So much in the news lately, and these videos, and even what you've read on this blog, it can hit you straight up. In-the-face, undeniable evidence of life, brains, beating hearts, wiggly fingers and toes, it can all burn in your throat and you can feel shrapnel through your heart.
I don't want you to stay there, friend, burning with confusion or anger or regret. Will you stay with me for a few more minutes?
What I didn't say earlier about my hero mama, who so valiantly chose life for me, is that she had chosen abortion previously. It seemed then that was her only option. It made sense to her and she was told it was the best choice. She lived with the grief of that child's life and the weight of it never just disappeared like they said the "fetal tissue" would.
Maybe it feels mean for anyone to be pointing out what's going on in this quick, should-be private procedure? Maybe it feels unmerciful, unkind to acknowledge that abortion is murder because it would be easy and we could all smile nicely if we just called it a necessary procedure and left it alone. Don't look into it any further, please. And don't look at me.
Is that how you're feeling?
My mama knew it all too well....
And there's all this hope and desire to protect and praise life and does it all sound Wrong in your heart when you hear it? How a mom choosing life "didn't take the cowardly way out." But I can imagine you don't feel like you chose cowardly either. It takes bravery to walk into an abortion clinic too and being told there's just tissue in there, why not just get it over with? Even with all the lies that were fed to you, I doubt it felt like an easy thing to go through with, or to tell a friend about it, or to read this with your name tucked invisibly in that Dear Friend line at the top.
Or maybe, you're different? Maybe you knew "it" was a baby. Yea, that was a beating heart, a waving hand. It was alive and now it's .....
But the thing is, there's this deep conviction and its meant to bring peace, and it's black and white on the pages of this Book that you can trust, that the grace and forgiveness and true love of God, the Maker of Life, is ready to be poured out in abundance on you and on all of us who acknowledge our brokenness, neediness, and face up to our guilt. Staring down this sin and calling it what it is, is meant as a rescue... for you too.
Hiding it or legitimizing will never bring you peace.
I want you to know that all the energy poured out as "Pro-Life," it should be aimed at you too...Pro-You. Your life, your heart, your home. Not in some get-you-rich-fast, make you hot and hotter kind of way, but in a your-life-matters-infinetly-to-God, so much that he gave His Son to die as your ransom... in that way. That is how God is and His church should be totally Pro-You.
Political groups and churches and all of us individuals fail and fail miserably and fail often and I'm sorry. So sorry. We haven't always shown you that none of us have anything to stand on if we don't stand on grace. But it's true.
There's grace for you.
Like there was for this guy ages ago who persecuted and approved of deaths and stood by to watch the slow agonizing death of one lover of Jesus named Stephen. (See Acts 7:58-8:3 and Acts 9:1-19) God blinded him with an earth-shattering vision of who He is and who it was that this persecutor was killing. Then God picked him up, transformed him with His love, and used him to powerfully build and bless His people, His church, for millennia after that.
Now you've been having visions, or watching videos, and it's shattering you too? How will you respond? What might God do through your life picked up from this wreckage and offered wholly to Him? Made whole again in Him?
The thing is, that facing up to our need, our brokenness and mistakes, acknowledging the reality of what abortion is and "what have I done?"... its this step that we all need, for all of our broken places, to be made whole, be made new. John Piper says, in discussing with popular rapper Lecrae, how he urged a former girlfriend to abort his child, "if [we] don't come out of the darkness, then [we] can't have the sweetness of forgiveness. The gospel teaches us how to live, but it also rescues us when we fail to live as we're supposed to."
It's in seeing our sin that we can see our need for a Savior... And the great news is, He is ready to save. Ready to take your fear, guilt, grief, your regret, hatred and anger, and trade it to you for His humble love, His totally freeing free forgiveness. For new life with a new, knowing and gracious Lord. No more slave master of fear and guilt and lies. He is ready to show you His true, forgiving and forever love.
Please friend, never be afraid to say that you messed up, that you were wrong. Whether you fell fool to the lies that abortion is nothing... Or if you knew that you knew this was your baby. For all of us, forgiveness reaches our deepest and darkest and God isn't turned away by our filth.
I'm ready too, with a list of my junk to share and we can lay it down together, rejoicing with that guy Saul (turned to Paul,) that we who have sinned much, could be forgiven much. That we could be so greatly loved.
So the point in the plainness of all this talk of the horror of abortion, is so that there may be a clear and focused mirror to see the truth of our sin and to drive and draw each of us, from every broken background, into the truth and love of a God who knows and sees and saves us from the muck we've made of ourselves.
I hope you won't feel turned away. You belong right with the whole party of sinners forgiven and loved not because we're good enough but because his love is great enough. This is where Life begins. You are loved. You are loved. Come to Him.
Friend, if you email me or comment, I'd love to reply to you. And if you want to learn more on your own about God, you can view the story of God's love here.
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