God-sized Dreamer?

If you're here from Holley's world, welcome. If not, you so, so, so need to know my friend Holley. She's ah.mazing. If you're new, let me start...

Hi, I'm Whitney. I've been told I over commit and under deliver. How's that for an introduction? Don't you just so want to be my friend?

I have plenty of flaws, but a lack of transparency isn't one of them. So, there you go. That's me. Big dreamer. Not so big doer. When I have been given this feedback, I've had to receive it honestly and with grace. It's true.

Now before you judge me for deflecting, I am seriously working on this weakness in my life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, I think I'm making strides. So don't go gettin' all mad at me, but I kind of think a lot of us dreamers fall into this category. Do you?

Dreamers are a funny bunch. We see the future ridiculously clearly. It's so real. It's so fun. I can camp out there for such a length of time that you'd start to wonder if I'm not a little delusional. In some ways, I guess I am. I can live like my dreams are real.

This symptom is even more exaggerated for the God-sized dreamer. I have a holy confidence that my all-powerful God is fully capable to make this dream a reality.

So I spend a lot of time savoring what will be.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what I do to get there.

I don't suffer from analysis paralysis; I suffer from analysis anemia. It's weak, and I'm tired. So I go take a nap.

I've tried to muster up the energy and fortitude to overcome this weakness. I just couldn't figure out how. That's another problem with dreamers. A lot of us see the big picture, but we're not sure how to draw it. I can see the intricacy of the image, but those same details can overwhelm me. It's part of the blessing and the curse of being a dreamer.

If you've ever felt stuck by the magnitude of where you want to go, and (say it out loud) where you think God wants to take you, my sweet friend Holley's book is for you! "You Were Made For A God-Sized Dream" is profoundly simplistic, universally personal and beautifully soul-nurturing.

Reading it felt like Holley was in my head AND my dreams. She knows the secret thoughts that I whisper only to myself. She knows the things that thrill my heart. She knows the things shame me. She knows the things that make me shrink back in fear. Better than all that, she knows the uber practical ways to get me over myself and moving forward.

I promise you, you'll feel the same way. She writes in a way that is insanely personal, but so profound I am certain I'm not the only one feeling this way. You'll love it! Truly!

My Mom's Living Legacy

Who has impacted your faith? Perhaps a friend, sister, your mother or grandmother, a mentor or pastor’s wife? Honor her with a $20 donation to Proverbs 31 Ministries today. We'll send her a beautiful Legacy card and list her name on the front page of our website in May! And through your donation in honor of her faith, you'll help us reach and strengthen the faith of millions of women around the world each day. Click here to find out more.

A shocking admission from right to choose proponents

This is a fantastic article from Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., regarding the Boy Scouts of America. It's a shocking assessment of the real issue in the "right-to-choose" agenda. I am shocked and disheartened. Moms, we must tell the heartbreaking story of these unborn victims.

I highly recommend reading Dr. Mohler regularly. It is critical that we stay informed and vocal!

So What if Abortion Ends a Life? Rare Candor from the Culture of Death

Friday, February 1, 2013

Is an unborn baby “a life worth sacrificing?” The question is horrifying, but the argument was all too real. In a recent article, Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon.com conceded what the pro-life movement has contended all along — that from the moment of conception the unborn child is undeniably a human life. And yet, Williams argues that this unborn human life must be terminated if a woman desires an abortion. The child is a life, but, in her grotesque view, “a life worth sacrificing.”

The abortion rights movement has always had a problem with language. The average American still hears the world “abortion” with some degree of moral revulsion. Activists did not need sophisticated marketing analysis to understand that much. Early on, the abortion rights movement shifted its public argument to the language of choice — a woman’s “right to choose.”

But to choose what? No legal revolution was necessary in order for a woman to have the right to carry her unborn child to birth. What was demanded was the right to choose to kill the unborn child. This is the moral reality that was clouded and camouflaged by the “pro-choice” language.

RELATED POSTS

• “Abortion is as American as Apple Pie” — The Culture of Death Finds a Voice
• The Real Face of Abortion–Choosing Death Rather Than Life
• The Recovery Of Life In A Culture Of Death (Audio)
• The Culture of Death is Losing Its Grip
• The Culture of Death Grows Desperate: War Declared on Crisis Pregnancy Centers

In recent weeks leaders of Planned Parenthood disclosed that they are moving away from the pro-choice language because it just isn’t working. Mary Elizabeth Williams agrees, saying that the change is “long overdue.” She argues that the pro-abortion movement has fallen prey to the “sneaky, dirty tricks” of the pro-life movement — a movement she says has controlled the life issue for too long.

