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Archive for the ‘News’ Category

A Strange Anniversary

Posted in News, Prayer Requests, Scripture, tagged on October 12, 2009| 6 Comments »

Five years ago today, Dianne went to see a surgical oncologist who confirmed that she has breast cancer.  By the end of that week it would be diagnosed as Stage IV cancer, having spread from her breast through her lymph nodes to her bones in her back and ribs.

Stage IV cancer is a strange thing.  As her doctors have said on more than one occasion, “you will die with it; our goal is that you don’t die of it.”  And, praise God, she is able to serve in the roles she loves best today, as mother and wife and member of the church.

To this day, Dianne, good mother that she is, counts the 17 days that Johnny was in the NICU as the hardest days of her life.  My hardest days were those following that cancer diagnosis, through chemotherapy, surgery and then radiation.

Hardest days, but not the worst days. (more…)

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Be Not Anxious – Including About Finances?

Posted in News, Scripture on October 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Star Tribune had a good summary of the impact of having a child with a disability on the financial planning of a family in today’s paper.  Appropriate levels of life and disability insurance, special-needs trusts, and other plans are all important and familiar to most families experiencing disability.  Many of those plans are driven by a concern about what the future will hold, both for the child and for the rest of the family.

But being prepared or knowledgeable is not the same as living without anxiety.  For me, those plans actually serve to raise my anxiety while I’m in the midst of thinking about and finalizing those plans.

Paul brought together both things – reasonableness and living without anxiety – in his closing of his letter to the Philippians:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice – always?  Yes, the Lord is at hand!  Do not be anxious about anything?  Pray that God will help in all that we need.  God will provide, even after we can no longer take care of our children with disabilities ourselves.

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What’s With the Twitter Updates?

Posted in News, tagged , on October 3, 2009| Leave a Comment »

If you visit this website, you’ll notice a new section has appeared on the right that provides updates from @theworksofGod.   To begin with, it will focus primarily on Biblical texts, especially on what the Bible has to say about disability.  We’ll see what emerges over time.

Pastor John started tweeting earlier this year, and wrote a very helpful blog posting on why he was doing so.  I want to join him (and many others!) who use twitter and other social media to make much of God.

Pastor John sets the bar pretty high, but it is a good one to reach for:

Try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can.

I hope you find it useful and, more importantly, glorifying to God.

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When New Tests = Disappearing Babies

Posted in News, tagged , on September 19, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Al Mohler has been a consistent voice of support for unborn children with disabilities.  Yesterday in his blog he also noted how parents of unborn children with Down syndrome are aborting at astonishing rates – over 90%.

Dr. Mohler quotes Dr. Brian Skotko, a clinical genetics fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston who has a sister with Down syndrome: (more…)

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News: UK Mom Takes on Nuffield Council on Bioethics

Posted in News on September 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

There was a horrible story out of England last week about a mother who went into labor at 21 weeks and 5 days.  She delivered a very tiny living baby boy – and the doctors refused to provide him treatment because he had not made it to 22 weeks.  Adding to her grief, British standards say not to even provide a birth certificate for babies of less than 22 weeks development.

She is now challenging the standards created by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, standards which resulted in her son not receiving any treatment.  She is not the first to call their standards into question.

Al Mohler discussed the Nuffield Council in 2006, along with the terrible development that the Church of England was actually endorsing some of the Council’s standards for withholding care from disabled babies.  I hope this mom’s efforts attract both attention and change.

But in the several stories I read about this mom and her son, there was never any mention of the father.   Her five-year-old daughter is mentioned several times, and pictured at least once.  The father never appears.

That boy needed his dad.  Even with care he might have only lived a short time, or lived with significant disabilities.  The man who fathered him should have been there to be part of it.

And this might be the most shocking fact in the midst of this terrible situation – not one news account even seemed to notice dad was missing.

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National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Posted in commentary, News on October 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Did you know that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month?  I didn’t either.

Here is the announcement.

Assistant Secretary Romano made a nice statement, including the following:

Through our collaborative efforts, let us end 2008 by fully embracing the principles of the New Freedom Initiative and providing all Americans with disabilities with a pathway to a better life.

Today the New York Times also reported a different kind of awareness, which may not be so good for unborn babies with down syndrome:

Blood Tests Ease Search for Down Syndrome

Testing technology “has outpaced society’s understanding of what life with Down syndrome is like,” said Mark Leach, the father of a 4-year-old girl with the condition. Mr. Leach is chairman of the informed-decision-making task force of the group Down Syndrome Affiliates in Action.

Lord, please protect us from our own foolishness – making much of people with disabilities on the one hand, and finding new ways to keep them from being born on the other.

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