I wish that I knew your name or could grab your hand from across a mug of coffee.
I’m Laura. A wife, mother, big fan of sipping warm cups of goodness that is coffee, and passionate about loving well the people that are in my life.
This week at church I saw a little table with neatly lined up baby bottles.
The first thought I had was how I wished God could help me understand why it’s almost a year and half later and my husband and I still are unable to have another baby. It breaks my heart, but if I’ve learned one thing it’s that we’re in very little control of having a baby. It will be God’s perfect plan that unfolds and i’m growing more and more at peace with that.
As I reached for a baby bottle and stuck it in my purse I thought about how much we could give. I didn’t want to give loose change, I wanted to give something that had me moving things around in our budget. A gift that would be sacrificing my wants for another woman who needed help.
Then today I listened to a message by Matt Chandler about the sanctity of life. It was incredible. It wasn’t judgmental or a punch to women about her choices. It was a message of hope and understanding the value of these little children that God designed us to carry and give birth to.
Isn’t that amazing? He chose women to birth the future generations after it was Eve that sinned in the Garden first. He is a God of grace and more love than we can comprehend.
I’m a woman who believes in laying down low our rights for the sake of others. I’m not good at it, but it’s a beautiful image when I’ve seen it happen.
* * *
She is sitting on my couch and at the age of 50 shares with me how she had an abortion many years ago. The room goes silent except for her quiet replaying of the events that led up to that moment she terminated the pregnancy. Then she tells me how God restored her. How she doesn’t hold onto guilt anymore. She said, “I had sinned in an awful way but at the cross I was forgiven when I repented.”
That’s the gospel.
That’s the gospel that I believe in. A God who is all about restoring. This passage of scripture explains we’re sinners (Even myself!) but we WERE washed and we WERE sanctified, and WERE justified in the name of Jesus. It was nothing that we did but only what He could do.
1 Corinthians 6:9-1
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[a] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[b] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
God knew we would make a mess, and now at the foot of the cross there is no sin too much that won’t be forgiven.
* * *
There would be some who would like you to believe abortion is a political matter and one to be decided by our government.
I believe different.
It’s ethical, and for a culture who believes in equality for all… isn’t this little life growing inside you worth protecting too? They don’t believe so…
I learned that when roe v. wade was decided, that they didn’t have the technology or science to understand what was actually occurring in the womb. They didn’t have the fancy 3D ultrasounds like we do now.
Well, now we know.
We know all these details about how a little baby is being knit together in the most incredible way.
They feel pain, they suck their thumbs, have finger prints in the very first trimester! {How cool is that?}
But Laura, I can’t raise this little one. I am 15, or 26 and it’s not convenient…
You’re right, it’s probably not convenient for you.
{These are the abortions I’m talking about. The majority. Not the rare cases. Statistically we’re shown the most abortions are because it’s not convenient for the mother. It’s not even a matter of if this baby is a human life with a soul.
Today more people acknowledge that the baby is a human life at conception but that’s not enough to change any minds.}
Having a baby unplanned is rough. I would be lying to you because having one planned is as tough! I’m a mom, and this I know.
There’s a clinic probably near to you that offers something abortion clinics won’t. Hope
Not a hope that’s a get out of jail free card.
There are people that shout, ‘For Women’s Freedom they have the right to decide!’
They’d like you to believe there are no consequences to an abortion, but there are.
There is more bondage wrapped up in this single act and they do not want to believe it. There is a guilt that is carried because God created us with a moral compass. Until we repent we will carry that pain with us. Don’t let anyone mislead you on that truth.
At a crisis pregnancy clinic there will be a smiling face, and a reassuring hope. A friend that will walk you through either to becoming a mom yourself or letting another mom who can’t carry children in her womb become a mother.
9 months is a long time to carry your baby that you’ll place into another mom’s wide open {empty} arms. Can you imagine that gift?
I’m crying thinking about it because I have the privilege of knowing so many of these moms who are raising incredible children that could have been killed early on if not for the sacrifice of one women.
The government officials and feminist groups will tell you that it’s your right and that it’s no big deal. But for now, they see killing children as nothing compared to killing an animal. Their thinking is insane. {Yeah, I just threw a jab but it’s time to expose that thinking as darkness}
Did you know as Matt Chandler pointed out..
If you’re a young woman in here, or maybe an older woman—I didn’t say old; I said older woman—and you were pregnant in your first or second trimester, and you were driving toward the abortion clinic to have an abortion, and on the way to the abortion clinic you were hit by a drunk driver, that person is charged with involuntary manslaughter of your baby. But if you make it to the clinic, the doctor in the clinic is legally allowed to take a vacuum pump and rip that baby to shreds in your womb.
This is a seared conscience. This is madness, and this is the air we breathe as a society and a culture.
