Category: Life Issues

There is no such thing as equal rights before God. Really, we have no rights, none at all. Not one of us has the right to stand on our own two feet before the throne of God, full of (self-) righteous indignation, and demand that He give us a single thing. The only thing God has for us sinners is eternal condemnation and horrific punishment. I don’t know about you, but I’m not all that eager to march my arrogantly sinful self up to the holy throne of God and insist that He give me what I’m, in all fairness, entitled to get from Him.

Thank God, He does not treat us fairly. He doesn’t give us what we have a “right” to claim for ourselves. In fact, that was the whole purpose of the Son becoming man, so that He could take our place before God and spare us from the eternal damnation our sin has earned us. The Father took all the wrath and anger we deserve for our sins and threw it at His Son, who hadn’t even sinned once. Ever!

And, as if that weren’t enough, He took all that the Son of God, the Heir of the Kingdom of Heaven, has the right to claim as His own, and He gave it to us. For free! In Christ (and only in Christ), we have the right to approach God and ask Him for things as dear children ask their dear Father. We now inherit heaven, too. In Him, we are even as perfect and holy before God as Jesus Christ Himself is.

Now, we live in a country where we have the right to participate in the civic life of our nation and to expect equal protection under the law. We believe that everyone should have a chance to succeed, and the person with the most ability, regardless of sex, race, religion, etc. should get to do the job. That’s just how it works in the regular world.

It’s easy to continue that way of thinking into our new lives as Christians. We start to think that the best singer in the church should lead the liturgy, the most skilled public speaker should be the one to read the lessons and maybe even preach the sermon, and the best communion hander-outer should distribute the Lord’s Supper. Why should the pastor get to hog all those jobs for himself? There are all sorts of people (like us) who are perfectly capable of doing them at least as well he does and, sometimes, maybe even better. I mean, what if someone else wants to participate in the worship instead of just sitting there? Don’t the rest of us have a right to use our God-given gifts, too?

As we’ve already established above (go back and read it again if necessary), our Christian lives are hardly based on any semblance of fairness, and they’re certainly not about asserting our rights—equal or otherwise. Our new lives in Christ are full of gifts!

But our sinful nature doesn’t even like gifts. Gifts are out of our control. We don’t want surprises. We drop hints. We make lists. We register. And even then, people still give us “presents” we didn’t want and don’t like. Christmas and birthdays would be so much nicer if people just gave us gift cards and we could pick out what we want on our own.

It works the same way with vocations. Those are also gifts. No matter how much you want a certain vocation, no matter how hard you try to earn it and do everything just right to get it, it’s still a gift from God. And sometimes that means we don’t get the vocations we want, and we get vocations we don’t want.

Our sinful nature would have us believe that we’re not participating in the church if we’re “just sitting there.” As if singing and speaking the congregational parts of the liturgy, confessing our sins, hearing absolution, hearing the God’s Word read, taught, and proclaimed to us, and receiving Christ’s body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins were all a big fat nothing. Because we’re not the one upfront. Because we’re not getting what we want.

If we’re truly, deep-down honest with ourselves, we’ll eventually admit that what we really think should happen is that we should just always get to do what we want. Exactly what we want. Only what we want. When and where we want. At home, at school, at work, at church. You name it. We want what we want. And we actually complain that life isn’t fair when we don’t get it.

Vocations aren’t about our wants or our rights. They’re the ways we’re given to serve the people around us. They’re not about what we want; they’re about what our neighbors need. Sometimes we don’t even get to use those wonderful abilities we pride ourselves on; we have to serve people we don’t even like. Sometimes we are even served by people who aren’t as skilled at doing the tasks of their vocations as we would be.

Thank God that we’ve been freed from having to continually think that way; freed from constantly comparing our gifts to those of others; freed from feeling compelled to stand up for ourselves to make sure everyone treats us fairly; freed from slavery to our incessant, selfish desires, and freed in Christ to serve others through the vocations we have been given, and to be freely served by others.

All have sinned; all have been shown mercy in Christ. It doesn’t get more equal than that.

by Sandra Ostapowich

Islam is one of the largest religions in the world and is often spoken about in the news media. What do Muslims teach about their faith and their relationship to the government? How does Christ teach differently about the roles of the church and the state? Let’s start with some history to answer these questions:

Mohammed and Mecca

According to Muslims, Mohammed was born about 570 A.D. in the city of Mecca, an important trading center and caravan stop in the Arabian Peninsula. After being orphaned as a young child, he was raised by his uncle. At the age of 25, his fortune changed when he married a wealthy widow 15 years his senior With wealth came to comfort and leisure. Mohammed would take time to meditate, often away from Mecca in the hills. On one of these trips in 610 A.D., he claimed that he had a vision of the angel Gabriel, who spoke to him the words of “Allah.”1 Mohammed devoted the rest of his life to spreading the message and teachings of Allah, whom he believed was guiding and speaking to him.2

His early attempts to win followers in Mecca failed miserably. Most Arabs at this time were polytheists. Mecca was a center for idolatry and was made rich by the festivals and trade surrounding idols. Since Mohammed condemned polytheism, he came to be viewed as a nuisance by the Meccans—even his own tribe. Mohammed also tried to reach out to “the people of the book,” as he called Christians and Jews. But they were unimpressed by his teachings.

Consequently, Mohammed relied on persuasion to gain followers and influence while his political strength was weak. He modeled, however, a very different approach when given the opportunity.

Medina and Conquest: Power and Conversion by the Sword

After struggling to gain converts in Mecca and increasingly looked down upon by the leaders of the town, Mohammed accepted an invitation to relocate to the nearby city of Medina. As a neutral outsider, he was asked to be an arbitrator between the competing tribes of Medina. With his newfound power and authority, Mohammed began to draw more followers to his religion. Once he had the ability and strength, he began conducting raids and attacks on caravans (with supposedly divine approval). After taking his own share, Mohammed distributed the loot and booty to his followers, which in turn drew more followers eager for riches.

Mohammed tightened his grip on Medina. He ruthlessly crushed opposition, supporting the assassination of his rivals and the murder of groups who challenged his authority. Eventually, Mohammed defeated even the Meccans in battle. The promise of riches and conquest enticed even former enemies to follow him. Before he died, Mohammed and the Muslims controlled not only Medina and Mecca but all of the Arabian Peninsula.

After the death of Mohammed, the Muslims continued their wars of conquest. Those who were conquered faced a choice: 1. death; 2. conversion; or 3. submission to their new Muslim rulers that included a special tax for being non-Muslims.

Sharia Law

Where Muslims ruled, they sought to establish sharia law. Sharia law is a code of rules and regulations designed to inform every part of life. Sharia law has two sources: 1. the Quran, which contains the messages that Mohammed supposedly received from Allah; and 2. the “traditions” describing the life of Mohammed that his followers later collected. Muslims believe that sharia law is not just to be enforced among Muslims, but also around the entire world.

Muslims who take their faith seriously believe that it is their duty to support the spread of Islam. This includes more than just “Muslim evangelism.” An essential part of spreading Islam is that sharia law is spread by political dominance. The example of Mohammed clearly teaches Muslims to say and do what is necessary to gain power, including an unrestrained use of the sword.

Two Kingdoms

A key difference between Islam and Christianity is that Islam does not recognize the distinction between church and state, or as Lutherans would put it, the two kingdoms.3

We believe that our Lord rules over all things and that the government as well as the church is a way our Lord rules and blesses us. But we make a distinction between what God has called the government to do and what He has called the Church to do. He has given the earthly government the duty to “bear the sword” and to “carry out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4 ESV) The government should uphold the “natural law” that all men know. (Romans 1-2) The civil government flows from the fundamental unit of society, the family, and the calling of fathers to rule over and protect their families.

On the other hand, our Lord teaches us that His kingdom of grace, that is His Church, is not of this world. He tells Pilate, “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36 ESV) The Church is to be concerned with preaching Christ crucified. It is not to be leading armies, conquering nations, or getting wrapped up in politics.

The reason why Islam cannot recognize this distinction is that it rejects Jesus. There is no Gospel in Islam; it is a religion of law. Mohammed rejected the way to the Father because he rejected the beloved Son of the Father, offered up for us and for our salvation. Islam rejects the one and only true God, who actually descended, lived, died, and rose again—for us and for our salvation. Praise God for sending us the Truth, our Savior Jesus Christ, who still pours out forgiveness through His Church. May He help us be model citizens, resisting evil in the world while we wait for His return.

1 “Allah” is the Arabic word for God.
2 The essence of Islam is: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.”
3 This is not to say that we believe in an absolute separation between church and state like secularists do. For instance, sometimes the church must preach against what the state is doing.

By Rev. David Ramirez

Rev. Eric Brown

I love Christmastime. It’s something I just inherited from my mom. She’d have 4 or 5 trees up and she’d play Christmas music four months of the year and I confess that I can identify nine different versions of A Christmas Carol just by the soundtrack alone. This time of year is a Holly Jolly time for me.

I also realize that for some people, it’s not. Not at all. For some, Christmastime brings with it sorrow or sadness or pain. Bad memories. Darkness. I can totally understand that-there are plenty of my own relatives who have that sort of relationship to Christmastime.

But you know what? In the Church, we don’t celebrate “Christmastime.” We don’t deal with the “season.” In the Church, our focus isn’t really on any of the numerous traditions that float around. We celebrate Christmas-that Christ Jesus became Man for us and for our salvation. Our focus is this: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Our God is with us-with us in all the things that we face in this life, be it joy and celebrations, or heartache and sorrows. Whatever we come across in this life, whatever December holds, Christ Jesus is with us.

Literally. When we say that Jesus is with us, that’s not just figurative speech, it’s the truth. It’s the great wonder of our faith. It’s why the Church gathers on the 25th and celebrates Christmas with the Lord’s Supper (yes, we have “mass” on Christmas-go figure!) because it is there in the Supper where Christ Jesus comes to dwell with us poor miserable sinners to bring us forgiveness, salvation and life.

I don’t know how your Christmastime has been. I hope it’s been merry. If not, I hope you’re getting through it okay. Either way, Jesus became man to win you forgiveness and salvation, and He still comes to you in His Supper to give you that forgiveness and salvation and to give you strength to see you through good days and bad ones. In Him, you do have joy-now in part and then in full forever more. In the Name of Christ Jesus. Amen.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord…Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her…”For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:22, 25, 31-32)

With the recent arrival at the Supreme Court of two cases concerned with “gay marriage,” the topic has been at the forefront once again of religious and cultural discussions. Christian rebuttals of the idea of “gay marriage” often appeal to a definition of marriage that means only a man and a woman. That’s how God established it when He made Adam and Eve. Meanwhile, any discussion of “gay marriage” often brings with it a rather hypocritical and even judgmental attitude toward those who are gay. Sadly, most Christians seem to approach the topic without any apparent reference to Christ and His Bride, the church. And this is where the discussions have gone wrong.

The most recent definition of marriage in the Encarta Dictionary defines the institution this way: a legally recognized relationship, established by a civil or religious ceremony, between two people who intend to live together as sexual and domestic partners. This definition is a good illustration of how society has come to view marriage and what it thinks is the basis of what constitutes it. This way of looking at marriage implies that the traditional category of “husband and wife” is not exclusive. A marriage might be two husbands or two wives, or whatever the couple feels is the right description for their relationship. Against this, most Christians seem to argue that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, which is what God established it to be when He made Adam and Eve. They seem to forget, however, that the Bible is filled with situations where that rule is not kept at all. The Old Testament, in particular, is full of examples of men who had many wives, as well as all sorts of stories of adultery, painting a pretty different picture of marriage than that Garden of Eden ideal!

The problem is that when marriage is understood only as a matter of the Law, of the Sixth Commandment, it is going to be a wreck. If the Law declares that marriage is “a man and a woman, husband and wife,” then it should come as no surprise that sin is going to ruin it. Now the union of a (male) husband and a (female) wife is in danger of being wrecked by sin (think adultery, living together and divorce). The desire for marriage and the practice of chastity (self-restraint) are ruined (think pornography and fornication). Even the biological aspects of marriage are undone and rejected (think same-sex relations). The Sixth Commandment may teach us about adultery and defacing marriage, but it has no power to keep marriage from being a mess made by our sin.

This is where we are rescued, as we are from all sin, by Jesus Christ. St. Paul teaches the Ephesians that marriage is a picture of Christ and His church. Or, we might say, Jesus and His bride are the foundation of what it means to be married. In fact, it has always been. In the Old Testament, Israel is seen as an orphaned girl who is rescued by the Lord and made His bride (Ezekiel 16). In the New Testament, we see Jesus on the cross, for the sins of the world, pouring forth water and blood from His side, Baptism, and Supper, the gifts which create and sustain His bride, the church. She is born from His side just as Eve was made from the rib of Adam’s side. The Lord has always sought His bride and no matter what she does or who harms her, He takes her to Himself, cleans her up and makes her safe.

Therefore the very definition of marriage includes a picture of Jesus saving sinners. Consequently, to define marriage as something other than the lifelong union of one man and one woman is to deny the very Gospel that saves us. In marriage, there is a husband, Christ, who saves and cleanses His bride, the church. The very notion of “gay marriage” then doesn’t make any sense. Two men making marriage is the same as saying that Christ died for Himself! Two women making marriage is the picture of the church saving herself. Neither of these is right. They deny the reality of what Christ has done for His church in making her His bride. Jesus and His church are the one true marriage, the true Groom and His bride.

The fact is, a gay couple who wants to be “married” denies the very truth of what marriage illustrates, namely Christ and His church. But wait a minute! Then what about someone who has sex outside of marriage? What about a man and woman who are married but get divorced? What about a husband who struggles with pornography or a wife who cheats on her husband? Those all deny the truth and reality of Christ and His church, don’t they? Now you get the picture! There is not just one but a nearly infinite variety of ways in which the Lord’s gift of marriage can be ruined by sin.

And that brings us back to the whole point of marriage. Christ saves His church. He washes her and makes her spotless. When He looks at her, He sees no sin. None. Not a blemish. Not a wart, pimple, wrinkle or any other imperfection. He sees His bride that He made clean. Our temptation is to focus on one particular sin with respect to marriage and magnify that as worse than all other sins. In doing so, we puff ourselves up, thinking we are better than others. We also knock down Christ’s grace and forgiveness. As if Jesus didn’t die for the WHOLE mess we’ve made of marriage! When it comes to these and all other sins, remember, the church is the bride of Christ. We are the ones who have been washed and cleansed from all sin and imperfections. It’s been given and done for us in Baptism, by the Word and with Jesus’ body and blood. It is only this Good News by which the Spirit will work in people to bring them to repentance for all their sin and deliver to them the forgiveness which is given in Jesus’ name.

Let’s be honest. The world is going to do what it wants. It desires to redefine marriage. To be fair, we ought to consider that the right to do with your property and so forth with anyone you choose shouldn’t be hampered by the government. That’s a separate issue. But if society decides to include that domestic partnership under the heading of “marriage,” what will we do as Christians? Easy. We will still marry and be given in marriage, husbands and wives only, as God’s Word teaches us. And we will still live in the forgiveness of sins that makes us so free we can dare to confess what marriage is really all about while not getting worked up about what the world thinks it means. After all, nothing the world does can steal Christ away from His beloved. She has been washed and made spotless. She has the eternal joy of being joined to her Groom forever. She is and will be the Holy bride of Jesus long after society has changed its mind again and even when this world has passed away.

Rev. Mark Buetow

“We give thanks to You, almighty God, that You have refreshed us through this salutary gift, and we implore You that of Your mercy You would strengthen us through the same in faith toward You and in fervent love toward one another; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”

At each Divine Service, we pray a Collect of thanksgiving following the Holy Supper. Did you realize that that you are praying to the Lord about your vocations?

This prayer thanking our heavenly Father reminds you that the saving Gift of Christ’s Body and Blood continues to forgive and sustain you after the Supper is over. In addition, it reminds you that your whole life is one of continual worship, as you serve the Lord in faith and serve your neighbor in love. That’s right! The Divine Service is primarily about God’s giving His Holy Gifts, and you receiving them by faith. Outside of the Divine Service, your actions to serve others (wherever you are) give worship to Him.

How is this service done? That depends. Each of you has been given a number of different vocations. Service as a son or daughter usually includes household chores or helpful acts your parents ask you to do. Service as a student involves paying attention to teachers and professors, doing your homework to the best of your ability, and encouraging fellow students to do the same. Service in extracurricular activities means conscientiously training, keeping the schedule, and being helpful to all involved. Service as an employee means showing up on time, doing your best, and cheerfully helping co-workers and customers. Service as a newly-licensed driver means being especially careful to practice the safe, responsible, and defensive driving techniques you learned. You get the picture.

In these ways (and in your many other roles of service) you are actually serving God! Your worship goes beyond faithfully receiving Jesus in Word and Sacrament on Sunday. It means carrying out your faith in daily life. It means being a willing servant to all and doing your best to put others first, out of love and service to God and others.

Everything you do has its foundation in the faith He has given you in Baptism and nurtured with His Supper and His Gospel. In your vocations, you live your life as one giant “thank you” to the Lord. It all continues through the week as you lovingly serve others around you, just as our Lord Jesus would have you do.

Will you live out your vocation perfectly? Absolutely not! But that’s where Jesus Christ’s vocation as your Holy Savior makes all the difference. He cleanses the stain of your sin. He changes your unwilling and obstinate heart, granting joyful service to your neighbors. He sends His Spirit to fill you with His Means of Grace, that you may overflow with the Light of the World to all in your various vocations.

God has placed you in your “station” in life. You probably have a variety of different roles or responsibilities. These are your many vocations. And in each and every one of them, as a baptized child of God you honor and worship your heavenly Father. All that you say and do, you do it “in faith toward [God] and in fervent love toward one another.”

So continue in your sacramentally-centered life – flowing from and returning to Christ’s altar every chance you get. Serve “in faith toward God and in fervent love toward one another. ” Live a life of worship, rejoicing in the One who serves you forgiveness, life, and salvation in His Divine Service!

by The Rev. Rich Heinz

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2016 Issue of Higher Things® Magazine. For more great articles like this subscribe today!

Rev. Mark Buetow

And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” – 1 Peter 4:8

You’ve probably seen them on the interwebs: people exposing those awful people who do mean things. The waitress posts a copy of the receipt where there is no tip, just a nasty note. Or those oh-so-helpful social media posts “to the person who took up two parking spots outside my apartment.” It’s a dangerous move to attempt to shame someone publicly because there’s a good chance you’ll be shamed right back and with a vengeance! This is the way our warped world thinks: If you are mean and nasty to others, that’s really awful and the just punishment is that others get to be mean and nasty to you. But it’s wrong to bully the bullies. And it’s wrong to shame the shamers. The new man in Christ is not called to expose the sins of others but to cover them with love, as the Apostle directs us to do. But that’s pretty difficult. It’s hard not to rejoice when some jerk gets his just desserts by having his jerkiness exposed for all to see. That’ll teach ‘im! But it doesn’t. What’s really going on is what Jesus was exposing when He told the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14).

There, the Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank you I’m not like all the other sinners out there, especially that I’m not like this tax collector.” Usually our first reaction to hearing that story is to laugh at the Pharisee’s hypocrisy and say, “I’m glad I’m not like that Pharisee!” Do you see what Jesus did there? He got us! He exposes in us what we hate in others-namely, that we, too, are hypocrites and shamers.

If we mess up or do something stupid, we don’t want it made known to everyone. But if someone else does, it’s so easy for our sinful flesh to attribute horrible motives to him and go for the jugular in shaming him and showing everyone what a bully and fool he is. But ask yourself: What could God expose about you? What does He know about what you’ve done that He could bring to light and make you the butt of a nasty social media post? What bullying and shameful behavior have you done that deserves to be spread abroad and mocked?

But the Lord doesn’t do that, because He doesn’t see your faults. His love covers a multitude, and more-all of your sins! In fact, Jesus goes the way of the cross to do that. And if there was ever a shaming to be had, it was of Jesus. “He saved others! He can’t save Himself!” Can you just see the clickbait headlines? “Son of God gets nailed to a cross and can’t get down.” “This Guy saved everyone else but what happens next will blow your mind!” “You’ve never seen anything this gross and shameful: Jesus!” And so it could go. And that’s exactly what happened. Jesus let all the shame and mockery get heaped upon Him by a world that loves to point out how bad other people are. We do that to hide our own behavior and to make ourselves look good and popular. But Jesus takes it on to save you. He wears all the shame the world has to pile on Him to take away your shame. Because of the cross, you will never, ever, have to stand before God, ashamed of what you’ve said or done. Not a single sin will cause God to mock you because all your sins are paid for.

Even the sin of shaming the shamers and bullying the bullies and picking on others for their differences and mistakes and faults and inadequacies has been wiped out by the blood of Jesus. And so it is with YOUR sins in laughing at the sins of others. So are your sins of pointing out the sins of others. The love of God in Christ Jesus, washed on you at the font and given to you to eat and drink with the flesh and blood of Jesus – this love covers a multitude of sins. Covers their sins. Covers your sins.