Then, in chilling candor, Williams proceeds to affirm that every single unborn child is a human life. But, her argument is not pro-life. Far from it.

In her words:

“When we on the pro-choice side get cagey around the life question, it makes us illogically contradictory. I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of “scraping out a bunch of cells” and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of “the baby” and “this kid.” I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages. Why can’t we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different, but that it’s pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn’t the same? Fetuses aren’t selective like that. They don’t qualify as human life only if they’re intended to be born.”

Williams skewers the “pro-choice” evasion. The fetus is a human life, she asserts — every fetus, wanted or unwanted by its mother, planned or unplanned as a pregnancy. She even affirms that life begins at conception. But, she quickly argues, the fact that the unborn child is a human life doesn’t mean that it should not be aborted.

She explains:

“Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel-loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-precious-baby storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.”

So the mother and the child are both fully human, fully alive, and fully recognized as human life. But the mother can abort that human life within her for any reason or for no stated reason at all. Williams argues that the mother is an autonomous agent, whereas the unborn child is not.

In premeditated candor Mary Elizabeth Williams declares that the unborn child is a human life, but not a human life worthy of respect or protection. As Williams insists, “I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time — even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life.”

She candidly calls the unborn child a human life, and then ends her argument with this —  ”a life worth sacrificing.”

The Culture of Death is rarely so candid, but this is the undisguised logic behind the case for abortion rights. The unborn human baby is just “a life worth sacrificing.”

Read it and weep.

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We're having a green Christmas...

If you are joining me from Glynnis' sweet and simple Christmas, welcome. I'm so glad you dropped by.  We are hunkered down at home with a couple of sick kids. We are choosing to see it as a blessing. Our calendar just became unusually clear for this time of year. (I mean no one wants to hang out when your kids are a little green, and not in the festive, Christmas-y kind of way!)

So whatever you are doing today, I pray it is filled with sweet, simple Christmas blessings. If it feels frantic rather than festive, see my post from earlier this week. Sometimes the chaos reminds us of that first Christmas. If that's true then, the Capps household is enjoying a VERY authentic Christmas this year.

Merry hugs to you all!

Cherishing the Chaos of Christmas

Less than comfortable accommodations. Noisy roommates with not so great hygiene. A delivery that didn't arrive as expected. Uninvited guests. Maybe God purposed the chaos of the first Christmas knowing that Christmas ever after would be just as chaotic. If you are joining me from Karen Ehman's "12 Days of Christmas Giveaway," welcome! If not, hop over there for a chance to win some incredible gifts for Christmas. But come right back. You'll want to see the rest of the pictures from our family's Christmas tradition.

As I told Karen, I'm learning to cherish the chaos of Christmas. Each year I resolve to avoid it, and yet chaos seems as much a part of Christmas as scattered glitter, strewn pine needles and Fort Knox toy packaging. Based on Mary's experience, birthed by God Himself, should I wonder at the chaos of my own little corner of Christmas? In our noisy Bethlehem, I often feel like a chorus of some sort shouts overhead. From time to time the smell of poop wafts through the air. Weird and unexpected gifts find their way to my home.  And to be honest sometimes I feel like I'm living with wild animals.

And yet it's all still magical and new and blessed. At least that's how I choose to see it.

I kind of bet Mary made a similar choice. When I get to heaven, I want to have a girl's night out with that chick. Of all the women in Scripture, Mary is the queen of cherishing the chaotic and unexpected. I mean, an angel appears to her in the middle of the night and tells her she's prego. (And I thought peeing on a stick was eventful.) Her response according to Luke 1 is, "how will this be?" Come on girlfriends would those have been the first words out of your mouth? Really?  Then he goes on to tell her that God is going to be her baby-Daddy. Can you imagine? I think I would have asked him if he could stop by my Daddy's bedroom before he leaves and share this news with him.

I can't wait to get Mary's perspective on that night and the nights that followed. She worships. She treasures. She ponders. She welcomes. She chooses. I can learn a thing from this first mother of Christmas. So I'm trying to make the wise choice-the choice to cherish.

In comparison to all Mary chose to overlook, my Bethlehem isn't so chaotic.

Now, if you'd like to see pics from our Christmas dinner out with the boys: