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Raising Pro-Life Children in a Culture of Death

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The latest sound bytes coming out of New York and Virginia have caused most of us terrible grief, as we look up from our day-to-day lives and recognize that our country really has turned into a culture of death. So many facets of our society proclaim that human life isn’t worth much, but none so boldly and unapologetically as the shameful sin of abortion. As the conversation now shifts from the killing of infants in the womb to the killing of infants lying in a hospital bassinet, we look into the faces of our own children and wonder what sort of world they will be raising kids in. What sort of decisions will they face when it comes to the lives of their babies, and will they revere human life enough to know which decision to make? Will they grow up recognizing all people as special creations, made in the image of the one true God? Or will they listen to the demented arguments of those hellbent on killing and find them quite reasonable?

It all boils down to worldview. How can we instill a pro-life ethos in our children? No matter what is happening outside the front door of our homes, how do we create and foster and cherish a culture of life inside our own families? I believe it is entirely possible, but only if we talk to our children. If we shy away from the tough subjects with our kids, they will be left to guess how to process all of things that they see and hear around them. They need our guidance. And, most importantly, they need guidance from a biblical perspective. In the way that we live and in the way that we teach our children, our goal should always be raising true disciples who leave our homes with a crystal clear biblical lens through which to see and understand the world.  With that in mind, here are four ways that we can help our children grow up with a reverence for human life.

1. Teach them that human beings are different from the rest of creation. Our kids need to learn from an early age that human beings are special. Not only were we created in the image of the creator God, we were also created for relationship with Him. We have souls that will never die, and we were appointed to look after and take care of the rest of His creation. Every human life is precious because we are a reflection of our Creator. Our children need to understand that all the animals in the world, as sweet as they can be, are not as precious as a single human life. (Genesis 1:26-27, Mark 12:30)

2. Teach them about abortion. Our children need to know that abortion exists. They need to know that there are people in our country who make it their life mission to see abortion widely accepted and regularly utilized. Even younger children can understand the concept, and they will unequivocally recognize that it is wrong. We can use abortion as an opportunity to show our children how wicked the human heart really is, how bent toward sin it is, and how easily and quickly we try to justify our sins. With older children, we can show them examples of the kind of rhetoric that would try to convince them that abortion is none of their business. Then we can teach them otherwise. (Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:23)

3. Teach them that people are worth our time. Our children need to know that no one is worthless or not worth helping or not worth dealing with. People can be difficult, no doubt. They can be annoying and needy. But, through our actions and attitudes toward the human beings around us, we can show our children that people are worth the bother. They are worth the investment and the care and the time. The last thing our children should ever see us doing is writing someone off as hopeless. If anyone is a special creation of God, there is always hope. We can teach our children to look into the face of every person, even those that are more difficult to love or even tolerate, and recognize them as one made in the image of God. (Incidentally, this includes the abortion activists.) (John 13:34, Romans 15:13)

4. Teach them to serve others. Our children need to know that one of the fastest ways to see the value in another individual is by serving them. When we serve others we bind ourselves to them in a special way. We humble ourselves and put the needs of another ahead of our own. One of the most formative experiences that I regularly had as a child was going to a nursing home with my church. Even now, I always leave the nursing home with a greater understanding of the enduring worth of human life. When we share these experiences with our children, they, too, will begin to see humanity as something much bigger than their own experiences. And they will have a clearer view of how God uses people, in all phases and stages of life, to accomplish His will and purposes. (Galatians 5:3, Romans 12:1)

We are in the perfect position while our kids are still in our homes to fill their hearts and minds with the things of God. May the Lord bless you as you teach your children. I pray that together we will raise up a pro-life generation that will seek to honor God in this battle for life. And in all things. Amen.

When Women March in the Wrong Direction

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On Saturday women everywhere walked down wide avenues and narrow streets. They filled parking lots and smiled and held signs and felt proud of themselves. They were in the mood to protest, and they did, thinking, they said, of each other, of the greater good, of the way they dream things were and the way they wish things could be. One woman stood for a photograph, feet spread wide in a show of standing her ground, smiling under big black letters that she had carefully printed on poster board: F*ck Hate.

