Discerning Truth—Now Available to Help You Think Logically

Dr. Jason Lisle’s latest book is now available!  Discerning Truth: Exposing Errors in Evolutionary Arguments is an easy-to-read book that teaches people how to spot the mistakes in reasoning that evolutionists often make.  Learning to refute such bad arguments is an important part of defending the Christian faith (1 Peter 3:15).  Jason’s previous book The Ultimate Proof of Creation and its associated Ultimate Apologetics DVDs have already been extremely popular.

Why?

Yesterday, my blog post featured an item about a five-year-old young boy (Landry) who visited the Creation Museum with his parents last week as a result of a grant from the Make-A-Wish foundation.  After returning home, the family sent this touching letter.  It meant so much to us, and we called the family to ask if we could share it publicly. They agreed; I urge you all to read it slowly:

Dear Mr. Ham,

We would like to thank you all for the wonderful time that we had on our visit at the creation museum through the Make-A-Wish foundation. Landry, his 7 year old sister Lydia and 18 year old brother Levi, along with us, his mom and dad, received a blessing from the trip. . . .

Landry will be 6 years old this September. He was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy(SMA)around the age of 9 months. We were told by the head doctor with a religious based hospital to just go home and let him die, since there is no cure for his disease. SMA is a form of muscular dystrophy that is most severe. Landry’s mind is good but he is unable to move his arms or legs, able to speak or chew his food. He communicates with guttural sounds, eye and head movements and is learning to use an “eye-gaze” communication board. He has respiratory issues that necessitates a routine twice a day that helps Landry to stay healthy. Even at that, Landry has had several hospital stays in his young life and receives ongoing treatments.

After the devastating diagnosis we received on Landry’s condition we, his mother and I, went on a search for our own answers. Looking for answers I remembered seeing your web site one day on the internet and something, I don’t recall now what it was, brought me back to it. We weren’t looking for answers for a cure to SMA, we were pretty confident from our research that nothing short of a miracle would do that. Not that we don’t believe in miracles and not that we didn’t pray for one; but miracles by their nature are not everyday events.

We were struggling with the advice the doctors had given us “to just go home and enjoy him while you can and to let him die”. The question that we needed an answer for was, “how do you do that?”. How do you let someone die when you haven’t exhausted all available means to sustain life? My brother had a college textbook on medical ethics about this very subject, five or six hundred pages of advice I wasn’t ready to plow into. There had to be a simpler answer. . . .  One of my biggest questions was “why?”. I mean, I know we weren’t perfect people, no one is. My wife and I try to do the right things, why did this happen to us? This only happens to people that you see on television on Jerry Lewis’s MDA marathon. I mean, if God was trying to punish us, wouldn’t he let us know why? I didn’t know why. Really if you get right down to it I was worthy of death, I understand my sinful nature well and the protection that I receive from Christ our redeemer; but this was a blow. I was drawn back again and again to articles on your web site regarding sin, death and suffering. How blessed I was to finally understand some of the things that over the years that I thought was right but you folks put together in an understandable way.

It still wasn’t a cure for Landry but it helped his mom and dad to put some of these issues into perspective and be strengthened for the rough days ahead. And there were several. Several times we have nearly lost him but by the grace of God he came back around. How do you say “by the grace of God” and then you don’t see your son completely healed? By God’s grace, that is how.

Landry’s short life has brought us in contact with so many people; he has touched many more lives than we could ever imagine. We are repeatedly surprised when others, many times strangers, will ask us how Landry is doing. This terrible disease has brought us closer to our God. We are aware that we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death” yet He comforts us.

Over the last few years we have purchased several videos and books from AIG. We subscribed to Answers magazine and became 5 year members to help with the building of the museum. Our little church has used AIG’s bible school literature about three times as I recall and it is always a favorite. Our children have grown up immersed in this teaching. They have patiently and impatiently sat through lectures, listened at dinner table conversations and have been a witness to their parents education on the subject of beginnings. Every month there is a debate as to who’s room receives the poster pull out in the magazine, Lydia or Landry. Landry enjoys the dinosaurs (and cows). In his limited way he will play with them, watch videos about them and will growl like T-Rex.

