commands, for the sake of the nation. Read Judges 4:1-9:

“Then the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, after Ehud died. And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim. And the sons of Israel cried to the Lord; for he had nine hundred iron chariots and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for 20 years.
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging at that time. And she used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgement. Now she sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Behold, the Lord, the God of Israel, has commanded, ‘Go and march to Mount Tabor, and take with you ten thousand men from the sons of Napthali and from the sons of Zebulun.
And I will draw out to you Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his many troops to the river Kishon; and I will give him into your hand.’” Then Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go: but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” And she said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.”

The story continues with Deborah and Barak (interesting that this subject happens to have the same name as Sen. Obama, isn’t it?) and the troops went to face the army of Sisera. During that battle, the Scriptures say that the Lord routed Sisera’s entire army “with the edge of the sword before Barak” (vs. 15), and Sisera jumped out of his chariot and high-tailed it away on foot. Barak took off after the chariots and the army and wound up slaying Sisera’s entire army. Now let me back up to vs. 11 which says. “Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, from the sons of Hobab the father-in-law of Moses, and had pitched his tent as far away as the oak in Zaanannim, which is near Kedesh.” I will finish out the story giving you verses 17-24:

“Now Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite, for there was peace between Jabin the king of Hazor and the house of Heber the Kennite. And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside my master, turn aside to me! Do not be afraid.” And he turned aside to her into the tent, and she covered him with a rug.
And he said to her, “Please give me a little water to drink, for I am thirsty.” So she opened a bottle of milk and gave him a drink; then she covered him. And he said to her, “Stand in the doorway of the tent and it shall be if anyone comes and inquires of you and says, ‘Is there anyone here?’ that you shall say, ‘No’.
But Jael, Heber’s wife, took a tent peg and seized a hammer in her hand, and went secretly to him and drove the peg into his temple, and it went through into the ground; for he was sound asleep and exhausted. So he died. And behold, as Barak pursued Sisera, Jael came out to meet him and said to him, “Come, and I will show you the man whom you are seeking.” And he entered with her, and behold Sisera was lying dead with the tent peg in his temple.
So God subdued on that day Jabin the king of Canaan before the sons of Israel. And the hand of the sons of Israel pressed heavier and heavier upon Jabin the king of Canaan, until they had destroyed Jabin the king of Canaan.”

You may wonder why I include these gruesome verses. I think if you understand the times that Israel was living through, it seems apparent that Deborah was used to stir up the men to their rightful work. Even so, Barak was unwilling to go and do the rightful work unless she went with him. It appears that he was actually afraid of going without Deborah. That cowardice insured that he would not be the hero to actually snag Sisera, but rather a woman would do it. And we would see that a woman actually had the courage to see to it that Sisera would not get away. It is good to read the Song of Deborah and Barak in chapter 5, but there is one verse I want to note. Judges 5:7 : “The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel Until I, Deborah, arose, Until I arose, a mother in Israel.” Did you see that? Deborah defines herself a”mother” in Israel. I don’t know if she had young children at the time or older children, but she must have had some children to call herself a “mother.” This was the title she cherished. It is the title Sarah Palin cherishes.

I think at this time in our nation, we need more good leaders, but until we have enough righteous men doing the job, we have to accept righteous women. There is too much corruption, too much wickedness and too much apathy in many of our elected leaders. There needs to be term-limits in Congress, but Congress doesn’t want to limit itself, because the members there don’t want to give anyone else the chance to do the job. As a result many people become entrenched and corrupted, and deceived by their own deceitfulness, and making up their own rules to satify their lusts and wicked agenda. There are a few good people doing an excellent job, but not near enough. And as wonderful as this country is, and as blessed as we are, if we do not humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and turn to Him and beg His forgiveness for our complacency and take seriously what doth He require of us, then we could be at risk of losing our blessings and freedoms. May God help us do the right thing.

“And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.
If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

~ II Chronicles 7:12-14