A Request for Prayer

...when you hear the sound of the trumpets...

2 Samuel 15:10

 

I have a good friend who is a wonderful singer and an avid member of not only my choir, but my male quartet, my men's chorus, and a community chorus in town.  He loves music, and has been singing for most of his life.

A week ago at the beach, he overfilled a bicycle tire at the air pump and it exploded in his face.  He has no physical damage, but his hearing has been profoundly affected in a unique way:  he can no long hear pitch correctly.  High notes sound low to him, low notes sound higher, and music over all sounds out of whack.  He has seen a primary care physician and an ear-nose-throat doctor, both of whom tell him there is no obvious damage to the ear drum.  He is trying not to get discouraged but this malady is very difficult for him.

Most of the choral and solo work that my friend does is in a worship setting.  He has been offering his vocal talent to God for many, many years.  I would appreciate your prayers for him, that through rest, time, medication, and faith, he will be able to regain his ability to hear pitch and resume utilizing his voice to praise the Lord.

What's Your Hurry?

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Matthew 11:28

I was driving down the parkway this morning that would take me back to my side of the city, traveling at five mile above the posted speed limit of 60 mph.  I am currently driving my old GMC truck, but anyone who knows me can attest that I do not putz along.  I am much more of a lead foot than a slow poke.

A glance in the rear view mirror revealed a very large car parked on my rear bumper, obviously anxious to speed on down the highway.  There was an opening to my right, so I moved over in the center lane to oblige the driver who was in such a huge hurry.  As I cleared the fast lane, the other driver put the pedal to the metal.

Imagine my surprise (and sudden exercise for my right foot) when this person (male? female?) suddenly jerked the wheel to the right [no turn signal, of course], cut straight across in front of me and the car beside me, and jetted into the turn lane for the exit coming up, slamming on the brakes behind the much slower traffic.  My first thought?  "Wow!  What a stupid idiot!"  My second thought?  "Sure wish a cop could have seen that little maneuver!"

 

The world around me always seems to be moving at such a high rate of speed. Whether I am driving on the road or walking to my destination, there always seems to be someone who needs to get around me.  Women in the market who are sailing down the aisle with their grocery cart or racing to the open cashier.  People who brush past me as they hurry down the escalator.  Drivers who fly through marked school zones.  Where is everyone going that requires them to get there yesterday?  In a world that is filled to the brim with stress, why do we put additional pressure on ourselves by gunning our way through life? 

Jesus' invitation to the crowd, recorded in the book of Matthew, has always been one of my favorites.  Tired of the eternal rat race?  Need a little peace and quiet?  Jesus says, "If you come to Me, I will give you rest."  That's the best thing I've heard all day!

Who's to Blame?

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: 

who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

 

Whenever a tragedy or horrendous crime arises in the world, one of the first questions asked is:  Who is to blame?  Assigning blame helps us to cope with calamity.  It gives us something or someone on which to vent our anger, fear and frustration.  It enables us to separate ourselves from the circumstances and be reassured that we had nothing to do with what just happened.

The first 24 hours after the Boston Marathon bombing were consumed with questions:  Who did this?  Which group?  Which individual?  Which philosophy?  Which political entity? And yes, which religion?  Then the photos were released of two men - brothers -  who became immediate suspects, and the questions zeroed in on them:  What ethnic origin?  What political philosophy?  What family ties?  What was their faith?  And which of these things provided their motive?  But a man's country of origin does not make him a killer; his basis of faith does not produce a murderer either.  What does create a cold-blooded killer?  HATRED.

 

Only someone with intense hatred could place bombs in a crowd of innocent men, women and children and walk calmly away - knowing that the bystanders would lose their arms, legs, feet, hands - or their lives.  Only someone with a heart of stone could walk up to a young police officer and slaughter him where he sat.  Over time a more complete picture of who, what, when and why might come forth.  For me, only one thing is sure and certain:  whoever committed this atrocity was steeped in hatred.   

To Tell the Truth

Listen! The Lord is calling to the city...

her people are liars, and their

tongues speak deceitfully.

