10-7-19<\/p>\n
I.<\/p>\n
These weekly visits are called \u201cMusic Ministry,\u201d and the thoughts I share usually lead to, or are inspired by, a song or a hymn. But they can be read independently and (sadly, to me) often are read without people peeking at the video clip.<\/p>\n
Independent or not, whether you are busy or not, I urge you to click the music video here. You might, or not, have heard of Joey Feek, the beautiful female half of the duet Joey+Rory.<\/p>\n
Joey Martin sang with her husband Rory Feek and made quite an impact on the country-music scene when she gave birth to a daughter, Indie, in 2014. They decided to take a year off from performing, and raise their daughter on their farm. Soon after the birth, Indie was diagnosed as having Down Syndrome. The couple, of course, doubled down on the love and attention\u2026 and so did their fans.<\/p>\n
Soon after that<\/em>, Joey herself received a diagnosis. Cervical cancer. Excruciating episodes of prayer, pain, surgery, radiation, chemo, \u201csuccess,\u201d return of cancers in many areas; more prayer; home treatments; \u201cwasting away\u201d\u2026 during which time Joey and Rory kept diaries in the form of written and video blogs. Their anxious and supportive friends and fans followed every detail of the trials, every loss of hair and pounds, every decline of health and strength.<\/p>\n When Joey died in 2016 at the age of 40, she had fulfilled some dreams \u2013 recording a Gospel album with her husband (sometimes singing from the sickroom), and seeing Indie turn two. When healthy and strong enough, she sometimes had held Indie in her arms on stage, mother and daughter dancing, the beautiful infant waving happily to audiences.<\/p>\n Another singer entered the lives of Joey+Rory, or vice versa. Bradley Walker has kept Joey\u2019s memories alive in some of his own songs and videos. He has a handsome country and Gospel baritone, and has won awards, has performed around America, and has recorded albums (at Joey+Rory\u2019s recording studio on their farm).<\/p>\n Bradley also has muscular dystrophy. He has been in a wheelchair since the point when most children learn to crawl, and has scarce use of his hands. But he sings when and where he can, which is often.<\/p>\n Joey+Rory and Bradley Walker each recorded the meaningful song In the Time That You Gave Me<\/em>. What I recommend to you this week is that you click on the video of a special performance, Bradley singing the song in a duet with the previously recorded track of Joey\u2019s performance, her beautiful voice accompanied by photos of the healthy Joey, cancer-battling Joey, and Joey the mom with sweet Indie.<\/p>\n II.<\/p>\n I could leave it there, surely touching hearts with the stories of these amazing people \u2013 strength in the face of horrible challenges, of life\u2019s frequent frustrations (at best) and crushing disappointments at times. Faith. Bradley could be spending his days in non-stop pity parties. Joey could have hidden herself in anger… or shared her bitterness with the world.<\/p>\n If she had learned about Indie\u2019s Down Syndrome before birth, she could have aborted that sweet baby.<\/p>\n Ninety per cent of mothers do, these days, in that situation.<\/p>\n That comes to the second part of this message. Life is cheap these days. In movies, on streets. In classrooms, in politics. In hospitals \u2013 or half of them: when medicine does not innovate and extend healthy lives, it develops more efficient ways of ending them. The elderly, increasingly; and babies. Babies before birth\u2026 during birth\u2026 now (this should be shocking) right after birth.<\/p>\n What sort of monsters have we become? I curse the culture for developing uncountable means to camouflage this perversion of values, this holocaust of millions, this triumph of calling good \u201cbad\u201d and bad \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n This week I attended a dinner for the Flint Pregnancy Resource Center, and heard speakers present statistics \u2013 for instance, the number of murdered babies since Roe equaling the combined populations of California and Florida \u2013 a litany that threatens to inure us from its nightmarish essence, not because we hear horrors so often, but because society shrugs its collective shoulders.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s none of your business.\u201d \u201cYou are you to judge?\u201d \u201cWhatever.\u201d Those reactions seem louder than our arguments. They are more common than desperate pleas for help and rescue and support. They tell us there is no such thing as right and wrong\u2026 but these people will insist we are wrong<\/em>.<\/p>\n Louder than the arguments on either side, however, are quiet, nervous voices like the mom who shared her testimony at the dinner this week. Guilty about past abortions, she recently gave birth to a daughter, and the mom\u2019s palpable joy and acceptance of forgiveness, her redemption and new life (new lives!), and knowing that people love and value her\u2026 provides inspiration.<\/p>\n Even louder still are the tiny cries and giggles of babies \u2013 not blobs or tissue masses \u2013 who join the human family. They should drown out any other noise.<\/p>\n