Gone

This morning I watched something that wasn’t just disturbing it was painful. It was a video taken inside an abortion clinic. In the video a woman was asking questions about what would happen during the birth of the baby. What happens if it’s breathing? Will I have to take a baby home? Will I have to take care of it?

The doctors responses assured her everytime that if ‘it’ was born alive she wouldn’t have to take care of it, wouldn’t get into any trouble, that the baby would most likely be in pieces and would die but it might take a little while.

As a mother, as someone opposed to abortion, as a Christian…as a person, I can’t imagine ever having an abortion. But I tried to imagine what it would be like without those beliefs. If I wasn’t opposed to abortion… And I couldn’t imagine hearing the things that I heard in that video and being able to go through with an abortion.

We give a shot into your stomach to stop the heart.

There goes the whole it’s not a baby, it’s just tissue, argument. The doctor even called the baby a baby once or twice.

 It usually comes out in pieces.

Forget whether or not a person is a Christian. Forget whether or not they’re for or against abortion. How about compassion? How about human decency? Can you imagine having your body ripped or cut apart? Piece by piece. The doctor did say giving the optional shot to stop the heart is the best because it means they don’t suffer.

Really? They’re going to cut this very tiny baby into pieces or use strong suction to rip it apart and the shot to stop the heart first is optional. That shot is the closest thing to anesthetic those babies get, wrong as they are, and they’re optional.

Can you imagine living in a world where everything is comfortable, no hot, no cold, very little, if any, pain…then the excruciating pain of having your arms, legs, and any or all other body parts cut or ripped apart? And there’s no pain relief given.

There is no separating my beliefs from who I am, from how I think and react, but for this moment I’m trying hard to separate them just long enough to figure out where a person’s thoughts and heart would have to be to be okay with the scenario I just described.

I love babies. There’s just something wonderful about being able to hold one, about being given the chance to love and care for one. It’s not work, it’s not a curse, it’s not something to be dreaded, it’s a blessing, a privilege. My love for babies, without any other belief or thought, makes it impossible for me to be able to comprehend the idea of killing one. I can’t even imagine not wanting one and I sure can’t understand the pure evil that would lead a person to kill one.

My belief in my Lord would keep me from being able to understand or accept the idea of killing anyone much less an unborn baby. Not too long ago I wrote a post about Noah. In it I talked about babies and whether or not Noah or any of his family had a problem going into the ark and leaving all those babies outside. That question, those thoughts, came not from myself but from questions I had been asked. From people that had questioned how God could kill innocent babies, about what they had done to deserve dying.

The number of people that died during the flood is numbered in the millions (I saw a few estimates online that put it in the billions). Whatever the number was we can assume that only a percentage of them were babies. So…10%? 20? 50? Our population today doesn’t consist of 50% babies. Chances are the population before the flood didn’t either. It’s said that since 1973 there have been more than 50 million unborn babies killed by abortion in America.

How many of those people that question how God could kill innocent babies in the flood are directly responsible for some of those 50 million aborted babies? How many of them are responsible simply because they support abortion? I highly doubt there were 50 million babies killed during the flood, or any other Biblical plague or destruction of babies. Yet many of the people that blame God for the death of babies in the Bible see nothing wrong with killing unborn babies today.

I have a family member that has always been against abortion but has said many times that cases of rape justify an abortion.

I have to ask why?

Why would rape, as horrible as it is, justify killing a baby that is as much a victim as the mother is? Why does something horrible have to turn into something heinous?

Did the Lord put any exceptions on…“You shall not murder. Exodus 20:13…Nowhere in there did it say you shall not murder except for…

Unborn babies.

Cases of rape.

Inconvenience.

Your body figure.

Scripture actually tells us that children are a blessing, a heritage.

It doesn’t say that babies conceived in less than ideal situations are an exception to that. It doesn’t say that babies born out of rape are anything less than any other baby. I can’t help thinking of what it actually takes for a baby to be born as a direct result from rape. In an ongoing situation such as incest the chances are higher but in a one-time situation…the chance of a baby being conceived have to be quite low, so low as to be close to nonexistent. Not only does the woman have to be raped but it has to happen during a certain time period for her. What are the odds of that happening?

