Moving On, Gearing Up

Any of you read Proverbs 16:9 lately? Here it is, just in case:

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD directs his steps."

That sums up my 2014 entirely. At the beginning of this year, my life was--well, if I'm being honest, pretty boring and stagnant. I was doing the same thing week after week, none of it particularly exciting, and I was getting stir crazy. Maybe even desperate. So when the new year rolled around I decided enough was enough and I was taking matters into my own hands simply to keep from wasting my life and dying of boredom. I decided that if I couldn't have an exciting life, I would at least have a productive one.

I set a list of goals, projects, and plans, and started putting them into action.

And God said "Ha-ha."

Since then it's been a non-stop whirlwind, physical, spiritual, and emotional--and none of it is my doing. None of the things I set out to do have been done. None of the plans I made have come to pass. None of the goals I set have been met. The plans I had already put into action, I had to pull the plug on, because God's plans pushed them out of the way.

But at the same time, I've had experiences I never thought I would have. I've seen things that blew my mind and left me speechless with their beauty and wonder. I have received the most wonderful blessings, blessings that I could never possibly deserve, that are beyond my wildest dreams.

I've gone hard, worked myself to complete exhaustion, put in long days, late nights, wrestled with God and with myself, faced new challenges and obstacles, cried both happy and sad tears (far more than I could count), but in everything--everything--God has kept His word and been right there with me, directing my steps. 

This year has run me ragged, true. But more importantly, it has taught me what it truly means for God to direct my steps. 

It's taught me that no matter what we plan or how wonderful we think it is, God's plan is always, always infinitely better. Even when we think nothing could be better than what we wanted or planned or asked for. 

It has taught me the indescribable beauty and joy and power in simply being still, and knowing that God is God.

It has taught me how to let go of my own plans, my own desires, and my own will, to lay them in God's hands and let Him transform them into something even better, something so wonderful we never even thought of hoping for it, something that seems far too good to be true but is just another token of how much He really loves His people.

In some ways, this has been the hardest year of my life. In other ways it's been the best year of my life. In some ways it feels like the doorway leading to the most blessed and beautiful rest of my life I could even imagine or hope for. This year, I have understood more of God than ever before, and it has made me realize that I don't really understand anything at all. The knowledge I have of Him is so tiny, so infinitesimal, and no matter how much I learn I will never, ever reach the end of Him. And that is an awesome feeling.

I know all this sounds like a New Year's Eve speech, while we still have two months of 2014 left, but this is what was on my heart to write about this evening, so I went with it.

As for those two remaining months, well, in the first place I'm planning (against all sanity and sound judgment) to participate in NaNoWriMo yet again. (Of course, saying "I'm planning" anything sounds extremely ironic after what I just wrote, but...well, I guess we'll see what comes of it. To check out my NaNo and this year's project, Click Here.

Now, some of you may be wondering why it's so much more insane for me to participate in NaNo this year than any other. Well, in the first place, I'm going to be starting late, as I'm helping a friend out with her wedding on November 1st. (I tried to convince her that the wedding could wait until December for the sake of NaNo, but she seemed to think the wedding took precedence. Go figure. ; P )

But secondly, my novel, Song of the Wren-Falcon, is set to release in November! *cue marching band and screaming crowds* We don't have the specific date set yet, but I'll be letting you know as soon as we do.

So, yeah. NaNoWriMo, friend's wedding, book launch, (plus I think there may be some kind of holiday in there somewhere)...no biggie, right? I'm sure it will all be fine.

As usual, I'll be journaling NaNo, so be sure to stick around for that, and if you're participating this year and haven't done so yet, be sure to look me up on the site. I'd be delighted to add you as a writing buddy.

Until next time!