We believe that what happens in the secret is going to be kept a secret. But our sin against God is never hidden.{Genesis 3}
I don’t think we should be so concerned with offending a group of people, as we should about offending God.
As our culture continues to morally decay, what hope do we stand on? Relying on people’s shifty hope in themselves and their opinions? It’s a truth that decays because it isn’t truth at all. God created you and I in His image and our value is more than anything else He created here. {Genesis 1:26}
The firm foundation that we stand on is that we were created by a God who has a plan and purpose for us. He redeems the broken and those who are lost.
Writing on this blog about something very touchy is a risk. I’m anticipating negative feedback, but it’s worth it. I’m not looking to please a large group of people or debate. I’m praying that God would use these written words to stop one woman who is looking for an abortion.
ONE.
That she would hear not only my words, but a message of hope from the God who created her in her mother’s womb. That she would know how dearly loved she is.
I’m not writing to defend a political position but to voice God’s position. I don’t have the choice to be indifferent about abortion, that would me make equally as insane as the rest.
I don’t simply write about this and leave it at here and say, ‘okay God, I did my thing!’
Not at all!
This is a matter that I take to God in prayer, that leaves me in tears each time. It’s a matter I vote around. It’s also something I support financially. We can’t say, choose life with clenched fists to women and leave those moms on their own.
We give, pray, and spend our time helping those women who need blankets, food, a crib, or car seat. And don’t doubt for a minute that this isn’t happening. God is reaching out through crisis pregnancy centers daily to meet the needs of those struggling with what to do with the child growing inside of them. Abort, adoption, or keep.
One day I’m going to pass away and enter heaven and for the 54,559,615 Abortions Since Roe vs. Wade Decision in 1973 I want to have fought for their value and right to live during the time God gave me here. I will speak up and push this until a baby in the womb is valued far more than any animal.
I hope that as science discovers more in detail about what is being created in a women’s womb that more people see how mad this is to allow abortion in our towns and our country. That the science itself will prove this is wrong…ethically and morally wrong. As was the massive murders during the Holocaust and how the African-Americans in our country were treated. We can’t turn our eyes away from this.
Friend, I pray that you wouldn’t feel judged, instead safe. Safe from an enemy who desires one thing. To keep you far from understanding the love of God. He will fight to the end of your life as He tries to convince you that these matters don’t matter.
He lies with a swift hand gesture that ushers you to death in this life and eternally. Don’t let him fool you for another second. Also, don’t let him convince you that God’s church is against you. That is not the truth. These are the people who will open their homes for you and invest because they care about you. Not every Christian is going to live this out perfectly because we’re sinners too but we’re learning and striving to become more like Jesus who rescued us as well.
Choose to see the value of that little baby. God will redeem whatever bad situation you’re in by your obedience.
{If you need someone to talk to please contact me, or look up the nearest women’s crisis pregnancy center.}
With love,
Once upon a time, I sat next to a friend who had made a choice I might not have made were I in the same situation. I sat there as she wept while someone on a stage berated her – unknowingly – for having made that choice. It was a decision made decades ago, clearly to late to change her mind, but also clearly a decision she never forgave herself for, or asked for forgiveness for. It was a decision that came with consequences, as well. Two children were lost, simultaneously. Also, two more children were born, and were raised, and have gone on to become the products of an amazing set of parents and incredible lives guided by God-fearing parents.
I also sat beside a woman who cried for an unborn child. One whose life began as the result of rape. One she mourns every year at the same time, after decades. A woman who begged relief from the memories, but is never free from them. A woman who prayed continuously with me one night to be released of the burden of the memories.
I’ve never walked in either of these women’s shoes, and I would no sooner pass judgement than I would turn my back on them. You bring to light so much love and understanding of the subject, and bring such compassion to the difficult choices that many women appear to face. The finality of the act of terminating a pregnancy is one that a lot of women never realize until after the fact. Some barely give it a thought. Many, however, agonized. Tell her husband she was raped by a fellow employee? Or a stranger? Or a lover? Tell her parents she made a mistake with a boy in school? Or was taken by a boy from a sports team against her will? Or became drunk at a college party and found herself in a strange apartment, half-clad in her clothing? Or, after having the courage to entrust a teacher with her fears that she was accosted by a member of her family…?
These are not the majority, but these are the situations found, more often than not, and more common than I could have imagined. And these are the situations that I find myself pondering every time someone asks me what my thoughts are about terminating pregnancies. I respond the same each time: I would not choose abortion, in most cases. But I have to admit that I would defend to the death the right of my daughter, or granddaughter, or great-granddaughter the right to make that decision for herself, should she feel that were the only way she could deal with the pregnancy.
