What's in our dash?
This question was asked by a woman who gave a eulogy for my great-uncle (or something like that) John Ging at his funeral this past spring. At first I thought, "What the heck? You're asking me??" Then she explained it.
On everyone's gravemarker is a dash. Born this date - died this date. So much time is in that "-", from birth until death, but yet it's just a small line on the stone.
She (her name has since left me) went on to explain how we should live life to the fullest and fill our dash with great memories, lots of good stuff to say about that.
I went home and thought, maybe it's not so much about putting so much into that little dash on stone, but rather, putting a little dash on stone into so much. I don't know if it makes sense to anyone but me, this reasoning, but Christ is like our dash. He's there, and not many would notice, but He's always been there, from birth to death, in any and every thing we have done in our life. All of our accomplishments, failures, memories, birthdays, anniversaries, years, moments, it's all in that short mark. God was with us through every moment encompassed in that dash. And yet, we believe our dashes really matter. We think to ourselves, "Live each day as if it is my last! I need to accomplish so much so I'll be thought of as a great person when I'm gone. There's so much left for me to do in my short life!" But... it's just a dash. One little mark. An inch or so carved in stone by someone who is paid to do so. This person, carving the tombstone, could probably care less what happened in all the dashes he makes every day. Truth is, yes, our dashes matter, but they don't really. Think about it. All we do in life is summed up in a small mark. WHY? Because nothing compares to what happens after our death. That's why. It can't be placed on a tombstone because it hasn't happened yet! Eternal Life in Heaven cannot be described or contained in a mark on stone. So really, the dash on our gravestone is just a dash, a mark, a line of our full lives, representing just what we've done on Earth. The dash on a grave is a couple inches, but the dash is the sky expands horizon to horizon. So maybe, we shouldn't think so much "Live each day as if it's your last!" but rather, "Yes, this could be my last, but you know what? I'm grateful to have this long of a life, and I look forward to the everlasting Life with my God."
Thursday, July 1, 2010
12/10/2008
Found this one too. It's crazy to think 2 years have gone by so fast... Seems like I wrote this yesterday.
I guess some things are just meant to happen to make us appreciate others and their capacity of forgiveness. Maybe God has provided me with this trait not to hinder but to give me the challenge I need so I can build strength to overcome it. He would not create hurdles too high without giving us a leg up on them. Maybe this person is here on Earth to help me get over it. Maybe it's not so much a 'hurdle' to get over and leave behind, but like a mode that I just need to learn to live with. Maybe this person was put here to help me accept myself and be able to show my real self. I don't know.
I guess some things are just meant to happen to make us appreciate others and their capacity of forgiveness. Maybe God has provided me with this trait not to hinder but to give me the challenge I need so I can build strength to overcome it. He would not create hurdles too high without giving us a leg up on them. Maybe this person is here on Earth to help me get over it. Maybe it's not so much a 'hurdle' to get over and leave behind, but like a mode that I just need to learn to live with. Maybe this person was put here to help me accept myself and be able to show my real self. I don't know.
Written 1/04/09
I've been looking through old notes and blogs, and figured I'd share this.
8. Abortion sucks, really. That wasn't meant to be dark and sadistic pun, but now tht I read it, and considering how tired I am, it might be taken wrongly. Okay, so I got an email from one of these millions of Catholic newsletters I am a subscriber to, and it had a link to some sale merchandise on a Pro-Life website. What girl doesn't love a sale? So I clicked on the link, browsed the (pretty cool, actually) clothing, then clicked on some more links, then some more links, and suddenly I found myself on a page written by former pro-choicers that are now pro-life. They had a (lengthy) collection of quotes from abortion doctors. As I read them, some being a line or two and others a long paragraph, I started to get a little tear in my eye. How in the world would someone be okay with this? I knew what abortion was before, and a little about the procedure, but this website (abortionfacts.com) exploited the dirtiness behind it. I will post some of the most chilling quotes I read, along with the link. Beware, though, some of the content of this website is really explicit and made me feel sick to my stomach and very upset. There are some graphic pictures, forewarning you all.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/providers/quotes.asp
"In my facilities, I always gave option counseling. Of course you make the abortion the most appealing. I told them about adoption and about foster care and about [when there was welfare] assistance. The typical way it would go is, "Well, you know you can place your baby out for adoption." But then, in the second breath you would say, "That's an option available to you, but you also have to realize that there's going to be a baby of yours out here somewhere in the world you will never see again. At least with abortion you know what's happening. You can go on with your life...The longer I was in it, the less I cared, so I really didn't really care what my conscience said. My conscience was totally numb anyway. But what it did do was public relations-wise. You were able, when a reporter or TV crew came, to pull out a packet of information for the patients to read and they received it. So what can anybody say? Publicly it looked good -- in reality it was another tool that was used to force a woman into abortion. It's typical -- I would give them an option and then shoot it down. The only option you didn't shoot down, obviously, was abortion."
--Former clinic owner Eric Harrah quoted by Dr. Jack Willke and Brad Mattes
"Sometimes we lied. A girl might ask what her baby was like at a certain point in the pregnancy: Was it a baby yet? Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed, he has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes, feels pain. But we would say 'It's not a baby yet. It's just tissue, like a clot.'"