Now you are so free in Christ you can pause when you’re out and about in the world for real or on line. Don’t take pleasure in someone’s meanness being exposed. Don’t pass on that juicy story about the jerk who got what they deserved. Don’t passively-aggressively vaguebook about the person who wronged you in some way. Instead, as the new man in Christ, speak well of others, defend them, and explain everything in the kindest way. Not only will that go a long way in making you a happier person, it will be a great blessing to others who no longer have to fear becoming an object of ridicule because of your reaction to something they’ve done.

And if that doesn’t work? If the shame you would cover comes back to you? If your patience and covering of someone’s sins backfires and they let loose on you? So what? You’re covered by the perfection of Christ. You can never be shamed before God. And even if you are shamed before the world, you are so free as to rejoice in suffering and bearing the name of Jesus that way. Jesus died and rose. What can bullies and shamers do about that? Nothing.

There is a place in this world for shame and scorn. That place is upon Jesus. All the shame and the scorn are His. That way all the smiles and good things to say are said about you by God the Father for Jesus’ sake. And, by extension, in confessing our sins, we lay our shaming on Jesus and go joyfully to the work of speaking well of our neighbors and covering their offenses with the love of Christ. Jesus’ tomb is empty! You won’t believe what happened next: Their sins were forgiven and they loved their neighbors and were kind to them.

Rev. Mark Buetow is pastor of Bethel Lutheran Church in DuQuoin, Illinois and serves as the deputy and media services executive for Higher Things. He can be reached at buetowmt@gmail.com.

My husband and I began our journey as foster parents more than two years ago. After many conversations and prayer, we decided that fostering would be something that would be good for our family to do. Our children were growing up, we had space for one child and taking care of children was something we have naturally done over the past 21 years. Our county was (and still is) in need of foster parents, so we decided to attend an informational meeting.

It is not easy to be licensed by the state, although there are people to help you achieve that goal. We had to fill out many detailed questionnaires about our entire lives, provide the address of every place we lived since the age 18, provide copies of birth certificates for the entire household, release school transcripts on all our children, go through physicals, provide detailed income and spending information regarding our household, sign forms on what we will do and not do regarding a child placed in our care, and provide proof of insurance on the house and our vehicles. On top of all that, my husband and I had to go through 36 hours of training. After all these things were done, we became licensed, and within a few days, we received our first placement, a six-week-old boy.

I cried the moment he was placed in my arms. He was to be our first foster son. I was so happy to have him and also filled with such sorrow that such a tiny little child could already be in need of foster care. I wondered how I would respond to having someone’s child entrusted to my care 24 hours a day. Would I be able to love this child as my own while he was with us? My answer came in the wee hours that first night. On that first night, and many nights after, as I fed him, I sobbed, and prayed, and knew in my heart that it would not be a burden to be this child’s mother, for a time.

As a new foster mom, those first months were very hard. I was very emotional and cried many times for our foster son. I cried being thankful for my own children. And I cried when the van driver would pull up in front of our house to pick up our foster son for a visit with his parents. Sometimes there would be other children in the van . . . beautiful children of all skin colors, boys and girls, infants and teens and everything in between. It broke my heart to know there were so many children staying with so many foster families and I also knew I wasn’t the only foster mommy sending a child on a visit.

Many new people entered our lives in the months to come. We were assigned a social worker and our foster son had his own social worker. These people would need to meet with us to get to know us and would provide us with details of our foster son’s case. There were van drivers assigned to picking him up and dropping him off after visits. There were therapists providing care for him when he failed to achieve milestones. And there were many lawyers helping to sort out the things that were going on in the court room. And, finally, we were able to get to know his parents and a sibling.

This was, perhaps, one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but also one of the most fulfilling. It requires trying to stay in control of one’s emotions when you really just want to scream. You have to be nice, even when you don’t want to. I still have my moments, but for the most part, I am glad that I can speak with both of his parents. Sometimes I write notes about their child; sometimes I send pictures. Both of his parents are genuinely thankful for the kindness extended to them and they, in return are kind to me and my family. If our foster son is ever returned to their care, I will know them and hopefully be allowed to have some contact with their son. And if we are able to adopt their child, they will already have a relationship with us.

Our greatest privilege and joy, though, has been bringing our foster son to the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. Since he was a tiny baby he has consistently heard the Word of our Lord in Divine Service. He says, “Amen” and is learning to fold his hands in prayer. He is learning Luther’s Evening Prayer and Luther’s Table Prayer. He joined my class for Sunday School and loves to listen to Bible verses set to music. It is my fervent prayer that he is raised knowing Christ is his Savior . . . and finally this month (it took awhile to get permission) he was baptized into God’s family by his foster father with his father and myself witnessing this gift of God. Whatever the future holds for this little one, it is good to know he had a good start in life and has become God’s child in baptism.

