I realized that when I moved over to this new blog platform, I never added the list of the candidates websites, past and present, on the blog, so I put in the url for Mike Huckabee’s old site and was re-directed to a new one, Huck-PAC.

Stop by to find out more about this organization, read their blog, and more, it looks like a great site! Here’s a paragraph from the site to give you a taste of what it’s all about:

“Thanks to your support and hard work, during our Governor Huckabee’s campaign for President these past months, we became known as the team who could do more with less. Now, our goal is to continue our work with the same reputation. We will have a very active online community and will focus on organizing and building a national grassroots organization that turns Republicans out to vote.

“Huck PAC will be innovative and will fight every step of the way for the candidates we support. Hard work wins elections and the principles we are fighting for are far too important not to give our all.”

There is a special day set aside for that this week….Thursday, May 1st, called “The National Day of Prayer“. The theme is “Prayer, America’s Strength & Shield”. Notice I’ve once again avoided the ongoing primary “stuff”, sorry, just plain tired of it…but know I should be praying for the outcome.

Back to prayer, I have a friend who coordinates the National Day of Prayer events for our State of New Jersey, and remember when we started honoring the day in our Town. It’s a day set aside to pray for our Nation, our leaders, people that serve the local community, and more. In our town, there are organized prayer times around flag poles at schools, at noon we meet at the Veterans Memorial near our Town Hall for some scripture reading and prayer, in the evening there is usually a gathering at a church, or in the High School auditorium.

I remember when we first started doing this in our Town, very few attended, but I took my two children and we got in the car, and went to each school and prayed in the parking lot, then we went to the meeting that was to gather that first time, and there were only a few other people…that has changed, many more gather now, and I am looking forward to seeing what this year brings.

Actually, every day is a good day to be praying for our Nation, leaders, military, first aid squads, those that serve in the fire department (here it is mostly volunteer), store keepers, school teachers, that prayer would return to school, and the list is just endless.

• Theme this year: Prayer, America’s Strength & Shield
• Verse: “The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. Psalm 28:7
• 2008 Prayer for our Nation by Dr. Ravi Zacharias:
• Holy Father, in a world where so many are hungry, you have given us food in abundance; In a world where so many are hurting, You offer to bind up our wounds; In a world where so many are lonely, You offer friendship to every heart; In a world longing for peace, You offer hope; Yet, we are to stubborn and resistant, Have mercy upon us, Lord. Our nation is at a crossroads this year, we look to you to be our strength and shield. Please give us the guidance to elect one who will honor you and to respond to the wisdom from above so that our hope may be renewed and our blessings be treasured. In God’s holy name, Amen

Yes, I know the Pennsylvania primary is upon us, and so do you, and if you are anything like me, you’re on PA Primary overload, so here’s another “Where I Stand” for you, and we’ll talk about the primary when the primary gets here.About 20 years ago when my children were very young, I volunteered for a group that helped people who had unplanned pregnancies. A free pregnancy test was offered, and counseling. Often when the young women would arrive, they thought we may be offering abortions, but that wasn’t the case. I met with many young ladies, delivered food to some needy pregnant woman, and offered as many options as were available at the time in order to encourage these dear woman to preserve the life within them. In many cases, I have no idea what the outcome was, as they were left armed with choices, but ultimately, what they did was up to them.

I remember clearly sitting in my living room (usually we met in an office, but sometimes if someone was close, at that time it was okay to meet in my home) with one young lady. She knew she was pregnant, and hadn’t told her parents yet. She wanted to know what “help” I had to offer, so I told her all of the options available to her…none of which included abortion. She broke down in tears, feeling guilt and shame at what she had done, and told me she was 100% sure that when her parents found out, they would make her have an abortion. I re-assured her that God loved her, and that God loved the life that was in her, to always remember that God forgives us when we ask and wanted to walk through all of this with her. I sent her home with the usual literature, and some verses from the Bible that I hoped would help and comfort her, and no, I don’t know the outcome, but God does.

These were eye-opening experiences for me, and heart-wrenching in many cases, as I do believe that abortion is murder. I hate to see a world so messed up that sex is worshiped and one of the many ugly outcomes is that a beautiful life, full of potential, comes into existence, then is unwanted and destroyed.

