It has been my priviledge the last few weekdays to fill in again on my sister’s daily devotional e-mail. I am going to start posting them here as well, or ask her to since she writes here too. If you would like to go look at past ones, you can visit her Yahoo group. You can even sign up for the group to receive them daily in your email. With that said, here is today’s:

Psalm 63:1

O God, you are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you,

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.

How much do you seek God? Do you seek him desperately? Earnestly?

If you have been following any of the war coverage, then you have seen a lot of desert lately. David wrote this Psalm while he was in the desert. Sometimes I don’t drink as much water as is recommended. I use other liquids to get me by. I think we do the same thing with God sometimes. We need to seek God in a way that acknowledges that we can’t survive without Him. Are you trying to make it by without God, or are you seeking Him earnestly for your survival?

I know it is totally unrelated to the news of the day, but it is such a good feeling to pay off debts that are owed. This month has seen my family pay off three separate debts, two credit card balances and a vehicle. The feeling is very liberating and I highly recommend it.

Well there is so much to say today. It was a rollercoaster weekend. I realize that is because the new embedded journalist angle puts us more into the scene. Really what it did for me is make me realize that I had no idea what soldiers actually did during a day. I know that what we see on TV is still a pretty sanitized but it is the clearest picture I have ever seen.

A few things that struck me from this weekend:

I watched the entire Umm Qasr fight on TV… from the moment they first broke in with the British reporter until the air strike. This included some very surreal moments. First of all was the fact that my eyes kept being drawn to the marines in the very front. They looked like statues, unmoving pictures of soldiers poised with their rifles aimed at a target in the distance. Then the tanks moved in… still they lay in the dust. My hours were spent watching this scene and I changed positions countless times but those soldiers stayed, eyes trained ahead. As everyone dissappeared, after they called in air strikes, all the cable news stations showed a similar scene. A tree line somewhere in a city most of us had never heard of before was shown on camera. Occasionally you could hear the planes coming in the distance… then noise… then silence. I was riveted. The second thing that struck me was the irony of the staged “press conference” I saw carried in this time frame. As we were preparing to finish off the remaining troops in this city some Iraqi Minister was crowing about pushing us into a swamp. After every statement I wondered if he was watching the same scenes I was? The words sure didn’t seem to match reality. I guess that isn’t news exactly it was just striking to see a side by side comparison of real life and spin.

As I was drifting off to sleep at 4AM I was just hearing that the Iraqi’s had POW’s. I went to sleep praying for them. I awoke to newspeople looking shocked… that’s the only word I can see that fits… just shocked. So the rest of my day was spent in gratitude. Every smile from my nephews and every glance at the blue sky from our swingset was a gift. It always has been a gift. I just don’t think it’s ever as obvious as it was yesterday. You see the biggest contrast from Umm Qasr and my backyard was that I got to turn reality off for a while. In that I am blessed… and that blessing was bought by the people that I have watched on TV these past few days… and the countless like them that I will never see or know. There have been generations of battles that I have been spared. For that I am grateful. I can’t say “thanks” enough these days. I can’t hug my family enough. I can’t seem to stop saying “I love you” to everyone I love. I can’t smile at strangers enough. I cry at every flag… at every playing of the Star Spangled Banner. From this day on when I look at our flag I will see it differently. Those red stripes, that blood that made my life possible, it’s never been more visible or personal.

I pray that I will never forget. As my generation grows and molds the next generation I pray that we will instill the important sense of awe at the sacrifices involved in our liberty.

I have been reading some of the war coverage today, and I came upon this thank you letter by Vox Day at WorldNetDaily.

See Jeff! Your sister has not forgotten you. : )

I finally have a minute or two to sit down and write. My feelings last night watching the actual war commense went from relief that we finally started to a bit of sadness. I do realize that this war is a necessary evil. But I also have friends who are somewhere over in those sandstorms and firestorms. Somehow it changes the way I look at the pictures and bombs flashing on screen. I have to wonder where are my friends? I wonder if they are safe? I know many people are sharing those thoughts with me. I don’t think they will go away while we go through this process.

