Some food for thought on the Fruit of the Spirit

Topic: Bearing active spiritual fruit
Target passage: Galatians 5:16-25
Date: Nov. 29, 2015

You've probably heard the venerable litany many times before. You might even have the Fruit of the Spirit memorized: "Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." They might seem less like fruits and more like old chestnuts as many times as we've heard them! But they deserve a fresh look.

Children bring prosperity; are never 'wrongful births'

Note: This post of mine originally appeared in The Travis Tracker.

About 120 women are suing drug company Endo because an alleged packaging error they say resulted in unplanned pregnancies ... and, along with that, the expense of raising children.

The class action lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania last week. The class members hail from 26 states, and it is unclear at the time of writing if a Texan is among them. According to the suit, the birth control pill manufacturer distributed pills (see full list at the bottom of this post) in 2011 with incorrect markings and packaging -- resulting in 113 unforeseen pregnancies in 26 states. Fully 94 of the women carried the babies to term. Other state courts have rejected similar lawsuits.

The class is reportedly seeking millions in damages, including, in a few cases, the costs of raising children through adulthood (allegedly because of the birth control goof-up). While many prestigious sources put the cost-estimate of raising a child from 0 to adulthood at $200,000 to $250,000, that's not a universally held figure.

According to one source we found, a money management site called TheSimpleDollar.com, children can actually bring in money at certain points along the way. Here's the breakdown from author Trent Hamm, based on a working husband and working wife with two children in Iowa at the onset of the Obama Administration (costs have certainly gone up since then, but bear with us!). His comments are in italics below and are worth a read (full article).