[Reflections on the Museum Visit]

Since Landry was born, because of his many medical needs we had not been able to take a family vacation. And honestly because of increased financial obligations, we weren’t able to afford it. Someone had suggested to my wife that we contact Make-A-Wish to see if we qualified for a vacation. We applied but didn’t really expect to be granted a wish since what we had heard about was that they were big on granting wishes to Disneyland. We couldn’t do that. Flying in Landry’s condition was not worth the risk. To our surprise they did grant it and provided a van large enough that we could haul all of Landry’s extra medical equipment on the trip. They are a great organization to work with. They made something happen that we had pretty well written off for the foreseeable future.

We arrived and had time to visit the [Newport] Aquarium and Cincinnati Zoo. Because of the heat and humidity, they were less than ideal trips but interesting none the less. The day before our visit to the museum, because of a bad day at the zoo, we decided that we would need a wagon of some sort to bring along some of Landry’s medical equipment with us as we walked through the museum. We called our contact, Rachel (I would like to recommend her for a raise), to see what was available there at the museum. After discussion she said to give her a few minutes and she would call us back. She did and someone with the staff at the museum brought their child’s wagon from home that we could borrow so that we wouldn’t have to go on a last-minute trip looking for one in Cincinnati.

The next morning we met Rachel and away we went. First to the planetarium, which Landry found very exciting, then to see Dan, who had some special drawings just for him. We met Buddy and Mark and several others.

The staff at Noah’s café was very helpful, the security staff (with our permission Landry got sniffed down by Joleen--the black Labrador--that tickled him). From the moment we walked in the front door of the museum we truly were treated like V.I.P.’s; an experience that exceeded our expectations! Thank you all.

When Landry got his first glimpse of the mammoth and dinosaurs in the front hall area, I knew we had hit a home run. He was in awe. He talked and laughed about nearly everything. He wasn’t very patient with some of the displays that required more reading, but what five year old is? But the talking displays such as Noah and the moving dinosaurs were off the charts! We sculpted with Buddy, let him know that we know what kind of rocks fossils are found in. That afternoon we went to hear him sing. Mr. Ham, in my simple country way of saying it, as we sang “At the Cross”, the Lord passed by.

We stayed until about 5:00 p.m. much later than we thought Landry would be able to tolerate, but he did. And all agreed that we would come back as soon as we could get around the next morning. We spent another day and finished taking in nearly all that we were capable of doing. Landry’s brother and sister were excited about our visit and we discussed so much about what we had seen and learned. It was obvious to us that we had made a right choice for Landry as well, he loved it, chattered about it and was spent at the end of each day. He did very well each day as far as his health goes. This made the trip more enjoyable for us all. Someday I expect a young man to be able to discuss this trip that he had with his mom and dad. Perhaps he’ll be able to tell you as well.

We don’t know what the future holds for Landry as far as that goes, or for none of us, but we do know who holds the future. Ministries like Answers In Genesis help to strengthen our faith and resolve to press onward and we thank you again for that. Words fall so short. We pray for you that God grant you all the wisdom on how to properly use your ministry, that Satan’s attacks be thwarted by our God. For the furtherance of the gospel.

There is more that I’d like to say, but seven pages is more than enough. I hope that I haven’t bored you. There are many other families out there with disabled children that need “Answers” as well. Pray for us that our little family can help them as well. Part of that will be pointing them in your direction.

Again, thank you for everything. You all were very gracious. Oh, and one more thing. I know Landry would want to thank you for putting the cows on the ark display, especially the red one. :-)

Sincerely,

Doug, Joyce, Levi, Lydia, and Landry McGuire

Building the Creation Museum was worth it just for Landry!  Please pray for him and his earthly struggles with a body so suffering the effects of our sin.  What a reminder of what our sin has done to this once-perfect place.  And what a reminder that each one of us needs to make sure we have put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, so that one day we will spend eternity in a perfect place called Heaven.

Devotion

Know therefore this day and consider it in your heart

(Deuteronomy 4:39)  Know therefore this day, and consider it in your heart, that the LORD he is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.

To only read and know the Bible is not enough; we must stop, take time, deeply consider, contemplate, and think on how it teaches the Lord Jesus Christ is God alone.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,

Ken