Just a Thought

I bet the LCMS changed the color of their cross because they wanted to match MY blog. I'm touched, guys!

A Promise Kept

Back in college, my friend Dave was one of the closest things we had to a hippy at our school, besides the jeans, t-shirts and, Goodwill vests, and sandals, he brought his guitar on campus all the time. He was going to teach me how to play.

So I asked my dad for a guitar. And my dad, who knew pawn shops were cool WAY before the History Channel, went and found me a 12 string Yamaha acoustic electric, complete with a plaquard underneath the hole that said "Praise the Lord." I almost died (after all, I'm a liturgical Lutheran)....but it was a nice guitar. I did say a prayer for the poor praise band guy who apparently had to hock his guitar. But the guitar came with a promise. I'd give it back if I didn't learn how to play it.

Right at that time, though, Dave got busy with a new girlfriend, and I took 24 credits trying to graduate before my wedding, and that got set aside. My dad never actually mentioned a deadline, so I still have the guitar. And today both Maggie and I are going to go have our first lesson.

This Past Winter

The temperature outside is a wonderful 60 degrees. Birds are singing outside my window. We've even had a couple of thunderstorms. Spring is here. There might be a little bit more snow here or there before things settle in, but it is SO nice.

Winters are usually a hard challenge for me. Cold descends and depression hits. This winter wasn't as bad. I'm not sure what made it easier. I'm sure the milder weather didn't hurt, because cold spells were interspersed between periods of weather in the 40's, which felt like 70, comparatively. The air was invigorating.

One other thing that I did as well, I supplemented with amino acid precursors. After studying how drugs work in the brain, I also ended up reading a book called The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, MA. The author stated that what antidepressants do (and other mood altering drugs), is that either they force the neurons to make a neurotransmitter that they may not really have the building blocks for and therefore strain the system, or prevent the reabsorption or "reuptake" of certain neurotransmitters. Having these present helps the brain to function, and helps to reglate mood.

Neurotransmitters are made from amino acids. According to Ross, the difference between treating inattention, depression, non-incident related anger, anxiety, and other problems is that the brain doesn't have enough of the amino acids to build off of. Antidepressants, caffeine, antianxiety drugs sometimes stop working because they continue to deplete the resources that are never quite built up.

So I decided to try her recommendations to see if they made a difference. The nice thing is, amino acid precursors are relatively easy to find, and not expensive. They often have "L-" in front of their names, because that indicates that they are a precursor. If you take an amino acid, it will not cross the blood-brain barrier, but the body can take the precursor- the building blocks of an amino acid, and use them to make them. The other nice thing is, according to Ross, is that they build up the body's supply. When you are resupplied, you don't need to take them anymore.

One of the ones I tried was L-Tyrosine. It is supposed to make you more alert, but generally not jittery. She has steps for determining the proper dose, so if you ever look into this more, please read her book.

This was recommended for lethargy, which is a big part of SAD. There was a side effect that I hadn't planned on. It made me jittery when I drank caffeine. I wasn't jittery normally, and caffeine normally doesn't make me jittery. I can drink it right before I sleep. It actually relaxes me. I didn't like that. Within a few days of starting the L-Tyrosine, I had NO DESIRE for caffeine. It wasn't that I was making a huge effort to get off of it. I just didn't want it. I did go through the headache and flu-like symptoms when I stopped, but got past that, and it was gone.

I stopped taking L-Tyrosine a couple of months ago; by the New Year. I just kind of stopped, which is what she said might happen if you had enough. I don't really crave caffeine at all now. I have an iced tea now and again, but it doesn't taste as good because the craving isn't making it taste as good.

My moods have been much more stable this Winter. I tend toward anger when I'm depressed. But mood-wise, it has been a very calm Winter as well. No rages, no sullenness. A few bouts of depression for a day here or there, but nothing that was really hard. I don't know for sure, but I think the caffeine was probably responsible for the mood swings as well. I know that it is responsible for a good portion of my touch sensitivity, because it comes back when I have one.

It's been nice to enjoy my kids and my husband this past Winter. I'm still REALLY glad that Spring is here.

Promises, Promises

Thanks to Amazon Kindle's tons of free books that are available, I've been reading Martin Luther's Commentary on Genesis, which has been fairly fascinating.

In the story of Cain and Abel, Luther addressed a question that I have had for a long time. "If Cain was sentenced to roam, then why is it that he founded the first city?"

Luther compared Adam's being cast out of the Garden to when Cain was cast out. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, they had the promise of the Messiah and the promise of God's protection. Cain was not given that. He was not given a direction to go. He could go east, west, north, south. He could work hard to prosper, and have no promise that it would benefit him. He was cast away from his family, never to see them again, and no promise about his progeny and what would become of them.

So while Cain founded the first city, there was no promise that it would prosper and continue to prosper. There was no promise that his children would survive, and in fact, every descendant he had was destroyed in The Flood. Cain did not have God's blessing on what would come.

