THIS IS POLITICAL

The title is a warning, this is going to be political...

I have seen a lot of people complain lately about how celebrities shouldn't be saying anything about politics because it is not their place, and while I am not a celebrity person (honestly, pop culture is not my thing), I don't think its fair to say that because these people have a following that they loose their voice and opinion. Several of these people were also the same people praising Tim Tebow when he was talking about God, but when someone is supporting the other party then what you voted for the suddenly shouldn't have a voice, remember freedom of speech goes two ways.

I have a platform, and while small, I feel like it is my job to use it.

I was up until 1am this morning after watching the ABC interview with Trump last night. I am normally asleep a little after 10, I have two young kids and their feeding pumps go off at 2am and 6am. If you want someone to hang out with you late at night Brent is your guy.

So as I laid their last night my heart in turmoil I tried to focus my mind back to the Bible. The verses I meditated on were Isaiah 1:17, Romans 12:19, Matthew 5:42, James 4:7, James 4:17, and Psalm 34:14.

Our new president has been in office for a week now. Last Friday I was really hoping for good things (remember I am the one who will be greatly effected by the changes in ACA) and a week in my heart is heavy and sad. As I was crying to Brent last night I said I feel like I can make no impact in this situation, he reminded me that my job is to raise our children the best that I can so they also stand up to say when something is wrong. I taught multiple age groups and we did lessons about bullies in each one of them and every time I taught that if you see a bully doing something you don't like but you let it happen you are empowering the bullying. 

So here is my stance:
-I will not be ok with media censorship. If you don't know I went to a special high school with an emphasis on communications, I have taken multiple media courses and in them I have learned about what happens in places of media censorship.
-I will not be ok with waterboarding or any other kinds of torture. It makes us no better then the countries we claim to be fighting against. Bush outlawed it in 2006... I was still in high school then. It is inhuman and the documents from the CIA says it does not work and often leads to wrong information.
-I will not be ok with "alternative fact" or misrepresentation of the truth. I don't need fact checking sites, I am able to find the information on my own. I will not accept something as truth just because someone says it, I don't care who that someone is.
-I will not be ok with people with pre existing conditions not being covered, healthcare maximums coming back. Last night Trump said again that they are going to come up with a new plan... wanna know what that tells me... they still don't have one, they are working to get rid of the ACA but they still have no plan to show us. I also read the Trump website again this week and it talks about block grants for medicaid... what happens when a state's money runs out in July? It also talks about scaling back medicaid.
-I will not be ok with not taking care of the earth. That is our job. It is very disrespectful to God to say "thanks for the earth now watch me destroy it." We need to be searching for ways to best take care of the earth
-I will not be ok to shutting our doors and boarders. Remember we are ALL IMMIGRANTS!
-I will not be ok with criminalizing women who have had abortions. I know Trump has since back peddled on this but it still worries me. Criminalizing these women just deepens the heartache and pain they are already going through. Instead we need to be loving people. We need to provide healthcare so they can have a safe pregnancy. We need churches to step up and take care of these children. We need to destigmaize disabilities because many of the babies who are aborted have disabilities and as a culture we still don't handle disables well (look at my post from Tuesday). Just making something illegal doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't solve sex slavery, rape, disability views, broken homes, the church not teaching grace, and brokenness. But I am really afraid that if it is made illegal then the church will think they are done and wash their hands, have a victory parade and leave these broken people behind telling them they are unwanted. I have seen the facebook posts that God couldn't love someone who had an abortion but then my mind thinks back to the story of Paul and how many people Paul killed "in the name of God" before he met Jesus and am reminded that facebook post is untrue.
-I will not be ok with someone being in charge of education in this country that doesn't understand IDEA and is not willing to take a stand that she will protect the rights of all students.
-I will not be ok with a wall. Look at history and see how well walls work but also think about the environmental impact. We only think of people but we forget about plans and animals that also are in that area.
-I will not be ok with discrimination based on ANYTHING! We are all God's children and right now there is a lot of acting like "I'm the favorite" and not caring who we hurt in the process.
-I will not be ok with the idolization of leaders. I don't care if it is the president or christian leaders. Doing something just because someone who uses the name God in their speech is not right. Our minister tells us to read the Bible for ourselves and make sure that what he is preaching is correct. I worry about the blind following of christian leaders without making sure that what they are saying is Biblical. There is a difference between a mentor and an idol. Read entire Bible passages to make sure that by just quoting one verse that it is not being taken out of context.
-I will not be ok with the dialog that everything here in America is broken. Yup we have our issues, but all I am seeing preached is how bad we have it. We have some great things going on. Our country is not a war zone. Our country is not burning to the ground. Our country sure is not Aleppo, but in the things I am hearing we are acting like it. Yes we need to keep striving to do better but we also need to wake up to how good we have it. America is not its own planet, we are not the kings of this world, and no where in the Bible does it call us God's chosen country; we need to play nice with everyone.  


So I was up late last night  and this morning my gut just feels ill because stress all goes right to my gut.

But I see people responding in one of two ways about this all:
1. Yelling, screaming and calling people names
2. Burying their heads in the sand.

I want to be somewhere between those two answers. Insulting people doesn't work and causes people to stop listening. But I refuse to be ok with many different things that are going on. I refuse to sit quite. I refuse to blindly follow.

So where does that leave me. At the moment, I'm not totally sure my next steps. I have been texting with two of my friends as we wrestle with this. I feel like I need to do something, but I don't know what. But as I work on that I am going to continue to love others and invest in them. I am going to keep the dialog open because even though taking politics literally makes me feel like vomiting, sitting quite is worse. I will continue to contact my representatives. I will support places like the Ann Frank Center and the rouge parks department as they stand up. I will continue to do things to support others. Ronald McDonald House in Milwaukee yesterday said they need snacks for families, I need to go to Target today anyhow so I can pick stuff up for them while I am out. Target also has tons of toys on cartwheel this week that would be prefect for the magic room. I will continue to write about my kids to spread disability awareness. I will keep looking for opportunities to love others. I will keep learning history so I can learn from its lessons. And while tons of people are calling my generation snowflakes I will become an avalanche for change. I will not be ok with something that is wrong because it is what we have always done. I will do more then just pray about it because I look at people in the Bible and God asks for actions (Jesus, Jonah, the disciples, and so many others). And my goal in this is not for my fame, but for His glory!  We point people back to God's love with grace, mercy, kindness, hospitality and generosity... not walls, discrimination, greed and hate.