OPINION: What Happened To US?

Who am I? I’m nobody. Just your run-of-the-mill wife, mother, and grandmother, a very average, patriotic American Christian comfortable in my obscurity because I believe in a Creator God who loved me into existence, and who has every hair on my head counted. I don’t need to be rich; I don’t need to make a name for myself. I know who I am.

This country used to be filled with people like me. Working to take care of our families; praying and worshiping God, while trying and at times failing to live up to the Christian ideal; proud to be American; sure of our place in the world.

What happened to us?

Frankly, I am shocked by what is happening around me. What is the most shocking to me, though, is that there are so many who are not shocked, so many who are unaware and/or unconcerned.

How is it that there are so many of us who think that the sexual relationship between two men or two women can constitute marriage? Or that a woman has a right to kill her own unborn child? Of course, sexual promiscuity, perversion, and murder have always been part of our shared human reality, but how have these actions, always condemned by our ancestors as sinful and harmful to civilization (even when they, themselves, weren’t always faithful to the ideal) , ended up now being portrayed as “rights?” And how is it that so many educated, seemingly rational human beings in politics, academia, and the media have ascribed to these ideas and behaviors that used to make people blush?

What happened to us?

Why do parents work 50+ hours a week to afford to live in 5,000 square foot starter castles, barely seeing their 2.1 children, and think that they are living the good life? How is it that women care so much about succeeding in the workplace, that they often sacrifice the most important relationships in their lives, and sometimes even, the lives of their own children? How have we gotten so vulgar and desensitized that pornography is an everyday occurrence?

How is it that we can drive by the Abortion and Contraception Clinic or the Planned Parenthood thinking only of our plans for the rest of the day, and not giving a thought to what is going on inside of that building? How is it that large corporations which are in the business of food production, or rail transportation, or retail sales feel compelled to publicly and prominently support and promote sexual “freedom” even if it means opposing the beliefs and values of many of their own customers? What is driving all of this?

So now, we are at this point in time when America and much of the whole world will go against human nature, centuries of accumulated wisdom, and both the natural and supernatural worlds because, after all, we’re so much more educated and enlightened than those Neanderthals we call our ancestors (even those who lived only 100 years ago). We know that marriage means whatever we want it to mean.

We know that children should always be planned for and convenient, fitting into our timelines and lifestyles. If we happen to be a heterosexual couple who hormonally sterilized ourselves for years, or a same-sex couple, we have a right to have a child and will use doctors and laboratories to make sure we get what we want. We know that the government exists to fulfill our every need, and we vote for career-minded politicians who will do just that—in exchange for our freedom and our soul.

What happened to us?