I have known a little girl that was the product of rape. She was biracial and very much loved. Her mother chose to keep her and as a result she was a blessing, not only to her mother but to her extended family as well. This mother, this family, went through something horrible, but out of it came something good.

How many babies are killed because the mother doesn’t want the reminder?

The number is actually pretty low according to something I read online. According to that article 86% of abortions are performed for convenience. That leaves 14% to be performed for medical, rape, and all other reasons.

Convenience kills a whole lot of babies.

I can’t, for even a second, separate my belief in the Lord from my opinions on what is right and wrong. I tried after watching that video to do that just long enough to figure out what it would take to see that kind of ‘procedure’ as okay.

I couldn’t do it.

No matter the circumstances of any baby’s conception, it’s still a baby. It was formed because the Lord wanted it to be.

I had two very short months with the baby that grew in my womb a couple of months ago. When I lost it I grieved for that baby. I still hurt for it. Think of how it would be developing now if it hadn’t died, of how I would be feeling those precious movements inside me. I can’t comprehend the thought process that would let a person…a mother…go in and have a baby removed from her body the way one would have a wart or other blemish removed.

If my life was in danger from carrying a child…I would not abort it.

If the doctor told me I would die if I have the baby…I would not abort it.

Life and death are in the Lord’s hands.

He is the only one with the right to decide who lives and who dies. If I gave my life to give life to my child then the Lord simply used that child to end my days on earth. I would give my life for any of my children, an unborn baby I carried would be no different.

And yet…the same place where I read there are 50 million dead babies because of abortion also said there are over 3,00 0 babies a day that die in abortion.

I remember well the shock and upset that happened as a result of Sept. 11, 2001. People everywhere were talking about it. They were hurt. They were angry. They were afraid. Once the death toll came in it staggered everyone. Laws were enacted to keep anything like that from happening again. People took precautions. They changed their lives.

And yet…more babies are killed every single day in America than the number of people killed on 9/11.

We’re told to remember those that gave their lives for our freedom, those that died in war for us. We have a holiday that sets aside one day a year for just such remembering.

And yet…the number of babies killed by abortion in America each year is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths from all the wars combined.

Where is the holiday to remember those babies?

At least most of those soldiers were grown and the majority of them went into the military knowing what could happen. They chose to put themselves at risk.

Those babies did not.

But we honor the soldiers, remember their deaths. We have a holiday to remember those that died on 9/11.

Where is the holiday to remember the innocent babies?

Sin is rampant in our fallen world. Evil is excused. We put people in prison for selling drugs, send them to jail for not paying a parking ticket, give them fines for going fishing without a license or for riding in a car without a seatbelt. But…Every. Single. Day…we let women kill their babies.

And by many it is seen as a good thing. It’s excused. It’s overlooked. I’ve heard, and read that something like 90% of the American population claims to be a Christian. I’ve also read that the numbers are dropping and that 70 something percent of the American population claims to be Christian. So…if 70%-90% of Americans are ‘Christians’ than 70-90 percent of the 3,000 abortions performed every day are done on ‘Christian’ women.

Doctor’s don’t go around performing abortions on unwilling women. You have to sign a form, give your consent. These women walk into these clinics and ask to kill their babies. 70-90 percent of those women should have the basic understanding that doing so goes against the God they claim to believe in. They should know that it goes against what they supposedly believe. They should know…thou shall not kill.

And yet…they do it anyway.

Day after day, hour after hour, baby after baby, ‘Christian’ women are asking doctors to commit murder. If 3,000 abortions are done today in America and 70% of the women having them done are ‘Christian’ that’s 2,100 ‘Christian’ women that are violating the command to not murder.

It’s my understanding that thou shall not murder is one of the most widely understood and recognized ‘rules’ for being a Christian. People seem to understand that Christianity and murder don’t go together. But either a lot of the abortions done every day are done on ‘Christian’ women or the 10-30 percent of American women that don’t claim to be Christians are killing a huge number of babies.