They came out in droves, American women with their fresh cut and color. With their trendy boots and warm wool coats. They left their precious children safe at home with family or friends or even their husbands. They drove nice cars to rendezvous points with the marker still drying on their handmade posters, and they made sure to carry their new iPhones with them to capture their good deed.

They said they marched for women’s rights and human rights. Both are things that I care deeply about. Women should be revered and admired and compensated like we are amazing, magical creatures (because we are). Human beings should be loved and nurtured and treated with kindness.  All things that I can get behind.

But, the idea of marching for human rights and women’s rights falls a little flat when you don’t allow pro-life women to join your protest. The truth is, at the heart of this march was a passion for seeing a certain kind of woman succeed. And that kind of woman isn’t me or most of my friends. We are the women they want to silence.

Today’s feminism isn’t a pro-women movement. It’s a pro-feminist movement. And, while the women marched for more of everything, down safe streets in a country where opportunity is banging on so many doors, in other places in our world women were starving to death. Watching their children grow distended bellies. Feeding their babies dirt just so that they will feel full for a few minutes. In other places, women are being sexually mutilated daily. They are living under cruel dictatorships. They are forced into prostitution. They are murdered for daring to say that they want a divorce.

And, right here in the US millions of babies, many of them girls, are being torn apart limb by limb, burned alive, thrown in a trash can, or chopped up and sold for parts. And the women of our great country, the very ones who claim that they want women to thrive, are leading the march that ends with millions of baby girls splayed out on a cold metal tray in some clinic, lying there alone until they are dead.

So, forgive me if I don’t feel the love behind the signs that tell us to f*ck hate. Forgive me if I doubt the sincerity of the richest women in the world when they organize an event that is about getting even more for themselves. Forgive me if I am disgusted by the reality that this march was actually about the most free and privileged women on this planet making much of themselves. Not when there are women all over this world who know what real suffering is. Not when the end game is tiny corpses filling up American dumpsters.

That’s just not a beat that I can march to.

And Sometimes God Gives You What You Ask For

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Today marks the beginning of my annual summer vacation stretch where I take a little time off to enjoy my family. But, I don’t think that my heart or mind will be able to rest this week until I pour this post out on the altar, an offering to Christ from a simple West Texas mama.

The past several months in our country have been harrowing. We almost feel like it’s all a bad dream. The senseless killing. The anger. The hatred. I learned today that several countries have warned their citizens to reconsider travel plans to the U.S. This nation, which has always been a guiding light, a beacon of hope, is now being advertised as too dangerous to visit. Too dark. Too risky.

How did we get here?

Some say it’s the guns. As if guns have suddenly become more deadly than they’ve always been before. Guns have always been in American homes. They’ve always provided the power to protect or to kill. The guns haven’t grown more deadly. People have.

After all, what’s going on here is so much bigger than weapons.

Everything about our culture says that human life is dispensable. A trillion dollar pornography industry teaches children and adults every single day that people are nothing more than objects to be used. The human trafficking related to that disgusting trade means that mothers are afraid to walk into a dollar store with their children, knowing that there could be someone lurking nearby who is waiting for an opportunity to take their babies away, sold to the highest bidder, girls with real souls and bright minds and big hearts, reduced to nothing more than a one-dimensional commodity. In that world they exist only to be abused and harmed in every possible way, while the good men and women of the world watch it from the comfort of their own homes.

I sat here at my kitchen table a few days ago when the surveillance video of a deli in California came across my Facebook newsfeed. A young mama walked in, holding her baby, with her four year old daughter at her side. I could see the mother standing there, reading the menu, trying to decide what she and her daughters would have for lunch. Her four year old looked like she was chattering away, as happy four year olds will do, standing about three feet from her mother, when suddenly I saw someone reach in from the street and grab the preschooler, yanking her out the door in under a second. My heart pounded as I saw the mother turn and run out the door, too, still holding tight to the baby on her hip. Then, a moment later, she came back through the door with both of her girls, collapsing into a chair, hugging and kissing her four year old and crying tears of terror and rage.

