I have always been pro-life, but my husband and I have been researching a bit lately to find out more about this situation our country has found it's self in, and the facts astound me. 1.21 million children are aborted legally in the U.S. every year! Wowzers... that is a lot of innocent children being murdered. According to www.worldometers.info/abortions/ there are 125,000 every day in the world.
I have been praying about how I can help things, my husband has been praying about it, we are both on fire for the lives of these children, I can't explain exactly how we feel, but there is a sickening in my stomach to think of all the babies who would have been here and now are not because in the first place people can not control their sex lives, and in the second decide to cover that up by murdering their unborn children. For those who believe that it is not murder because there is no child, I urge you to look at the pictures of aborted babies and see if you don't see a child there.
It also sickens me to think that people call the unborn a parasite. I believe that conception happens at the same moment as fertilization, so in that belief I also think that for the first 5-7 days of a child's life they cannot be compared to a parasite at that time. They are not using anything from their mother at all, besides that a parasite never infects its mother (at least not that I have found), and a parasite must have a host for it's entire life span, a child on the other hand starts off as an egg and sperm connected in a free space not connected to any other thing and then moves to a place where it's mother can nourish it for approximately 9 months, and in only the first 3 months it has all of its body parts that it will have at birth, the rest of the time spent inside of it's mother it is only growing bigger, no longer making its own lungs and heart, but actually using them and growing them... just as a toddler would be doing, only inside it's mother because it is too fragile to enter the world before that 9 month time period is up, which is why most premature babies are kept in the hospital until approximately their due date.
Today I opened my bible to read and found that somehow my book mark had been moved, I don't know how, I don't even know of anyone being in my room to have moved it but it was moved, and instead of reading where I would have been reading I decided to see if God had some divine inspiration for me in this newly book marked place... besides I hadn't really gotten too far where I was reading before anyway. I now fully believe that however the book mark had been moved, God intended for me to read this new passage today, it shocked me how much I received from my reading today.
When I opened this morning my book mark was marking the beginning of 2 Kings, I read and the story was interesting so I continued to read into chapter 2. As I read Elijah was taken up to heaven and 'his spirit' rested on Elisha, and I believe that spirit was actually the Holy Spirit though I don't know. After Elijah is taken up Elisha begins to perform miracles in the name of the LORD. One of which is I believe in Jericho where a spring had brackish water and Elisha pours some salt from a new bowl into the water and it is cleansed and in 2 Kings 2:21 it says this: "Then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it, and said "Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it." (NRSV)
side note: I don't particularly care for the NRSV but when I came across the word miscarriage it peaked my interest so I went to some commentaries and other versions of the bible and found a bit about it, of course never expecting to learn about abortion from the bible that day, but just interested because I have had two miscarriages myself and the subject is very close to my heart.
The word miscarriage can be translated as barrenness or abortion here as well.
Barrenness to me implies there was no life to begin with, that the mother or would be mother has never had an egg fertilized to become pregnant, but it also means she might have lost a baby or two, or more. Abortion can be used to reference the body not supporting a baby or a mother deciding to kill her unborn child, neither end with a healthy baby. And miscarriage leaves the mother without much responsibility (though some can say her lifestyle choices might affect this as well) but usually she will experience a lot of grief even if not at fault for the loss of her child. All three mean the land was lacking children (in reference to the verses I had been reading).
Elisha threw salt into the water from a new bowl so that death would not happen as a result of drinking this brackish water anymore.
Jesus is the living water, whoever drinks of Him rather than the world's substitute is given ever-lasting life.
We Christians are the salt of the earth, when we devote ourselves to God we can turn the world's substitute for something good into living water and truth.
I also think that because the salt was put into a new bowl that means something too. We have to be set apart. Not just any old bowl will do, it is a new bowl, a new purpose, a new pathway, not just to sit among the other members of the salt and season things as needed, but to get excited about a cause and dive into the world and change it to a world for Jesus.
And what happened? Death and miscarriage and abortion were abolished because of the activity of salt in water. We can do nothing without Jesus, he preformed the miracle, not Elisha, not the salt, not the new bowl, Jesus. But HE also called us to participate and if we do not, then the world will remain brackish and continue to murder the children who have only just received the spark of life, but have not yet seen the light of day, or the moon at night.
What can we do? This is my list of things you can do, but I'm still figuring out how I can go about them, pray earnestly that God can show you what you can do, and I'm sure he will.
1. Adopt a child that would have been aborted.
2. Help women in need who are pregnant and feel they have no options (i.e. feed the hungry, give clothing to the naked, care for the widow, which in our culture also can be the 'unsupported')
3. Donate clothing, diapers, bottles, formula, and other baby essentials to local pregnancy centers.
4. Donate your time to pregnancy centers, they actually work with volunteers not paid employees most of the time.
5. Speak out about abortion, if you start talking about this unspoken topic and start doing your part to help the people in need then two things will happen, (a.) they will hear your voice and maybe start talking themselves, and (b.) you will prove that the stigma of Christians who care about birth but not life will go away. We have to show them we care about the baby and it's mother before and long after that child is born as well as when she/he is in the mother's womb. All talk and no action isn't going to help, you absolutely must have both. Live the life you claim to believe in! Be a walking minister of Jesus Christ.
I almost typed here that I was stepping down from my soap box, but then I decided no, I'm not.. not ever... I will help these babies, I will be their voices! I will cry out to the world that they are killing babies, and I will reach out and help the mothers who are in need.
If you are a mother considering abortion as an option, please reach out to me. You can find me on facebook. If there is anything I can do for you I will do it no questions asked, provided it is within my means, and if it is not I will do my best to figure out how I can still help you perhaps through outside resources.
No comments:
Post a Comment