Amy's 'momentary trouble'

Six years and a roughly 8 months ago, Amy went to see her physician to see about taking permanent measures to keep from getting pregnant. Amy and I had talked about it in great length over the period of at least a year and while Amy and I would have loved to have more kids, neither of us could see where we could afford to have more. So, as part of this visit, Amy had also scheduled her yearly exam, which required some blood work among other tests which were all done before her doctor would come in to see her. So, her doctor comes in and asks Amy why she’s there and upon Amy telling her that she’s looking into getting her tubes tied, her doctor smiles at her and says, ‘You don’t know that you’re pregnant do you?’ Amy was stunned! Elated, but stunned! About 8 months later, on December 8th, 2000, Amy gave birth to Hope Rose Howard (HRH – her royal highness!). The actual birth was incredibly fast, so fast in fact that the doctor’s weren’t able to give her ANY pain medication! Amy later said that she had never endured such pain and stress, but from my point of view, she was a real trooper, she did great! I was so amazingly proud of her! Hope came into our family unexpected, but never unwelcomed! She has provided aspects to our family that we’ve never saw before (she’s a princess and a diva through and through!), loves to sing and a lot of the time I will find her singing or humming under her breath (usually making up songs or adding her own lyrics to tunes she already knows) . Today she turns 6. It’s hard to believe that time has gone by so very quickly, it seems that it was just yesterday when she decided to try and cut her own hair or when she spoke her first word (mamma). When she smiles, it truly lights up the room and when she laughs, it gladdens my heart! She is a joy, I love her and thank God that in His infinite wisdom, saw that we weren’t finished having children before she was born. Happy birthday your highness!

I get a lot of forwarded email (like I’m sure all of you do) and I must admit that about 90% of the time, I either quickly peruse them, or skip them altogether. However, last night I received a forward that at first I ignored, but something in the back of my mind kept drawing me back to that email. Maybe it was the title, or perhaps the person who had sent it, but either way I was continually drawn to it until I finally opened it. What it contained was a link to a website and the following note, ‘This is excellent. It puts in perspective the lunacy of the many and varied theories…Gather your kids & watch this together, grandparents make certain your grandkids see it.’ The teaching in it is incredibly simple, the message is SO overwhelmingly powerful and the logic so incredibly sound that I literally had to view it again. And then I called Hope in and viewed it with her. Then I called Vinny in and viewed it with him and I did this with each of my children and I told them why it was SO important. Here is the link:
WATCHMAKER it is an absolute MUST see and it only takes a few minutes to view, please take the time to view it.
If WE don’t take the initiative as parents or even as grandparents TODAY, not tomorrow, to ensure that our children know the truth, then what they learn in our schools will be the only ‘truth’ they know. If they aren’t taught that life is unique, that it has order and design and that we are here because we have a creator who loved us that much, then the opposite will be what they know as truth, that life isn’t unique, that it’s completely random and happened only by chance. That because life really isn’t unique, that maybe there’s less value to some forms (babies, elderly) of it. Worse yet, if there really is no creator, then my destiny is what I make of it, truth is only relative there really is no right and no wrong, it’s what I determine it to be. Don’t you find it interesting that in the animal world, if a lion kills another lion, that’s the ‘circle of life’, but if a human kills another human, it’s murder? Why is that? It’s because God has knitted deep within each of us a moral code; we instinctively know the basics of right and wrong. You may say, well, we learn our moral code from our parents. I agree that we as parents have a responsibility to reinforce and expound upon our children’s moral fiber, but if we only learn our morals from our parents and they from theirs (and so on), where did the first person get/learn their moral code? If we are, like so many say, descendant/evolved from animals and as I stated earlier that in the animal world many times it’s kill or be killed, why is our moral code different? Why is murder or theft or lying wrong? And why do we feel guilt?

Well, by now you know the answer to that question. All it takes is a quick look inside an analog watch, see the precision with which it was designed and built and how carefully it had to be put together to make it work properly. Nothing random there. Why would be human body, which is exponentially more complex, be any different?

Jeremiah 1:5 – ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart..’

P.S. Someone asked how best to contribute to Amy's memorial fund. There are several, but the easiest would be to send a check directly to me, CLEARLY stating where you wish your dontation to be used (memorial, children's educational trusts, etc) and send them to:

Vince Howard
1016 East St
Baraboo, WI
53913

For the love of Amy - V