Proclaiming the Original "New Feminism"

Mainstream Western culture has been spewing its feminist mantra of gender equality, abortion on demand, cessation of discrimination, and women's liberation from degrading practices such as marriage, motherhood, etc., for generations now. To anyone who's been observing the cultural trends - couples having children only to turn them over to be raised by daycare workers and schoolteachers, rampant teen and/or out-of-wedlock pregnancies, annual abortion rates sustained in the thousands, and the overwhelming pressure on girls to find fulfillment not in being wives and mothers but in being career women - it would appear that the FemiNazi movement (to borrow the words of Rush Limbaugh) has established a pretty solid foothold.
Lately, though, I've been seeing signs that maybe feminism's foothold isn't quite as solid as the feminists have hoped, that maybe their runaway campaign is losing some of its steam. It's got me hopeful that maybe we're not quite finished and down for the count yet. Maybe we still have the juice for another upswing in the cycle.
What's the giveaway?
It's called "New Feminism". Here's a very basic rundown of the idea:
Many professing feminists are beginning to discover that they actually gain a greater sense of emotional, spiritual, and physical fulfillment from being homemakers and even stay-at-home moms than they do from being professional, career women. Some are putting forward the idea that the physical differences between men and women are connected to a difference in the roles in society and family life that they are each best suited to fill.
Wikipedia's article on New Feminism has this to say:

In order for men and women to be truly free, New Feminists assert that they must act in accordance with the way they are psychologically and emotionally structured to be as sexed human persons. Philosophy and Religion, then, are essential components in the search for how men and women should and ought to act for "a higher truth or good", not just how they want or can act. New Feminists assert that people must remember God and purpose to recognize that life, in some way, is a gift and not a mere thing which a person can claim as his or her exclusive property.

And...

New Feminists claim that other feminisms are preoccupied with "power", domination and positions of visible "authority" and claim that those are as masculine and faulty. Dismayed by what they see as the bitterness, hatred, or retribution of many feminists against men or other women for current or past injustices, they argue that men and women should cooperate with one another in interpersonal communion. This means giving of themselves in mutual service and love.

Now, there are some flaws in this secular interpretation of the ideology, naturally. But at its core, its structure is remarkably similar to the way the Bible outlines the separate and distinct roles of men and women.
Initially upon hearing things like the above article, I am sorely tempted to gasp and exclaim, wide-eyed, something dripping with snark and sarcasm such as "What?! No, it can't be! Who would ever have thought this?! Well, I mean, who other than the untold thousands of stay-at-home wives and moms out there who've been saying it for years, right? Other than those kooky fringe people, who would have thought it?"
Sarcasm aside, though, I think there's a different approach that Christians need to be taking to this.
In this particular case, there's really no getting around the "told-you-so" factor, whether we're being sarcastic about it or not. If we're going to engage people in conversation about this at all, we're going to have to, at the very least, acknowledge the fact that conservative Christians have been telling people to live this way all along.
But, rather than be snarky about it, I propose we use it to present and uphold the validity of scripture and God's outline for living. Because the fact is, the Bible has been saying this from the very beginning. It presents a blueprint for meaningful, cooperative, peaceful, and selfless living that sounds remarkably like this seemingly "new" discovery of a more fulfilling way of life.
Let me ask a question: How many of us have heard the argument that "the Bible may have been relevant for a certain time period, or a particular culture, but its ideas don't work in a modern society or with our culture"? Sadly, even many Christians have discounted parts of scripture because they don't believe that those parts are still "relevant".
But, to quote pastor and writer Scott Brown, "God's ways are trans-cultural. They transcend culture." What these "New Feminists" are actually discovering, whether they realize it or not, is that God's ways still work. They're still relevant, even today, even in modern "post-Christian" culture.
This is an incredible opportunity for Christians to present the gospel to people who may have been completely closed off to it before. If the Bible is right about the best way to find fulfillment and contentment in your life, even millenia after being written, might it not be worth listening to in other areas of life as well? Might we not consider giving it a bit more credence, rather than simply writing it off as outdated mythology?
If we can engage people in conversation about this topic, we will have an opportunity to open the scriptures to them, counting on God's promise that His word will not return void. As the culture shifts and we are able to once again discuss an idea like that of women staying at home without automatically being written off as fringe lunatics, those of us who are keeping head up and eyes open will, I believe, find abundant opportunities to give account of the hope that is in us.
Yes, it can be terribly infuriating, like a cliche scenario out of a sitcom - one character offers an idea to the other, who mocks it and declares that it will never work, but a moment later comes back and presents Character 1's idea as his own. Traditional Feminism couldn't offer what women were truly searching for, so when women found their desires answered somewhere else, Feminism had to sweep in and take the credit for it by changing their tune and touting it as a "new discovery". It's far easier than taking their medicine and admitting that they were wrong.
The secular world is still going to have the instinctive desire to reject God's word, because they are lost. The notion of their "new discovery" being borrowed from the Bible is going to be very offensive to them. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
But that doesn't change the truth of it, or change what we have to do as Christians. We must take advantage of this opportunity to help people understand that every real truth comes from God. The Bible has the answers - and it's had them for a lot longer than the feminist movement has been around. What is considered a "revolutionary idea" in secular culture is old news to those who believe the Bible.
So, should you happen to come upon a discussion on the topic of New Feminism, I hope you'll graciously weigh in with a bit of Biblical truth on what is, essentially, the same subject... the only difference being that ours is the original version. ; )

