In Sickness and In Health

Well once again it's been quite a while. Life goes so fast sometimes and it's hard to keep up...

This week has been no different in that there's always so much to do, but a little different in that we've had an unexpected but pretty much mandatory slow-down. Our house was hit by the flu. Yup - my doctor hubby was rendered pretty much incapacitated for the better part of this week.

Monday he was tired and sneezing. Tuesday he didn't feel well but went to work anyways (it's hard for the clinic staff to reschedule a whole day's patients at the last minute, and call schedule changes, and blah blah blah...). By early Tuesday afternoon his nurse let him sleep for an hour with his head on his desk before he finished out his afternoon. Tuesday evening when he got home from work he fell asleep in the chair and I had to wake him to get ready for bed hours later. By Wed AM his temp was 104.5, and then he started regularly pumping Tylenol. That evening he started Tamiflu. He missed work Thursday and today as well, though he is now slowly on the mend.

I also have had a little of it - I have been achy and pretty tired and have had a fever on and off, but haven't needed meds and I've bounced back lots quicker. At least one of us was able to be fairly normal because Jaxx hasn't been very forgiving...

I have learned in the last week a little about our marriage which was kind of surprising to me. We normally spend almost all of our time together (when he's not at work, obviously) and with him sleeping all the time I found myself kinda lonely, and I don't generally consider myself to be a "needy" person. But I've missed him. I also found that I was less patient with him and his needs than I would have thought I would be. Don't get me wrong - I still helped him and nursed him and did everything I needed to, but it gave me a real perspective on the marriage vow "In sickness and in health."

So many people sail through so much of their marriage not having to fully grasp what the unpleasantness of that vow can mean. I dealt with it for less than a week and I'm ready for hubby to be back to self-sufficiency. I have a new respect for those who are in a marriage where the health of their spouse requires so much more than I've ever had to give for long periods of time. Now, if it were asked of me to do so, would I? Yes, I would like to think that I would. Would I like it? Maybe not, but probably for many reasons.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm getting at. It's late - it's been a long week. There are lots of spiritual applications that could be drawn from this but I don't really have the state of mind to go there. So I guess this is just a personal pondering of: selfishness, love, sacrifice, marriage, responsibility, etc. And how a week with the flu made me consider my marriage and be very thankful for the husband I have and the general health God has chosen to bless us with most of the time.

The Bible Supports Gay Marriage?!?

A few weeks ago some of you may have seen this attention-grabbing headline on the MSN homepage: The Bible Supports Gay Marriage. When I saw the title I was afraid to read on, but had to. Since then I have read on msn that there was a backlash and that the source who originally printed the article (Newsweek) received a fair amount of mail and criticism for printing such a thing. Here's the link to the article, if you haven't already seen it:

Our Mutual Joy - Cover Story: Gay Marriage

Oh there's a lot to say after reading something like that. But I am going to leave the arguements to the experts - there are many people out there much smarter and well-versed in Scripture than I am to be defending our Bible and the sanctity of marriage as the Bible would actually define it.

However, I will say this: This article did stir up a few emotions in me. First, I am angry. This is my Bible, and people are twisting and manipulating it in stark contrast to what Scripture actually indicates. This is an attack on my God and my Bible and I don't like it. My children will have to grow up in a world where this nonsense is taking over, and people are twisting the Bible to say what they want it to say so they can do what they want to do and have a "clear" conscience. And there are "Christians" out there who are going to jump on the bandwagon in the name of tolerance or ease and buy into this. They will read the article (or a million others out there just like it) and think "Yeah, ok. That makes sense. And it's certainly popular. I guess I can see it. I'll go with it." And that same Christian who thinks this will allow these negligent thought processes influence their political stance, their interpretation of the Bible in other realms, and even what is to be tolerated in the churches they attend. We are becoming lazy and complacent in our Christian standards and every time we do it becomes easier to do what feels ok rather than what Christ would desire.

I am also sad. It breaks my heart to see people turning their backs on God in this way. The person who wrote this article knows a fair amount about what is actually written in the Bible. Yet somehow she is seriously missing the point. And she's not alone. And, as I mentioned above, there are many people who call themselves Christians who go along with this twisted thought process and then somehow try to justify it with the Bible. Ouch. It makes me very sad to see how far our society has fallen, and I can't believe how fast it happens. And I am also sad for the many who blindly receive poor counsel, and buy into it, and make grave and sometimes fatal (literal and figurative) mistakes with their lives based on misinformation.

