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@whilewewereyetsinners
God is real.
The Bible is true. (All of it.)
Sin is real and dangerous.
Jesus died on the cross to pay for that sin because He loves us.
If you're new to my blog, this is what I believe. You're more than welcome here, regardless of what you believe, but I want you to know what kind of blog you're on. I talk about fandom stuff, and other random stuff, but this is the core of who I am, so I post a lot about that.
So this is not something I usually post because it involves something deeply personal about my pregnancy.
In early December we found out that our son is suffering from Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), where his diaphragm didn't full close. He is left with a hole in his diaphragm, allowing the organs in his abdomenal cavity to move into his chest cavity, restricting the growth of his lungs and affecting the positioning of his heart.
So far a portion of his intestines, most of his stomach, and now a portion of his liver is sitting in his chest cavity.
He'll need surgery with in days of birth to move the organs back into his abdomen and repair the diaphragm. He is expected to stay in the nicu a minimum of five weeks but could be up to 3 months or more, depending on his progress during pregnancy and how he responds and heals post surgery.
We hope to stay as much time as possible in the NICU with him during his time their.
And thats why I am posting this link today. Its hard for me to ask others for help, especially financial. It would mean the world to us if you could donate money so we can be there for our son.
Donations would go toward loss salary while staying with our son in the NICU, transportation to and from the hospital, food while staying there. Also the money would go toward things needed when we bring him home from the hospital, like the possibility for oxygen needs, feeding tubes and formula, medication, and other monitoring equipment he may need. Additionally, depending on how his hernia progresses before birth, we may need to relocate out of state and we want to be able to have that option to give him the best care.
@robert-the-foul @r0bilargreenleaf
If you can not donate, please share. I’ve provided two different fundraising sites:
Our baby has been diagnosed with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a serious condition that will require specialized care and a prolong
Our baby has been diagnosed with congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH), a se… tiffany F needs your support for Help Us Be Present For Our CD
Sharing this again. Our son actually reherniated, and he had excess air in his abdomen from that , plus had some holes and adhesions on parts of his intestines from when they were entangled up in his chest.
They repaired the hernia again , luckily it was small but they added a biological dissolvable mesh to help cover the area. They had to get rid of part of his intestines from the issue that they saw. His blood pressure has been too low, so they don’t think his intestines would properly heal if they attached the pieces of intestines together just yet, so now they are being held outside the body in the meantime.
They told us 6-8 weeks for healing possible then they’ll attached the intestines together.
It’s a set back for sure.
They had mentioned that before they caught this they were considering starting feedings soon and weaning off more things .
Being able to pay for transportation is our biggest concern right now. Then later any specialty equipment or medication may be needed.
New developments: son is still healing, has had some set backs but now my husband is in the ER and needs surgery that’ll probably leave him home from work for a couple weeks.
So no pay, and he may not be able to visit our son until he is cleared to move about more.
I am asking, please, anything will help, as little as a dollar is a dollar toward visiting our son and to help take care of our house.
If you’re able to help, these folks are worthy of our generosity.
Old Assumptions
There was a time when the world was built upon different assumptions. Not better people. Not smarter people. Just different assumptions.
The assumption was that a broken chair would be repaired. That a worn tool would be sharpened. That a machine would be rebuilt rather than discarded. That a man who did not yet know how to do something could learn.
The assumption was that usefulness was not purchased, but made.
Open an old magazine and you can still see it between the pages. Instructions for building a boat in the backyard. Plans for a radio assembled on the kitchen table. Articles explaining how to pour concrete, wire a workshop, repair an engine, build a cabinet, raise a barn.
No one stopped to explain why an ordinary person was capable of these things. It was simply assumed.
The world expected participation.
Somewhere along the way, the assumptions changed.
Now we are surrounded by things we are not meant to open, repair, modify, or understand. We are told to replace rather than mend, to hire rather than learn, to consume rather than create. And because we hear it often enough, many begin to believe that building is the work of specialists, and repair the work of experts.
Yet the old assumptions still linger in certain places.
They live in machine shops where tools older than their owners still earn their keep. They live in workshops where scraps of steel become brackets, where worn bearings are replaced instead of ignored, where old radios glow to life after decades of silence. They live in garages, barns, basements, and sheds. They live in calloused hands and notebooks filled with measurements.
Most of all, they live in the quiet belief that nearly anything can be understood if one is willing to spend enough time with it.
That is the oldest assumption of all.
A broken machine is not a mystery. It is a lesson waiting to be learned.
A missing part is not the end of a project. It is a problem waiting for a solution.
