The Punisher Cometh...

Boy howdy did we get a little peak inside Obama's head this past weekend. In a memorable shoving of the foot in the mouth, the Senator from Illinois said that if his girls ever made a mistake he wouldn't want to "punish" them with a baby.

Predictably the pro-life folks are way up in arms at the idea of a baby being punishment. While the whole tenor of Obama's comment makes me a little crazy too, pro-lifer's have a wee bit of a problem getting irate about the baby as punishment idea. After all, it comes straight out of the Bible.

When Adam and Eve bit the big one, God tossed them out of Paradise and commanded, "Go forth, be fruitful and multiply!" He was mad at them when he said it. I can hear God mumbling under His breath, "See how you like it when those little rug rats grow up and break YOUR heart!"

Children are the instructors God has presented us with to teach us how to be like Him. You want to learn how to be unselfish? Have a kid! You want to learn about self-sacrifice? Have a kid! You want to know how to give though it's breaking your hear? Walk your baby girl up the aisle with a little Mozart playing in the background. Want your faith to be tested to its limits? Watch one of your children suffer an illness or lose them to death.

Are kids a punishment? You could say that, but I think they're more of a teaching tool. It's how God molds our character. He gives us the most precious gift in the world when he gives us a child and he shows us how to love without limit, to give without asking the cost and to be willing to lay down your life for another person without even thinking about it.

My wife and I have been grieving for more than two years for our precious son. We understand how hard it must have been for God to watch his own son die.

Obama is looking at it all wrong. Kids are not a punishment. They are a gift. It's nice that the senator wants to teach his girls morals and values but without consequences for your actions, morals and values aren't worth much. Like faith without works, a vague sense that someone somewhere ought to be chaste and faithful and unselfish and honest is dead if there are no consequences that tie my behavior to those values. Having kids as a result of participating in an act of intimacy teaches you that love is something serious and important, not something you do just because you're bored some weekend and had too much tequila.

Just one man's opinion...

Tom King