--Kathy Sparks told in "The Conversion of Kathy Sparks" by Gloria Williamson, Christian Herald Jan 1986 p 28
(See what I bold-faced? The baby FEELS PAIN by 12 weeks. This doctor admits that it is an actual living human being, but also admits lying to the patient and calling it 'tissue' so as to not drive away business. Disgusting.)
quoted Magda Denes, "[the doctor] pulls out something, which he slaps on the instrument table. "there," he says, "A leg." . . . I turn to Mr. Smith. . . He points to the instrument table, where there is a perfectly formed, slightly bent leg, about three inches long. . . "There, I've got the head out now." ...There lies a head. It is the smallest human head I have ever seen, but it is unmistakably part of a person."
"You would just look in the buckets and see arms and legs. I have horrible dreams about that now. It was something you would see in a scary movie."
--Former clinic worker Kirsten Breedlove
It's all just awful. There are some mind-blowing statistics on this website, also. Like how abortionists like to say that it's mostly women killing their children solely because the children have defects (This only accounts for 20% of abortions) and it's safer to have an abortion than to birth a child (Really, last time I thought about having my uterus suctioned out, my cervix paralyzed or scissors and scapels scraping placenta and baby from my uterine lining, it sounded pretty safe. I can look past the whole possibility that a limb is left inside, causing infection thing and the severe and often fatal bleeding, sure, just for sure don't give me an Epidural and deliver a child the right way, and of course, there aren't ANY families wishing to adopt a newborn, no sir.) Basically, it kind of hit me hard tonight. I'm still not allowed to go to Right-to-Life march this year, but maybe it's for the better that I stay home and learn/research more about what I thought I knew but had no clue. One in six women have committed murder on an innocent child. It's gruesome, sad, and true.
Psalm 139:13-16. 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.
Genesis 9:6 - Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.
8. Abortion sucks, really. That wasn't meant to be dark and sadistic pun, but now tht I read it, and considering how tired I am, it might be taken wrongly. Okay, so I got an email from one of these millions of Catholic newsletters I am a subscriber to, and it had a link to some sale merchandise on a Pro-Life website. What girl doesn't love a sale? So I clicked on the link, browsed the (pretty cool, actually) clothing, then clicked on some more links, then some more links, and suddenly I found myself on a page written by former pro-choicers that are now pro-life. They had a (lengthy) collection of quotes from abortion doctors. As I read them, some being a line or two and others a long paragraph, I started to get a little tear in my eye. How in the world would someone be okay with this? I knew what abortion was before, and a little about the procedure, but this website (abortionfacts.com) exploited the dirtiness behind it. I will post some of the most chilling quotes I read, along with the link. Beware, though, some of the content of this website is really explicit and made me feel sick to my stomach and very upset. There are some graphic pictures, forewarning you all.
http://www.abortionfacts.com/providers/quotes.asp
"In my facilities, I always gave option counseling. Of course you make the abortion the most appealing. I told them about adoption and about foster care and about [when there was welfare] assistance. The typical way it would go is, "Well, you know you can place your baby out for adoption." But then, in the second breath you would say, "That's an option available to you, but you also have to realize that there's going to be a baby of yours out here somewhere in the world you will never see again. At least with abortion you know what's happening. You can go on with your life...The longer I was in it, the less I cared, so I really didn't really care what my conscience said. My conscience was totally numb anyway. But what it did do was public relations-wise. You were able, when a reporter or TV crew came, to pull out a packet of information for the patients to read and they received it. So what can anybody say? Publicly it looked good -- in reality it was another tool that was used to force a woman into abortion. It's typical -- I would give them an option and then shoot it down. The only option you didn't shoot down, obviously, was abortion."
--Former clinic owner Eric Harrah quoted by Dr. Jack Willke and Brad Mattes
"Sometimes we lied. A girl might ask what her baby was like at a certain point in the pregnancy: Was it a baby yet? Even as early as 12 weeks a baby is totally formed, he has fingerprints, turns his head, fans his toes, feels pain. But we would say 'It's not a baby yet. It's just tissue, like a clot.'"
--Kathy Sparks told in "The Conversion of Kathy Sparks" by Gloria Williamson, Christian Herald Jan 1986 p 28
(See what I bold-faced? The baby FEELS PAIN by 12 weeks. This doctor admits that it is an actual living human being, but also admits lying to the patient and calling it 'tissue' so as to not drive away business. Disgusting.)
quoted Magda Denes, "[the doctor] pulls out something, which he slaps on the instrument table. "there," he says, "A leg." . . . I turn to Mr. Smith. . . He points to the instrument table, where there is a perfectly formed, slightly bent leg, about three inches long. . . "There, I've got the head out now." ...There lies a head. It is the smallest human head I have ever seen, but it is unmistakably part of a person."
"You would just look in the buckets and see arms and legs. I have horrible dreams about that now. It was something you would see in a scary movie."
--Former clinic worker Kirsten Breedlove
It's all just awful. There are some mind-blowing statistics on this website, also. Like how abortionists like to say that it's mostly women killing their children solely because the children have defects (This only accounts for 20% of abortions) and it's safer to have an abortion than to birth a child (Really, last time I thought about having my uterus suctioned out, my cervix paralyzed or scissors and scapels scraping placenta and baby from my uterine lining, it sounded pretty safe. I can look past the whole possibility that a limb is left inside, causing infection thing and the severe and often fatal bleeding, sure, just for sure don't give me an Epidural and deliver a child the right way, and of course, there aren't ANY families wishing to adopt a newborn, no sir.) Basically, it kind of hit me hard tonight. I'm still not allowed to go to Right-to-Life march this year, but maybe it's for the better that I stay home and learn/research more about what I thought I knew but had no clue. One in six women have committed murder on an innocent child. It's gruesome, sad, and true.
Psalm 139:13-16. 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.
Genesis 9:6 - Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.
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