To read from the beginning of this memoir: Part 1

Is This LOVE?

No one wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.

Frederica Matthewes-Green

An impassioned woman’s voice rang out from a passing car, “That isn’t love!”

Ah, satisfaction.

At the very least she had acknowledged by the word choice in her rejection that she knew I was there offering what I believed was love. But what is love?

This is how I see it. This is how I desire to be loved myself.

Imagine I had experienced the worst year of my life.

As I try to face an unforeseen future all I can imagine is bleak. It is so bleak that I cannot face the thought of carrying my child into it with me. In fact, my assessment of the future is so terrible that I decides it would be better for me to head to the train track that night to end it. But I am unnerved at the thought of carrying out my plan alone.

What if it goes wrong?

Maybe I could find someone to help my and ensure that the plan is carried out successfully. Not only do I  find someone to strap me to the track, they encourage me to follow through. And a chorus cries out “My body, my choice.” Yes, it is my body, and yes I have the legal right to make this choice.

But that is not the whole story.

It is my child who will be killed. I will, at best, hobble off the track maimed in spirit, at worst I will die along with my baby by legal abortion.

Here at the clinic is where I step onto the track. Please do not cheer the train. Do not sit silent either. To love is to protect, do not count my children as a lost cause.

 “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Psalm 127:3 ESV

Little ones have representation before the throne of God.

 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 18:10 ESV

How easy it is for us to assert our life and will as the greatest!

^“But they (the disciples, Jesus closest friends) kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And Jesus sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” Mark 9: 34-36

Our Father is the author of LIFE, who commands,

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Matthew 7:12

So I must.

If am stepping to the track please find me.

If I am conducting the train, don’t forget me.

If I am strapping her down, don’t cast me aside.

If I am trying to hide my eyes, show me.

If I am throwing stones, stay my arm with true love.

If I’m tucked inside a womb scheduled to die, show up for me.

If I am shouting that deadly lie, gently refute.

 

If it is all done to no avail, don’t forget Christ’s words on the cross,

“Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”

We all need forgiveness.

That is true love.

“And yet I will show you the most excellent way.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13

Noah Protected By Law

When Noah reached 24 weeks, he finally had protection by the laws in our state. Although I could still find a doctor to terminate him in the country, the clinic where I prayed wouldn’t do the job anymore. We had reached a new milestone. It felt morbid to acknowledge this, yet our day in day out experience made it a reality impossible to ignore.

Continue Reading: Measure Me/Tempted By Bitterness (Part 12)