Fruitfulness

Here's one of the prayers of Moses. We always read this prayer at funerals and burials. Also at the end when a brother or sister in Christ is near the end of the hard work of dying.

No man can establish the work of his own hands. Only God has that power. This is as true of work raising a family and pastoring a congregation as it is work on the railroad. (This is what your hands look like after a shift as car knocker at Chicago & North Western's Proviso Yards.)

Read and pray this prayer with your family and loved ones tonight.

Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

Surgical abortions (the gory kind) are declining as chemical abortions increase. According to the baby-killers themselves, chemical abortions (what they call "medical abortions") now have grown to twenty percent of all abortions.

But murderers lie to cover up their bloodshed, so when these people talk you have to listen carefully. They changed the medical definition of "conception" from fertilization to implantation fifty years ago, and since then they have removed a huge number of abortions from the count including all the little ones barred from attaching themselves to their mother's uterine wall by the Pill, IUDs, ellaOne, Minipill, NuvaRing, Yaz, Yasmin, the Patch, Depo-Provera, Plan B "morning after" pills, etc. So the number and percentage of chemical murders of tiny babies is growing much more rapidly than they admit, making the number of abortions much greater than they admit, also.

Mothers don't need to have a doctor commit their chemical abortions. Midwives can do it, although...

This just in: being a parent is hard. Very hard. The Washington Post recently published an article about a study from Germany which indicates that parenthood is downright awful. Here's how the article starts:

Life has its ups and downs, but parenthood is supposed to be among the most joyous. At least that's what the movies and Target ads tell us.

In reality, it turns out that having a child can have a pretty strong negative impact on a person's happiness, according to a new study published in the journal Demography. In fact, on average, the effect of a new baby on a person's life in the first year is devastatingly bad — worse than divorce, worse than unemployment and worse even than the death of a partner.

So we've known for a long time that we kill babies in this country to the tune of over 1,000,000 per year. And now we know Planned Parenthood sells baby parts to the highest bidder. It should surprise exactly no one for me to say we don't actually like our children...

So to all those who don't know the word 'jaded,' this just sent to one mother by one of her daughters who is now a mother of four herself. It was accompanied by this note: "It's very sweet and well-done, just short peeks into the lives of 3 mothers. I read the comments of women saying it helped them not to feel so conflicted and guilty about staying home with their kids. They made me want to write and say thank you. I'm so glad that you were at home with us, Mom. ...And I'm thankful that, because of the way you raised me, I have the ability to do my work without nagging questions or guilt about what else I should be doing. I love you!"

The following excerpt is from Chesterton's "The Emancipation of Domesticity" in his splendid, What's Wrong with the World. This is an essay I believe every father should read aloud to his daughters after they've had their third child. (My dear Mary Lee says the third is the most difficult because it's the first time husband and wife are outnumbered.)

Honestly, I have no desire to speak with the husband or father who can't understand and doesn't love this essay no matter how fast he can say sovereignty/providential/imputation three times in a row. True Christian faith proves itself by its fruit which, according to Scripture, always starts at home. And what greater fruit does any man give to God than his manly support of the motherhood of his wife and their flat-out commitment to everything needed to raise up godly seed?

Mothers are the greatest!

So now, this dose of ...