The internet was so frightened and outraged by the attempted kidnapping. Such a horrific thing. Yet, if she had been four years younger, that same little girl, the one with the unique DNA, with the specially-designed soul, that little girl with a heart that was set to its beat by the God of the universe, could have been easily and proudly killed. Disposed of. Because this is what a human child looks like to us–chattel. Nothing more than a means to an end. Nothing more than a possession to be stolen, broken, or tossed out when it gets tiresome.

And, that’s really the heart of the out of control racial issues in our country. When a black man and a police officer are both seen as one-dimensional objects, no heart, no value, no humanity. When we see each other as cardboard cutouts, just vague representations of some idea we don’t like. It’s hard to remember that each person on this planet is a unique creation, made in the image of Almighty God, when we are constantly proving to ourselves that people are nothing special by what we say, how we behave, what we watch, what spend our money on, where we go, and what we teach our children.

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We have taken hands that were once folded in prayer, and we have pushed God out of our society with all of the human force we can muster. We have told Him again and again that He isn’t needed. That He isn’t wanted. That His word is useless. That His creation is accidental. We have said He doesn’t belong in our schools or our courthouses or our public squares. We have said that even His churches need to be punished. That families who believe in Him should be regulated.

And, with every step that we have taken away from Him, we have invited a little more darkness in.

A little more tendency to turn to depraved thoughts and ideas. A little more apt to treat human beings like they’re worthless. A little more bold in our hateful talk. A little more likely to hurt and abuse and maim and kill. Every day, a little more bad. A little more of our ugly, wretched selves showing through.

Sinfulness that was once more often restrained is suddenly rampant. But, let’s be honest about it. Let’s call this what it is. We are getting what we said we wanted. We wanted God to back off.

And, sometimes God gives you what you ask for.

Pray for us. Pray for this nation. Pray for your very soul. Beg God to draw near. And, watch Him do what no human think tank or political party of lawmaker or preacher could ever do. Watch Him change the course of our history forever.

Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:8-10

What God Redeems

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God isn’t done with us. Maybe you need to hear this story as much as I did. I remember the day my friend McKenzie first told me about the unexpected turn that her life took when she was only 18–I was struck by how God’s grace and goodness are all over it. I think you’ll enjoy hearing from this dear mother and wife. Please welcome my friend McKenzie Frazier:

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. – Psalm 127:3

          Maybe my upbringing sounds similar to yours: I grew up believing and loving the Lord. However, when I went to college I decided to go my own way. After only a few months of this lifestyle, I became pregnant. I, a scared and ashamed eighteen-year-old, had a lapse of judgment and my world was now falling apart. I felt like the best option was to get an abortion. It seemed like the easiest way to make this nightmare go away, to eliminate the small-town rumors, to save myself from the shame and guilt of an unplanned pregnancy. I didn’t want my life to be ruined. I hadn’t even finished my first year of college. How could I go from high-school Valedictorian to pregnant, college drop-out? I wouldn’t… I was going to take care of this… I was going to make this all go away… I was going to get my life back…

So, I called the nearest abortion clinic and made the appointment. Even though every fiber of my being knew that it was wrong. Every bit of conviction I could feel was telling me there was another way. But, the other way was hard. It was selfless. It was not the plan I had for myself. The other way involved coming to the realization that sin on top of sin was not the answer. The answer was coming to a loving Savior and asking for forgiveness. The answer was being broken because of my sin while looking forward to what a redeeming God could accomplish through my brokenness. The answer was allowing this gift from the Lord I had living inside of me the chance at life.

