Welcome to Puerto Rico, the land of our great adventure with our God as newlyweds! I always loved the idea of getting married and then flying off to my honeymoon, so we did! We had one day to recoup and hang out with a few friends and family after our big day and then we got up at 4:00 in the morning to board the plane to Puerto Rico.
Its interesting that this topic has come up a number of times this week. Sometimes this comes up in the context of why people don’t want kids. I figured I should write about it.
First, I want to point out that God’s first command to us is “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). He says clearly that children are a blessing (Ps. 127). God is faithful. It would make sense for such a “threat” as overpopulation to be invented to counter God’s clear desires. God loves life and wants us to cultivate it as much as possible on earth (of course, also being good stewards of all the other creatures too!)
The arguments for Overpopulation with counter-points.
Not enough Space
There’s enough room in Texes for every person to have about 1,200 sq ft of personal space. That’s more than Kaelin, Luke, and I share. That is far more than 99% of the world has right now (albeit, less than what most people who live in Texas have).
Not enough Food
If there’s not enough food, why do we use over 1.5 billion bushels of corn every year to make ethanol? And why are we trying to make more?
Actually, we’ve used barely 50% of of our aridable land, and right now in most western countries we suffer from 50% overproduction of food. At our current technology we can easily feed 15 billion people, and technology is rapidly increasing. With the advent of verticle farms, we’ll soon drastically increase our ability to create food. See the report by Paul Waggoner
Just as a note, go look in a grocery store dumpster. Millions of tons of food goes bad because we don’t eat it. We are very diligent and still throw out a lot of food. Often we Americans are too picky for the bruised fruits or veggies. And that doesn’t include all that are trashed earlier down the line because of bruising or bug holes or whatnot.
Are people starving today? Yes, but as I’ve discussed before, its not a food problem, its a distribution problem caused by sin.
Not enough Water
The problem isn’t water, its clean water. Sometimes its an issue of pollution. Other times, people simply need a well. Or its an issue of transportation (right now its cheaper to ship oil from the middle east than it is to ship water to there). Desalinization is also an option that much of the middle east uses. There’s plenty of water, don’t worry.
Not enough Energy
That’ll be a problem when the sun burns out. Not until then. We also have enough uranium to give us power for some 5 billion years.
More info about the sustainability of our planet.
So… be fruitful and multiply!
Praise God for friends who make you go on a date! The Gliddens came over to watch Luke so we could go out alone for the first time ever, since him. We ate dinner at home and went out for hot chocolate and a chocolate bar. We spent about an hour and a half enjoying each other, chocolate, and the journal we started together on our honeymoon. We read aloud some of the prayers we had written in the last year and a half. There are some gutsy ones in there! Praise God!
After a lot of chocolate, we braved the cold and walked to a secret place in Minneapolis. There we agonized in prayer that God would redeem it for His glory. We then sang praise songs around it and walked home to a very thankful baby. Love Date Night with my sweet husband! Can’t wait for many more.
All you need for a romantic date night
Here’s our December newsletter. It has some updates on us and some interesting (borderline embarrassing) stories about me. 
A very excited baby
We had no idea Luke was such a Christmas shopper. We went to the mall on Saturday to get some exercise and we decided to look in Children’s Place since we had a gift card. I’d mentioned that Luke didn’t have a really great Christmas shirt yet so we picked up this one off a table. I went to put it up to Luke to see the size and he started just squealing! He was so excited about this polo he was shaking and screaming for over 15 minutes! We were like, alright, I guess this is your Christmas shirt! We still have it hanging over the edge of his crib and show it to him when he’s getting his diaper changed….. “Hey Luke, is this your Christmas shirt, are you going to wear this for Christmas?!” He screams every time. Having him has made me more excited for Christmas than I’ve been in a long time.
Psalm 127
1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
2 In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.
3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
20 Ways Luke David Ireland blesses us:
1. He keeps us on track. We don’t have time to waste time.
2. He smells really good. Just like a baby.
3. He smiles at me every single morning when he wakes up.
4. He is my job! What a great job.
5. While I used to go to the mall with my nerves in a ball (when I was a store and district manager) I now ge to go to the mall for Mommy Mall Days where we get in a nice long walk and show off our adorable babes.
6. He’s super snuggly.
7. He doesn’t cost anything to fly until he’s 2.
8. More people strike up conversations with me than ever before. He must make me look non-threatening either that or he’s a really good ice breaker.
9. He is sanctifying me! I am more patient and more grateful ever since he arrived.
10. I burn like 500 calories a day just feeding him.
11. I love my husband on a new level watching him hold and take care of a baby.
12. He looks amazingly good in shoes.
13. He’s the only career I’ve ever had where I know I make a direct impact on society.
14. He’s made our hearts more tender.
15. He absolutely loves being naked. It’s highly entertaining.
16. Here’s a great paradox: he’s making me less selfish, but at the same time more empowered to speak up for myself.
17. He is a REWARD from the Lord!! Scripture says so.
18. Even though I’m still working on appreciating this.. he makes sure I never overspend in the store since I he doesn’t really let me stay in long enough!
19. Having him has knocked off any sort of petty judgement I’ve ever had toward other parents, as I am now the one with the screaming baby at Target.
20. And last but not least, because I do not generate much outside income, I could never afford the lovely jacket pictured below. $915.00…………on CLEARANCE.
Do not fear this man. Fear for him
Before I became a Christian and did not know the Bible, I learned what our popular culture tells us of Hell. We all get the picture of the red man with a bifurcated tail and pitch-fork sitting in a fiery place. The typical understanding is that Satan lives in hell and tortures people who go there. We are told that God is in heaven and Satan is in Hell, and that Hell is the devil’s dominion. We see this in popular movies like South Park and Little Nicky. But this is not what the Bible says about hell.
Hell is actually the place God prepared for Satan and his angels (Matt 25:41, Jude 1:6-7). Right now, Satan is actually upon the earth, eagerly trying to bring people away from God (1 Peter 5:8). God rules hell; God created it to doll out punishment. We should not fear Satan. We should not fear that he will punish us in hell, because he won’t! No, we should fear God! God is the one who judges! God is the one who separates His sheep from the unbelieving goats (see Matthew 25:31-46).
I know hell is a hard thing to grapple with and understand. I still struggle with it. Some say Jesus didn’t talk about hell. That is incorrect (again see Matt 25:31-46). Why do you think Jesus willingly endured ruthless scourging (whipping nearly to the point of death) and then horrible crucifixion? Why did Jesus willingly go to death even though he was innocent? Why would he endure such horrible punishment if not to save us from something equally as horrible?
God created us to be eternal beings. That’s why death seems so unnatural. We were made to live with God forever. We have the choice to either live with God forever (heaven) or to live away from God under His wrath and punishment (hell).
Do you fear going to Hell? Good. You should. God put that fear into my heart, which helped me become a Christian. He gave me dreams of going to hell and they scared me. We should fear hell because we fear God.
Do you think you might go to Hell? If so, the Bible says “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10). It’s a free gift from God! You do not have to DO anything, you simply must believe with all your heart and eagerly yearn for that relationship with God through Jesus Christ.