I recently read an article where someone said they found more acceptance when they told people they were gay than they did when they said they were ‘Christian.’ My thought immediately went to the fact that if they were a homosexual than they couldn’t be a Christian. True Christians should be grieved by the sin of homosexuality. They should understand that God hates it and because He hates it they should too.

My thoughts are the same when I think about a ‘Christian’ woman having an abortion. Killing a baby is murder. There’s no way around that fact. Anyone that has thought about, considered or suggested an abortion has advocated murder.

I’ve heard of women that have had multiple abortions, heard of women that use it as a form of birth control. Pregnancy doesn’t have to mean a baby. It’s a procedure.

Is that what God thinks?

Is the Lord okay with murder? Is He okay with killing living newborn babies? Is he okay with abortions?

Many, many years ago there was a house in the town not far from where I lived that had painted the following question written in very large letters on their fence…

What if Mary had had an abortion?

I know now that there’s more to all of life, all of time, than what we can see here on earth. There’s a plan being worked out in our lives and in the lives of everyone through time to bring the Lord’s plan to fruition. Mary wouldn’t have had an abortion. She couldn’t have. Because she was specifically chosen by God to perform the task set out for her. The task given….to give life to Christ.

But in our day, the very nature of how she came to be expecting that baby would have been seen as a good reason to have an abortion.

Where would we be if she had?

I know it isn’t possible. She couldn’t, and wouldn’t, have had an abortion. If she would have God would have chosen someone else to have his Son. I also know that the Lord allows the thousands of abortions that happen every day. For what reason we can’t know, but He does allow them.

But knowing that He allows it to happen doesn’t make the horror of what’s happening any less. It doesn’t make hearing things like what I heard on that video any easier. It doesn’t make me hurt for those babies any less.

My daughter’s all know I would gladly take and raise any child. They know I’d never refuse if offered a baby. A year or so ago we were driving past a field that had 3,000 pink and blue flags in it. Each flag was a representation of a baby that was killed by abortion every day. One of my young daughters asked me if I would take in all those babies if they were offered to me. Without hesitation I answered yes. She went on to ask me what we would do with so many babies. I don’t remember how I responded but I know my answer would be the same today as it was then.

Yes, I would willingly, happily, take in 3,000 babies today if it meant I could save them from abortion. There’s no way I could care for that many babies, even with the help of all of my family, but I would take them in, do the best we could.

Taking them in isn’t an option. Saving them from abortion isn’t an option. We are all given a certain number of days to live. For some reason those aborted babies are given only the days they have in the womb. Abortion is what is used to end their days.

The evil of abortion is impossible to understand for those of us that see it as wrong, as murder. Doctor’s that perform abortions are nothing short of serial killers. Nurses and assistants are nothing short of accomplices to murder. But it happens over and over.

It’s allowed by the Lord for some reason.

Why, we can’t know. As I write this…I’m struggling with knowing how to bring it to an end, struggling with what kind of title to give it. And as I write this I wonder if an abrupt ending isn’t the best way to go. Just cut it off in the midst of making a point, in the midst of writing, as those babies lives are cut off in the midst of living and growing.

They’re there one minute, oblivious to all the evil and pain of this world, and the next…GONE.

 

 

 

Guard your heart

Four days ago I held my baby in my hands. It was precious, amazing and so very, very heartbreaking because my baby was so very tiny. Way too small to ever have a hope of living. It was gone before it came into this world.

The day before I lost the baby my midwife warned me to guard my heart, to prepare myself for the possibility of losing it. Guard my heart.

Against a baby I loved from before conception.

Guard my heart so I wouldn’t hurt. Guard my heart so things would be easier on me. Guard my heart from…hurt, pain…but most of all against my baby. I knew when she told me that there was no way I could do that. But even if I could have I wouldn’t have wanted to.