The night before the appointment, God revealed himself to me in such a real way. It was 3:00 in the morning and I could not sleep. My heart was in such turmoil over the choice I was making. Then, I heard God speak to my heart is such a clear way. The silence I felt from Him before was now overcome with whispers of His reassurance. These words of truth were imprinted on my heart from that moment on:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…- Jeremiah 1: 5 (NIV)

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I 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.–Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV)

So I made the choice to keep my sweet baby. But, that doesn’t mean that it was easy. It was still hard. It was hard to move back home from college into my parents’ house. It was difficult to see my friends enjoying their college experience while I was at home watching it all from Facebook. But, God was faithful. Six months after my sweet boy was born I was engaged to the Godliest man I have ever come to know. And, the month before my son’s first birthday, we were married. God has given us a ministry together. We have devoted our life and our family to His service. I have gladly devoted my life to loving and taking care of our children. I have been blessed to stay at home with them since the day they were born. We even started homeschooling this year.

McKenzie

The decision to keep my son was one of the greatest decisions I have ever made. He has brought more joy to my life than I could have ever anticipated. Sometimes I look into his precious eyes and let my mind wander to never knowing him. I think about never hearing his laugh, or listening to him sing a song, or hearing his sweet prayers. Had God not intervened, I would have missed out on one of my life’s greatest blessings. I am grateful every day for the Holy Spirit convicting my heart and reminding me how valuable a life is.

God was not done with me. He’s still not done with me.  Just like he’s not done with you. He gave me a testimony to share with women who are struggling with this same choice. He gave me the ability to encourage an overwhelmed mama when she overlooks the incredible blessing of her children. He even walked with me through a recent miscarriage which reiterated the same truths to my heart, that he himself is the Creator and Sustainer of life.

There is life after a mistake. There is forgiveness after sin. Sin is never God’s desire, but God can redeem even our worst mistakes.

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him,
though he is not far from any one of us. -Acts 17:27

Wanted & Unwanted

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Today I grieved for mankind. I read about the unspeakable evil of healthy, live babies, ripped from their mothers’ wombs. Unwanted. Crushed in just the “right” way so as to preserve certain body parts. Human children, dissected and packaged for sale to the highest bidder.

I took all of this in, while my own children played and jumped and ran all around me. Wild, easy summertime is here, and my three are enjoying every minute. They leapt off of the couch and crawled in a little line, like spy-gear clad ants, marching off to another adventure, fueled by their imaginations and a whole summer’s worth of grilled cheese sandwiches.

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These three children. They are spectacular. I know them well. I see their faults and their best qualities. I see the sandy brown hair they inherited from their daddy. Their bright blue eyes. The way their spirits are so sensitive to the truth, the way their minds are always working.  I look at them, and I know that they are capable of true, God-powered greatness.

These three, they aren’t my only three. God gave me three others, and one day I’ll meet them for the first time. None of them were quite suited for this world, and I lost them early in pregnancy. Still, I often wonder if they are my redheads. Their existence is as real to me as the three who are finally conked out in their beds right now.  I know they are real, individual human beings.

And they matter.

They have a place in the scheme of this universe. God created them, and He sustains them in Heaven. All of mine.  All of yours.  All of the millions who died before they had experienced anything more than God’s presence and their mother’s warm body and beating heart. No matter how we begin, and no matter how we end, human life matters.

Today I asked some friends if they have experienced miscarriage or stillbirth. I was moved by how many of them reached out to acknowledge the souls that they once carried.  Someday, around the throne of the King, we will worship with them, the little ones that we never really knew, and they, our “wanted” children, will stand shoulder to shoulder with millions of “unwanted,” and together we’ll sing praise to the God who sees the wonder in all of us.

*****

All of this was sent to me today by friends when I asked about fetal loss. If you would like to, please add the gestational age of your babies in the comments.  They matter.

