"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." ~ Galatians 6:9


I have been struggling lately with knowing what to write on my blog. This is not because there is nothing going on to blog about, because there is. It is also not because I haven't taken pictures, because I have (long time readers, you know how I love to post pics!). We have been exceptionally busy with soccer season (3 playing this fall) and all of "life", but I have been going through the motions almost automatically while my heart and mind have been far, far away.

I have not been entirely sure what I was feeling, so therefore not able to describe it to others. But I finally realized where my heart and mind have been.

They have been grieving for my country.

Every day, literally, I receive emails urging me to call my Congressmen or the White House switchboard about some freedom that is being threatened by proposed legislation. Some of them I have called on. All of them I have prayed for. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to stay abreast of all the changes that are in the wind right now for our country. And all of them, without exception, are changes that will limit our freedom of speech, our freedom of choice, and even our freedom to vote for change. It is overwhelming. And it is sad.

In our homeschool we study history on a 4 year cycle with Tapestry of Grace, each time through learning at an ever deeper level. Last year we studied Year 3 - the 1800's, this year we are working through Year 4 - the 1900's. Our studies include many countries and world events, but there is a thread of U.S. history that runs throughout years 2, 3 and 4. It has been so fascinating to learn about people and events that merged together to shape the country we live in. How the Constitution was written, how the founding fathers wrestled with each article in it. How people in different regions lived, what daily life was like, the tension between states rights and a strong federal government, how technology changed our culture. How we emerged as a world power and how our relationships with other nations necessarily took on more significance. All of these things are fresh in my mind. I have gained a tremendous appreciation for how our nation was actually formed and what the founders intended when they labored through its birth. I have grown to love and be grateful for my country in deeper, more purposeful ways than ever before.

So it has been very, very sad for me to realize that while I am busy learning to cook with beans and homeschooling my children and chauffeuring them to soccer, the freedoms our founding fathers worked so hard to give us, and that countless men and women have given their lives to preserve, are quietly and systematically being stripped away.

It is not my intent in this post to bash President Obama or the Democrats as a group. I know and admire several Democrats, and they are not the enemy. Nor is it my intent to question the motives of those proposing "bad" legislation. I do, in personal moments, sometimes question this, but in the public forum of this blog that is not my intent. I am still, possibly naiively, willing to assume that they love our country too, just that their views on the best course of action are different than mine.

It is my intention to share from my heart how our current course saddens me and causes me to grieve that what was gained at such a high cost can be endangered so easily. It is also my intent in this post to encourage those of you who may also be concerned to do your own research, know the facts, and then act on the information if you feel led to do so.

Please consider the following:

The so called "hate crimes" verbage which the Senate attached to the defense authorization bill and which is probably being voted on today, would give courts an open door to prosecute preachers who publicly read God's own words about homosexuality from the Bible. This bill would also make pedophiles a protected class under federal law. But because it is attached to the defense authorization bill, which funds our military, those congressmen voting against it would be vilified for not supporting our troops.

The healthcare reform bill(s) being considered are just bad bills. If you read the House version (HR3200 - I have read parts - it's over 1,000 pages long) I think you will agree that it is just plain bad and just plain EXPENSIVE! I don't understand how any politician from any party could vote for it in its present form. Here are just a few of its problems (read more here):

It would mandate that a political appointee would decide which benefits (treatments/practitioners/drugs) were or were not essential for you as a patient (section 122).

It would set up a Healthcare Insurance Exchange (commonly referred to now as simply "the exchange") to establish federal control over the definition, amount, and type of insurance options available and to eliminate a free and thriving market in health insurance (section 201).

It would coerce physicians into participating (section 223), and also coerce employers and employees to participate or be taxed (sections 312-313).

It would control the amount that physicians can be paid for their services (sections 1121-1122) and would use private medical records for surveys and research without patient or physician consent (section 1401).

Private insurers would be taxed in order to fund a new "Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research", which tax would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums (sections 4375-4377).

And then there's the U.N. Climate Treaty which will be discussed in Copenhagen this December. According to this article today in the New York Times, it appears doubtful that the United States will be ready to sign a Climate Treaty this year (which is VERY good news!) but the talks will continue and its time will come. If the U.S. signs such a treaty and it is ratified, by our own law it supercedes the authority of our constitution. The President would essentially be ceding U.S. Sovereignty in order to "protect the planet". It would not be able to be undone. There would be no do-overs. How could anyone willingly sign away the rights that so many fought and debated and wrote and labored to give us?

Because U.N. treaties trump our constitution, the signing of any U.N. treaty of course bodes ill for the United States. This means that even though the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child may have been intended as a tool to protect and provide for children around the world affected by poverty and abuse every day, it is also something to fight and pray against. Can you imagine being sued by your underage child because you did something perceived as "against their best interest?" Because its language can be interpreted too broadly, and because it would supercede all federal and state laws regarding children that are currently on the books, it is a bad law. Read more about it here.

All information listed above is true and accurate and current to the best of my ability, but I am not a political or law expert, and I don't even usually write controversial posts. So please research and read and find out more for yourselves.

Freedom is precious. It is worth fighting for. I am sad and weary, but I am not ignorant and I am not beaten. It is worth every minute spent in prayer, and every phone call made to a congressman, and every vote for a person who pledges to govern according to the constitution, to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy for our children and grand-children. None of my readers are founding fathers, and probaby very few have been in the armed forces. But we are currently in a battle every bit as real as the ones fought in debate and in arms by those who came before us. Like them, let it be said of us, we did not give up. We did not back down. We did not "grow weary of doing good".