it is not quite well with my soul....
I am feeling compelled to write a response to the recent news about the adjusted abortion law for New York. It makes me physically ill to think about this happening. It is not well with my soul at all. Every day I read more thoughts and commentary on this issue, and the terms pro-life and pro-choice. Every day I find myself in conversations about it with others and most of those conversations are with other women. Women definitely have an investment in this topic.....and men should too.
Where should I even start? Maybe I will start by looking at a couple of my own children in the other room.....children who society may have considered unplanned by their birth moms. Children who could have been aborted fetuses.....one whose mama was in the abortion clinic at one point......I praise God they were not in New York that day. I believe that God heard the cries of my heart in those seasons, where I knew we were being called to adopt and I was praying and praying and praying that He would protect the child that He would lead us to. I prayed for each of our adopted children just as I did for each of our biological kids when we learned we were pregnant and I asked God to preserve and protect their beautiful and fragile lives. He granted us that prayer 5 out of 6 times. When I think about pro-life I want to thank Jesus for giving us these lives.
As a Christian, it is imperative and dangerously time-sensitive that we all go deeper and longer in a life of prayer for all the babies being conceived whether they are "wanted" and "planned" or not quite yet. Storming the gates of Heaven on behalf of unborn babies is not a prayer that will be ignored. ( Asking God for a comfortable and easy life without any involvement with hurting and struggling and every day humans might be.)
It can feel achievable to pray for the unborn, to pray for these babies to be granted full life and term pregnancy birth. These babies are not growing in a factory. They are growing in human beings who are doing their best to live their best life and claim some happiness and joy and contentment and peace. Pregnant women need prayer. Each and every one of them. I work with pregnant women and new mothers every day and it has become my passion and my life's work to meet them whenever I can, and to build a bridge of trust and love and encouragement so that the baby they are growing will have the best possible opportunity to be mentally and physically and emotionally well from pre-birth all the way through their childhood......it is my greatest joy to be a part of such sacred space.
I have a special gift in that I am allowed to do this work and also get paid to do it. It is easier for me in many ways, than for all of the rest of the world who does a different job to pay the bills but still cares about pro-life moms and babes. I would do it for free if no one paid me.....but lets just keep that a secret.
I have sat with women who found out they were pregnant and were not happy about the news. I have sat with them while they cried and screamed and cursed. I have searched for words of comfort and purpose and found none. They deserved to be mad. They deserved to feel cheated out of a year of having their body to themselves, or to feel mad because they were already poor and without resources and now here was one more that would need time and money and care where there was not enough before. They deserved to grieve when the baby daddy said if the pregnancy wasn't terminated he would walk. They deserved to be angry and to watch him leave if they said no. Many, many times, it would have made more sense to just make the appointment and abort the baby. So many times. Mostly they didn't and sometimes they did.....and in the quiet of my own making I have cried for those babies that didn't get saved. Lots of times, the mom is very brave and doesn't end her pregnancy and then the long journey of bringing life into the world begins.
The government offers nutrition programs and welfare checks and home visiting programs and people who can help get education and jobs but the government does not care about the relationship between a mother and her child. A relationship of love and nurture and attachment is fierce and strong and will grow children up to be the best version of themselves possible with or without money and time and support......but the government and society global doesn't know how to make that a priority. Wanna know who does? Jesus.
Jesus understands how to be in a relationship of love and nurture and attachment and sacrifice and giving and receiving help from a community that is strong and secure. If the world and even if most Christians could know that..... Abortion would be extinct.
Pro-life is also pro-living. Live in relationships with people, who are maybe different that you, with different stories and different cultures and different goals. Could we all work at looking for people who cross our paths, especially young girls and young women, who could use a friend? Start with a smile, and pray for more chance encounters. Be interested. Be available. Be willing to give a ride even if it is inconvenient....or go buy diapers if someone asks.....extend an offer to be helpful. Do it often and if she accepts then do it well. Find one or two young girls you can keep tabs on and be intentional about caring for them. If they get pregnant, when they get pregnant, celebrate that life no matter how it happened. Don't judge. Don't even start to judge. If you feel "judgy" please call me so we can "un-judge" the brain and the thoughts and words that flow from it. Judgment never helps pro-life frailty.