A thing does not lose its value simply because it requires effort. Perhaps that is why old tools, old buildings, and old machines feel different. They come from a world that expected stewardship. They were built by people who assumed someone would care for them after they were gone.
To hold something once meant more than possession. It meant responsibility. It meant maintenance. It meant repair. It meant preserving what was worth preserving and passing it on with a little more life left in it than when it was received.
Those assumptions have become less common, but they have not disappeared. They survive wherever someone looks at a broken thing and says, "Let's see if I can fix it." They survive wherever someone looks at a problem and says, "I can learn." They survive wherever creation is valued more than convenience.
And in those places, the old world has not vanished completely. It is still there, quietly waiting, built upon old assumptions.
How insensitive do you have to be to shoot off huge barrages of fireworks on Memorial Day?
Please pray for me and my family if God puts it on your heart. My brother unexpectedly passed away today and I am devastated.
I may not be around much the next couple of days 💔
Happy 20th anniversary to They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard specifically
I showed this and the Po-ta-toes one to my kids and they loved them and also I feel old
Pet peeve: anytime people say "my truth."
There is only one truth, the truth, and we just live in it. We can choose to tell the truth, or tell a lie, or shut our eyes and ears and try to live in ignorance, but it doesn't stop reality from being there.
What happened to using phrases like "my perspective" or "my understanding"? That is entirely reasonable and relatable, and communicates your experience without implying some strange subjective absolutism. "My truth" implies that you're lying or you're delusional.
I'm not saying everyone knows all the truth - everyone is wrong sometimes, and there are some facts of life that are entirely mysteries to everyone and cannot be discovered or quantified in our lifetimes, but that doesn't mean it isn't the truth. "I'm wrong about some things and still learning about lots of other things" = accurate. "Maybe you don't believe I can manifest myself into a billionare without working a job but that is my truth" = asinine.
"Truth & reality are subjective" that's a funny way to excuse yourself from this conversation but aight, cheers bruvva. You believe that nothing we could say is objectively true or false and nothing you could say is objectively true or false? 👍👍 Thanks for subjectively increasing the CO² in this room and subjectively adding nothingness to a concrete conversation.
if I just had the presence of mind and the wherewithal and the chutzpah and the bandwidth and the executive function and the energy and the mental resources and the spoons and the right attitude and the capacity and the gumption and th
"What if my friends secretly hate me?" What if they pray for you before bed? What if they hear a song come on and it makes them immediately think of you? What if when times are hard for them, they close their eyes and think of the memories they've shared with you? What if they study your face closely to see how you're feeling? What if they listen to your stories? What if they smile when you text them first? What if
do you like a dish that others find disgusting?
yes
no
results
😔 fried liver with onioooonnnn
hot take monday: emma shouldn't be one of the most popular austen novels. like it's FINE. and sure it's longer than the rest of the novels for maximum slow burn. but it's not Special. it's just... fine
Never underestimate the power of a good slow burn tho…………
Never underestimate the power of getting into a big disagreement with a loved one, getting proved wrong, growing and changing, and still being loved after it all.
and!! still!!! being!!! loved!!!
To call it a “slow burn” is to read it through like a particular fandom-oriented romance*-centric lens where the marriage plot is the main goal of everything—which is fine but it’s not all the book is or can be, and I don’t think that’s the reason for its length. The novel is largely considered to be Austen’s best by Austen scholars, not because of any feature of the romance, but because it’s where she used the technique of free indirect discourse most extensively and most sensitively. The language itself is just extremely clever—that plus the way the book functions for me as an epistemological problem (what’s the nature of knowledge?? Why does Emma observe things and yet still get them wrong? Why does Mrs Taylor do the same? Does Knightley “know” that’s something’s up with Jane and Frank, or is it a lucky guess? Does observation + being proved correct = knowledge, or is there a way to be “right” in a way that does you no credit and to be “wrong” through no fault of your own?)
I think Emma might not be one of my favourites if I were reading it “for plot,” but that’s just not how I read it. I’m not... enormously into Emma & Knightley as a couple, lmao
* “romance” in the modern sense, not as in “a fantastical story”
I think I've studied Emma about four times now throughout high school and uni (because of the nature of my degree) and yeah... it's an absolutely masterful piece of literature.
I think all of Austen's works are, but Emma is arguably the tightest in terms of how much meaning is fit into every line. The word play and social commentary is such a focus, I second the bit about the free and indirect discourse, and you have so much more lying and deceitful truths in this book which completely change in tone and meaning upon rereading. It really makes you question the characters and what they say or believe they know.
