OK Folks:

Please change your blog readers and follow me to my new blog: Thorn In My Flesh

http://thorninmyflesh.typepad.com

I just came from another blog in which the mother was saying that she was grateful that she homeschools her children because of the HPV vaccination.  Let me explain. 

HPV is the Human Papillomavirus.  It is a sexually transmitted disease and can manifest itself as genital warts.  However, from what I have read, it is most likely to be asymptomatic in nature.  Men pass it on to women without knowing.  A woman may be infected with the virus and not even know.  It exists in many strains.  What is asymptomatic for years can eventually cause abnormal pap smears in women and lead to various types of cancer of the cervix, vagina and vulva.  By age 50, 80% of all women will carry this virus!  20 million people are currently infected with it. 

So what does this have to do with homeschooling?  Evidently there is a vaccine now to prevent HPV, and some school districts are requiring it.  This mom is glad that she does not have to get her daughter vaccinated.  She feels that it sends the wrong message to her daughter.  She is confident that her homeschooling will keep her daughter pure and virtuous.  I have read her opinion and others like hers where the prevailing thought is this vaccine will actually encourage sexual activity.  While I respect the woman's Christian perspective of showing her daughter how to live a virtuous life, I disagree with her argument.  Again, I say respectfully because I am in a place now where I can understand what she is trying to teach her children but not the reasoning that is taking place behind that. 

I intend to teach my children the same virtues.  I do believe that many things are sinful now that I did not earlier in my life.  However, I believe that medicine is God given.  I believe that our ability to prevent disease is God given.  I believe that the miracles that happen in medicine are God given. (Every good and perfect gift is from above: James 1:17)  Things happen in life.  I will do all that I can to raise my children in a Christian household, and I will bring them up to know the truth.  Yet, sometimes, despite all that we do, evil exists.  If my daughter gets offtrack in the future and is tempted to do (well, let's be honest...things that I did in my addiction) what is not right, I want her to not contract a disease that is preventable.  Yes, she will have to suffer consequences from inappropriate actions.  Yet, this is not what God wants.  Scripture is in place to keep us in relationship with God.  God's Word is not so much as "punishment" if one deviates from it, as it is choosing to push oneself out of the perfect joy of knowing God.  In other words, scripture people view as judgmental is more of a warning of how we (WE!) choose to distance ourselves from God and open ourselves up to evil.   God wants her to always be in relationship with him.  If she slips, if she is not perfect, he will still love her and he will still be wooing her to know him.

I read about a woman who contracted HPV from her husband after marriage, and he was her first sexual partner. A Christian woman, she waited until marriage to consummate the relationship and she ultimately ended up with cervical cancer.  He had had multiple partners before the marriage and before becoming a Christian.  He carried the virus without his knowledge and felt terribly about it.  He was advocating the vaccine for children because he did not want to see the same thing happen to his daughter. 

I have a professor in seminary who is a wonderful women and pastor with two grown daughters.  One is a devout Christian and the other took a turn and began to question faith in college.  She did everything she knew to do when raising her children in the Christian faith and her one daughter is now an atheist, agnostic at best.  We just do not know what will happen in life.  Yet, I will always to continue to love and protect my children to the best of my ability even if they veer off path.  That is how God wants us to love.  We can love and protect without being permissive.

I also think that sometimes there are reasons for those who get off course and come back to their faith.  God needs all types of people and experiences to grow his kingdom.  He is definitely not the author of temptation, but he will use all things for good in the long run.  Ultimately, part of my children's education under my watch will be to show them the evils that lurk in the world.  I will tell them of my own past and what happened to me.  I will share this to educate them of the despair I was facing versus the hope I found in Christ.  To homeschool is to know when to shelter.  It is also to know when to expose it...armed with the full knowledge of the truth and the way and the life.