Micah 6:9a,12b

My daughter, who is a member of MENSA, recently received the April/May issue of the American MENSA magazine.  In it, there is a fascinating article called Truth Be Told.    Starting from the standpoint that honest people are made and not born, various individuals responded to a question regarding what caused them to try and live a life of honesty.  The answers are fascinating:

• A man whose life in college was nothing but a long string of lies opened a fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant.  It read: A clear conscience fears no midnight knocking.
• Another man was deeply affected as a child on discovering that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus did not exist.  He said: It was especially significant to me since my otherwise always truthful family participated in this deception.  His goal:  honesty in all matters.
• A girl who was "dishonest" and "shifty" as a child continued her deceitful ways until she was a teenager, when it was revealed that her father was cheating on her mother.  She pledged that day to be upright and "impeccably honest."
• The woman whose mother taught her "lying generates more lies to cover the first lie.
• The man who revealed that he learned about honesty "the moment in 3rd grade that it was exposed that not only could I not accurately forge my mother's signature, but it wasn't even close."

And my personal favorite? The guy who said:  I cannot tell a lie, and that's why I'm divorced.  Yes, you look fat in that dress!

 

Always being scrupulously honest is not easy for any of us, but for the most part, telling the truth works out far better than telling a lie.  Deceit is something that has a tendency to snowball.  I distinctly remember praying to God during my teenage years:  "Lord, if you will just cover up this lie I told, I'll never tell another one.  Obviously, that prayer was never answered in the way I wanted.  My goal every day is to live a completely transparent life.  Do I always succeed?  Sadly, no.  But I keep reminding myself that a clear conscience is a great gift - to me!

 

  

Why?

Our mouths were filled with laughter...

Psalm 126:2a

After a week of tragedy and pain, some light-hearted thoughts from the question, Why?

• Why do supermarkets make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front? 
• Why do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke? 
• Why do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters?
• Why do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in our driveways and put our useless junk in the garage?
• Why does the sun lighten our hair, but darken our skin?
• Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed? 
• Why don’t you ever see the headline, “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
• Why is “abbreviated” such a long word?
• Why is it that doctors and attorneys call what they do “practice”?
• Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavoring, but  dish washing liquid is made with real lemons.
• Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
• Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
• Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
• Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
• Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
• You know that indestructible black box used on airplanes?  Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
• Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
• Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
• If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

May the Lord fill your life today with a bit of love, a bit of joy, and a bit of laughter.

The Outgrowth of Hatred

Do not hate your brother in your heart...

Leviticus 19:17

 

I wait, along with the rest of my fellow Americans and others around the globe, for the news of what individual or organization planned and executed the bomb attack this afternoon at the finishing of the Boston Marathon.  I want to know who exactly it was that thought their cause or their beliefs or their power or their grievances gave them the right to kill and maim innocent bystanders - men, women and children.  What exactly fired up someone's righteous indignation and allowed them to cause traumatic brain injury to a two-year-old todder?  Who could look upon the photos of a young mother with her leg in shreds and think it a job well done.?  Who would do such a thing?

There are a myriad of reasons and emotions that drive human beings to violence and destruction, but the most potent, I believe, is hatred.  Not just your garden-variety anger, mind you, but malevolent enmity that has no boundaries and knows no restrictions:  hatred that is only mollified by the infliction of as much pain as possible on as many people as possible - that needs to hurt someone else in order to be fulfilled.  Two people were killed this afternoon, and over a hundred others have had their lives forever changed:

feet are gone, arms and legs are blown apart, head injuries are rampant.  And for what?

There are policies of my government that I am not particularly fond of.  There are religious ideas that I hold dear and others that I think are hogwash.  There are people that I don't like, and one or two that I absolutely can't stomach.  There are philosophies that I think are valuable and others that (in my way of thinking) are nothing but hot air.  There are times when I am dissatisfied with my life and other times when I believe I have been treated unfairly.  People cut me off on the highway, step in front of me in the grocery line, talk about me behind my back, say things about me that are not true, and sometimes engineer situations that give me the raw end of the deal.  

Thankfully, I have never come to the conclusion that I would feel better about any of the above if I could inflict pain and misery on other people. No, the kind of hatred that engineered the explosions in Massachusetts today was an animosity that had been nurtured and encouraged, held close to the heart, buried deep in the mind, and allowed to fester and grow until it consumed soul and conscience.   