I worked very hard to raise my children to respect their body; to respect others; to TELL when something happens that is wrong, regardless to whom it happened. And when I’ve been approached by someone with an issue of unwanted pregnancy, I’ve been as nonjudgmental as I could possibly be, while offering all the options available that would render that child a set of loving parents. When asked about abortion, my answer is always, “I would hope that you don’t choose that. But it is not my decision, it is yours, but here are my thoughts….etc.”
God knows this is a horrible end to any pregnancy. But there are those times….there just are. A woman has got to be in charge of her own body. She has GOT to respect herself enough to do her best to avoid unwanted pregnancy. But there are just those times….there just are. And for those times, I pray, doubly hard, for freedom of the most devastating of decisions.
Once upon a time, a young woman told me about her decision, and how she became depressed every year since her decision was carried out. And how she cried in my arms for the “what ifs” had she carried that child to term. And how she asked me, why didn’t I hate her. And how I explained that I could never hate a girl for doing what she knew she had to do to survive. As I explained to a woman who asked me the same question after having to make that decision twice in her young life decades ago. As I explained to another woman who asked me that same question after having made the same exact decision decades ago.
How could I hate someone for walking in a different pair of shoes, on a different path — one that led us all to the same foot of the cross???? I don’t. And I showed each one love…and forgiveness in Jesus’ name…and held each one as they mourned….again….and again. Because that’s what we’re called to do.
And so the task is not so much to remove the option to terminate pregnancy from the list of choices, because there’s another woman I haven’t mentioned yet. The task is to make abundantly clear to our children that their bodies are sacred temples and to be respected.
Because this other woman? She carried a child to term. And wonders every day, who her child became, what that child looks like, whether she looks like her, or her birth father, and whether she grew up to become a mother, herself. And we talked often about the little girl that might have been hers. And we talked often about what her other options might have been — and she chose rightly, for her. But her “what ifs” — she struggles with those. She and I haven’t talked for a while, we haven’t worked together for many years. I’m sure she still wonders….
It’s a tough discussion….and there are multiple sides, many, many facets. But each facet has a face on it. The face of a young girl, or grown woman. I’ve met them. I’m sure I’ve met others, but didn’t know it. Trust me, I met one who didn’t know she had a “miscarriage” until a few months afterward and her mother told her it wasn’t really a miscarriage. I can’t begin to explain that one…
And my hand will also shake when I hit “Post Comment”…… Just know that there are so many more sides to the discussion. And none are more devastating than another.
Gail, thanks for leaving a comment and reading through this post! I guess this is one of those areas we see differently but I really appreciate you sharing the stories of these woman.
Adoption isn’t as simple as it sounds and i’m glad you pointed that out. For a woman to carry a child and then place her own flesh and blood in another family’s arms is a huge sacrifice. I’m not romanticizing this issue. It’s tough, like you said.
Thanks again for sharing here!
Laura
Thank you for having the courage to share the truth and also to leave a way for others to get the council they need before making a decision that will truly effect them everyday for the rest of their lives no matter which choice they make. Have you seen “October Baby” yet? MUST WATCH!!! I believe that abortion is the equivalent of murder. I also know that a scared out of her mind girl, rape victim or overwhelmed mother who can not bare the thought of raising another baby need to know that there is hope in Christ and that they do have options and any one who has ever conceived a child has to make the choice of what to do next. My second pregnancy was unexpected and I thought God was punishing me, truly. I got very sick and am guilty of praying for a miscarriage over and over again. My first baby was just a year old and I was missing so much of her life – for what – another baby that would take even more of my time! I had a husband and good Christian women who rallied around me – had I been alone….I could not see past that moment I was in so I hate to think of what I would have done. Now I see that God know exactly what He was doing and that my second daughter was a gift not a curse, it took almost 2 years to see her as that but now I can not imagine life without her.
Stephanie,
Thank you so much for sharing that with me!
I did see ‘October Baby’ and it was really good. Last night I went to see ‘Gimme Shelter’ and it was also an amazing {true story} of a women’s shelter for teen mothers started by a woman who wanted to open her own home up for them. I love that she gave these girls hope. For 20+ years she has invested in these young mothers and babies and that is incredible to me.
God’s way is not always ours but to take care of things ourselves proves disastrous every time. There will be consequences to sin and sometimes it’s the pain and guilt carried around until there is repentance. He can’t heal us until we come to Him.
I spoke with my friend last night who has adopted her son and she said, ‘Not a day goes by that I don’t feel grateful that my son’s mom gave birth to Him because I know she must have thought about having an abortion that would have killed him’.
Thank you for being honest with your story. That was a very difficult situation but i’m glad you kept her and now have another beautiful daughter! It helps to have the perspective of other women because it’s too easy to pass off judgment until you are in a similar situation.
Laura