The God I know from reading the pages of the Bible does not like this. He will not approve or bless our society for embracing blasphemy to His name such as is written in the words of this article. Christian, my plea to you is this: Stand up for what you believe. And figure out what you believe from reading God's Word, not Newsweek. And be ready for a fight, because in this day and age, if you do those two things, you will be standing in the company of very few.

Thoughts on Fostering

I was looking at my calendar this morning and realized that it was one year ago today that Narasimha and I attended an informational meeting about foster care. We knew at the time that having biological children could take a while for us, and we were not yet ready (and still really aren't) to start looking into adoption very seriously. We were, and are, waiting to see if God has biological children in our future. So we did some thinking, and foster care came up.

We know that foster care wouldn't be easy - many have warned us that it's not exactly a cakewalk. The kids often come from less than loving and nurturing situations, and often still have unwavering allegiance to the people they are being taken from. We have heard (from people who know first-hand) that this can be very frustrating. Also, many of the kids come from all kinds of abusive situations, which just adds to the baggage.

So...why bother with this? Our first thought was: why does it have to be about us? Why does it have to be easy or fun for us? Why can't it be about us giving of ourselves - our time, love, resources, etc., to someone who can't or won't give back? Who's to say that any biological children we would have, or children we would adopt, wouldn't tax us in some ways. I know there were times when I certainly gave my parents a run for their money.

We also feel like we have so much to give. We want to share what we have and help those in need. We both have backgrounds (work and education) that make us probably more qualified and ready than most people who are successful foster parents to be able to do this well - very little surprises us anymore. Not that we would be perfect by any means, but we could be stable and loving. From what I have heard, these two things are more than most kids in the system can count on.

Plus, sometimes we just think it would be fun to get kids in our home. Borrow someone else's while we wait, and hopefully help a family in the process. People who foster have the opportunity to work with the child(ren) and family to help figure out what works to get everyone living safely under the same roof again. With my own personal interest in eventually counseling, that work with "integration" sounds like something I would enjoy.

So, back to the meeting. We showed up, and our first question was if we would even be able to, with Narasimha not being a citizen. We sat through the meeting, and were still interested, and talked to the woman at the end about our concern. She said she didn't know about citizenship issues, but she thought (and I had already thought) that maybe I could be a foster parent, and Narasimha could get certified as another adult living in the home. Kinda like if people are foster parents, and like one of the foster parent's parents lives with them, they still have to do a background check, and a sex offender check on that person. They have to do checks on any adult living in the home. So we thought maybe that would work. The only thing the woman said was that Narasimha wouldn't be able to keep the kids for the overnights by himself. He could watch them for a few hours at a time by himself, like for a few hours in an evening, but not for a whole night. That didn't bother us, because we almost never spend the nights separately - especially where I would be the one to leave. Sometimes he leaves when he is on call, but that wouldn't be against the rule. So we thought it would maybe work.

We went home and sent in the paperwork. A lady called us back and I told her about our situation with the citizenship. She said she would look into it. In a few days she called back, and said that no, we wouldn't be able to do foster care until Narasimha had his green card (which is still several years off, in our situation). Narasimha is currently, and always has been, here legally. I asked her if she had looked into the scenario we thought - me be the official "parent" and him be another adult living in the home. She said that since we were married, that can't work. If a couple is married, they both have to be certified foster parents. Our scenario, she said, would work if we were living together and not married. Then both people don't have to be certified foster parents (and maybe can't be certified as a couple, who knows). I also know that same-sex couples (who obviously aren't married) are allowed to foster.

So we basically had to forget about that. It's ok - it's obviously not God's plan for our family right now. At the same time, I felt really frustrated. I felt like (once again) our society is attacking the Biblically-defined institution of marriage. Basically, we want to and are able to give of ourselves in this way, but the government won't let us because we are married, where if we were unmarried (or homosexual) and living together, we would be rewarded.

I have heard that there might be ways for us to do foster care in this county - when we moved, we changed counties, and I heard that the county we came from might be more strict. I haven't looked into that. I have also heard that there are independent foster care opportunities. I don't know anything about that, but when things slow down a bit, we might check into that route.

So, today I am remembering foster children in my prayers. Their struggles, situations, and the families they are coming from. And, with the above criteria, even the families they are placed into. I have known many foster kids from my previous job, and my heart goes out to those displaced children - now during the holiday season and everyday they live their lives essentially in limbo.