We have just renewed our license and have also been approved for adoption. (If a child came into our home and became available for adoption, we would be able to adopt.) That little boy that came into our care at six weeks is still with us and is now a talking two-year-old. Our entire family (and our friends) have grown to love him.

In human knowledge, his future is uncertain. Yet God knows, and He will determine just where this child should live out his days. It is not easy, at times, watching that plan unfold. Sometimes things happen and we wonder why? But, like many things in life, the Lord uses these situations to lead us to trust in His good and gracious will. He “gifts” us to treasure the days we have with a foster child . . . which also reminds us to treasure our time with each other as well. Thanks be to God, who in Baptism has adopted us, treasuring us as His own dear children!

by Laura Koch, Foster Mom

I Kissed a Girl
by Katy Perry

This was never the way I planned
Not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion
It’s not what, I’m used to
Just wanna try you on
I’m curious for you
Caught my attention

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

No, I don’t even know your name
It doesn’t matter
You’re my experimental game
Just human nature
It’s not what, good girls do
Not how they should behave
My head gets so confused
Hard to obey

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

Us girls we are so magical
Soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist so touchable
Too good to deny it
Ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

It takes a lot to disturb me.  I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is what it is.  I have been disturbed.  And of all things, by a song I heard on the Top 20 station on my radio* between random errands the other day.  I normally just listen to the news or the 70’s station, but I was actually trying to get an idea of what teens are listening to these days.  Did I get an earful!

Just to make sure I wasn’t imagining what I heard, I asked my youth group about it this week.  Before I even finished asking my question, they named the song, the artist, and were singing the lyrics.  Against their will, they say.  They all hate the song, but its catchy tune has burned it into their memories.  (If only I could get them to learn the catechism so quickly! Somehow I don’t think Katy Perry will be on board with that plan.)

We have become such a hedonistic and disposable culture that it’s perfectly normal – the stuff of Top 20 pop music charts – for a young lady (and I use the term loosely here) to get drunk and make out with another young lady (and I use the term loosely here too).   She hopes her boyfriend doesn’t mind, but every girl today knows that making out with another girl is a great way to get a guy’s attention and “safely” be a tease.

Now I know that a lot of people these days, even Christians, are cool with sexual experimentation, many of them even promote it.  How else are you going to know if you’re “compatible” for a long term relationship or marriage if you don’t try things out ahead of time?  (Don’t get me started on the plug and socket speech…)  Not only is there the usual boy-girl experimentation going on, but now we have pop music promoting same-sex experimentation too.  It’s not enough for us to teach against and try to prevent “purpling”, but apparently “pinking” and “bluing” is more common than ever.

“Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.  Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.  For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature…”  (Romans 1:22-26)

The interesting thing about this song is that Miss Perry knows what she is doing is wrong.  She’s struggling internally with the decision.  It demonstrates how, even though it is against our conscience, we are encouraged to overcome that voice and satiate our curiosity.  Separate intimate actions from intimate relationships.  It’s all about random feelings and following our basest of urges.  Even the personal interaction of a kiss has been depersonalized.  This girl Miss Perry kissed may as well have been a light post for all the human interaction that was involved.

This just further goes to show the depth of sin in this world we live in, in our relationships with one another and even our “relationships” with ourselves.  This is not the way God created things for us, not the way He wants them to be for us.  He has given us His Son to be our Bridegroom, to be the One who tends to us, loves us, gives Himself for us, puts us first, does not treat our bodies merely as objects of lust for his own pleasure and experimentation.  How could He?  He died to save us from this twisted world we live in, where our young ladies are encouraged to try out homosexuality on the radio.  Come quickly, Lord!

* XM radio is REALLY cool – it’s like cable TV for the radio!

by Sandra Ostapowich

A transgender man, Thomas Beattie, who made headlines after announcing he was pregnant, has given birth to a baby girl at a hospital in Oregon, the U.S. the People magazine reported.

Thomas Beattie, 34, who was born a woman, legally changed his gender undergoing hormone treatment and realignment surgery 10 years ago. But although he had his breasts removed he retained his female reproductive organs.