But what is of particular interest to me is how it explores that lower boundary of the genteel class and more than her other novels. From a historical perspective, it offers us so much nuance and information about the shifting of classes:
Miss Bates is genteel but barely clinging on because of her severe financial distress, and is reliant on her neighbours to quietly overlook the usual requirement of returning dinner invitations (she couldn't afford to reciprocate) in order to continue participating fully in genteel society.
Her niece, Jane Fairfax, is as genteel as Miss Bates by birth and far more genteel in education and manners, yet she's the one about to take a half-step down socially by becoming a governess.
Mrs Weston went from that half-step down to unquestionably genteel for life by marrying Mr Weston (himself "born of a respectable family, which for the last two or three generations had been rising into gentility and property" but was still low enough on the gentry ladder that to marry a wealthy, landed gentleman's daughter for his first marriage was a big step down for Miss Churchill "of a great Yorkshire family") who is now rich enough to have a carriage which places him in at least in the top 2% of society via income.
Augusta Hawkins is from the mercantile middle class and thus born a full step down but also moved into the gentry class by marrying Mr Elton (which is partially why she tries so hard to look the part and pushes the connection to the 'estate' of Maple Grove, she needs to establish herself in this social sphere) who, as a clergyman, is genteel but on the lower end of the scale.
Harriet Smith is in a nebulous quasi-genteel state as her education is genteel enough to allow her to mix with the gentry, and clearly someone with a bit of money is supporting her, but she's illegitimate and therefore can't fully be placed until her family connections are known (because she would naturally be lower than them) unless she happens to marry first and thus assumes her husband's position.
Mrs Goddard was likely a governess or teacher in her youth, genteel enough by birth to educate young ladies, but poor enough she had to work, and's now the mistress of a school. Which makes her less genteel than Miss Bates, technically, but with more financial freedom. And it's a respectable enough career that she hasn't been completely cut from Highbury high society, though she exists on the periphery.
The Coles are a merchant family whose wealth is allowing them to takes those steps to move up the social class (via the education of their children and hosting the local gentry) and we see those tensions in the novel and how delicately it had to be balanced (Mrs Cole couldn't just invite the Knightleys and the Woodhouses to dinner, her husband could befriend the local gentlemen freely but Mrs Cole was first friends with the lowest on the genteel scale, Miss Bates, and had to slowly establish herself socially before making an overture towards Emma).
The Martins may be what Mr Weston's family was two or so generations ago, especially if Robert Martin ever buys the farm he rents from Mr Knightley (which would also put them on track to be like the Hayters from Persuasion), and are also becoming more respectable and educated. They're not moving into the gentry class yet, the Miss Martins are too securely lower class to have tea with Miss Woodhouse even though they've got the same education and perhaps greater wealth that Miss Smith, but Robert Martin is already starting to mix equally with families along that genteel border, like the Coxes, though he and his sisters are not high enough to be invited to the ball. It's an interesting contrast to Miss Bates, who is poorer and less educated than them, and yet unquestionably genteel and invited where they are not.
Then the Coxes themselves are "very vulgar" but their son, William, is a lawyer (perhaps his father too, and likely 'only' an attorney, given he seems to have an office in Highbury - so not nearly as impressive or genteel as Mr Knightey's barrister brother) so we might think of them as the same social sphere as Mrs Bennet's father in Pride and Prejudice and learn more about her status before her marriage from that.
Though Emma and Mr Knightley are the main couple, and are both far above the border of gentility, the majority of characters in the novel are not. And a lot of the tensions between characters are caused or exacerbated by minute class differences. Emma's treatment of Miss Bates is so dangerous because it could set the tone for the rest of Highbury and result in Miss Bates being shut out from genteel society since her position is already so tenuous, aside from Emma not wanting to marry Elton she's offended he would even aspire to her, and is extra offended his wife considers herself Emma's equal, Emma wavers over accepting the Coles rise or opposing it by declining their invitation, her desire and attempts to secure Harriet's as genteel causes many problems for them both, her shunning of Jane Fairfax as a friend gains an extra layer of insult when you understand that she's the suitable and natural choice due to her class and education, and Mrs Elton being patronising to Jane would've been even more unjust to contemporary readers than us since they knew Jane's 'naturally' the social superior by birth.
You lose so much of the novel if you see it only as a slow burn love story and not a deft study of blurring class lines, the resulting tensions, and the difficulties of maintaining and risings ones' status. None of Austen's other novels let us see so clearly the influence and importance of wealth as opposed to birth and education on class. (I actually have an essay about that topic in Emma, lol)
All of Jane Austen's books offer social commentary and explorations of class as well as studies of human character, let alone amazing wordplay and pioneering language style, but even among them Emma stands out. It's not my favourite to reread, or my favourite couple, but it's such a masterpiece of literature and I love it dearly.