It's Time to Plant!

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the

singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle

dove is heard in the land.

Song of Solomon 2:12

The daffodil blossoms have long since died away, the remains of hyacinth is turning a sickly yellow, and the grass is a vivid green only a week or so after my application of Scotts Turf Builder.  We've had two days this week of temperatures in the 90's (yes, you read that right!), and my mind is pounding out the chorus:

It's Time to Plant!!

The fat old robins are waddling all over my grass, the temperatures have stabilized in the 70's and it is time to get down to business!  I have worked all winter on a notebook of garden designs and possible plants.  I bought a new perennial last week [Doronicum Little Leo] with pretty yellow, daisy-like flowers.  I began spray-painting the old pots a beautiful dark green to give a fresh look to my container gardens.  My David Austin English rose is beginning to fill out, and I have made a list of newcomers and old friends that I want to purchase:

• Hakonochloa macra All Gold Japanese grass
• Bottlebrush Buckeye
• Brazzleberry Raspberry Shortcake (compact raspberry to grow in large pots)
• Yucca rostrata Sapphire Skies  
• Melampodium
• Sweet Autumn clematis
• Miss Kim lilac
• Bandana Cherry lantana
• White serena angelonia 

I am waiting to hear the dates for the plant sale at the local tech center; the plant sale at the botanical garden is not until the first weekend of May.  Thanks to generous friends at Christmastime and birthday, I have gift cards to Lowe's and to a local nursery (as well as a Groupon for additional savings there).  All I need is time - to purchase and to plant.

I cannot even imagine the joy that Adam and Eve must have experienced as they tended the magnificent gardens, created by God's own hand, that surrounded their home.  How grateful I am to God that He chose to make this world a riot of beauty, texture and color.  If you are a garden lover like me - it's time to get busy!  Happy Planting! 

Preparing for An Invasion

God made the wild animals according to their kinds,

and the livestock according to their kinds,

and all the creatures that move along the ground

according to their kinds.

Genesis 1:25

As a kid growing up in the blistering heat of Phoenix, Arizona, I always looked forward to church camp in the summer, when we would spend a week up in Prescott - a little country town above the heat line.  The church conference owned a huge spread in the pines, with rustic cabins, fire pits, and evening temperatures that got downright cold.  Those yearly visits to Camp Yavapines were the highlight of my youth.  And my brightest memory of those times?  Believe it or not - cicadas!

When we arrived at camp and stepped out of the car, the first sound we heard were cicadas.  I distinctly remember laying in bed at night, listening to these creatures serenading the night sky.  Early morning walks included hunts for empty cicada shells.  If I relied only on my memory, I would say that these creatures were part of every year of my experience at camp.  Apparently, that was not the case, as cicadas bury themselves in the ground after birth, and rise in "broods" after an internally-determined length of time.  This spring, Brood II is going to climb from their 17-year underground hiatus, and try to fulfill a very short to-do list:  find a mate, make babies and die.  And wouldn't you know, I am in the direct path of the expected swarm.

This is going to be the largest cicada population to arise since Brood X surfaced in 2004.  These insects have been underground since 1996, and they are ready to party.  It is the male that does the singing, trying to attract the female for mating.  A single male cicada makes a kind of clicking sound.  However, you never hear just one cicada.  As the Washington Post reports: ...when hundreds of thousands of bugs click all at once, it creates an extraordinarily loud screech that travels in waves, day and night, sounding like crickets on steroids.  

That description doesn't quite jive with my memories of the creatures, but if entomologists are correct, I am going to have my memory refreshed in spades. 

Hopelessness

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.

Psalm 55:22

There are few things more damaging to the human psyche than hopelessness - the despair of believing that a situation is impossible to solve, cure, or deal with.  Without hope of a better tomorrow, there is no reason to live.  Clearly that was the situation for a 64-year-old man named Eugene in Phoenix, Arizona whose wife became ill.  For whatever reason, he was afraid that she either had cancer, or was HIV positive because of the prostitutes he used to frequent when he worked for the railroad in New York.  In his despondency, he decided to kill his wife and then commit suicide.