Aimee- 8 weeks
Shannon- 11 weeks
Amber- 7 weeks
Allison- 11 weeks
Ashley- 6 weeks
Dawn- 6 weeks, 6 weeks
Melissa- 5 weeks, 8 weeks, 10 weeks
Courtney- 10 weeks
Claire- 11 weeks, 8 weeks
Kristy- 5 weeks, 11 weeks
Calli- 9 weeks
Paula- 10 weeks, 30 weeks
Kim- 8 weeks, 8 weeks
Katie- 12 weeks
Misty- 6 weeks
Heather- 8 weeks
Kelly- 9 weeks
Monica- twins, 22 weeks
Jo Kay- 3 before 8 weeks
Samantha- 23 weeks
Sandra- 6 weeks
Natalie- 19 weeks, 8 weeks
Holly- 16 weeks
Mandy- 28 weeks
Allison- 6 weeks, 7 weeks, 8 weeks
Tami- 7 weeks
Amy- 14 weeks
Natalie- 9 weeks
Angie- 11 weeks (Hannah, Liam, Dash), 32 weeks (Collin)
Cacee- 2 less than 6 weeks, 2 tubal pregnancies

We’re Okay, Church.

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Well, I’m back! In two weeks the world sure threw a lot of curve balls our way, didn’t it? Things just keep changing and shifting and making Christian people wring their hands.  We look at each other and shake our heads, wondering where we go from here, and what this new world is going to look like by the time our own children are having babies.

We’re tempted to fear for the future of Christianity.  We wonder how this faith will survive a culture that is more and more fed up with it.  We feel like Christianity is resting precariously on a high ledge, and we whisper about strategies while we white knuckle this thing, trying to sit as still as possible so as not to send it careening over the edge into a dark pit of irrelevance, or worse, extinction.

Last week we got the kids out of their beds at 5:30 in the morning and walked their sleepy, pj-clad little bodies out to the minivan. It was day one of our much-anticipated vacation, and even though I had hopes that they would fall right back to sleep once they were in the car, they were just too excited to rest. We were heading for the airport, and that fact alone made sleep just about impossible. About an hour into our drive, we found ourselves on a highway with a bunch of people who seemed to be in a big hurry.  The little two lane road was jammed with drivers zooming past at every opportunity, dangerously passing on the curves and hills that should have been carefully navigated.

Soon, a little white car sped past us at the bottom of a big hill, but instead of getting back on the right side of the road once he had cleared our van, he kept going, passing the two trucks ahead of us, until he was feet from topping the hill on the wrong side of the road. Everyone watching this reckless driver suddenly slammed on their brakes, trying to get out of the way of the head-on collision that seemed imminent. The trucks ahead of us were driving into the grassy ditch in order to avoid hitting each other.

As Chad hit his brakes, the truck in front of us was right in our path, and all he could do was head for the ditch as well.  But, instead of a harmless patch of grass, we went straight toward a concrete culvert.  Chad put all of his strength into pushing on that brake pedal, and somehow, just before our van toppled over the concrete, we stopped.

culvert

I kept saying, We’re okay.  We’re okay.  We’re okay.  I think it was an utterance of disbelief as we sat there suspended, looking down into the place where our car should’ve landed on its top. God stopped the car.  We didn’t fall in.

We got the kids out of the car as quickly as we could, while kind and competent heroes stopped to help us, all on their way to someplace else, but stopping instead to somehow produce chains and know-how, pulling a worn old van out of its hazardous position. Just so three kids in pjs could continue on their way with their badly shaken parents.

This story could’ve ended in a completely different way.  I could’ve come back here today and told you the tragic tale of how one of more of our children died in that accident.  Someone else could’ve come on here to announce to you that none of us had survived, that this day, last week, was our last day, and that we had gone to be with Jesus.

But, instead, this incident is just a little blip on the radar of our vacation.  We went from facing what looked like certain death to happily boarding an airplane with all of our little family in tow. Why?  Because God willed it. He is always fully in control, and He is never, ever surprised.

So, if you have been fretting about the decisions that are being made in the US and the world, if you have felt this week like Christianity is hanging over the edge, about to fall, just keep in mind that Jesus promised us that not the even the gates of hell will prevail against the church. And, while He holds the church firmly in His hand, He is also sending us helpers, like good country boys with chains in the back of the their pickups right when you need them. He is always raising up leaders for their perfect time.

It may seem like Christianity is hanging by a thread, but I believe this is going to be one of our finest hours.  Just watch the church thrive in the days to come.

We will make it to our destination, dear Christians. Glorify Him, trust Him, and watch Him work His miraculous rescue plan.

