“We
don’t know,” I replied, smiling in return.
“That’s
the way we always did it, too.” She
grabbed a jug of milk from my cart and sent it sailing over the scanner. “’Doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl,’
we’d say, ‘just so long as they’re healthy.’”
I
nodded absentmindedly as I dug through my purse for my wallet, my mind wandering
to a blog post I’d read earlier that week.
The author of the blog is a mom of seven children who lives just a
couple of hours south of where we now make our home in northern Colorado. She and her husband adopted four of their
seven children, all four of whom have “special needs.” At present they’re awaiting the homecoming of
two more children, both of whom live in orphanages in Eastern Europe where they
were abandoned when they were born with disabilities. Not long ago this mom wrote about her own
pregnancies and how she prayed fervently that her children would be born “not
lacking any chromosomes” and “not having any ‘special’ needs.” Now the Lord has equipped her and her husband
to parent six children with serious disabilities. Children that God knit in the womb; children
formed to show forth His praise.
I
thought about the blog post again when our fifth child was first placed in my
arms recently, his dark eyes wide and still, his little head turning toward the
light in the hospital room.
“He’s
healthy and handsome,” exclaimed Dr.
Q., the pediatrician, the next morning.
“Is that what you prayed for?” he quipped. “That your baby be healthy and handsome?”
“You
know, not this time, exactly,” I responded.
“This time I prayed that the Lord equip us to parent this baby no matter
what his or her needs might be.”
Dr.
Q. was suddenly serious. “That’s right,”
he nodded. “Because sometimes they
aren’t so healthy, are they? Or they’re
not “normal,” he wiggled quotation marks in the air, “and you love them
anyway.”
And yet, while I cherished two
quiet days in the hospital with our little Eli, so fearfully and wonderfully
made, I was treated to some interesting remarks from several capable yet tactless
members of the hospital staff.
“Your
fifth? How old are you?!”
“How
do you afford all those kids? They’re so
expensive!”
“Number
five!? This is it, right?”
“Are
you going to get your tubes tied now?”
But
there was one nurse-in-training who came in to weigh Eli when he was 24 hours
old. She and talked about the precious
gift of life, and of its Author. She mentioned
her time spent in the birthing center at nearby Boulder Community Hospital,
where an abortion clinic stands across the street. The doctor there specializes in
third-trimester abortions and has received several awards for his contributions
to and defense of “reproductive freedom.”
He’s lauded in Boulder, a community in which citizens will hold vigils
for trees that are soon to be felled.
Until
a few months ago, I lived all my life in rural Northwest Iowa, where every
small town is dotted with churches and where, even if people share the opinions
of the nurses at the hospital where Eli was born, they likely wouldn’t voice
them. A place where I really didn’t think too much
about abortion and where I rarely faced negative comments about our family’s
size. Here I drive past the
crisis pregnancy center on my way to the youth clinic,
and last week I stopped in and visited with the director there for a
while. My visit with her opened my eyes
to the sin that prevails in the community in which I live and in the United States
of America as a whole.
The
fact is, an average of 15,000 babies are aborted yearly in Colorado alone –
that’s about 45 babies per day in this state.
We live in a nation in which nearly ¼ of all pregnancies end in abortion
– that’s well over a million babies killed annually. A nation in which over 50 million little
children have been murdered during the past 30 years. A nation whose landfills are the mass graves
of the unborn, our “inferior race” whose slaughter is sanctioned by our
government. A nation in which the
birthrate has reached a 25-year low as many fret about the economy. In the meantime, millions more lose
themselves on the Internet or in a barrage of ridiculous so-called “reality” shows
on television, oblivious to the state of the nation in which we live.
So
where am I going with all this? Perhaps
you’re excepting a spiel on how you should vote this November. While I would never approve of voting for a
pro-choice candidate, ultimately our problem is not political, is it? It’s moral.
And, try as we might, it’s impossible to legislate a moral people. Only the Holy Spirit is capable of turning
stony hearts to flesh.
Truth
be told, I feel like I’m up on stage, and, having delivered the body of my
lines, I’ve forgotten the finale. In the
end, I’m thankful that our God, the Author and Giver of life, is a just
God. Thankful that He gives His people
the grace that they need to be faithful witnesses in a godless society. Thankful for my children, the fifth just as
precious as the first. Thankful…and
prayerful. Prayerful for our government
leaders. And for the girls – and the
women – considering abortion, even the ones in the community in which I live,
and for those who attempt to persuade them otherwise. Prayerful for the words I need to share the
gospel with the neighbor in need.
Prayerful…and praiseful.
Praiseful for Him, to Him, Whose hands have made me and fashioned me,
and you, and the ones with “special” needs, and those whose lives have been
taken before they are born.
Ultimately, all this makes me
long for heaven where we, all once disabled by sin, will live free and forgiven
in the presence of Him who died for us. And
no doubt there will be children there, who, though they never saw the light here
below, will thrive in that place where there isn’t even a need for the Sun.
And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22:5
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