CANADA'S STATE-SANCTIONED EUTHANASIA

As you know, Canada has legalized euthanasia (euphemistically called "medical assistance in dying”). Bill C-14 was enacted under the pretext of assisted suicide. That's not what Canada got. The second federal report on Canada's new assisted suicide law reveals that less than 1per cent of deaths were self-administered. The rest were lethal injections -- administered at taxpayers' expense -- regardless of whether they object! By definition, that's state-sponsored euthanasia not assisted suicide. It is not medical assistance in dying, it is medical killing.  

Being one of the vulnerable target group, I asked my physician to put the note below on my file. I removed her name as a courtesy. She is not one of the killer-doctors.

American readers of this blog should use Canada as a lesson of what not to do. State-sanctioned euthanasia always turns bad.

If you would like me to speak about the perils of assisted suicide or euthanasia, from the perspective of someone who is disabled and has been incurably ill for more than 35 years, send me an email at HumanLifeMatters@shaw.ca 


Mark Davis Pickup

WHEN DESPERATE PRAYERS SEEM UNANSWERED

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It was in his terrible agony of being crucified, Jesus cried those words of abandonment.[1]  Christ was abandoned by his friends -- except John and, of course, his mother. He was abandoned by the fickle crowds that -- one week earlier -- heralded his entrance into Jerusalem with jubilant shouts of "Hosanna in the highest!" Then the one who lived in perfect fellowship with God felt alienated from God.

Christ cried those heart-breaking words because he felt abandoned by God at the very moment he needed his Father most! Why? Because Christ took on the weight of the world's sins.[2]  In God's perfect holiness, He had to turn away from the great body of human sin, even when borne by His only begotten son.

Abandonment 

Do you feel abandoned by God in your pain? Does it seem that God does not answer your desperate prayers? Christ understands. He has been there. God does not turn away from us, although it certainly may seem that way at a critical moment of crisis.

I think we can begin to understand why the door to God's comfort and consolation seems to have slammed shut when our need for Him is most desperate. The key lies in the word "desperate."

C.S. Lewis wrote about this aspect of grieving. He explained that in

most things, we can't get what we want if we want it too desperately, or at least not get the best of it. Lewis used the analogies of not being able to see clearly when our eyes are filled with tears; that really delicious drinks are wasted on a ravenous thirst. I think he was right. It is the drowning man, flailing frantically in wild panic, who cannot be rescued, lest he drags down the rescuer and himself. 

We've all heard accounts of firefighters finding bodies of victims piled at the exit of a burned out building. The chaos of panic prevented orderly evacuation. Everyone perished beneath the exit sign. 

Sleepless nights

I know the stark terror of sleepless nights. I remember (more than 35 years ago now) the feeling of being abandoned in my anguish, staring out the kitchen window at 3:00am, while everyone else in the house slept peacefully. The fresh shock of being told I had an incurable, degenerative disease filled me with a strange mixture of numbness and panic. The only sound was the steady ticking of the mantle clock in the living room. As I looked into the backyard bathed in silver-blue moonlight, I was struck by the contradiction of the tranquillity around me and the terror within. I wanted to run away. But run where? The terror was in my own body!

My future had stretched out ahead of me, full of promise. Suddenly, it was all in ruins, or so I thought. My desperate prayers were unanswered, or so I thought. I felt deserted and alone. I remember looking up at the ceiling and saying to God, "If this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them."

Do you see the problem? This was no way to approach the sovereign God of the universe! I was angry that my agenda had been derailed. I demanded to be delivered back to my former self (disguised as a prayerful petition). God was only welcome on my terms. (I suppose Christ could have rightfully responded, "If this is how you treat your friends ... ."

Pray another prayer

I needed to place my sorrow before God, and honestly, humbly pray another prayer, with a different heart. In the hours leading to his crucifixion, Christ prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."[4] Christ asked three times that his cup of suffering be removed, and yet each time qualified his request with a willingness to submit to his heavenly Father's will, whatever that might be. Christ's request was not granted but an angel was sent to strengthen him in his suffering.


If God had granted Christ's earnest prayer request, the stain of humanity's sin would have remained. Even now, centuries later, it is only through faith that Christ's blood shed at Calvary has paid the penalty for our sins, are we reconciled in repentance to God.

Jesus spoke of people opening the door of their hearts at the sound

of his voice.[3] But how can a man hear Christ's voice if he is screaming in terror, confusion, desperation or anger? The man is pounding on the inside of a door only he can open.

Sometimes the most effective prayers are not what we say but how we listen. Sometimes God wants us to be still so he can calm our hearts. Only then can He speak to us at our deepest level. God wants us to utterly surrender every corner of our being to Him. He wants us to trust Him regardless of our circumstances.

There are times when suffering has a far greater benefit than deliverance from it. We must quieten our hearts, humbly seek God, and submit to his will, whatever that might be. Perhaps it is at the apex of suffering, and the door to God seems to have shut, that the seed of real faith can germinate. It is when all evidence of God's presence seems to have vanished that we have a unique opportunity to cry out with the great family of sufferers throughout the ages: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me" -- yet still choose to believe and obey.

MDP
____________
Notes.
[1]Matthew 27.46.  Cf. Psalm 22.1.
[2]See Isaiah 53.5; 2Corinthians 5.21; Galations 3.13; 1Peter 2.24, 3.18; 1John 3.5.
[3] Revelation 3.20.
[4] Matthew 26.39

THIS IS MY FATHER'S WORLD

"Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as

in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired. A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon." -- Victor Hugo

That is the case for me, except I can not 'walk' in my little garden.  
Still, I can tend to my enclosure with a tall hedge that gives a place of solitude, my little sanctuary, to adore God.

Be content with your life. Blossom where God plants you. He is our consolation, the final reality.

Although I am in the autumn of my life, the perpetual summer of God's love glows in my heart. This is my Father's world. See video below courtesy of Fountainview College.