StevenLaura

On the way to the grocery store today, I tuned in to one of the many Christian radio stations in town. There are, like, a gazillion in this area.

The song on the radio was some hip new song I had never heard. The words of the song were something along the lines of "Don't be afraid of death, Jesus, because you'll be raised again in three days."

WHAT THE?!?

I promptly switched the station. There were JUST SO MANY things wrong with that line. (So, I may have misquoted the line, I had never heard the song before, but that was the basic message -- if you know the song I speak of, please let me know what the real words were.)

FIRST -- don't be afraid of DEATH?! Gee, thanks. Condescending. That's the sort of thing I say to my one year old! "Don't be afraid of the melting snow on your sock, it'll dry." SECOND, way to trivialize the death! He didn't just die, dummy! He died on a TORTURE device, one of the worst ways invented TO die. THIRD -- "because you'll rise again in three days" Hm... first, he probably ALREADY KNEW THAT, second, does he really need you to write him a song 2,000 years later to TELL him that? Third, is that a reason not to fear a huge torturous ordeal that will ultimately take your life? I think not. I would still fear. I would still cry out to my God asking him to take the burden from me. I'm actually quite glad for the record of Jesus's time in the garden before his death. It's nice to know his struggle. It makes his obedience that much greater.

So, basically, what I heard in this song is, "Silly Jesus, you don't need to be pouring your heart out to God in the garden, asking him to take this burden from you. This is, after all, just death, and you'll conquer it. Sure, it's torturous death, but what are you afraid of? What's a little pain?"

AAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!! [Alright, so I wasn't really as outraged as this blog post seems to indicate, I didn't stew over the song for more than 45 seconds, but I did stew a bit. Wouldn't you? Or am I way out of line here?]

...

So, I went into the store, bought my food, came back out to a nice rendition of Walking in a Winter Wonderland on the station I'd tuned to in haste after listening to bad Christian radio.

Ahh... much better. "And pretend that he's a circus clown. We'll have lots of fun with Mr. Snowman..." I sang along, picturing the clown snowman with a group of kids. Good music. Nothing wrong here.

Then the song ended. It was immediately followed by, "This is station W---, bringing the gospel to the air."

WHAT?!? The gospel?!? Gospel. The good news.

FOLKS: NEWS FLASH -- the GOOD NEWS is that it's snowing outside and we can make snowmen!!! Wahoo!!!

Bad news -- my friends in North Carolina rarely get to experience the gospel, and my mom's friends in central Africa must make a trip WAAAAY north to see what this gospel is all about.

Arg. So, bro, you work in Christian radio. Can you come over here and help these folks clean up their act?

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In other news: Lake effect snow. Yep. They weren't kidding. It just keeps coming. We shoveled before going shopping today. My brand-new two-inch high heels barely did the job keeping my feet above the snow when we returned. But at least they got me up to six feet tall, so that I blend in a little better with the uber-tall Dutch locals. (E picked them out for me. She did a good job. At 20 months she has better fashion sense than I EVER have had.)

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And, for my mother -- Cute grandkid story of the day.

E and K went to bed at the same time tonight. This is a first, as K usually isn't tired until an hour after E's bedtime. They sleep in the same room. 20 min after putting both girls down, I heard E talking in something between a whisper and her normal voice. "Mimi... Mimi... Mimi!!!" She stopped as soon as she heard me. I went in her room. She obviously had been obedient and stayed in bed, but she also obviously had not been IN her bed -- her sheets were pushed aside, she looked like she had just flopped down on her pillow as I opened the door. I could picture her leaning over her safety rails, whispering to her sister on the other side of the room with all her might, "Hey, baby sister, it's time to wake up now so we can talk and play! The parents are gone now, let's have some sibling time! Hey, Mimi, are you up?... No? How about now? ... How 'bout a nice hiccough, so that I can mimic you? Wouldn't that be fun? Any noise at all would be fun, wouldn't it? Hey, Mimi.... Mimi... " -- Mimi, being only 2 months old, was of course, not stirring a bit. Sorry, E. You're going to have to wait a bit longer to have slumber parties.

Oh, but Mimi is growing up fast! She now sits up fairly well, and is FULL of smiles! She loves having us chat with her, and even coos back most of the time. She's very verbal, and seems quite bright. Her worried looks still come, but usually only when E is around trying to "play" with her.