Wait, you’re a Christian now? What caused you to convert? (Maybe some more elaborations on the arguments you discovered?)
Well, I was raised Catholic and went through the whole, Baptism, first Confession, Confirmation, thing, so to say I converted isn't really accurate. But yeah, I guess I would classify as a Christian now since I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he died and was resurrected. But I don't really consider myself part of any particular church. Nor am I 100% on the rest of the Bible outside the Gospels, mostly because I haven't really looked into the whole book the way I did with them. But for me the conversion, if you want to call it that, came down to not being able to dismiss the evidence.
It started with reading about the history of the early Church and learning how the faith evolved from the days of Christ to the schism and the reformation. Which is a large reason why I question so much of what Churches say. Even within Christianity there are so many different interpretations of the "true" faith that I have trouble buying into anything that can't be convincingly traced directly to Jesus himself.
But I digress, lol.
From there, I started wondering why so many historians treat the Bible as a legitimate primary source. To me, an obviously religious text that was written and distributed to promote a specific belief system seemed like a terrible source. I always knew that there was historical evidence for a person named Jesus existing and being crucified by the Romans, so I was always willing to admit Jesus was real, but the son of God? Why? What proof do you have beyond a propaganda text that's been revised and retranslated hundreds of times across thousands of years? Prove to me that God exists, then I might consider that Jesus is his son.
But I had that backwards.
Because once I started looking into the Bible, I started reading about whether or not the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, of if they were written centuries later and only attributed to those Apostles to give them legitimacy. That eventually led me to The Case for Jesus by Brant Pitre. In it, he goes through all the historical evidence in favor of the Gospels being both written by the Apostles and descriptions of actual events. I won't rehash all his points here, but it was very convincing and done from the perspective of an historian. He used the same methods and historian would use to authenticate any historical text.
So, based on the evidence I had in front of me, I decided that the Gospels were written by the Apostles and they described historical events. Which left me with a choice. If those books were real, and they described real events, it either means Jesus Christ is the son of God who died on the cross and rose from the dead three days later, or Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all liars, or they were all insane. Which did I believe?
Insanity makes little sense and doesn't fit the evidence. Neither does them being liars. It would be very hard to fake the events of Christs ministry and death. So many people would need to be involved and then never break their silence. It would have been a massive conspiracy where the main conspirators were almost to a man tortured to death for their lie and none of them ever admitted they were lying. That's some serious dedication to a lie that didn't make them any money or give them any Earthly power. So eventually I decided that the evidence only leaves one realistic possibility. Jesus Christ is the son of God. He died. Three days later, he rose from the dead. And if that's true, then God must exist. Therefore, the evidence for God is right there in front of us in the historically verifiable fact of the existence of Jesus Christ.
But even then, I wasn't really ready to accept the whole Lord and Savior thing. I've said it many times, and I still hold to this, I don't have blind worship in me. Maybe this will damn me to hell for eternity, but I just can't do it. But Jesus didn't demand blind worship. When you boil it down to its simplest form, all he said was that the way to heaven is through him. Through accepting him as your Lord and Savior, your sins are forgiven. In the end, the thing that tipped the scale the last little bit was Scott Adams' last message before he died. He said that, from a purely logical standpoint, the risk-reward for salvation is too good not to accept. And he was right. The worst that can happen after accepting salvation is you're wrong, God isn't real, and after you die you just end. The best that can happen is you're right and you go to heaven and avoid hell. Looking at it that way, it's silly to keep hemming and hewing about it.
God is real. Jesus is real. He died for my sins. With all that being true as the evidence shows, the only rational course of action is to accept him as my Lord and Savior. To try and muddle through forming a relationship with God and figuring out what that means for the rest of my life. I don't think I'll ever join a church. I don't think organized religion will ever be for me. If I have questions, I'd much rather ask God than some priest or pastor. If he answers, awesome. If he doesn't, that's fine too. I'll muddle through and trust that he'll let me know if I'm getting it too wrong. Because if God sent Jesus to save us through brutal torture and inhumane execution, then that's some pretty big evidence that he wants us to be saved. I don't think he'd make it some big, secret mystery if we're on the right track or not.
So, that's where I am now. I'm still the same person I was when I was agnostic. I'm not going to go full born again obsessive. But I can admit it feels good to know we're not alone out here. That someone does love us, even when we might not deserve that love.
can yall please pray for someone? he's having medical issues and DESPERATELY needs prayers as they don't really know what's happening