There was an nagging wrinkle in this plan, however,.  The couple had a 27-year-old son who lived at home.  According to Eugene, the son played video games all day and had no girlfriend, regular friends, or a job, and was dependent on his parents for his living situation.  The father "despaired" of what would happen to his son after the death of the mother and the suicide of the dad.  Eugene's solution to the overall problem is horrifying.

He took a 14-inch knife from the kitchen, went upstairs and stabbed his sleeping wife, then knocked on his son's bedroom door, and when he answered, Eugene stabbed him to death as well.  He then tried "several different means" to commit suicide, all of which were unsuccessful.  Finally, after several days, he called the police and suggested they needed to come to the house.

As someone who has suffered from depression on and off for years, I have great empathy for this man and the situation he found himself in:  the guilt he had carried for years because of his unfaithfulness to his wife, his fears regarding his wife's illness and what that might mean to the family, his disgust at his son's indolence and his desire/need to push his son out of the house and into the world to fend for himself.  One of those stressors would be difficult to live with.  Put three of them together, and the result is devastating.  

It is heartbreaking that this man did not have a strong faith system, neighbors/friends/relatives to confide in, a pastor to seek wisdom from, or the resources of a medical professional. Heartbreaking also that no one seemed to realize the ticking time bomb of his mental health. The greatest tragedy, however, is the wife and the son, whatever their faults, who brutally died by the hand of someone who was supposed to love and protect them.

Memories

The memory of the righteous will be a blessing...

Proverbs 10:7

 

This past weekend was Alumni Weekend at the parochial high school that I attended back home in Arizona.  Called Back to the Classics, it was organized by a couple of members of the class of 1967, and featured a huge party at a nearby Scottsdale hotel on Saturday evening.  It appears that everyone brought their cameras and all had a marvelous time.  My e-mail inbox has been flooded with pictures of the event, and plenty more pictures can be seen on Facebook.

It was on Facebook, while perusing all of the alumni photos, that I came across the above photo as I scrolled down the listings.  It stopped me in mid-mousing - I would know this structure anywhere!  This is the old Phoenix Central SDA Church - the church home of my childhood.  Sitting at the corner of Ninth Street and Garfield, this grand old lady looks better today than she did back when I raced down the halls in the basement to reach my Sabbath School room.

Every Saturday, my mother would dress me up in some fluffy number that she had made by hand, then she would drive the old stationwagon downtown, arriving at the church about 9:15 a.m..  Sabbath School was at 9:30 a.m., where I would sing songs, listen to stories, and place stick figures of Bible characters in the sand box that our teacher used to illustrate her Bible lessons.  After S.S. was over, a trip to the two-toilet ladies room and a stop at the drinking fountain completed the pre-worship ritual.  "Church" started at 11:00 a.m., and I eagerly took my place on the hardwood pew right in front of the choir.

 

Central Church was where I was baptized, where I learned about Jesus, where I sang my first church solo (at 2 1/2 years old), where I joined my first choir, and where I accompanied my first Messiah rehearsal.  So many memories are packed into that tiny structure.  How wonderful it was to run across this picture and be reminded of the very beginning of my walk with the Lord.

All Things New

Behold, I make all things new...

Revelation 21:5

 

This past week was Spring Break for the school system in my county.  This meant two significant things for me:  I didn't have to teach school, and I didn't have any children's activities at the church.  I had a holiday at the church on Monday, and Friday is my regular day off, so I decided to take Tuesday through Thursday as vacation days and really get things done around the house.

I sporadically follow Emily Clark's decorating blog, and one of her recent posts had given me an idea.  She began a series based on working with what you have.  Utilizing a wide variety of paints, colorful fabrics and lots of ingenuity, she and her readers shared wonderful ways of taking something you own and making it new and different, rather than purchasing a replacement item. My goal this week was to utilize that concept in my own home.  At the end of this week, I had completed four "old to new" projects:

