Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your loving kindness. That even in our fallen humanity, you so love us and choose to only see Jesus in us as we’ve accepted him. Thank you for the grace you have on your children, and for how you love each and every child, from their beginning to their very end. I praise you father, for your gentleness and grace with us. I’ll forever praise your name, no matter what the consequences are. Bless each and every soul that reads this blog, amen.
I read a post on social media today of a professional leader reflecting on he and his wife’s extremely painful decision to have an abortion. Yep, I’m going there, and honestly it’s against my better judgment so I know it’s the Lord. See he keeps calling me to speak with boldness the secrets of his heart that are no longer kept secret. Every secret was laid bare with Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. Every secret was laid bare with the acceptance and infilling of the Holy Spirit. And there’s one secret that God doesn’t hide: we don’t have the right to choose who lives or dies.
The man weaves a tale of discovering their child had an extra chromosome. After multiple tests to confirm, they were given an option: abort the pregnancy immediately, or face a stillbirth/the baby passing within 24hrs of life. He shares the agony and wrongness of even having to be faced with this decision, and the morality of the situation given his beliefs as a Christian. They chose to abort the baby, and he said it was the hardest decision they’ve ever made, but was one that was made by a choice given to women and families with a right to decide the best for their situation.
Now, let me tell you. My heart broke for this man writing the post. It broke that he was so frustrated about RvW being overturned so that other families wouldn’t have the same right they had to make that dreaded decision. My heart broke that he’d believed the lie and the deception that doctors are always right, and medical tests are too. It broke that he didn’t even think to involve God (since he claimed to believe in him) in this decision, or trust that maybe the birth and resulted child may not have turned out the way the doctors said. It happens enough, so why wasn’t that a thought? Because he trusted the word of the doctor over the Word of God.
I’m not judging his decision based on the thought process or the social issue at hand. I’m judging it on the fruits of the decision. The fruits of the decision left them with a baby that had been living, growing, alive in the womb now dead at the hands of a doctor. They made the decision that death in the womb was greater than death out of it. You want to know what I really think? I think the pain of losing the child outside of the womb overwhelmed them to push an easier alternative: death before the baby had the chance to breathe it’s first breath and they laid their eyes on her for the first time. I believe human selfishness lay at the core of the decision—to preserve themselves and their emotional states from the agony of losing a child in the flesh.
But even worse, I thought about what if it had been me? What if that was my choice? I have a child, I can imagine the feeling of that news. But I cannot fathom even for a second that I would put a stop to the life that God saw fit to begin forming in my womb at the conception of his or her life. I also can’t fathom that I wouldn’t have wanted to deliver that baby—stillborn or not; to hold it in my arms and love it for however precious little time I had it on this earth. I can’t fathom not wanting every little monumental second with that child especially since (if we’re trusting the word of doctors over God) I may only have it for a short period of time. Wouldn’t you want that closure? Wouldn’t you wonder what that child would’ve looked, felt, sounded like?
I could go on, but I digress because I didn’t want to write about this. But God did. He wanted me to share his heart on the matter. He is the author of life, not the finisher of it. He does not “call us home” when we’re diagnosed with cancer and we lose the battle. He doesn’t “need another angel in heaven” to look over us when we lose a child. It wasn’t “in His will” that a person died before the age of 90 by unnatural causes. His Word is straightforward on the things he has for us—Jesus’s OWN WORDS were:
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the fullest.”
John 10:10
So, forgive me if my assessment seems harsh, but the reality of it is that we are weak in our own human flesh. We despise pain—physical, emotional, or psychological—and we’ll avoid it at all costs. But if you’re going to lose the child one way or another, why not let them have a fighting chance at life outside the womb? What if they overcame? What if they lived for years? What if they thrived? What if, by God, they experienced miraculous healing after being born? What if tests were WRONG? What if doctors were WRONG? It’s happened before, you can bet it’s happening now.
If you’re choosing to make a decision based on your own fleshly (emotional) desires, then you’re outside the will of God for your life, and your baby’s. Man. I typed that out without even knowing it would come out—that’s the Holy Spirit right there. The Father wants you to have a full life, and wants to provide you with one if you’ll let him. You can learn how ti wage was in the spiritual realm, and not live at the mercy of your emotions or your trauma. You can grow in maturity and stature in the Lord the same way Jesus did. You can be Him on this earth. You can be him to your children. But please, give your children the right to exist first. The Father’s will will ALWAYS be life. Which leaves only one other party that is involved with death. I pray you don’t listen to that party. Because life is so much better when you don’t.
There is grace, and forgiveness for abortion. That’s the beauty of God—grace is forever going to be there should we choose to accept it, and allow it to cushion the severity of the worst decisions and experiences on earth. He so loves us that He gave his OWN son. You’re never too far from that grace, or love. I’m not one to sit here and speak this without falling back on this Truth. But we can’t keep shying away from the reality of the lies we’ve been told, or stop sharing the truth for fear of offending others.
All my love, Abbey
Spirit Filled Mama 