To guard my heart would have been to distance myself from my baby. To protect myself no matter the cost. At this moment as I struggle through the aftermath of losing the baby I wanted so much I’m glad I didn’t even try to guard my heart. It would hurt a whole lot more today to think I’d locked my feelings away from my baby just to protect myself from pain.

Instead I can take comfort in knowing that my baby was loved for all of its very short life. It was wanted. It was protected, even from the so-called protection I was supposed to put in place against it.

I’ve known people that have lost babies, children, that go through life as if that child never existed. They hardly mention their names, don’t acknowledge their birthdays. I know everyone deals with loss in their own way but that is a way I could never live with. My baby, given to us for such a short time, never ours to hold in life, was a gift from the Lord. It brought blessings and happiness simply because it was alive in me for a time.

We don’t know the Lord’s plans, His will isn’t our will. I would never have chosen to lose my baby but knowing now how it turned out…if I could go back and choose whether or not to conceive that child all over again…I’d choose the baby. We’re all given a certain number of days on earth. To live is to die. It’s a simple fact of life. Everyone that lives will someday die. The Lord knew long before any of us how many days each one of us would have. Some are given so many days they live to be a hundred years old or older and some…like my baby…only get a handful of days.

I’ll never snuggle my baby in my arms, never kiss its cheek or tickle its belly. I’ll never know the pure joy of watching it sleep or know what color hair it would have had. But I had the joy of carrying it in my womb, of loving it for every one of the days it was given. I had the painfully amazing experience of marveling over tiny arms and legs, a little body that was beyond precious to me. And I’ll have the joy of carrying it in my heart for the rest of the days I’m given.

Guard your heart.

Protect yourself.

I understood what the midwife was telling me. Prepare yourself for this possibility. But guarding my heart was never an option. Not all that long ago I was told something kind of along those lines about a completely different matter but it was over something that has the potential to be very painful. Prepare yourself, get ready…

It doesn’t matter how you word it, it all comes back to those three little words…guard your heart. Protect yourself. There was a time in my life many years ago when I did just that. I didn’t trust and I didn’t love. It was a cold, lonely place to be.

Love hurts. Everyone has heard that expression. If we’ve lived very long we’ve experienced it in one way or another. Opening ourselves up to love is pretty much a guarantee that sooner or later we’ll get hurt.

I know someone right now that has, over the last year, discovered that love can hurt. As a result this person has closed themselves off. They’ve chosen self-preservation over love. And they’ve become untouchable as a result.

I take solace now that my baby was wanted through every moment, however brief those moments were, that it lived. I wanted it, my husband wanted it, all it’s brothers and sisters wanted it, it’s aunts and grandparents wanted it. For those all too brief number of days it lived in love.

I couldn’t have guarded my heart and I didn’t want to. I chose not to guard my heart the other time I was warned to do so either. To guard my heart would be to close myself off from those I love. Instead I chose and continue to choose to put my trust in my Lord and to love those he’s entrusted to me for every second of every moment He lets me have them.

I’ll always be glad I chose not to guard my heart. My baby lived in love and it died in love.

This second

Scripture tells us we are to set our minds on the things above not on the things of the earth. Once I found that a difficult task but as my journey took me closer to Christ I discovered it wasn’t hard at all. My soul started looking to those things above without any help from me.

Without me knowing quite how it happened Christ became my constant companion. He’s there when I wake up in the morning, there as I go through my day, there when I fall asleep at night. I know He’s there because I feel His presence in me.

But while I’m looking on the things above there is the earthly part of my life. The everyday happenings that go on with me and around me.

Last night I was reminded of something.

Somewhere I read a saying that went something like treasure those you love because someday God will need them back. I never forget to love my family and friends. Never forget to tell them I love them. But sometimes in the busyness of the day I may forget to show them. I may forget to enjoy them.

Right now, as I lay in bed trying to hold onto the baby in my womb, I am learning to treasure every second. Circumstances in my life the last seven months have taught me what it’s like to truly live in the moment, to grab onto today because it may be all I get, to enjoy what I have right here right now. I learned that lesson through circumstances I would never have chosen. I thought learning to grab onto today was as far as I could take…

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34

…but I was wrong. In the last twenty four hours I’ve learned it can be taken even further. While I struggle not to worry about what’s going to happen, I am learning to treasure every second.