So what does this have to do with politics? It is an issue in every election, and I believe it should be. Some say this should be a matter of personal choice, private, but when the Supreme Court who’s Justices are appointed by the President of the United States made a decision to legalize abortion through Roe -v- Wade, it became a government issue to the highest level.

I’m sure by now it’s very clear where I stand, and believing the Bible and obeying God makes life choices so easy, you know exactly what to do, consider these words from Psalm 139:

“For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful… your eyes saw my unformed body, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Can it get any clearer than that? Even the unformed body is a life, and precious to the Creator, God.

If you DO NOT have God and the Bible in your life as a guiding compass, then you follow human guidelines, man-made ideas, which have lead us to the sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in…killing thousands each year. This explains why the Pro-Life issue is so important to Bible believing Christians, they call us the “religious right” now. I prefer to say that I have a “relationship” with God that is “right”.

So there you have it, that’s where I stand on the issue of Abortion. How about you?

In reality, I’m not sure whether Barack was ever behind Hillary, and need I mention again that I feel as tired as Hillary looks at times when it comes to the ongoing battle between C & O. Boring. Still, the PA Primary is almost here, and so I have to say something about the two Dems who would be President.

Even though there has been a tremendous amount of press against him related to Pastor Wright, his performance in the debates last night, yadayadayada, many reports are still saying he is ahead and doing great! He got another endorsement from looooooooong time Clinton buddy Robert Reich, (or as Rush Limbaugh would say it “Reiccchhhhhhh”, hubby was so proud when I pronounced it like his hero, Rush would) who did a post to his blog today explaining why it took him so long to get around to making the decision…after all Reich and the Clintons have known each other and worked together on and off since the 1960’s, I believe. But Barack is his man now. Things may really be looking up for Obama, or just being made to sound like they are.

Ho-Hum….it will end soon, this too shall pass, I keep telling myself, and I hope soon!

Kathleen Battle is the woman with the beautiful voice that sang “The Lord’s Prayer” a few days ago on the White House Lawn for Pope Benedict, and the crowds present.

Kathleen, if you are ever searching and find your way here, thank you! Why you may ask? Because most of my visitors over the past few days have been people searching your name, they are looking for you! Not Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, not John McCain, but Kathleen Battle.

I wish you all the best, and if you find your way here, do say hello!

Claudia

I am sitting here watching what is really quite a celebration in Washington DC on the South Lawn of the White House. It is a picture perfect day, there are at least 10,000 singing happy birthday to the Pope Benedict lead by Kathleen Battle right now, both the pope and the President have spoken. Kathleen Battle sang the Lord’s Prayer beautifully, powerful words, we should take time to reflect on each phrase daily.

Our Father, Which Art in Heaven, Hollowed 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 debts, as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever, Amen.

I would like to be a fly on the wall listening to the discussion between the Pope and the President. I know there are many things they agree on, but also know the Vatican wasn’t keen on the idea of our getting involved in the War, still, the Pope supports us as a Nation, and loves America.

Washington really did a beautiful job of welcoming a great man, and God showed the beauty of his Creation with the spectacular weather. I am not a Roman Catholic myself, but appreciate many of the views that the Pope shares, and hope his visit to our Country will bless him as much as he blesses us.

Day after day after DAY I listen to the media or spend time going to some favorite political blogs to see what’s new. I admit I’ve been consumed with preparing our income tax return, and am behind in everything, but I’m done with that now, and looking forward to blogging! Oh, and happy that we got a pretty good refund!

This blog is fairly new, it takes time for a blog to build an audience, and without an audience, why bother to blog? It’s important to make connections with people who read my blogs, and I’m always looking for ways to do better at that, by networking, visiting other blogs, and sharing ideas.

I’m going to try a service that will allow my readers to receive updates with a summary of new posts to my blogs.  I think it’s more personal than using the “feed” features, and it isn’t something that will offend my readers, because they can chose how frequently they want a summary of posts to the blogs - once a day, week or month. The best part, of course, is that the service is free.

I’m also going to take a good look at how it manages subscribers, and the custom newsletter subscription forms sound interesting too…especially if I like the look of my blog enough to want my newsletters to match.

Look for an increase in regular posts now that tax season is over…and for Zookoda’s service to appear on this blog in the very near future!