1. The shutters on my red brick house (five sets of two) were probably a beautiful teal green color when they were first installed, but the sun completely washed out the vibrancy.  Armed with two ladders (short and tall), a million paint brushes and a gallon of oil-based paint, I now have gleaming black shutters and an amazing facelift for the front of my home.
2. The large planters in my front yard were old, bleached-out terracotta plastic pots - ugly but still very serviceable.  Gathering two spray cans of primer for plastic and two spray cans of Hunter Green Semi-Gloss paint, I transformed my old pots into glossy dark green planters that would have cost me a fortune if I had purchased them new.
3. My family photo grouping that should be adorning a wall in my living has never been put up because it is housed in picture frames that are a kaleidoscope of colors, materials, textures, and conditions.  Taking out the photos, mats and glass, I spray painted my hodgepodge of frames the same color - a very light, silvery taupe.  They turned out beautifully, and my grouping now looks stunning instead of stodgy.
4. The red brick fireplace surround in the living room is far too dark for the color scheme of the walls.  Two coats of white primer has transformed the look of the living room, even before the final coats of latex are applied.

Watching the "old" turn to "new" this week has been a very satisfying experience.  A simple coat or two of paint covered up a whole host of imperfections.  How wonderful it would be if there was a "coating" of some kind that could hide my personal flaws.  The scriptures advise us to put on the robe of Christ's righteousness: His character perfection covering our sins and weaknesses.  God is also in the business of making all things new - new hearts, new lives, new outlooks.  All He needs is for us to be willing.
   

The Value of Human Life: Carrie Underwood

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

Romans 1

I remember Carrie Underwood on American Idol in 2005.  She was a small town, Christian twenty-something who had never ridden on an airplane, never been to a big city.  Week after week in the competition, thousands of people like me cheered her on as she advanced in the competition.  Finally, she was declared the winner of Idol Season Four.  She immediately released an album, Some Hearts, which won three Grammy's including Best New Artist.  There were two songs on that album that stood out for me.  The first was Jesus, Take the Wheel - a tune that I listened to over and over.  The second song was Before He Cheats.

 

Although I really liked Carrie as a singer and an entertainer, Before He Cheats bothered me.  The singer is telling the triumphant story of revenge on a guy who is cheating on her.  That revenge, however sweet it might be, is vandalism - cheerful, triumphant vandalism of a real scumbag's SUV, but vandalism none-the-less: keying down the side of the vehicle, a baseball bat to the headlights, a knife to the leather seats and the tires.  It makes for a heck of a song, but the message it sends does not exactly jibe with either the laws of the land or the laws of God.  

Her latest hit single, Two Black Cadillacs, gave me the same uneasy feeling.  This is also a song about a cheating man, as well as the wife, the mistress, and a funeral procession with two black cars.  The lyrics of the song are clear:  the two women compare notes, decide that the jerk will not get away with his lying and philandering, and they wait for the "right time."  The right time for what?  To kill the guy!  Yes, that's right - to MURDER the husband.

Last Sunday I went out for lunch to a local restaurant, and the music video for Two Black Cadillacs came on the big screen.  To say that I was shocked as I watched would be an understatement.  One of the women lures the man to a meeting place, then the cars begin to play with him like a cat and mouse, finally running him down as he pleads for his life.  After he is dead, the two women walk up to view their handiwork (all you see is a limp, bloody hand).  Were they in the cars? Watching as "innocent" bystanders?.  In a "behind the scenes" video, Underwood explains that the women don't do the killing, the cars do (a la Stephen King's horror novel Christine), as though that makes the killing okay.  The car does "heal" itself of the resulting dents and dings, but in the video, there are clearly "hands on the wheel" and "foot on the accelerator" shots just before the man is gunned down.

 

What message does this video deliver to the hordes of adoring fans - mostly kids and teens?  The man is a cheating scumbag so it's okay to take his life?  Do the dirty on me and see what you get?  Cheaters don't deserve to live?   I know what message it sent to me:  this is an artist that I don't need to listen to anymore.

The Value of Human Life: Miranda Lambert

Thou shalt not kill...

Exodus 20:13 

 

Country singers these days, especially some of the women, seem to be having trouble understanding their responsibility as role models in our celebrity culture.  Little girls and young women look up to their favorite celebrities, particularly singers.  As a teacher of high school kids, I constantly hear about this singer or that - their music, their antics, and their core message.