Because this second may be all that I get.

I can’t know what the next second will bring with my unborn baby. And as I treasure each second and face the next with a world of unknowns I’m learning a lesson I’d have rather not learned in this way. I’m learning it isn’t just today, isn’t just this moment that we must be concerned with. We aren’t promised tomorrow.

But we aren’t promised another second either.

This second, this single dot in time, is all we can be assured of. Life happens in an instant. And so does death. One second a baby isn’t there, the next…conception. One second someone is alive, the next…death.

This second is precious because it may be all we ever get.

I always thought....

“I always thought I wouldn’t have to do this if I was married.”

I say that to my husband from time to time. I said it when I checked our son’s bike, I said it when I fixed the bedroom door. There are just some things that I assumed I’d never have to do if I was married. I told my sister the same thing when she and I were in one state, my husband in another and we were changing the tire on her car.

I had in my head that there were things a husband would take care of and I’d never have need to do those things again.

Today, as I lay in bed, attempting to hang on to my unborn child, three hundred miles away from home and my husband, I want to say those words. Only…it’s not that I never thought I’d have to go through something like this if I was married, I just never thought I’d have to go through it alone. Not that I’m alone. I have my children, my sister, and most importantly my Lord.

But I want to curl up in my husband’s arms. To talk to him, with him. To hear his voice, to let him soothe some of my fears. Instead…I’m here and…

I never thought I’d have to do this alone if I was married.

The Lord and His timing aren’t the same as what I’d choose. I would never have chosen this particular trial, would have done anything I could to prevent it but I got it anyway. And as this trial swirls not around me but inside me I’m left wishing it had never happened and longing for a slightly different scenario if it had to happen. If the Lord would have just timed it a little better… three days sooner and I’d have been with my husband, four days later and I’d have been with him. Instead He placed it right in the middle of the time when I’m not home. He placed it at a time when I’m away from the person that is my safe place, the person that makes the trials easier to bear, the person that I want with me…always…but never more than now.

And by placing me in this time the Lord has once again placed my dependence firmly on Him. I always depend on Him but I also depend on my husband. Today, as I keep in close contact with my husband…I keep in close contact with my Lord too.

I had forgotten

The first step I can remember taking on this journey to Christ was when my second child was born with heart problems. In what seemed like an instant I learned what it meant to depend on the Lord because I had nothing else to see me through. In that moment I went from going through life mostly able to control what was happening around me, or so I thought, to having no control at all. I did what everyone does in those situations.

I prayed.

And prayed.

And prayed.

Then I kept on praying. I prayed through days of holding my daughter because I was afraid to put her down. I prayed through nights of sleeping with her on my chest because that was the only place she seemed able to get comfortable…and it was the only place I was comfortable with her being. I prayed through doctor’s visits and tests. I prayed through surgery.

My faith took a turn through all of that. I was dragged onto a path I couldn’t see then. Over the nearly twelve years since that daughter was born I’ve taken more and more steps, been pulled further and further onto the path, had my faith deepened until everything I am hinges on my faith in the Lord.

But I had forgotten.

I remembered what it was like in those early days and years with my daughter. I remembered what we went through. I remembered that time as being rough physically and emotionally. I remembered the worry, the fear, the helplessness.

But I had forgotten.

I had forgotten the soul deep fear. The near terror that fills your heart and mind as you fear for your child. And the total dependence on the Lord. A dependence that is brought on by the fact that you are afraid and helpless. I had forgotten what it was like to pray for your child’s life.

Last night I was reminded. This time the fear and worry, the prayers, are all for my unborn baby. I’d do anything I could to save this baby and yet I can do nothing.

Nothing but wait. Nothing but pray.

Prayer is my strongest weapon. I know that. I have complete faith in the Lord. I know he has a plan for my baby, for me but that doesn’t make this time any easier.