When the Church Strikes a Chord that Rings Untrue

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My father is a brilliant pianist.  He was one of those kids who just had a miraculous natural ability, and by the time he was sixteen, he could hear a song for the first time and sit down and play it.  He needed no sheet music.  Yet, in college, he composed huge musical numbers and scored all kinds of classical pieces, just for fun.  (He was a government major.)

Basically, he was a prodigy, sprung up right there in his humble hometown, and his piano teacher had planted seeds in his long limber musician’s fingers that had grown into an unusual and beautiful talent.

Enter me, many years later.  I began taking lessons from the very same teacher who had seen my dad flourish right there in her living room many years before.  His little red-headed daughter was sure to possess a similar ability, the piano teacher must have thought to herself.  At my first practice she examined my small freckled fingers and praised their shape and reach across the keys.

We started small, with the classic piano basics books that everyone uses.  Gradually I moved up to slightly more complicated pieces.  Before long I was playing hymns from the hymnal, almost as if I were being trained to be the ultimate Southern Baptist pastor’s wife.  I was…. mediocre.  I played the music, somewhat haltingly.  I didn’t practice enough.  I didn’t understand much of the music theory she tried to teach me.

Honestly, I wasn’t all that interested.  And I probably wasn’t all that naturally gifted.

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But, the years flew by.  My piano teacher found all kinds of ways to praise me.  Instead of scolding me for not practicing, she praised my ability to sight read.  When she probably should’ve been telling my parents that I was only mildly talented, she seemed convinced that I had all kinds of amazing ability that was just lying dormant, waiting to be uncovered by the right piece of music.  To the very end of my piano “career,” my sweet teacher expressed her absolute conviction that I was just as talented and amazing as my dad, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I took piano lessons for ten years.  I remember the day she told my mother that she felt she had taught me all that she could.  She recommended that I start taking classes at a nearby university so that I could continue in my music theory and further develop my skills.   You can probably guess that that never happened.

I had played the piano for my entire childhood and had performed in a decade’s worth of piano recitals.  My teacher saw something in me that just wasn’t there, and I loved her for it.  I was amazed by how often and how freely she made excuses for my lack of preparedness, how graciously she overlooked my flaws as a student, how convinced that she truly seemed to be that I was a gifted pianist.

As much as I loved the way my teacher seemed completely smitten by little freckle-faced me and my not-so-great piano playing, the truth is that she likely would have produced a much more accomplish pianist if she had told me the truth, in love, the first time I arrived at her house completely unpracticed.  She probably should’ve looked me in the eyes and reminded me that just being my father’s daughter doesn’t automatically make me a piano great.  Instead, she made more excuses.  She probably felt sorry for me.  She squeezed me tight and gave me a peppermint and sent me out with encouraging words about how well I was doing.  She disregarded her well-tuned knowledge of how a gifted pianist plays because she loved me and she loved my dad.

Sometimes when I look around at the church these days, I feel like we’re taking some miscues from my sweet piano teacher.  We should be looking each other in the eyes, speaking loving truth, truth that we know is real because God says it.  We have well-tuned knowledge of God’s real, live truth, but we are disregarding that knowledge so that we can insist that people we want to love well are not doing wrong.  We choose to decide that, well, the Bible doesn’t REALLY say what it sounds like it says.  We squeeze people tight and give them coffee and send them out with the assurance that homosexuality isn’t a sin.  We declare that, because we love her, we simply cannot tell a woman that abortion grieves God.  After all, it’s her body, and who am I to say so?  We are convinced that freedom in Christ means freedom from guilt over pornography.  After all, a loving Christian couple can watch pornography and enhance their sex life!    So, go!  Do that!  We love you, and we know who your Father is, so we know that you aren’t going to take it too far.

Little by little, because we love people so much, we make excuses.  We praise them for their tithing and their mission trips and we ignore what is killing them. And, when the church service is over, instead of inspiring holiness, we have simply made it easier for them to choose worldliness.  We set out to produce spiritual prodigies, but through our misguided expressions of love, we have just made a world of mediocre, luke-warm, uninspired, lied-to double-minded men and women.

