CHOOSING LIFE AND THE HUMAN FAMILY

Close to 20 years ago, I wrote and narrated a documentary called "To be, or not to be -- the Human Family." My creative and talented daughter, Ronaele, and the late David Mainse co-produced it. The documentary was aired across North America. Later, Ronaele and I were being interviewed by the Canadian Christian talk show 100 Huntley Street. Unbeknownst to me, they preceded the interview with the music video "Choose Life" by the band Big Tent Revival (I did not know the song). 

My daughter Ronaele
(we're two peas in a pod)

At the end of the music video, I had a lump in my throat the size of a grapefruit. I was not sure I could get through the interview. Happily, my daughter knows her dad and took the lead. Click video image below.

AFFIRMING BOYS' DEVELOPMENT

An essential part of a boy is damaged when his masculinity (or perceived lack of it) is questioned or ridiculed. An underlying sorrow begins to corrode his self-image and spirit. Your sons need affirmation, guidance and unconditional love in this time of gender confusion and sexual politics. Protect them from the sexual madness pervading our culture.

A THOUGHT ABOUT DAYDREAMS AND PRAYERS

As a child, I was a daydreamer (to a fault). It was considered a frivilous waste of time. As a man, it became a great asset. I imagined how things could be. The sicker I became the more beautiful my daydreams became. I imagined a world where every child is welcome and no child's birth is betrayed. I imagined a place where the disabled are included and not helped to kill themselves. I imagined a place where marriage is honoured and divorce is rare. I imagined a nation that honours God in its laws and behaviour. I imagined daydreams becoming prayers. Prayers often become reality.

"IAN": A SHORT FILM ABOUT DISABILITY AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INCLUSION

I want you to see the excellent award winning animated short film below about disability inclusion. It is simply called Ian. Include all children. 

MOVIE REVIEW: "BECAUSE OF GRACIA" (and some comments about anti-Christian prejudice in education)

By Valerie Flokstra

Because of Gracia is a film that makes me laugh and cry.  That effect never diminishes though I’ve watched it multiple times.  I think it’s because I relate to the characters in so many ways. Like Gracia, I’ve been pulled into debate. Like Chase, I’ve kept silent and regretted it. Like Bobbi, I’ve been ready to give up.  Like all of them, God is the only one who can give me hope.

Let me take you back in time a year, behind the closed door of my professor’s office. “Valerie, I need you to tell me that you will set your Christian identity aside,” my professor said. Fear and shock battled for precedence in my mind. This kind of thing only happened in movies like God’s Not Dead.  Yet there I was, faced with a choice: deny my God or deny my professor. 

I was in a competitive entry teacher education program at the University of the Fraser Valley. Failing one course meant failing the entire thing.  The fear and shock diminished, replaced by confidence and peace.  Denying God wasn’t an option.  I explained to my professor that God is more important to me than anything else.  The first commandment says that we can’t have anything else above him.  So I can’t set my Christian identity aside.  

I hoped my professor would understand, but she didn’t.  She was angry.  I started to cry because the whole situation was so bizarre.  In an email to my professor, I assured her my Christian identity would not hinder me from being a good and caring teacher for all students.  I asked her to explain what I’d done that was “too Christian” and what she expected of me in her class in the future.  She did not specify what she meant, nor what she expected.  She was sure I could figure it out on my own.  That lack of specific directions left me feeling like I was walking on eggshells for the rest of the program.  

Later, my professor said, “Christianity needs to get brought down, and if it ends up below other religions for a while that’s okay.”  The fear was strong.  I said nothing. Sitting in class for hours every day hearing things that didn’t make sense, and things that shot arrows at the religion that was the foundation of my life was almost unbearable at times.  God heard my prayers and answered. 

I realized how powerful and effective prayer is.  I can’t remember what I said at the Show and Tell assignment when I brought a Bible, but I know the words were definitely the right ones.  They were much better than whatever I had planned to say the night before.  To me, it was a miracle. A week later another miracle happened. In spite of everything I actually passed the course!

The program wasn’t over though. A few months later I was summoned to another meeting with a different professor.  It was regarding me using a medical statistic that my professor said created a toxic environment in the classroom. I felt like Bobbi Ryan, I didn’t know where to turn.  Life seemed to be an option between bad and worse.  I shared almost nothing in class for the rest of the year.  My professors congratulated me for my excellent participation.  By the time I graduated I was nothing like the eager, inquisitive girl I was going into the program.  It took time, but God is good, and He is the ultimate healer.  

