About Me

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Hi. Welcome to my "taboo" blog. My name is Steph, and when I first started this, I was still in my thirties. In 2017, I switch decades! I am a Christian, so underlying everything I do and say is the Word of God, and the foundational truths I have learnt over the years. This doesn't mean I'm perfect - I am human. It just means I recognise I need God's help to live this life and try to live out His way, as best I can. So that's me in a nutshell. Thanks for taking the time to read through my blog, I hope you draw strength, hope or encouragement from what you read.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

God Enabled...

There are times when I really struggle with trying to understand God. Not surprising when His thoughts and ways are far beyond my simple comprehension. But every now and again, I come across a verse which upsets and frustrates me. Today, one of the guest speakers was preaching from the life of Ruth. 

The verse which hit me wasn't even one of the verses he was focussed on during his preach, but that is sometimes the way God works - at least for me - in that He will draw my attention to something else. Ruth 4:13 TLV: "So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. When he went to her, Adonai enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son."

This is the Tree of Life version - a Messianic Family Bible developed with Messianic Jewish and Christian scholars. I like it because it includes some of the Jewish names of God.

The bit which struck me was "Adonai enabled her to conceive". Obviously, being brought up a Pastor's Kid, I've read the book of Ruth many times. But reading in a new or different version can shed a new light on an "old" story. I mean I know God is the Creator of life, and that we're given the gift of a child through Him, and He knits us together in our mother's wombs and all that, but this concept that God enables us to conceive.... why doesn't He enable all of us to conceive. Or rather, why hasn't God enabled me to conceive. 

And so, here I am again, back in that place of wondering if I have been soooo hideously bad that God is punishing me by not enabling me to conceive. Or maybe I'm just not cut out for motherhood, which is why He hasn't enabled me to conceive. Or maybe...!

I wish I knew. I wish I could work it out. I wish I could understand God, and why He enables some women to conceive and not others.... especially those women who don't actually want children. Or who mistreat them, abuse them or neglect them. I wish I knew how God chooses who will be blessed with children and who won't. Is it that simple???? 

Interesting that Stephen Fry has been in the conversation of many Christians for his attack on God earlier in the week. Maybe because he is such an outspoken, anti-God atheist it riled us and we didn't like the way Fry spoke about our God in that way. But one of the things it has highlighted is that even the most seasoned Christian is similar to the atheist in that one way.... we all have questions we would bring to God. I think I had hundreds when I was growing up my parents coudn't answer so they used to say, "You'll have to ask God." 

This question of why God hasn't enabled me to conceive, compared to some women, is one of my questions I would love to ask Him. The question of my faith, though, remains unchallenged. Even by this. Because whatever is happening, I know the only One Who can carry me through the good days and the bad ones, is the One Who knows my beginning from my end, and He knows the plans He has for my life. I can trust that when the time is right, God will enable me to conceive. And if the time is never right, He will give me the strength to get through every dark day I face, He will enable me to stand, even when I feel like falling on my knees and giving up.



Father God, I don't understand. But Father God, I trust You. Help me to stand.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Designer Babies... One Step Closer to Playing God

On Tuesday 3rd February, the British Government debated a change to the law for IVF treatment, and allowed to pass the notion of babies to be created from three parents. Of course, the reason for this, we are told, is to "offer help" to those mothers who have a genetic disorder which can be passed on to their child, thereby genetically modifying a human being so they won't be affected by genetic disease or illnesses. We have been led to believe this is the ONLY reason for allowing this procedure to be carried out, to take away the threat of genetic disorders which affect many children. Oh, and we have the assurance that "designer babies" will still be illegal. 

As a Christian, this concerns me deeply.
As a woman trying to conceive, this concerns me deeply.
As a hetrosexual married woman, this concerns me deeply.

At the risk of being politically incorrect, I am going to just say it as I see it! It doesn't make me a "bigot" just because I choose to believe the Word of God, and to make informed opinions based on what He says. So if you think you're going to be offended by what the Bible says.... stop reading now! 

If we look back at history, when "homosexuality", for example, was legalised, it was only a few decades before the spit in the face of God became an outright smack in His mouth (from where the Word proceeds), and "gay marriage" became legal. I watched in horror, knowing that the next step will be the legalisation of a gay couple to become equal genetic parents. In this, mankind is effectively saying, "Ha! God! You're wrong!! A family doesn't have to consist of an 'Adam' and an 'Eve'. We can, and will, do it our way. You can't stop us, and if you try, then you are as horrible a god as we knew you were." As well as saying, "God you have been making people sick and suffering from disorders for long enough, we're taking control and eliminating all illnesses created by you."

Judges 21:25(NKJ) In those days... everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
God is the Creator of life. That mankind has set himself against Him and is int he process of trying to create life without Him, is heading deeper into trouble. I personally, already think  God grieves over our nation and is in the process of turning His back on us (I'm not talking about those of us who are in a relationship with Him), as we AS A NATION refuse to repent over the sin we are actively engaged in... including this new turn in science.

I guess Jeremy Vine's series on Radio Two, "What makes us human?" would be a good starting point for so many people trying to understand whether this process of altering a baby's DNA is OK or not. What makes us human? I have heard science try to justify their progress because a baby is not human until it is born - that a fetus isn't worth considering as a human life. I say... WRONG! From the moment of conception, God knits us together in our mother's womb (Psalm 139:13). We are life. We are human. We have His breath within us which is what, in my opinion, makes us human. The very breath of God. "But babies don't start breathing straight away, not while the egg is developing!" No! BUT... God is right there, watching our "unformed substance" (Psalm 138:16) as it begins to take form in that secret hidden place. To do our own "knitting together" of human life is playing God. 
 
This next step of using IVF to "tweak" the DNA of a baby will have the boundaries pushed over the coming years; because why shouldn't anyone be denied the right to become a real parent, just because they chose to be married to someone of the same gender? Or why shouldn't a couple decide they want to create a baby using the best bits of both parents? And all this is accomplish-able through IVF, so why not make the best use of what tools are now available, shouldn't everyone have the right to have a perfect life - a beauty does give you sooo much better a start in life, so why shouldn't any parent be allowed to give their designer child the best possible start in life... Meanwhile, back on planet earth, hundreds of couples like me, who are hetrosexual and trying for a baby, have to play a postcode lottery to be given a slim chance of IVF.... although, for the record, I didn't fit the criteria, so am not eligible for IVF - even if I could have justified the ethics about going down that road! 

When IVF was first developed, it was a "tool" to aid a woman and her husband who were struggling to conceive naturally, the ability to have a child of their own.... then for a couple to include a doner parent, if needed (allegedly because a woman isn't producing her own eggs, for example).

Genetic modification was a "tool" to aid the perfect development of food, then of medical breakthrough... now of life itself.

I fear we are on a very slippery slope to self-destruction, as a nation, at trying to set ourselves up above God. Let me leave you with this final offering from Genesis 11 (CJB):
The whole earth used the same language, the same words... They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them in the fire.” So they had bricks for building-stone and clay for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city with a tower that has its top reaching up into heaven, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth.” Adonai came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. Adonai said, “Look, the people are united, they all have a single language, and see what they’re starting to do! At this rate, nothing they set out to accomplish will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse their language, so that they won’t understand each other’s speech.” (Bold is author's addition)
Let us not become complacent in what we see happening around us, or deceived into thinking that it is not as bad as some Christians are making out, because God will not be mocked (Galatians 6:7)! One day, He will call to account all of these people who are sticking two fingers in His face, slapping him in the mouth or kicking Him out of their lives... Then what will science have to "offer to help"??!


Father God, forgive us...