So those are the thoughts I have right now. Nothing about a state allowing abortions up to the child's due date sits well in my heart and soul.....but if passing this law gets every day Christians talking about ways to make abortion extinct? Well. then it is very, very well with my soul to talk about it too.
Where should I even start? Maybe I will start by looking at a couple of my own children in the other room.....children who society may have considered unplanned by their birth moms. Children who could have been aborted fetuses.....one whose mama was in the abortion clinic at one point......I praise God they were not in New York that day. I believe that God heard the cries of my heart in those seasons, where I knew we were being called to adopt and I was praying and praying and praying that He would protect the child that He would lead us to. I prayed for each of our adopted children just as I did for each of our biological kids when we learned we were pregnant and I asked God to preserve and protect their beautiful and fragile lives. He granted us that prayer 5 out of 6 times. When I think about pro-life I want to thank Jesus for giving us these lives.
As a Christian, it is imperative and dangerously time-sensitive that we all go deeper and longer in a life of prayer for all the babies being conceived whether they are "wanted" and "planned" or not quite yet. Storming the gates of Heaven on behalf of unborn babies is not a prayer that will be ignored. ( Asking God for a comfortable and easy life without any involvement with hurting and struggling and every day humans might be.)
It can feel achievable to pray for the unborn, to pray for these babies to be granted full life and term pregnancy birth. These babies are not growing in a factory. They are growing in human beings who are doing their best to live their best life and claim some happiness and joy and contentment and peace. Pregnant women need prayer. Each and every one of them. I work with pregnant women and new mothers every day and it has become my passion and my life's work to meet them whenever I can, and to build a bridge of trust and love and encouragement so that the baby they are growing will have the best possible opportunity to be mentally and physically and emotionally well from pre-birth all the way through their childhood......it is my greatest joy to be a part of such sacred space.
I have a special gift in that I am allowed to do this work and also get paid to do it. It is easier for me in many ways, than for all of the rest of the world who does a different job to pay the bills but still cares about pro-life moms and babes. I would do it for free if no one paid me.....but lets just keep that a secret.
I have sat with women who found out they were pregnant and were not happy about the news. I have sat with them while they cried and screamed and cursed. I have searched for words of comfort and purpose and found none. They deserved to be mad. They deserved to feel cheated out of a year of having their body to themselves, or to feel mad because they were already poor and without resources and now here was one more that would need time and money and care where there was not enough before. They deserved to grieve when the baby daddy said if the pregnancy wasn't terminated he would walk. They deserved to be angry and to watch him leave if they said no. Many, many times, it would have made more sense to just make the appointment and abort the baby. So many times. Mostly they didn't and sometimes they did.....and in the quiet of my own making I have cried for those babies that didn't get saved. Lots of times, the mom is very brave and doesn't end her pregnancy and then the long journey of bringing life into the world begins.
The government offers nutrition programs and welfare checks and home visiting programs and people who can help get education and jobs but the government does not care about the relationship between a mother and her child. A relationship of love and nurture and attachment is fierce and strong and will grow children up to be the best version of themselves possible with or without money and time and support......but the government and society global doesn't know how to make that a priority. Wanna know who does? Jesus.
Jesus understands how to be in a relationship of love and nurture and attachment and sacrifice and giving and receiving help from a community that is strong and secure. If the world and even if most Christians could know that..... Abortion would be extinct.
Pro-life is also pro-living. Live in relationships with people, who are maybe different that you, with different stories and different cultures and different goals. Could we all work at looking for people who cross our paths, especially young girls and young women, who could use a friend? Start with a smile, and pray for more chance encounters. Be interested. Be available. Be willing to give a ride even if it is inconvenient....or go buy diapers if someone asks.....extend an offer to be helpful. Do it often and if she accepts then do it well. Find one or two young girls you can keep tabs on and be intentional about caring for them. If they get pregnant, when they get pregnant, celebrate that life no matter how it happened. Don't judge. Don't even start to judge. If you feel "judgy" please call me so we can "un-judge" the brain and the thoughts and words that flow from it. Judgment never helps pro-life frailty.
So those are the thoughts I have right now. Nothing about a state allowing abortions up to the child's due date sits well in my heart and soul.....but if passing this law gets every day Christians talking about ways to make abortion extinct? Well. then it is very, very well with my soul to talk about it too.
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