Edited to note (11/15/07 1:15PM): I am not advocating mandatory vaccinations of the HPV vaccine.  Here is some information about it.  Rather, I was just trying to present an argument that getting a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease does not equal godly disobedience.  And wisdom of what exists is in the world, even if you are not of the world, is important for the future and to guard against ungodly influences. 

Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder what type of dysfunctional family Max and Ruby are growing up in? What kind of life does poor (obnoxious) seven year old Ruby have in having to constantly care for three year old Max?  Where are their parents?

Too much responsibility if you ask me.  Ruby will have major control issues in her future.  Or possibly she'll act out and follow the typical pattern of rabbit promiscuity that seems to face many a bunny nowadays. 

Some days it just seems so darn difficult to act nice.  To play nice.  To think nice.  Some days I feel like such a hypocrite for even moving towards the field of ministry.  If I cannot even master the basics, how can I assume that I will be able to tend to others?  To nurture others? 

My mind goes back to a pastor several months ago who "told me how sinful I was".  Sometimes I feel like I will forever be spinning my wheels trying to move forward.  I feel like I have no control over things that I think.  I feel that I have no control over feelings that overwhelm me at times.  I feel that I will forever be trying to get a handle on my addictive personality and the extreme sensitive nature of my personality. 

It is easy to talk like a Christian.  It is totally another thing to attempt to live like one. 

I have to say that I feel like my life is consumed in the academic.  My life is continuous book reading, researching and paper writing.  I love going to classes, though.  They are all day classes on Saturdays, but the time flies for me.  It is as if I have a place to ask all the questions I have been contemplating, and the learning that takes place is not just the process of accumulating knowledge.  I feel that it is actually shaping me in the discernment of a future ministry.  I am still unsure what I will do with this education, but I am confident now that God will guide me.

I am greatly enjoying school and learning.  I know that is a good thing because it does confirm that I answered this call rightly.  It was not just a spontaneous decision that I will back out of.  That is very much old behavior on my part, the non-committal Jen.  College always came easy for me in the past, at least when I got my undergraduate degree.  I made it through graduate school without significant effort, as well.  But really, what did I learn? 

I will openly admit at this point in my life that I was involved with a professor in graduate school who made, at least the classes that he taught and I took, it easy for me to get by without doing much work.  Much of my graduate degree was earned by me; but I would be lying if I did not admit that I was not totally honest in earning all my grades.  In fact, it was a secret I hid throughout my adult life.  It even made me question my own academic ability.  Did I really earn my degree or did I cheat my way to get it?  Later on in life, I would continue in typical alcoholic behavior to doubt my abilities  (yet maintain a facade of pride) because I knew deep down I did not honestly earn that degree.  My manipulative behavior worked to my advantage to get through school, but it also caused self doubt that accumulated throughout my professional work life. 

It is now that I feel that God is providing me a second chance...both to do something extraordinary with my life and to prove to myself that I have the intellectual capacity to earn a Master's degree honestly.  I have a drive now to dig in deep to the material we are exploring, to research, and to take time to comprehend what I am learning.  I have never had that drive before.  I knew I had intelligence, but the drive is really important in accomplishing something in life.  I was able for a long while to coast through school on intelligence in the past, but nothing had me digging into or studying the material voraciously.  I was always on a path of "what I should be doing" (as an intelligent, young woman who needs to be independent and earn money) instead of a path of "what I want to do".  And the frustrating part is I could never identify what I wanted to do.

And so, as much as I am exhausted by the constant necessity to always have a book in hand or the assignment to write a paper, I am very much pleased by the fact that I know this is right.  I also think that the American ideals of independence and capitalism can be extremely overrated.  I think that they were drilled into me as what "really mattered in life".   I think that perhaps, they can lead us on a path of unhappiness and a desire for the unimportant.    Sometimes what I think is a great freedom and privilege, to be from the United States of America, can also be a curse.

We went to a Halloween party at Ian's preschool this morning.  Isabel got to participate, too.  One thing I notice is that my son towers over his classmates.   He's not a baby anymore.