Sometimes life just doesn't make any sense.
We struggle to wrap our minds around pain and loss and suffering that seems too intense to bear. And while there are a myriad of ways we wade through sorrow and tragedy, today is the day we set aside to specifically remember the smallest members of our families who hold such an expansive place in our hearts.
We can list all of the
statistics, but the truth is that statistics cannot take us to that moment when tears spill over as that sweet mama or dear papa realizes that their child–a unique and beautiful blend of two people–will never say his first words or take her first step. As parents, they will never see them walk into their first day of kindergarten, hear about their first crush, watch them walk across the stage at graduation, or see them give their heart to another.
But it's not just a dream that dies. It's not like losing a job or house. It's more like losing a finger or a thumb … or an arm or a leg. A part of you has ceased to exist. You heal. You learn to cope. And, over time, there are moments and perhaps even a whole day or days where you don't really take the time to reflect on the kind of life you have adapted to. But no matter what you do or others do for you, what was lost cannot be returned to us.
When I got to see our sweet baby, Asher, he was only seven weeks and three days old. One week later, my body no longer carried our first child. But I oh-so distinctly remember the awe and wonder of hearing his heart beating from inside of me. My first glimpse of Kieran was at nine weeks; at 12 weeks and three days, my eyes soaked in this sight of Elias.
This photo absolutely amazes me.
I had no idea that I would be able to see that much detail when I wasn't even visibly pregnant yet. At a time when so many dismiss this fragile, yet intricate body as a vague, formless group of cells, my Elias--who has brought so much joy to our lives--had his tiny thumb to his lips. My mama's heart cannot look at this picture of him without feeling the strongest urge to protect him. To whisper to him even then that he is loved and wanted and cherished and known. That there has never been nor will there ever be anyone like him. That no matter what we decide in or out of courtrooms, had this been the only time I had ever seen him, he would still be my child. That love isn't defined by days or weeks or months but by the simple truth that I am and forever will be his mother.
It was six months after my son was born that the reality of abortion became more than a vague concept in a world that didn’t directly affect me. It became an undeniable and unavoidable truth that invaded my heart. I was driving down our simple suburban street, and I looked up in the rearview mirror at the reflection of my infant in his car seat. He was sucking on his pacifier and watching brightly colored animals dance from the bar above him.
Overwhelming grief came over me. The thought of precious babies just like my own who laugh with tiny tummy songs and smile with toothless grins not tucked safely in car seats, but in trash cans and zip lock bags and coolers at the hands of their own mothers was more than I could bear. Abortion is real, and while I drove the speed limit with my baby buckled carefully into his car seat, children like mine were dying.
As we recognize all of those struggling with infant and pregnancy loss and infertility, there is a raging inferno of emotions on either side of an issue that has produced so much hate and violence that it seems we who claim to be on the side of precious life have chosen to not only decry the act but the women who enact it.
Abortion is murder, and the women who choose it shed innocent blood. Surely there is no greater sin.
How could we not–especially we who have so deeply grieved our own losses or the losses of those dear to us? And, yet, a loss is a loss. I cannot speak for the women out there who have chosen to, been pressured to, or coerced into ending the lives of their babies. But when something that was once full is emptied and something–someone–that was once whole is broken, how can that not leave a void? And how many women who have chosen abortion grieve in secret on a day like today?
… I am sorry. I am so sorry for shame that you have had to carry alone. I am sorry that I… that the Church… has not done a better job of pursuing you in your pain. That we have shunned and rejected and thought of the babies and not the women – you. Because the truth is…
God loves you. He isn’t mad at you. There isn’t anything you could ever do that would cause Him to stop loving you, because there wasn’t anything that you could do to earn His love. It is free. It is the scandal of a God full of grace that pursues a sinner with nothing to gain for Himself but a relationship with them – you – me. He wants to heal the places of shame that creep up in your heart. He wants you to come to Him and find peace and restoration and forgiveness.
He wants to set you free from years of secrets, from hidden burdens, and from crippling shame that says you will never be able to walk in the forgiveness that is available to you. The greatest lie of the enemy of our souls is that God doesn’t love us. It is a lie as old as time itself, and it is nothing more than that – a lie.
If you ask me, I will say that I choose life. I choose the life of my children, always. And I would choose the life of every other child, too, if I could. But I also will say that I choose to love the lives of those who did not make the choice I would have made.
I hope that one day most people can look at that 12-week photo of my now almost one-year-old baby and see his value. One day, I will show my boys these pictures and teach them about just how precious life is. And I hope I can truly show them the value of life by loving the brokenhearted–just like God does.
"Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands … (Isaiah 49:15-16).