If we really want to love people well, we will love them while they tread through the hardest truths.  Instead of trying to show them a nice grassy path that veers around the messy pit where they need to confront sin, we should trudge through the muck with them.  We should hold them up when they are exhausted from the sin-killing battle.  We should look each other in the eyes, to the depths of our souls, and instead of saying, “You’re fine just how you are,” we should send up a war cry that will shake the very foundation of this weak and weary world.  Then, we should fight with them.  And, we should stop deciding that a vague association with the Father is enough.

That, church, is love.

If my piano teacher could see all of the dust that has collected on my piano over the years, I have no doubt that she would wish to go back to days when she had the opportunity to tell me the truth.  To insist that I practice.  To warn me that I was going nowhere fast.  And, to squeeze me tight while she delivered her tough dose of reality.

Look ahead twenty years, friends.  Where will the church be then?  When we are seeing the real results of the ways that we have tried to love through approval and false hopes instead of through the trustworthy reality of God’s word?  Speaking the truth isn’t easy.  But, if we aren’t basing our discipleship on absolute truth, as God defines it, then we are only half loving people.  It’s a mediocre, halting, unsure way to play the tune of God’s holiness and mercy.  And, it leads to a dusty, empty faith, as useless as the piano that no one remembers how to play anymore.

How the Abortion Culture Affects Motherhood

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This weekend I ran across a blog that features anonymous “mommy confessions,” where mamas can post some of their most cringe-worthy moments or try to help clear their consciences by revealing some terrible thing that they feel guilty about doing.  It was certainly an eye opener to read what some of the women wrote.  Of course, there was your typical I’m scared to breastfeed type admission.  There were quite a few I hate my husband entries.  There were some that were along the lines of I never make my child brush his teeth or All my son will eat is chicken nuggets.  

And, then there was a whole other category of confessions.  Here are a few that caught my eye:

Three children was too many.

It’s 9am and I just sent my five year old back to bed with a movie because I just can’t deal with him right now.

I buy my five year old video games so he can ignore me and I can ignore him.

Honestly, most of the time I don’t care what my kids are doing, just so long as they’re quiet.

Motherhood makes me feel smothered and alone.  I miss my freedom.

This is only a handful of the many confessions that seem to ooze regret.  I doubt these mothers would consciously admit that they wish they had never had children (although some of them do), but their statements certainly suggest that they wish they were doing something other than being mothers.

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I can understand, to a certain extent, why these mamas wrote what they did.

Because motherhood is hard.  It’s tiring.  It’s never-ending.  It’s all giving.  It’s true, complete sacrifice.

But, there’s something much deeper going on here than a bunch of mothers who would rather be out drinking margaritas.  It’s a mentality that goes much, much further into our psyches, and I dare say that not one of us American mamas is immune to this way of thinking.

Because we were raised in the abortion culture.

We, current mothers of young children, can’t remember a time when abortion wasn’t an “issue” to rail against or to rally for.  If you’re like me and you grew up in church, you probably attended your fair share of candle light vigils and Sanctity of Life Sundays.  You wore your little baby feet pin in high school to show that you believe in tiny life in the womb and you may even have a pro-life bumper sticker on your car.

But, it doesn’t matter if you have a “My Uterus, My Choice” t-shirt in your closet or if you protest at abortion clinics.  You are a victim of the abortion culture’s indoctrination of young women.  And, chances are,  it shows in your mothering.

The abortion culture has taught us that children stand in the way of things that we want.  It has taught us that we deserve more than being at home with children on a Friday night.  It has told us that it is possible to “not be ready” for kids.  It has instilled in women a lack of confidence in our ability to handle children.  It has produced the feeling that it can be a mistake to have a child or a mistake to have more than one.

The abortion culture has lied that it is better for a child to have no mother at all than to have an imperfect one.

And so, even if we feel like we are pro-life to our core, if we really stop and examine the way we think about our children, do we see the abortion culture mindset creeping in?  Do we find that we are resenting our children because they ask a lot of us?  Are we preoccupied with all of things that we would rather be doing?  Do we often view our kids as a nuisance?   Do we dream of what life would be like without kids?

