Do you sense the hope just over the horizon, too, friend?
I held my head in my hands, the non-physical pain consuming me, twisting my body to reflect my inner state. The mother placed the baby in my arms and spoke of WHEN I would take her home and envelop her in our family. This baby was the gift that came no less miraculously than a child that emerges, astonishingly, from one’s own womb.
We don’t see them, the women, head in hands, often alone in their apartments, suffering.
They suffer through the choice of, the procedure of, and the after-effects of their abortions. We don’t see them for a few days, but that is nothing new. We don’t see many friends or family members for a few days.
We didn’t notice.
We don’t hear them either, crying into their pillows, muffling their grief.
We don’t know their stories because it is not easy for them to speak about. The pain lies hidden deep in their hearts, placated by medication in the terrible times. Who wants to dive into the depths of the human heart and open Pandora’s box of pain that lies within?
We didn’t notice their cries because much pain emerges silently.
What TRULY is best for the woman?
What if we set aside the unwanted child within her womb, the man who is in or out of her life, societal expectations – everything? Let’s set everything aside and focus on the woman.
On her.
On you.
I see you. I feel your pain, though I may not know you. I hear you crying, though I have never met you.
I have an inkling of the pain that you feel because I feel it, too, in a different sort of way.
I am an adoptive parent.
I also, like you, have cried the anguished tears of a woman who is not in control of the timing of when a child enters her life. I too have shed tears for the unfulfilled longings of my heart, though different from yours.
I, too, have suffered grief because of the child.
But this is not about me.
This is about you.
Should you be the one to pay for the abortion procedure, handing over your savings to get it done?
What about the man?
Would a sperm say to a father, ‘Who gave you permission to use me to make a baby?’
He pockets his savings, perhaps buying more beers for his friends. He is still drinking, having fun, eyeing up the next woman at the bar while you are at home, alone, suffering through the painful side effects of aborting his child.
Is this the best we can do for women’s rights?
In ancient Greek culture, women were considered more powerful than men.
Some were worshipped as Greek goddesses. Temple prostitution was an honored position within Greek society, unlike cultural stigmas towards prostitution today. The cultural mindset was that women can control their sex drives more successfully than men.
Women have control over something men desperately want.
When sex is withheld for a season, the power balance shifts to favor women.
What if, and I am only asking the question, withholding sex from a man until he promises to be by her side if a baby comes is the best way to honor women?*
Here’s another thing we know. . . . Sexual activity is not a life-threatening proposition for guys. Neither are the consequences. We won’t die if we get our partner pregnant. We don’t lactate once she gives birth. Males are really off the hook. We engage in the same reproductive activity [as females] but there are great differences in what each has to lose when they engage in it.
Then let’s say “no” except to the honorable man who has already asked us to marry him*.
This is the first step towards truly honoring, valuing, and assuring women’s rights.
Use your superpower! Assert your strength and the dignity, rights, and freedom of women. Don’t hand him your future suffering, both physically and emotionally, for free.
Value the woman.
Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for?
Lord, raise women who are okay with standing alone. Thank You for restoring us to wholeness, no matter where we have travelled, Jesus. After a moment of quiet, consider asking Holy Spirit, “How do you see me?”
Blogpost Footnotes
*And no, I am not referring to the teen boy who buys $20 cubic zirconia “Promise Rings” in bulk from Walmart and hands them out to myriad teen girls, seeking his reward. The promise rests on the character of the promise-er.
This post is part of our Say-It-Again On Friday series.
It was movie and popcorn night. We watched UnPlanned, the astonishing, true story of Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson’s journey across the line from Choice to Life.
We were all undone.
As my tiny and insignificant contribution to this whirlwind topic of our day, like a feather battling a windstorm, I include below a poem I wrote.
May our prayers reach the ear of God, that the prevailing cultural winds would change direction and blow the feather toward God again and again and again . . . we pray.
Lord, have mercy on us, all of us, for we are a sinful people.
And may we pause to considerthe following:
Simon Peter [who] . . . fell to his knees before Jesus. “Master, leave. I’m a sinner and can’t handle this holiness. Leave me to myself.”
If . . . my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health.
Yet I’ve seen her mom, belly swelled in mystical expectation, nervously meeting prospective adoptive parents for the first time. Tears flowed on all sides at the first introduction, bonded somehow at the initial meeting. I’ve chatted with her mom many times while she lay curled up in the womb.
My heart broke for her mom because she could not raise her now.
I met her birth grandma and cried with her over the expectation of the first grandchild in the family.