Miranda Lambert, wife of Blake Shelton of The Voice fame, loves to portray a "bad girl" persona in her music, as witnessed in her Fastest Girl in Town single.  In the song, White Liar,  she castigates a boyfriend who lies about his affairs - then ends the tune by revealing that she has also been lying - and cheating.

 

On her hit album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Lambert's song about an abusive boyfriend, Gunpowder and Lead, has her "going home to load my shotgun, wait by the door and light a cigarette.  He wants a fight, well now he's got one..." The clear inference here is that if the abuser comes through the door, she will shoot him - all in self-defense, of course.  The video for her hit song, Kerosene, shows her dropping a trail of kerosene from her boyfriend's house clear through town.  Apparently the boyfriend is in bed with another, and she is going to light the kerosene trail and blow the two cheaters into the hereafter.

What kind of messages are these artists sending to their young fans:  Playing fast and loose, lying, cheating and revenge are acceptable ways to live life and take care of problems?  These artists may not want to think about the influence their music and videos have on the young people who watch them, but the parents of those kids sure need to be wary.  Country music used to be some of the cleanest music around, but those days appear to be coming to an end.

The Value of Human Life: A Man and a Dog

Be strong and very courageous...

Joshua 1:7

 

Somewhere in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, tonight, a mother is hugging her two daughters, and thanking God for a 27-year-old man named Adam and a Labrador retriever/husky mix dog named Rocky.  A family outing on Easter Sunday would have been a tragedy if not for this unlikely pair of heroes.

Two sisters, ages 9 and 10, were tobogganing in a riverside park when their sled went too far and ended up on the ice.  When the girls tried to get back to shore, the ice broke and the older girl went into the water.  Adam and his dog were walking on a nearby bridge and heard the screams.  When they reached the river, both girls were in the water.  He was able to pull the younger girl up onto the ice, but could not reach the older one.  The 10-year-old was being carried downstream, her head bobbing in and out of the icy water.

As he tried to get closer to her, the ice gave way, tumbling Adam and Rocky into the river.  Adam pushed the dog back up on the ice and then used the dog and the leash to pull himself up.  Right at this point would be the time when some people would have said, "Hey, I did my best - my dog and I don't need to die today," and would have turned back.  Not this man.  

 

Running further down river to where the girl was, Adam urged his dog to get back in the river while he held on firmly to the leash.  The dog jumped in right next to the child, who got both hands on Rocky's leash. Adam called the dog, and he swam back to his master, getting close enough for him to grab both the dog's collar and the girls arm and drag them away from the water's edge.

It goes without saying that things would have gone very differently if Adam and Rocky had not been willing to come down off that bridge on Sunday.  They could have ignored the screams and simply walked away.  But Adam saw two defenseless little girls - two human lives that were about to be snuffed out, and he wasn't about to let it happen without a fight.

The Value of Human Life: Sell Your Kids?

Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him.

Psalm 127:3

 

Our family was really poor when the children were little.  Our first-born had catastrophic heart defects, and we were in debt up to our eyeballs before she was a year old.  My husband graduated from college and went straight into construction in order to put food on the table.  Those first few years were a real struggle, and there were many times when I despaired of ever being able to have a comfortable home life.  We dreamed up all kinds of get-rich-quick schemes, each of which we ultimately abandoned, but one thing we never contemplated was making money off of our children.

An Oklahoma woman was arrested for contacting a woman on Facebook and offering to sell her kids.  The 22-year-old mother has a 2-year-old and a 10-month-old.  She offered the toddler for $1,000, or the two children together for $4,000.  The woman she approached with this proposition informed the state's Department of Human Services, who contacted police.  After her arrest, she admitted that she needed the money to bail her latest boyfriend out of jail.

Across every level of society, the value of a human life has steadily eroded over the years.  In many areas of the world, the only human life that is precious is "my" life - everyone else is expendable.  For this woman, her lover (who may or may not be the father of her children) is more important than her kids. 

I am certainly overjoyed that the mother was caught before she could carry out this scheme, otherwise who knows where those children might be?  Considering she was trying to hock them on social media, she probably wasn't too concerned about the quality of the buyer.  Hopefully there is a set of loving grandparents (or a compassionate foster home) that can provide the security and love that those children desperately need.