Beattie, who lives with his 45-year-old wife, Nancy, was cited in the People as saying, “The only thing different about me is that I can’t breastfeed my baby. But a lot of mothers don’t.”

Beattie’s announcement of his pregnancy caused a sensation on the Oprah Winfrey Show in April. He said the decision was made to get pregnant as his wife was unable to give birth following a hysterectomy.

So Tracy Lagondino became Thomas Beattie. She apparently felt like she was really, truly a male deep down inside. She took lots of male hormones to counteract her naturally occurring female hormones and had her girl bits cut off and the remaining stuff fashioned to resemble boy bits…but she retained the girl parts inside.

Somewhere along the line, Thomas met Nancy and they got married (because it’s legal and all). Now Nancy, who has always been and still remains Nancy, had her inside girl stuff removed for health reasons a long time ago, still had her outside girl stuff.

Thomas and Nancy wanted to have a family. But since Nancy was unable to become pregnant – even if she was married to an actual man with real man parts inside and out – Thomas generously decided to lend her his uterus. (It’s not like he was using it, after all.) A baby was conceived via intrauterine insemination (IUI), with an anonymous male donor providing the manly ingredients for the couple. Their daughter was born on June 29, 2008 – via natural childbirth even, since Thomas apparently also retained the important parts that connect the inside girl parts to the outside girl parts.

“Despite years of taking hormones and living outwardly as a man, Beattie maintained that he retained his female sex organs because he intended one day to get pregnant.” (ABC News)

Uh…

So now Nancy has been taking lots of female hormones since she doesn’t have the female parts to produce them naturally so that she can induce lactation to breastfeed the baby that her husband bore with another man’s ingredients.

Now that’s teamwork!

…but somehow I just don’t think this is quite what God had in mind…

by Sandra Ostapowich

“As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak but should be in submission, as the Law also says.” (1 Corinthians 14:33-34)

More often than not, this passage is quoted to keep women in line, to remind us that we are prohibited from being pastors because Scripture tells us that we are not permitted to speak in church. It’s usually quoted by men, and frequently with a scowl.

It stings. It makes the hair on the backs of our necks stand up. We don’t like it, and we don’t like the people who quote it at us. Silence is not something that comes naturally to us since the Fall.

Women keeping silent means trusting that the men given to you will speak for you, will represent you, will take your needs and desires into consideration, will do what’s best for you, will not forget about you, will put you before themselves.

The problem comes in when we take a hard look at the men around us. They fail us all the time. They forget to pick up milk at the store, they work late, leave their dirty socks on the floor and whiskers coating the sink. They’re needier than babies when they get a sniffle. The sink still leaks, the lawn needs mowing. They get angry and say mean things to us. They scare us, they hurt us. And sometimes they just up and leave us, or force us to leave them for our own safety.

Trust men like that to speak up for us? Depend on them to take care of us? They can’t even load the dishwasher the right way! How in the world can we just sit back and expect them to do the right thing without us practically doing it for them? It’s just as bad at church as it is at home, maybe worse.

Scripture reminds us that the Church is the Bride of Christ. We are there to receive God’s gifts for us through Word and Sacrament. And the only faithful thing we have to speak together are the words we have been given by the Lord in Scripture. Women get to demonstrate this faithfulness in silence twice over. There’s a reason quietness is extolled as beautiful in women, it’s faithfulness.

“The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”
(Exodus 14:14)

Our husbands are to love us as Christ loves His Bride, the Church. They get to be Christ for us. That means they get to be the ones who fight for us, who speak for us, who tend to us, care for us, protect us, and even sacrifice their lives for us. Not just husbands either. The elders of the church are given that responsibility for adult women without husbands or other male family members to care for them.

The Lord, through the men given to us, will fight for us. Even the sinful, flawed men in our lives, whose sins and flaws we know all too well. Those men on their own, no, they probably aren’t trustworthy and probably won’t make good decisions all the time. But the Lord is working, doing good for us, through these men he’s given us. He’s also given us the faith to receive all the good they, and He, are going to do for us. We have no reason to expect anything less than the best from Him, and them.

“…let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:4)

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on your side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to your God to order and provide;
In ev’ry change He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul; your best, your heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; your God will undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul; though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in this vale of tears;
Then you will better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe your sorrows and your fears.
Be still, my soul; your Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all, He takes away.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, loves purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
(LSB #742)

by Sandra Ostapowich