This September, an acquaintance of mine wanted me to share some of my experiences that were covered by several news sites, and even the National Post. There were hundreds of supportive comments. 

The first time I watched Because of Gracia, I loved every moment of it. There was a bittersweet feeling at the end though.  Gracia in the movie got a victory.  Everything worked out for her.  There was a happily ever after, a chance to shine a big light.  I didn’t really have that — just memories of a scary university program.

The second time I watched it  I marvelled at how God can change things, how He can change me, how He can turn something dark into an opportunity to shine a light. 

I was inspired during a dark time because of Gracia.  I think I’ll laugh and cry while I watch it no matter what my life looks like in the moment.  

It’s a film I recommend to all my friends because it’s amazing. Film is a powerful tool for telling stories, and I am so glad that films like Because of Gracia are out there to be a lesson, an encouragement, and a light.

A WOMAN THANKS DOCTOR FOR NOT HELPING HER SUICIDE

See the short clip below from the film Fatal Flaws, courtesy of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dunn Media.

AN EXCERPT FROM A BOOK I AM WRITING

My wife LaRee and I have been married for forty-five years. We've known each other since early childhood. Our lives together have been touched by every major Life issue of our time. Our love affair began in the months following my father's death in 1970. Below is a short excerpt from a book I am writing. It deals with our experiences with abortion, disease, disability, profound grief and euthanasia—but mostly about the transcendent power of love.

______________

In the early Spring of 1970, it was time to return to the log cabin and prepare it for summer. It was torture. Everything reminded me of dad: His fishing rod hanging in the tool shed, his shoes sitting at the door in the cabin just as he left them the previous fall, a book left open on the arm of his chair. It was like plunging a dagger into my chest. 

I took dad's boat out on the lake and went to a secluded little cove where I often fished with him. The water was cold, clear and still. Dead brushes from the previous year lined the shore. Birds chirped in trees celebrating a new Spring.  Then I heard a loon's lonesome call in the distance and I collapsed on the floor of the boat and sobbed.  I don’t know how long I laid there. All I remember was crying until there were no more tears to shed. Looking up at the sky, I wondered if Dad could see me. I whispered “How will I carry on without you?”

Chapter 6

The telephone rang. It was a call that would change my life forever and bring a new and different kind of love: Romance.  It was LaRee—the girl I had been sweet about since I was four-years-old. Her voice was like a hymn. She said she wanted to express her condolences about my father’s death.  She made my heart leap and took my breath away. For years she lived three thousand miles away in the city of Ottawa. Instantly I wanted to see her. I asked when she was planning to come across Canada to visit her poor, ailing, elderly grandparents living next door (very thoughtful of me, don’t you think? Yeah right!)  Her grandparents were not particularly old and they certainly were not poor, nor ailing. LaRee agreed to come when school was out for the summer. We exchanged photo-booth pictures (four for a quarter).  I spent a wad of quarters behind the curtain trying to get the right worldly and sophisticated pose. Every day I ran to the post office looking for a letter containing her picture.  When it came, the sight of her beauty almost knocked me over!  There was no pixy cut and tricycle that I remembered from bygone years. She was stunning!  Her beautiful brown eyes made my heart melt.  All I could think about was LaRee. 

The day she flew to Alberta. I was a bundle of nerves. When her grandparents went to get her from the airport, I watched from my bedroom window. When they arrived back, LaRee got out of their car unaware I was watching her. It was like seeing a movie star. She stood mere feet away. Somewhere deep in my heart a small flame of hope was lit. Was she the one to drive back my crushing sorrow with the magic of romance? After all, we were only seventeen.  Did I need love too much to be loved?  Self-doubt made me afraid that my desperate heart would chase her away.

... With great uncertainty, I walked to her grandmother’s house, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door with a trembling hand.  Something whispered inside me that the door was opening to my future. Could me be we ? Was it all just wishful thinking on my part? Did LaRee believe wishful thoughts can come true?

I entered her grandparents’ house. LaRee turned and looked at me with her beautiful brown oriental eyes.  She stole my breath and my heart. My wishful thought was that her heart did the same. LaRee did not know I was in love her before we met that day. 

She could be the missing piece of my life and my desperate heart ached for her to love me. But could she? Would she? Hearts too desperate for love often chase love away.  Could she love a desperate heart? Was her heart desperate for love too? Was she the light I hoped for or was she just a summer flame that would extinguish in September after she went back east?  Would I hear that mournful loon cry again when LaRee left at the end of summer?