Please, Don't Insult My Intelligence

This afternoon I was looking through this month's issue of National Geographic Magazine and came across this:

The computer makes it hard to see, but just to the left of center in the photo is a little circle outlined with a dotted white line. That portion has been enlarged in the circle you see just right of center. According to the caption, that dark-colored smudge in the enlarged circle is a remnant of "feathers up to eight inches long". At top right you'll see an artist's concept of a tyrannosaur-like dinosaur covered in furry, fluffy feathers.
Now, first of all, while I am not a paleontologist and don't claim to have any kind of expertise in this field, I think I'm smart enough to recognize a fossilized feather when I see one.
This is a fossilized feather:

This is a fossilized feather:

Sorry, but I don't see any feathers in that NatGeo photo. Those smudges are far more likely to be collagen fibers, created during the decay process of the fossilized animal's body.

The brief writeup on the photo states that the feathers were "soft down (that) may have kept the animal toasty during a Cretaceous cold spell", not rigid feathers meant for flight. It describes the dinosaur as "a supersize chick".
I'm a little confused about the idea of "soft down" eight inches long, though. The closest thing I can think of to that is an ostrich's soft body feathers, which do get that long but would, one would think, show up in a fossil as more than a smudgy spot or two, and well enough to be defined under a term a bit more precise than "filaments" (the NatGeo writeup's word of choice).

I also have to wonder how this fits together with the new theory that dinosaurs' own methane emissions (i.e. burps and gas) caused global warming. (No, I'm not kidding. That is an actual theory, and you can even read about it in the LA Times here.) If dinosaurs went extinct during the global warming they caused between 161 and 145 million years ago, how did they have the time or foresight to evolve feathers for the Cretaceous cold spell 125 million years ago? And if they were adaptable enough to evolve feathers in time to keep from freezing to death, how did they manage to go extinct in the first place?
All that aside, the most glaring problem with the downy insulation theory is the fact that dinosaurs are reptiles and therefore, we can reasonably assume, cold blooded. If their bodies are not generating their own heat, a layer of insulation is totally pointless. If anything, it's going to have the opposite effect: keeping out the warmth that needs to be coming into the animal's body from outside.
Secondly, down only works as insulation if there is a course outer layer over it. Back to my ostrich illustration, you'll notice that an ostrich's feathers are all very soft and down-like. But the ostrich lives in the desert. The feathers help it keep cool, not warm. Even a goose-down sleeping bag is covered with an outer layer to hold the warmth in. Those of you who have raised chickens know that baby chicks (covered only with soft down) are extremely susceptible to even slightly cool temperatures, because they have no outer layer of feathers to hold in the warmth. Where is T-rex's outer layer? Shouldn't that be showing up in the fossil too?