The fulfillment of a grandmother’s dreams was not that the child would be whisked from her arms before they would know each other well. “You take good care of her,” the grandmother whispered to the adoptive mother through tears.
I’ve met her birth father.
A boy-man, wearing the tough guy mask in front of his friends and family. I sat with him while he, head in hand, sobbed a mountain of anguished tears, knowing that her birth mom could not stay with him forever and be the family unit that he dreamed of.
I’ve cried with him too.
I’ve also met them – the crowds of families, with polished faces and pages full of dreams in shiny dossiers, cartwheeling over each other in efforts to impress. They plead, “Please pick us. We want her.We want to be her family. Oh, won’t you please pick us?”
I know them because I was also a member of one of those families. And our family was chosen. And oh, how the aching in our hearts was finally filled with love and gratitude for this cherished life.
Thank you, birth mothers, birth fathers, and birth grandparents, for standing firm in love and truth, regardless of the shifting sand of popular opinions.
We honor you, and we love you.
Thank you for placing your child in the arms of a family who will love and care for her.
Thank you for allowing this child to thrive in the healing love of all of us in her extended birth families and her extended adoptive family.
And we share a secret, don’t we?
Even if they don’t know it, we know these children are wanted by MORE people than can be counted.
I held my head in my hands, the non-physical pain consuming me, twisting my body to reflect my inner state.
The mother placed the baby in my arms and spoke of WHEN I took her home, enveloped her in our family. This baby was the gift that came no less miraculously than a child that emerges, astonishingly from one’s own womb. Except she traversed from God, through another’s womb, through the arms of another mother, into my arms.
And like a child ripped from her mother’s arms, she was taken from my arms and placed in another home.
We were pleased that the child would be taken care of, her needs met, thrive in a loving home.
And yet the pain in our hearts was only partially placated.
Every human soul carries its own pain within.
A loved one passes, an illness, a broken relationship, broken dreams, general ennui, desperation, hopelessness, despair. . . The waves of trouble that break over the human soul break us too, as our souls hit the rocks, making us bleed from the trials that have arrived on our doorstep, unbidden.
We open the door to today and the tidal wave of disappointment has arrived. We are left sitting on the floor alone in our world, unable to stand.
As we look around for a hand to help us up, something to hold onto, it seems hope is a long way away sometimes.
Can you see it?
I couldn’t either.
And then Christmas knocks on our door with the request to give to the needy, to distract ourselves with shallow merrymaking, to make ourselves sick with food that is sweet in the mouth and cancerous to the bones.
“Is this all there is?” we ask, our Santa hats adorning our heads in an effort to embrace the spirit of the season, our TV remote flipping from channel to channel, waxed chocolate at the fingertips.
Numb, again.
Another Christmas season has arrived, and we are numb.
That Christmas, the one when I could hardly breathe, I took off the old.
I crossed off the list of people that we were “supposed” to buy presents for. No more presents for friends, friend’s kids, extended family, parents, grandparents, my spouse. “And no presents for me,” I announced. We bought a few small gifts for a few children. And joy returned.
I crossed off the list the duty to make the Christmas treats I made every year, unthinkingly. I tried a few simple treats with a healthier spin. And joy returned.
I left the box of Christmas decorations in the basement unopened. When I finally gazed inside, I pulled out a few items that were handmade by friends or had sparked a particular delight, or a cherished memory. And joy returned.
I said no to every party, to the ones we were expected to attend that were too loud, had too much drinking, and too much shallow joy. We had a couple of quiet celebrations with a handful of friends or family, and good food. And joy returned.
No more expectations. The old has gone.
And the new life emerging?
And like the caterpillar that makes time for the quiet of the chrysalis, we too made time for the quiet.
– Time for Christmas church services, as we sought to awaken our senses to the awe of the season through the life of the babe in a manger
– Time for a hug or a smile or an understanding look, more, more often from those around me
I spent time every evening that season with our little toddler at the outdoor skating rink. The one that is free.
When we fell, we would laugh and then sit quietly together for a moment noticing how the lights rimmed the rink, peering through the darkness. I could almost discern the light of the season through those lights.
And like the lights shining in the darkness, at the skating rink that is free, His free gift of love burst through my heart a little more often in the quiet mornings, in the moments of quiet at the worship services, in the quiet smiles of those whose lives I stumbled across.
And each smile was like gazing into another’s soul because I took the extra moment to see them, to know that they too, being human, have heart wounds. Can my smile, my love, be a drop of healing ointment to them, as theirs is to me?
And it was the best Christmas of my life.
As the song plays, consider asking God: How can any anticipated pain of this Christmas season be transformed into joy?
Restoring Life 