Euphemisms and Lies

I read an article today on politicsdaily.com. The article was about a couple who aborted their twin boys because they wanted to have a girl instead. Rightly so, in Australia (where the couple is from) it's illegal to use in-vitro fertilization for sex selection. In the article is a quote from Gab Kovacs, an IVF specialist:

"Laws should be made to protect people from things that are going to damage them. Why should we make this illegal? Who is this going to harm if this couple have their desire fulfilled?"

His quote was so completely ironic to me. In response to his question of who this will harm. Um. Hello? THE MURDERED BABIES? Anyone?

He tries to hide behind the guise of a couple merely wanting to have their desires fulfilled, but at what cost? It's disturbing how easily people are convinced by lies and other euphemisms like these. Where have all the rational people gone? Have we really become so disillusioned as a nation as to think that it's okay to kill babies who have not yet been born? And then use irrational arguments to back ourselves up?

Every single year since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973, approximately 1.2 million (that's 1,200,000 in case you need to see it) babies have been aborted.


“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9)

What do you live for?

I just came back from a THV event that left me with a few things to think about. One of the speakers made a very good point, one that I think has been made to me many times before, but for some reason I resonated with especially closely tonight. The point?

Life goes on.

What he meant by that, more so then get over things that bog you down, was that life really does go on. It can't be put on "pause" no matter how much we hope that it can. It doesn't stop for us to do what we need to do and then continue when we're ready; it just goes on. That resonated especially deeply tonight because these past couple of months, I've found myself precisely trying to do just that. I've been putting my life on "pause" so that I can try and get all of my ducks lined in a row for my future. When will I take the MCATs? What will I do for the summer? Where will I apply to medical school? Study, study, study... all the while, neglecting life. Surely, all of these questions need to be asked at some point and they definitely will require thought and planning. But I've realized that I've created an unhealthy obsession with accomplishing what I need to accomplish and in the midst of all that, I've lost sight of what I live for.

I had a conversation with my physics professor the other day. She had mentioned that she wanted to go skiing with her husband over the spring break. When I saw her next, I asked her if she was able to go. And surely enough, no, she said, but maybe after the kids go off to college. Then I asked her if life slows down after college, to which she applied an immediate, "Absolutely not; it just gets busier."

At this present time in my life, I have never experienced more busyness than I am currently experiencing. I can't even begin to imagine what things would be like if I were even more busy. Is that even possible? Sure it is. I shouldn't be surprised to find that life gets more and more busy. I should probably be surprised if I find that life isn't getting more busy. With that in mind, something needs to change in my own life. I can't keep putting my life on "pause." I can't keep putting what's important to me in life on the back burner. I can't keep telling myself that I will dive more deeply into the important things, once I get these other things finished. Because surely, if I continue to live the way I'm living, I'll find myself (God-willing) many years later, having lived life in an unending pause. I'll find myself having constantly put all of the important and meaningful things aside, to accomplish and acquire all the practical and pragmatic things I "needed" to do in order to do the important and meaningful.

Basically, I'll find myself with a life that I never got to live.

The Heart of Life

Last night I got to see my very first heart transplant.

I think that I'm still feeling the rush and the high from the experience. It was exhilarating, to say the least, and I'm still having so much difficulty formulating into words what I was feeling as I was watching this group of men and women go in and literally take a heart out of a person's body.

Several hours later when they finally got the entire heart removed, one of the doctors invited me to come and "play with it." She picked the heart up and began explaining to me its various valves and compartments. She had me feel the thickness and the strength of the muscles. She showed me the grafted arteries from a previous CABG. And then she left me to examine it on my own. As I stood there, poking and prodding that heart, it all felt so surreal. It was so bizarre to think that the very organ which had kept this man alive and running for the past 58 years, was now weakened to the necessity of replacement and was there, in my hands, giving out its last few beats.

The experience really blew me away and I have since been thinking about that heart, about my heart, and about the heart of God. I can't seem to shake myself of it.

It's kind of funny that these past couple of months I've really felt God leading me to become a student of His heart and to trust in His promise of a new heart and then that he would afford me the opportunity to get to see a heart transplant live and in action. I can't help but wonder if it's God's way of trying to tell me something or of trying to encourage me or motivate me, but whatever His reasoning, it sure is heavily weighing itself upon me.

What is it to truly know the heart of God? To know that He is the creator and the sustainer and the pursuer of my own heart? What is it to trust in His promise of a new heart?

"And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh... You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God." -Ezekiel 36:26,28