Today, this article –WIC Programs Shutting Down As Federal Government Comes To Halt– caught my eye…and my heart. The government shutting down WIC Programs must affect many people. Though our family has certainly qualified for WIC services for many years, we have not ever enrolled as of today. We have struggled with making ends meet. Though it has been very difficult at times, I appreciate my husband's efforts in holding to our belief that it is not the government's responsibility to provide our needs. My husband has worked hard and taught our children the blessing of work by his example. Many women do not have such a husband or children such a father. My heart is soft toward their struggles that go beyond financial needs. Before drawing the conclusion that we are just too proud to accept help, please, know that we have been helped tremendously through the years of feeding a large family on one income. Help has come to us by means of family, friends, and unusual ways God has provided. This is the order we believe God has for our family regarding provisions:
· Pray for the right job.
· Work.
· Work hard.
· Work more.
· Pray.
· Accept help from God's hand through family or friends.
· Be thankful to God for jobs, ability to work, and for provisions through others.
Why share this article? Because it makes me sad that there are many single mothers, infants, children, and financially strained (for various reasons) married couples who have had no choice but to depend on WIC for their needs. Imagine how they feel today reading this headline?
Granted, many have taken advantage of the programs who could easily work productively. This scenario is equally sad that the character through which this great country was founded is unknown to much of our current generation.
My question of today's article is why have people been forced to depend on the government? Clearly, control is the goal of the current leadership. But even before the control tactic became so strong, maybe the government took advantage of the situation by taking over what fathers, families, church families and neighbors should have been doing, but stopped.
Many are subtly misled in their thinking about personal responsibility, moral values, and truth. Some believe…
· …that the government owes them, and whatever feels good to self, do it.
· …that marriage is either unnecessary, a fantasy of endless romantic passion, or a union between whoever, whatever, and whenever.
· …that family is a mix of glamorous people living for entertainment, education, and extra everything.
· …that church is either a formality of status or a ritual of the past.
What is the truth?
· The government was established by God to protect us from ourselves and to preserve order – not to provide for us.
· Marriage is a covenant with God. Marriage was created and ordained by God – a beautiful picture of the companionship God desires with believers, and still with loving order.
· Family is made of relationships: husband, wife and children. Children are an eternal heritage. Brothers, sisters, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, cousins… are family.
· Church is a body of believers who worship God together, fellowship as family with one another (bearing burdens and sharing joys), learn God's Word together, and show others the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What are we doing as Christians, families, and church families to help those in need? Maybe, this would be a good time to resume the care for single moms, widows, the disabled, the struggling… since the government is shutting down today. I'm so thankful I will NEVER read the headline, "God's Ways Shutting Down Due to Halt in Power."
"But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." -Philippians 4:19
"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." -James 1:27
"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." -Galatians 6:2
"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." -Psalm 37:25
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