Dear God,

I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll start by saying thank you.  Thank you for every single day of my life.  Thank you for holding me in Your hands for 25 years and 1 month.  Thank you for every gift and blessing, every person you have placed in my path and every moment You’ve called me yours.  I haven’t always been deserving of Your mercy, yet I collect it every second of every day.  When I think all is lost, I am reminded of a little girl You saved countless times.  Mom sat down with me the other day when I was feeling low and said, “Tiffany, God has a purpose for you.  He has saved your life so many times.”  She could only speak of the times she knows of.  You’ve kept me awake on long drives home from Ft. Smith.  You’ve kept my spirit strong in times when I felt weak.  You’ve always sent an angel, and for that I thank you.

I wonder what Your purpose is for me.  What path You have chosen for me to walk.  You know my heart, my faith, my worries and my joys.  Lord, help me to be understanding when what I receive is not always what I imagined.  I don’t want to play the “what if” game.  I want to be accepting of what You have thrown my way and continue to have faith that a lesson will reveal itself.  For every person that I meet, good or bad, has taught me something about life…and I pray that I understand those teachings.

Father, take my cynical heart and let my bitterness fall to pieces at my feet.  Help me to stand up for the things You have lain upon my heart and let me be a vessel for Your Word.  Let my hands stay busy so I am not restless and let my feet not get lost in the shuffle.

You have given me great friends in this life.  I couldn’t ask for a better group of acquaintances, co-workers, friends, family and best friends.  The joy they bring is not containable.  Without You I would be lost and lonely, hiding in a life full of regret and pain…angry at the world and those who have received You.  I can’t fathom that life.  I already know what my life is like when I try to hide from You: miserable, spiteful and sad.  I’m not perfect, and I can never expect to be; but I can be honest with myself and with You and know that I have no secrets that we don’t share.  You hear my prayers, my confessions, my sorrows and my dreams.  You knew them far before they were spoken, felt and dreamed.

There is so much more to say, but I can say that without a keyboard and a blog.  I want to lastly thank you for the movie “Letters to God.”  Yes, this is my written letter to You, inspired by Tyler.  I thank you for his life, his message and the people who have carried it on.  Thank you for my sister, staying downstairs and watching it with me so I wouldn’t blubber by myself.  Thanks for letting me breathe, even though my nose is stuffed to the brink after crying like a baby.  Thanks for the unintended drive to the movie store and the last copy on the shelf.

I take this last paragraph to pray for my family, friends, neighborhood, city, county, state, nation and world.  To all my brothers and sisters in Christ and those who have yet to believe.  Lord, bless them and their lives.  Give them Your mercy and blessing.  Help them to understand Your way and to listen to Your words.  Let us be a beacon.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

You are a letter from Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God. – 2 Corinthians 3:3

Just did a little sweeping of the ol’ blog.  I’ve hidden some posts that either bored me to tears or had to do with topics that are no longer relevant.  The posts are still up, just hidden.  So, if you would like me to make them available to you, just hit me up.

Dear Mark Pryor
I Rolled My Eyes
Senator Coburn’s Bad Timing
I Flagged Myself
I’m a No Limit Goon

So, yeah.  I’m just trying to save everyone the time of scrolling through drolling text, since I can’t figure out the damn controls and don’t know how to make a jump page.

You’re welcome.

“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”

If you’re a Family Guy faithful or just watched the clip from this past Sunday, you know that the show poked fun at Down’s Syndrome and a small jab at Sarah Palin, the well-known former Governor and parent of a Down’s Syndrome child.  Though typically a Family Guy faithful myself, I passed last night to watch the Olympics and so I’ve only seen the episode today.  I’m not offended.  While I know that I’m going to have to tread lightly here because many people were, I’m not going to lie and say that the show should be pulled or anything like that.

The clip shows Chris dating a girl with Down’s Syndrome.  In getting to know her on the date, she says that her father is an accountant and her mother is the former Governor of Alaska.  Chris says, “That’s pretty cool.”  To which she agrees and then tells him to “get over here and give me a shoulder massage.”  End of controversial lines.  It wasn’t a funny clip, but it wasn’t offensive either.  In a facebook post, Sarah Palin chooses to take a passive approach to the FOX show, letting a monologue from Bristol pull the punches for her.  I’m not sure if this is Palin’s way of letting her daughter’s voice be heard, or if she’s passing the criticism on because she now works for FOX networks.  Either way it doesn’t matter.

I get choked up when I hear Palin talk about her son, Trig, and her decision to keep him and how perfect he is to her.  He is a beautiful baby boy and deserves every bit of love he gets and more.  I myself have a cousin who is mentally handicapped and she is beautiful and funny and has an infectious laugh.  She has a brother and sister who love her so much and I know that they too would stand up for her if she was being picked on.

But there is a difference between picking on someone because they are handicapped and comedy.  Take the movie The Ringer, for example.  A movie where Johnny Knoxville plays a character who fakes his way into the Special Olympics to win the cash prize.  Though controversy surrounded the movie, the Special Olympics committee approved of the movie and had final say on its script.  Its lighthearted comedy is endearing and has an excellent ending.  The Other Sister is one of my favorite movies.  If you’re a fan of Arrested Development, you can’t forget Rita.  And there are so many other movies and television shows that we don’t take offense to that have storylines involving mentally handicapped persons.  Some are funny, others aren’t.