There are other situations in my life right now where I know I’m totally dependent on the Lord for the outcome, other situations where I’d like to make things happen a certain way. But as hard as those things are they haven’t come with this soul deep fear. And it’s that fear that reminded me what it’s like to be fearfully in dependence on my Lord. To put my faith in Him when my fears threaten to take over.

It was a reminder I’d rather not have had. It’s a reminder I got anyway.

Sufficient for today

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34

 

This morning I woke up with thoughts of the unborn baby…so tiny…so fragile…growing in my womb. It was one of those moments when you all of a sudden remember something and it hits you like it’s the first time you’ve known of it. For a brief moment it was like finding out about that precious life all over again.

Yesterday didn’t exist…tomorrow wasn’t a thought. Just right here, right now, and the baby that was on my mind and in my heart.

Later I read an email from a friend. This friend recently received a medical diagnosis that has affected her life and her children’s lives. It has also affected all of us who love her. In that email she talked of focusing only on today.

Those two things, coming so close together, reminded me of something I already knew. We aren’t promised tomorrow. Today is all that matters. I’ve seen signs before that say things like ‘have you hugged your child today’?

Today.

This moment.

That’s all we’re promised. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. No matter what we think will come our way we’re told today is all we get.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. James 4:13-17

I used to believe I did a good job of living in the moment. I said I took things as they came, went with the flow. And I did do that but at the same time I did those things, lived that way, at a time in my life where very little changed. I had to face a few issues that cropped up unexpectedly but they were always things that stretched me but didn’t break me. They tested my patience, or my security, at the moment but in the end I was left knowing things would pretty much go on in my life as they had been.

Then one day something came into my life that changed it more than I would have anticipated. I didn’t see it coming. Almost overnight things changed for me in a very big way. And those changes kept coming. My life changed, the people in my life changed. I grew, I learned. And I loved.

But in the midst of all that…circumstances totally beyond my control started forcing me to see exactly what it meant to live for today. Thoughts of tomorrow were worrisome. Plans for the future couldn’t be made because I had no idea what the future was. I still don’t.

Because I can’t fathom what my life will be like just a few short months from now…I’ve learned to grab onto this day, to this moment. I’ve learned to hold onto what I have now and trust the Lord for tomorrow and whatever may come.

He has a plan for me, for my life, for my family. It’s not my place to question what that is. Through circumstances I couldn’t have foreseen less than a year ago the Lord has brought many blessings into my life and has used the changes that came with them to teach me that today is all that matters. Because… sufficient for today is its own trouble.

And I have seen that too.

When I stopped thinking ahead, stopped planning for tomorrow, I was able to look at the troubles in this day, whatever they happened to be, and they were easier to bear. But it wasn’t just the troubles that were easier, the moments became sweeter.

If we can find a way to look at life where right here, right now is all we have…

How much sweeter are those moments spent talking to our husband?

Held in his arms?

How much more precious is a hug from your child?

How much more important are the words ‘I love you’?

Our human nature has a tendency to dwell on what’s to come tomorrow, next week, next month. But if we can get our minds to grasp the fact that those times are far off, that even the very next second isn’t promised to us, how much more does this second mean?

The baby growing in my womb has no concept of time or space. Troubles don’t matter to it. It lives in a watery world where there is no hunger, no thirst. The temperature is constantly the same. It doesn’t think on the future or the past. It simply…is.

It is only with birth into this fallen world, with time spent where evil and trials abound that we learn to focus on tomorrow instead of the here and now.

The Lord has used so many circumstances to make me see that this moment in time is all that matters. And still I fail at looking at life and the moment the way I should. When I forget to focus only on now…that’s when I fall, it’s when I stumble. It’s when I get worried and stressed. It’s when I see the earth and its troubles instead of the Lord and the future He has in store for me.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3

Earthly life has a way of distracting us from those thoughts, from where our focus should be. I had to learn that lesson the hard way, had to learn to live only in this moment.

And I’m grateful for the lesson.

Life is so much sweeter when my focus is where it should be.