I can only imagine what the families of Iraqi citizens who are not in Iraq are thinking. Actually I don’t have to imagine what one of them thinks. Check out this conversation between a “peacnik” and an Iraqi named Mohammed

So I’ll sit here in my nice “safe” apartment and pray for the safety of all involved. And feel very blessed to have the unbelievable US Military representing me and my freedom. God Bless them and our allies.

I know I am not the only person who thinks this, but the Saddam that was on TV after the attack last night, doesn’t look like the same guy that we saw before the attacks. Maybe it was the glasses that made him look funny. Whatever it was, I was thinking how great it would be if we had managed to take him out in that first strike. Essentially the war is over just as quickly as it began. Main objective accomplished, thank you and goodnight. There is still more to do of course. Mainly dismantling his arsenal of banned weapons. Some of which were fired in retaliation. I wonder if those people who needed more proof that he had banned weapons will shut up now that they launched Scud missles that they “didn’t have”?

Now I am keeping a closer eye on the news, as I am sure most people are these days. It is hard to figure out why it has taken us so long to get to this point and actually go to war. How long does someone have to lie and break promises before you come to accept that they are predisposed to lie and break promises. In this case it would seem something in the neighborhood of twelve years. Although that doesn’t apply to everyone in the world. Apparently there are some eternal optimists out there who are willing to accept the word of a pathological liar and overlook his past indiscretions. You know like genocide, torture of his own people and those kinds of things. I am not a war-loving person. I don’t know many folks who just love a good war. Although I can spot one side in this conflict who seems to fit the bill, and I have yet to see a protest in this country against him. Just find me one anti-war protest in this country where they protested Saddam Hussein’s uncompromising attitude and defiance of U.N. resolutions starting with a ceasefire 12 years ago to save his sorry behind. I haven’t seen one yet, but if you have I would be more than happy to know about it.

God bless our troops and protect them as they bring peace to a land that hasn’t know peace for many years now.

In a show of class, Matt Drudge links to this story from a local newspaper that is an unbiased media outlet I am sure. Since when did objectivity lead to calling names in derision. Perhaps they just don’t like anyone reading their paper online.

I have heard many people say that the anti-war protesters are really just anti-American or worse yet anti-Bush. Well apparently those people are right. Why else would anti-war folk be advocating a war.

In honor of the vote today in the Senate to ban partial-birth abortions, I wanted to bring to light a great quote that I read yesterday from Kathy Ireland:

“The bottom line is this: If the unborn is not a human being, have as many abortions as you want, whenever you want. It doesn’t matter. No justification is necessary. If, on the other hand, the unborn is a human being, no justification is adequate unless another human life, that being the mother, is in danger.” -KI

This gets right at the heart of the debate. When is the last time you heard someone try and justify the importance of having a (fill in the blank with your favorite medical procedure). Now when is the last time you heard someone from the pro-abortion crowd, if you wanna be called pro-choice then please offer some choices, defend a mother’s “right” to an abortion. Probably today if you have watched any news story about this Senate vote.

It’s really simple. Everytime they launch into an argument about why abortion should be allowed as a “medical procedure” to save the life of the mother or keep a deformed baby from being born or what have you, they are essentially admitting that they know the answer to the question we should all ask.

Is a fetus a human being? If they didn’t think so, then they wouldn’t be arguing so vehemently about the whole thing. Let’s look at some interesting info that you may never have seen before. Did you know that a baby can feel pain in the womb? Have you ever read what former abortion workers have to say about the procedure? And be sure to check out this page which talks about the procedure the Senate was specifically working to end today? Be sure and read it after you read the page about fetal pain, and then see if you don’t feel your anger rising at the capricious nature with which some handle this debate.