Do we feel defeated every morning before our feet even hit the floor?

Are we only giving part of ourselves to our children?

Do we hold back because we are sure we are ruining our children?

Do we often wish that our children would just leave us alone?

I would submit to you, my sweet mama friends, that these feelings are directly related to the abortion culture which has lied to us for our entire lifetime.  We must stop now and implore God to change our thinking about our children.

These lies have convinced women that some aren’t capable of being good mothers.

These lies have convinced women that there are more important or fulfilling things than raising children.

These lies have convinced women that children are annoying, inferior, unimportant.

These lies have convinced women that children don’t have feelings or worth.

And, it shows  in the things we say about them on social media and in the way that we treat them.  It’s apparent in the huge number of mommy blogs that are  funny diaries of how miserable motherhood is.  With names like Scary Mommy, Bad Mommy, and My Name’s Not Mommy, these blogs have made it fashionable to hate the responsibility of raising children.

And, the underlying current of all of it is:  what if I had never had children?  Would I be happier?

Before the abortion culture turned motherhood on its head, children were considered a source of great happiness.  Now, they are considered nothing more than dream squashers.

I’m convinced we need to examine our hearts and admit that the abortion culture has tainted our thinking.  For our kids’ sakes, and so we won’t pass on the lies to our little girls, let’s ask God to change our mindset.  Our children are so much more than an “issue.”  They are so much more significant than a choice.  And they need mothers who refuse to see them as obstacles to happiness.

Abortion Stigma: Emily Letts and the Mark Left Behind

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Abortion rights activists have begun a new campaign, one that is designed to erase the negative social “stigma” associated with abortion.  As part of the push, the Abortion Care Network sponsored a “Stigma Busting Video Competition,” and I’m sure by now you have already seen one result of that competition:  Emily Letts’ bizarre video of her abortion procedure.  Emily, who says she was inspired to become an “abortion doula,” says that she wanted to do the video to help women get over the guilt that “our society breeds.”

I don’t entirely blame Emily for her distorted view of where abortion guilt is coming from.  After all, she is only a pawn, albeit a fully knowledgeable and intelligent pawn, being used by the abortion industry.  She is trying to be brave, and she probably believes in some ways that she is helping women.  Yet, her speeches on the video aren’t very convincing proofs that abortion is easy or that you aren’t filled with immense regret when it is finished.  The activists are weakly trying to use her video to inspire more abortions, but I doubt that it is having the desired effect.  Emily seems sad, withdrawn, and sullen, even though she is saying some of the right things.

I’m afraid poor Emily is finding out first hand that the social stigma that her video claims to fight against is the least of her worries.  Emily and other deceived women who were told it was no big deal, that they aren’t ready for children, that they can’t handle this baby, are now plagued with a different kind of stigma.  You see, stigma has another meaning.  It can mean, simply, a mark.

So, these women move on with their lives, and they have no stretch marks to show for their pregnancies.  They have no sagging breasts or widened hips.  They have no squishy bellies that say that they once carried a living being inside of them.  But, they are marked.  They live with the knowledge of a baby that should have been.  And, they carry the heavy burden of guilt and remorse, even if they do feel relief that they didn’t have the baby.  The stigma that marks their spirits–mothers’ spirits–can’t be erased by thoughtful videos or enlightened-sounding conversations about abortion in Cosmo.

In fact, the spiritual stigma that wears on them and wears them out and seems everywhere is much, much harder to live with than the social stigma.  Because no voice of reason can truly make it go away.  No amount of loud postulating or quiet offerings of this-was-right-for-me can make it disappear.  It is real, and heavy, and immovable.

But, there is one who can cover the stigma on broken mama spirits.  And, He has a stigma or two of his own.  His hands and feet are marked with scars that say that no dark spot on a human soul need remain.  His marks whisper love to the Emilys of the world.

Jesus, the stigma bearer, the only hope for any of us.

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