Just the other day...I was a young sophomore in high school. I was asked to write a paper on a controversial topic and I chose the subject of abortion. My parents suggested I visit some friends of theirs who ran a crisis pregnancy center in order to gather information. There, I met one of most humble and devoted Christian couples I had ever come across in my life. They armed me with videos and testimonies and loads of information. My love of the unborn and pro-life views were solidified during that time, so much so that even as a teen, I ended up volunteering at that same crisis pregnancy center for the next two years...conducting free pregnancy tests, preparing gift baskets for new moms, and even counseling young girls on the value of the new life growing inside them.
One story that I would share behind closed doors at that crisis pregnancy center is one that I rarely share with anyone today. Why? Well, you'll hear. It sounds a little too pompous (as in tooting my own horn) and supernatural for most people. You see I grew up in a church where it was normal for God to speak through prophetic messages, for Him to heal miraculously, and for Him to be as real and as close to the believer as the air in the room. I am now by divine design the wife of the Southern Baptist minister and typically, our denomination as a whole focuses much less on the working of God through the Holy Spirit than the denomination I was raised in. No matter what I've seen the Lord do in the past or what I know about how He can move through the power of the Holy Spirit, the church as a whole is not very comfortable with much of what I grew up understanding. In other words, I can't unsee what I have seen and unknow what I have known. It is my history. I have filtered through the teachings of both denominations, probably studying a little more than I ever would have because of it. Have I completely abandoned those early beliefs? No, but I just don't talk about it among people who don't have my same background. Trying to explain the power of the Holy Spirit working in such ways is like trying to explain the colors of the rainbow to a blind man. It is rather impossible until eyes that long to see, ask to be opened.
Wow, that was a very long and drawn out way to say...this is going to sound crazy to some of you, but nonetheless, it's a true story. Ask my mom. I'm sharing it to prove a point, so hang in there!
My mother was in the parking lot of our church one day in 1976 when the pastor's wife walked up to her and said that the Lord had a message for her. The message was this, that He was answering her prayers for another little girl! My mom was elated, because she had always prayed in faith for God to give her two boys and two girls. She had her boys and one little girl already, but still desperately wanted one more daughter, so she never stopped praying.
Not long after that, my mom went to a women's Bible study/prayer time. She had told no one about the message that had been given to her just days before, but during that meeting, another one of her friends prayed with her. That friend also felt impressed by God to share with my mom that she would have another daughter, one who would "bring joy to she and my dad in their latter years".
Well sure enough, a blood test given the very next week confirmed that my mom was already pregnant!! The kicker is that my mom had barely even missed her period. She was early into the pregnancy when these messages came to her...only a few weeks along. There was only what most would refer to as a clump of cells or a blob of tissue in her body, but the fact of the matter is, that was ME in there!!
Already growing inside my mom was the little girl who loved to make up songs, choreograph dances, and catch tadpoles in the creek. The little girl who would write and perform puppet shows at church with her stuffed animals, drive her older siblings nuts, and beg her daddy to come play just one more game of bad mitten in the yard. The little girl, who grew into a young lady, who gathered friends and begged them to follow Jesus with her, who tried to lead by example...making plenty of mistakes along the way, but continuing to try nonetheless. The little girl, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, who grew into a woman that would marry a preacher, have 3 little girls of her own, continue to make mistakes...but always, always continue to try.
That was me. I was me then just as much as I am me now.
For this reason, the PERSONHOOD of every "clump of cells", or "blob of tissue", or "product of conception" has always been a reality to me. When my mom got those 2 messages from God, the number of my own days had already begun. Only God knows the exact number of those days He decided to spill the beans about me coming, just as only He knows the number of that day that He will bring me home to meet Him face-to-face.
Please let me be very, very clear. Every life begins with God...my life, your life...every life. And every life has purpose, no matter what circumstance that life is brought into. Every single person IS a person, no matter how small, and that person is very, very precious in the eyes of the Creator.
Psalm 139:13 - 16 says,
"For You created my inmost being;
You knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will praise You because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made;
Your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from You
When I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the
depths of the earth,
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in Your book
before one of them came to be."
Just a short 3 years before God created me in my mother's womb, our Supreme Court decided to legalize and endorse the killing of millions of precious babies. 57 million to date. That blood is on the hands of those legalizing it in 1973, but it is also on ours because we have allowed it to continue.
In the past few weeks, I have cried and cried as I have watched the undercover videos taken in abortion clinics. My gut reaction and the words that came out of my mouth were, "Dear God, who are we?"
It's the question that rings over and over in my mind, and I've heard and read others who are asking the exact same thing. It's a valid question to a nation who is rapidly losing her moral foothold.
Who are we?
It is my belief that you can't truly understand the value of life until you understand the value of Your Creator. Collectively, as a nation, we have forgotten Him, and thus, we have lost our way. We have grown cold and turned from our first love, the love of Jehovah God, the God of our founders and our forefathers. We have chased money and pleasure to the point that greed has totally consumed us, so much so that even our leaders, the ones we elected, can't stand up for what's right. They have lost the fear of God and the moral backbone it takes to look squarely into the face of evil and say, "No more!"
Church of America, this can not be overlooked. WAKE UP. WAKE UP. WAKE UP. If these videos and the revelation of the booming industry behind this massacre of our children can't shake the church to its core, I shutter to think of what it will take to do so. Truly I do.
Humble yourself. Cry in repentance. Seek the forgiveness of Almighty God and give up your idols. Until we get desperate for the Lord and want Him more than we want a life of comfort and ease, money and pleasure, status and fame, nothing will change. Not one thing.
We will only see it get worse.
Maybe, just maybe, God answered the prayers of a woman asking for a baby girl to be born way back in 70's, because He knew that among many other things, she would stand for life, no matter what.
Could it be that you and I both were created for such a time as this?
Rise up. Stand with me. Together, let's look evil squarely in the face and declare, "No more!!!"