There were two things that God promised, though. If someone killed Cain, he would be severely punished, and that Cain would have a wife. Luther states that this was done for two reasons. It was an act of mercy that gave time for Cain to repent. It was also an act of "uncovenanted mercy" for the sake of the elect, so that those who were his descendents who were elect could be saved. Cain was meant to have children who would come to faith. After all, Seth's descendants would come into contact and even marry some of the descendants of Cain's, and hear the Word of God proclaimed.

There are two kinds of promises, Luther explains. The first, legal promises, depend on our own works. When God tells the Children of Israel that they will prosper as long as they keep His commandments, that is a legal promise. This also explains why God seems so "temperamental" and can change His mind when prophets beg God to stay his judgement and not destroy the people whenever He threatens to. God has every right to destroy the Israelites when they depart from His will at any time He wants, but He also can hold back and wait to see if they continue to rebel against His will.

The question "If thou doest well, shall not thy countenance be lifted up?" in Genesis 4:7, that is said to Cain is also of this type. And Luther points out that moral nations do tend to prosper and have better order than immoral nations. As Lutherans, we don't like to say "God sent this hurricane because of our wickedness" and in a sinful world, that is correct, we really cant judge whether or not an individual act is a punishment for wickedness. But on the whole, a nation that behaves well, prospers. Empires that fall into wickedness tend to decline.

But there is another type of promise, the promise of grace. These have no threats of what will happen if our end is not kept. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman," "I will write the law in their inward parts, in their heart will I write it: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." are examples of promises of grace. Because He made these promises that were in no way dependent upon our works, He will keep them under any and all circumstances.

Adam had promises of grace. Cain also should've had that promise, a life that was guided by God that would also lead to the eventual birth of the Savior of mankind. But Cain killed his brother and refused to repent, refused to come to God for mercy. So Cain's direction would not be guided by God or blessed by God. That is what made Cain a vagabond and a wanderer.

The Rights of Our Daughters

President Obama has stated that today, the 39th Anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion across the United States is part of the work to “continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Here's the innate problem, where we as a culture have messed up completely: Somewhere along the line, we've decided that the key to happiness has become what we do for a living, and that the dream of dreams is to have the job we want. One of the first questions we ask kids as we encounter them, the question we ask to get to know them is "what do you want to be when you grow up?" And we don't mean a husband or a wife, a mother or a father. Those are kind of taken for granted. We'll probably all do that, and because of birth control, we'll do that when it is most convenient for us. And if our husband or wife gets in the way of the dream for a career, or they want more time and consideration than our career will afford them, then we can divorce them. If our kids need someone to look out for them, we have daycare.

We don't raise our sons to view the role of husband to be the most important and desired. We don't raise our daughters to prize the role of wife and to put it first.

As a culture, marriage and parenthood are accessories to a good life, and that good life comes from the job. Personal meaning and self-worth come from the job. And the weird thing is, the receptionist who makes $9.00 an hour thinks this as much as the CEO who makes a million a year. And as Pastor Christopher Gillespie asks so eloquently today, " Is motherhood a rock-bottom job for those who can’t do more, or those who are satisfied with drudgery? "

Raising children is rough, and it certainly can get in the way of reaching our personal dreams of wealth, career, and freedom. But in the end, if the primary value is that our true purpose is found within our family, and that being a husband or a wife is where our prime focus is, and when men have the same concept of responsibility to family and self-sacrifice, then their dreams are second to providing for the family as well.

When marriage is out of the picture in relationship to children, it does all fall on the woman. And when sex, rather than marriage is valued, then it all falls down and it becomes okay to kill another human being, worse yet, one's own children, in order to reach your own personal dream.

Romney's Constitution Question

I'm not a Mitt Romney apologist, but he's come under fire for this statement here....




But the criticism is entirely unfair. He was being trapped.

In 2003, Rick Santorum came under criticism because he disagreed with the 1965 Supreme Court decision of Griswald vs. Connecticut. This case has been used to argue that homosexuality, abortion, polygamy, etc. are constitutional, because the Court determined that there is an extended right to privacy in the Constitution. However, originally, the case was about the state of Connecticut's right to ban the sale of contraceptives. Back in 1965, a lot of states banned this. As Romney stated, there isn't a state out there now that even wants to ban the sale of contraceptives. With socialized medicine and welfare, it is a lot cheaper to prevent the birth of a child than to provide medical care and food for that child.

However, Romney is in a dubious place. As a former Mormon bishop, if he says no, states do not have this right, he risks ticking off the Mormon church, whose theology encourages large families. If he says yes, in principle, he alienates almost everyone else who believes that sexuality without procreation is a human right.

Romney made a dodge of the issue, which really is a complete non-issue. A rather clumsy dodge, but a dodge all the same. He wasn't saying that he didn't know the Constitution, but that he was passing it off on someone else, since it was clearly a stupid question. But I believe (and I am not sure) that Romney's health care program provided for birth control.

However, what this makes clear is that the media is gearing up on a full-court press on Santorum, and they are attempting to determine what others are going to say on this matter.