I could go on. The entire writeup (less than half a page long) is so full of items and points I could challenge, but I'll stop here. I'm sure you all get the idea, though I would encourage every one of you to look up the article at your local library or online and see it for yourselves.
I would also encourage you to learn more about these so-called feathered dinosaurs scientists have found and touted as powerful evidence confirming evolution. Answers in Genesis has a fabulous article on the very dinosaur pictured above, explaining details about it with tremendous depth and clarity. Click Here to read AiG's article. Learn the truth about these controversial fossils, so that you can always be ready to give an answer for your faith when people question you or make false statements like this.
And lastly, don't be afraid to stand up and speak out about things like this. The propagation of evolution is dependent on intelligent people keeping their mouths shut and not asking too many tough and embarrassing questions because they don't want to challenge an 'expert' opinion. You may not be an 'expert', but the people who are learned from other experts, who learned from other experts, who learned from looking at fossils and making up theories. You're an intelligent human being who can see a fossil just as well as they can. Don't let them insult your intelligence by making you feel ignorant, and don't be afraid to respectfully challenge their expertise.

Don't be afraid to call a feather a feather, if indeed it is a feather. But don't be afraid to say it isn't a feather, if it isn't.

Here in the Power of Christ, I Stand.

This afternoon I was reading an article by Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis. He was speaking about the horrible trend that has swept the church and caused many professing Christians to compromise their beliefs and allow evolutionary ideas into their worldviews. Many of these people have done so because they are insecure in their faith in the authority of God's Word. They haven't been shown the evidence that supports the Genesis account of creation exactly as it is written. Somehow, they have come to believe that scientific 'evidence' outweighs the authority of Scripture, and a tragic number of Christians have stopped speaking with authority because of this. It has become very easy for the atheists and evolutionists - who are speaking authoritatively, whether they are justified in doing so or not - to drown them out.
This is an issue that is continually on my heart, so imagine how encouraging and refreshing it was when I read the following in Ken Ham's article:

"In Mark 1:22 we read that many people were astonished with Christ's teaching, for He spoke as one having authority. Today, we can speak with this same authority, because we have the Word of God! Jesus Christ, the Creator and the Word, has given us the Bible, and He told us how He created all things."

I can't tell you how refreshing it is to read that.
Don't let them intimidate you into compromising on your beliefs, my friends. If you find an evolutionist's arguments or 'evidence' intimidating or jarring to your beliefs, don't just sit there and let it gradually erode your faith away. Make war against these lies and the Liar they came from!
Do an in-depth study of the Genesis creation account - I'm talking with a concordance and everything. Look up key words and learn exactly what they mean in the original language.
Find good books, articles, documentaries, and lectures on apologetics and go through them carefully. Answers in Genesis is a great place to start. The Institute for Creation Research is another fabulous resource. Master Books has a library's worth of resources available. (And of course, I'd be more than happy to recommend some of my favorite resources with anyone who asked. ; )
Talk to your parents, a pastor, or a friend who has not allowed themselves to compromise on their faith in light of scientific 'evidence' that supports evolution. Tell them what you're going through (don't be afraid to be honest and tell them you're confused and struggling). Ask questions. Ask them to help you study the topic that is bothering you and learn the truth about it. Ask them to pray for you. Email me and ask me to pray for you - that's what Christian brothers and sisters are for.
Above all, pray for yourself and ask God to help you learn to stand on the authority of His Word. God doesn't lie, friends. He can't lie. It's completely contrary to His nature, and He wouldn't be God if it wasn't.
Even Christian creationists don't have all the answers, and many things are still mysteries to us. But we still have the words of a God who doesn't lie, and He has told us what we need to know to stand on those words.
Like the song says:

"Til He returns or calls me home, here in the Power of Christ I'll stand."

Stand strong, my friends.