Tag: opinions

An Apology

This post has been a long time coming. Not knowing how to address this topic has kept me silent quite a bit. 

I feel like I need to apologize for not entering the political online war. You know, the place where I tell you how I feel about the current political situation and try to offer wisdom and insight into the current tragedy that is playing out on our screens and perhaps chastise those who seem to be behaving badly or holding ungodly viewpoints on the issue. 

Issues I have avoided talking about: 

The war in Palestine

Ukraine

Government shutdowns

Epstein Files

Greenland

Venezuela

ICE

Etc…

I have opinions. I have strongly held views. Of course I think my views are godly and correct. And everyone else is wrong or at best, seriously misguided. 

I have written a lot of posts in my head on these issues. Scathing posts. Angry posts. Pleading posts. But I haven’t written them down. And that feels cowardly. 

I’m not using my platform to stand up for the downtrodden, the mistreated, the abused. I’m not defending the weak and the poor with my online posts. I’m one of the silent ones. One of those people who watched the Jews be taken to the camps and said nothing. I feel that guilt sitting on me. Because really my apology is for not doing anything to bring about change in the world. 

I pray about it. Lord, show me what to write. Show me how I can stand up for the persecuted. What can I do to stop these horrible things that are happening around me? 

I care. But my caring doesn’t seem to be backed up by any hands-on involvement. I send money. But I don’t send myself. 

What do I want? I want Christians to stop chasing after power. I want Love to be the law of the land. I want people to speak gently and compassionately about their fellow contrymen. I want children to not be bombed and starved to death. I want immigrants to be welcomed with open arms and easy paths to citizenship. I want accountability for those who govern us. I want the hungry to be fed. 

I don’t know how to make any of that happen. I don’t want to fight and argue on online platforms that feel to me like an imaginary place where people go to be rude and unpleasant to each other. I don’t want to join protests where I agree with only one issue that is being protested and none of the others. I have attempted to contact my representatives but feel very cynical about their willingness to listen to anything that doesn’t line up with their political platform. 

I have a deep sense of apathy when it comes to politics, local and otherwise. When I see that the two choices that I’m offered are both evil, just wrapping their greed in different colored cloths, I lose my hope that my vote really amounts to anything. I can vote in someone who wants to throw out all morality and safeguarding, or I can vote in someone who wants to persecute the poor and needy in the name of Jesus. I feel tainted voting for either party. 

I don’t think I’m afraid to make my opinions and views known. I am just very hesitant to start wars that are ineffectual and cause division without actually effecting any change. And what I want is change. Not to prove myself right to everyone else. Not to show that I am morally superior. At the very least, I want the poor to be fed and housed. I want people who don’t have white skin to feel safe and secure in my country. I want children to be safe from bombs and be able to have normal childhoods. 

I don’t know what actions to take to help towards that. 

My prayer is that God would show me something concrete I can do, and that I would have the moral courage to actually do it, even if it’s uncomfortable. 

In the meantime, I will continue to take care of my family, try to love anyone who enters my circle of influence and pray. It’s not enough. I just don’t know what else to do yet, and I’m sorry for that. 

I Don’t Have Any Answers

My mind has been reeling the past two days, watching the news, watching what everyone has to say about the news. And honestly, I don’t feel like talking about it. The press has covered it Ad Nauseum, almost everyone I know has voiced an opinion. (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing!) As I thought about writing my blog today, I thought, well, I should address what is happening in the country. Give my opinion. And I have finally realized that I really don’t want to do that. 

First, I feel like my opinion is half-baked at best. I am bewildered, torn, and kind of feel like I’m in the middle of a blizzard of information and ideas. I don’t know anything and I don’t have any good thoughts to share at the moment. 

Second, I really don’t feel like I have a finger on “What does the Bible say concerning these matters?” I am still searching and praying. I don’t know. 

So, let’s talk about how we’re doing with just life in general right now. 

Do you realize that we just finished a month and half of celebrating: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years? And did you know that it’s a common phenomenom that when you have an emotional high, it’s followed by an emotional low? I for one am sitting nice and firm in that low. My kids went back to school this week and I started homeschooling again. The kindergartner was not happy to start homeschooling again. It’s taken me to Thursday to get him through a normal school day in a normal amount of time. And then this afternoon I got the news that “due to the possibility of inclement weather” all the kids will be home for virtual school tomorrow. 

Wonderful.

Tomorrow I also have to take my 7th grader to get a covid test because he is having surgery on Monday morning. Something that just got scheduled this week. (I’ve never had this doctor’s office move so fast in getting a surgery lined up.) It’s an old complaint. Fluid in his ear causing hearing loss. He already had six sets of PE tubes when he was little. We’ve had a good long stretch of no problems, but now it seems it’s back. 

Our family has managed to stay healthy through all this Covid junk, but it’s concerning to me to hear, every day it seems, of more people I know who are sick with it. My daughter is going to bed right now and told me that she is cold, even though she is wearing really warm pajamas, socks, gloves, hat and is under a blanket. All I can think is that she’s getting the chills that come before a fever. And I just feel tense, wondering if the three days back at school was enough for her to pick up something that will now spread through the whole family. Who knows. We’ll see. And, as I think about it, if this daughter ends up getting sick, it will probably affect the other child’s surgery. Uggh. 

Emotionally I’ve been struggling with feeling like a failure. The old voices are speaking loudly in my head. 

So, here I am, just hanging on, and then the news explodes and everyone’s social media explodes and I get all caught up in it. And I realize. I can’t do this. I can’t let the drama of this dysfunctional country keep me yo-yo-ing up and down. I’m already having a hard time without focusing on what’s happening in Washington D.C. 

Someone suggested on their Facebook that now was a good time to get off the social media and focus on Jesus and His Kingdom. And I have to agree. I need wisdom, discernment, love, patience, power. I’m not going to get any of that by focusing on the world. I will get that by turning my focus back on God. Repeatedly. Over and Over again. Habitually. 

I’m not saying that I’m going to just ignore everything that is happening in the world. I live in the world, my personal life is affected by what is going on out there. But, if I take a look at how much time I am devoting to every activity in my day, social media and the news should not be taking up the majority of my time. (And I can hear my husband in the background saying, AMEN!) 

So, that’s where I’m at. Post-holiday blues, regular stresses of taking care of lots of kids, trying to resolve to spend less time on the internet, more time in real life, more focus on the Real King. 

I’ll talk to you all later.