The reason I don’t find Family Guy offensive in how it portrayed a Down’s Syndrome girl is because she was smart. She was strong and capable of going on a date.  She was treated respectfully by Chris, who himself is considered “the stupid son” and no one cries foul.  Family Guy, like South Park, is a show where everyone is a target.  Earlier this year, they poked at liberals.  They also pick on all races (including white folks), classes, countries, genders, sexualities, etc.  In the episode where they made fun of Rush Limbaugh and FOX News, they also made fun of Michael Moore and the people who support him.  South Park has picked on conservatives and liberals, they picked on Wal-Mart and those who hate the supercenter giant, they picked on Christians and athiests and Scientologists, they picked on George Bush and Barack Obama.  Though not always funny, these two shows have more than carried out the agendas for both sides of everything.  When everyone’s a target, someone’s bound to get offended.  To that I say, “Who cares?”

And…enough is enough.  We can’t as conservatives and moderates bitch about someone being “too politically correct” and then demand a week later that someone be “more careful with their words.”  We can’t call liberals “libtards” and then two days later get angry at Rahm Emanuel for calling a liberal activist group idea “fucking retarded.”  We can’t get angry about our free speech being taken away if we’re willing to take it away from someone else.

Frankly, I have no problem with what Rahm Emanuel said.  Why?  I don’t care.  I think Rahm is an irritating, bullying, egotistical waste of a political position.  But he didn’t say anything most of us haven’t said.  I use the same excuse I used when I was little and my mom heard me call something “retarded”…I told her it was just a phrase to call something “dumb” or “stupid” and  I didn’t mean to offend a person with different mental abilities than myself because I don’t consider them retarded, dumb or stupid. It’s not my passive response, it’s an honest answer.

Do I think people enjoy seeing if they can piss off Sarah Palin?  Sure.  The best thing she can do to shut them up is to shut up about it herself.  I understand wanting to protect Trig at all costs.  He is her child, and who wouldn’t want to protect their children?  I think it’s great that she does a lot for special needs children and their families.  I applaud her on that.  But before she weighs in on every little thing she should judge it’s worth.  Family Guy and Rahm Emanuel just weren’t worth it.  Michael J. Fox didn’t go after FG when it poked at him, the black community isn’t going after them for playing on stereotypes.  There are shows out there that are truly annoying, offensive and lame.  The new cartoon FOX piloted the other night being one of them.  But let this one go, Sarah.

I know that some say, if you let them get away with this, they’ll go farther next time.  Okay, sure.  But step back for a second.  These are comedy shows.  If you don’t think they’re funny, turn them off.  I’d rather get pissed at a journalist falsifying the news.  They have a job that requires integrity and dignity and they majorly lack in both.  I’m going to save my anger for a time when my feelings were meant to be hurt.   And even then, I’ll walk away.  In my opinion, Palin can do whatever she wants, but I would just walk away.  Save my getting pissed for the people who think Trig should have been aborted. Those are the people I find truly offensive.  The ones who think Trig is a waste and not important, precious, perfect or beautiful.  Those people are the ones I would be ready to throw down with, fight at all costs. Because those are the people who truly mean to offend you and hate Trig and think he and children like him are not important.  Not Family Guy.  If Seth McFarlane said that Trig was a lesser human being, then be offended.

And for the record, I called 5 families today with children or siblings who have Down’s Syndrome.  None cared about the Family guy clip and only 1 cared about what Emanuel said.

Kristin, Denton’s mother, said that she teaches Denton’s brother and sister that the best thing they can do for Denton is support him, love him, and treat him like they treat each other.  That every time they pick a fight with someone for looking at Denton, they draw attention and make him feel worse.  Kristin (who was not bothered as much as Palin by FG or Rahm) said that bullies will not be tolerated when mistreating any of her 3 children.  All her children are treated the same at home, with the same love and compassion had they all had Down’s Syndrome or all been healthy.  She also says to anyone out there who is a parent of a child with Down’s Syndrome, “Remember that extra chromosome is extra toughness.  Your children are strong, smart and capable of holding their own.  They also have the most incredible sense of humor.  If Denton isn’t laughing, I know that something has gone too far.  If he is laughing, I have to remember not to get upset.  The worst thing we can do for our children is treat them like they aren’t capable of defending themselves because they do a much better job in the insult department than we do.  And those that choose to belittle these amazing children will dig their own grave.  We don’t need to push them in prematurely.”

I solidly agree.  Sarah, don’t carry this chip on your shoulder.  Just love your son.  He’s amazing.  Love will do more for him than anything else ever could.  I’ll stand by you when someone is really out to hurt Trig.  I’ll support you getting angry at them.  But the only crime Family Guy committed last night was just not being funny.

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”

“After the chaos and carnage of September 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers.”

“Political correctness is tyranny with manners.”

“When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”