The crafty chain letter!

The first five (5) people to respond to this post will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make. Whatcha get is whatcha get.

2. What I create will be just for you, with love.

3. It’ll be done this year (2009).

4. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something cyber. It may be weird or beautiful. Heck, I might bake (!!) something for you and mail it to you when you least expect it. I may even create something totally unbelievable and surprise you at work!! Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!

5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

6. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to your note.

7. Send your mailing address if you don’t live close to me!

IMPORTANT: This offer is null and void if I do not see you post your own note to pay this forward.

*Feel free to respond even if I didn’t tag you!* So I was tagged and agreed to participate. You can reply here or on Facebook.

The cost of life

To us having a baby is a priceless gift, yet today Adam and I found out just how much priceless will actually be. For one invitro fertilization cycle (IVF) the cost before insurance is $12,000-$14,000.  Honestly, I dont care. I would pay anything for that chance to carry my own child and I know that Adam feels the same.  God has blessed us every step of the way and has provided in ways I didnt think were possible.  Yet today as I heard the “cost of life” I couldnt help but be a little discouraged. As I sat there listening to Dr. Ratts talk, I couldnt help but think about the Planned Parenthood clinic just 2 blocks away.  I thought about how ironic it was that I was listening to how much I could potentially have to pay for a 50% chance of getting pregnant while someone else was possibly hearing how much it would cost her to abort her unwanted bundle of joy.  It broke my heart to think that 2 blocks away from where I sat the price of  the mothers life was more important than her sweet babies and for less than $500 she could destroy the life of that child, literally. There are so many wannabe mothers and fathers who walk in and out of my doctors office every day. Each willing to give whatever the cost for the chance of conceiving and becoming the parent they long to be. I just cant imagine what makes someone so desperate that they feel their only choice for their baby is death when it is so obvious to me that there is an abundance of ready and willing parents who are more than willing to love and cherish that sweet baby! Actually I can imagine and it makes me shutter. Its the complete abscence of God in their lives and the full prescence of sin that controls them. How horrible it must be to feel to be so lost and so deep in the world that you would be willing to murder your child in the hopes that you are making your own life better. The verse at the top of my page, Jeremiah 29:11, rings more true to me now that it ever has. I am blessed to be a child of God and to have been chosen as one of his own. His words to me are like that of a loving parent. He knew all of my faults and he knew how I would betray Him and run astray, yet he choose to give me “a future and a hope”. He loved me before conception as I do the child I do not have yet. And like me it didnt matter what the cost was to Him just to have me as His child. Yet unlike me,  the cost for Him was His blood shed on the cross and ultimately His death. How can I complain about the price I have to pay when He gave so much more for me? How can I not trust that He does have a plan for my life that is full of good and hope? My heart breaks for the women who sit at the Planned Parenthood and do not understand how I feel. I ache thinking that they have been fooled into believing the lies of this world and for that their innocent child must pay the ultimate price to “save” them from a life of misery and struggle. Yet in the mist of this heartache I am rejoicing. I am no longer crying tears of “why me!?” Now I am crying tears of joy that my Lord loved me so much that He saved me from the pain and despair that so many others feel. I know understand what it means to give the ultimate cost for life and am thankful that I have an eternal life awaiting me with my heavenly Father!