Today marks the 41st anniversary of one of the worst legal decisions ever - Roe v. Wade! Personally, I believe that much of the ugliness of life in these United States today can be directly linked to this Supreme Court decision and to the decision regarding prayer in the schools and its official removal!
One of the best parts of my life is being a grandmother to 7 very, very special people!
Matthew
Abby,
Clara,
Vania
Noah
Nic
Nash
Each one holds a unique place in my heart! EACH is my grandchild due to God's grace in creating that special life and also due to the fact that both our sons and their wives value and celebrate life as much as I do! Each grandchild has a different story. Each is a unique creation - fearfully and wonderfully made from 16-year-old Vania to 2 1/2-year-old Nash!
Abortion and its continued defense and practice in our country is egregious and abhorrent on many levels! That's my philosophical, theological position! On a personal level my view of abortion becomes even more passionate for at least seven very, very powerful reasons: Vania, Matthew, Abby, Clara, Noah, Nick, and Nash! They are my 7 reasons to celebrate life today!
Hurricane Ike is on a collision path with the Gulf coast set to make landfall somewhere around Texas late tonight or early tomorrow. Well ahead of Ike's arrival, the Texas coast is hurrying to make preparations. The most vulnerable hospital patients in Houston have been evacuated inland.We learned from the wrath of Katrina that being prepared is far better than being caught. One Katrina survivor is a little boy named Noah Markham. Noah was trapped in a flooded New Orleans hospital. He was so tiny but it took almost a dozen police officers in boats to get him to safety. It's a pretty exciting story ... and the most amazing part is that Noah was not even born on the day he was rescued! Noah was living in a canister filled with liquid nitrogen. Noah was a frozen embryo/baby.Sixteen months later little Noah was born into the Markham family after he was implanted into his mother's body.Noah is living testimony to "right to life." Embryologists tell us that embryos are not part of the organism like the heart or kidney. Embryos are the organism - a living human being in an early stage of development. Without his dramatic rescue by water Noah would not be nor would any other of the rescued "babies" in their embryonic stage of life that these same policemen rescued that day in New Orleans.Just this week the South Carolina Democratic Party chairwoman Carol Fowler said Sarah Palin's "primary qualification [as John McCain's VP pick] seems to be that she hasn't had an abortion."Under duress Ms. Fowler stepped back from her ridiculous words, but it all fits together in a world where life isn't valued from its beginning. Many people in our world just don't have a clue what to do with people whose beliefs impact their entire world-and-life view. Sarah Palin's views on life are more than just philosophical. She lives them as her recent family history validates.Hurricane Ike (and Katrina) both provide opportunities to save living human beings - some yet to be born. Taking a stand for life in all its stages is where Sarah Palin chooses to stand. Why is that? It's because her faith impacts her life! It's because she doesn't just think about faith she lives it.At A Restoration Church we applaud protecting life at every stage! We stand up for that because we know that valuing life at every stage is a rock solid core value!
Remember Quasimodo? He's only a character in a book named for him (Hunchback of Notre Dame). We can learn from the fictional Quasimodo. Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, was born with severe disabilities including a wart that covered one eye and a severely hunched back (sort of like a hunched over camel). Victor Hugo describes him as "giant who had been broken in pieces and ill soddered together." Whoever Quasimodo's fictional mother was, she left him at Notre Dame Cathedral where he was found on "Quasimodo Sunday" - thus his name. He lives his life wandering around mostly in the darkness, hiding in the shadows of the great cathedral. His job is to ring the cathedral bells. Even his job damages him causing him to be profoundly deaf. Quasimodo thought himself disgusting and so did people who saw him thus he hid in the shadows.Because of Sarah Palin's son Trig, people affected by disability are front and center in the news. The church of Jesus Christ as a whole and A Restoration Church in particular need to seize this moment. Never before on such a national and even world-wide stage has the subject of disability been so visible. This is an opportunity to speak truth into darkness about the value of life - every life, even a life like Quasimodo. Life is not valuable because of outward physical beauty. Life is not valuable even because of inner character and strength.The truth is that we are all broken and marred by sin! In God's eyes (except for the prism of Jesus) we are uglier than Quasimodo. It is only because Jesus makes the terrible trade of His righteous life for all our ugly sin that we have hope of restoration!Jesus came - literally "putting on our skin" (John 1:14). The ancient prophet Isaiah describes Jesus in graphically uncomplementary terms: "There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away ... " (Isaiah 53:2-3, The Message) [Note: Isaiah may have been speaking of Jesus on the cross. He could also mean that Jesus was just not a handsome dude - that he was just like us!] When Jesus came, He made it very plain that He didn't come for those who didn't think they needed Him - for the proud and arrogant. O, He can change proud and arrogant hearts, too - but the focus of Jesus' life was on the Quasimodos he met. That's the picture of Him we see in the Gospels. It takes a kind of "coming to the end of ourselves" to be able to accept with true gratitude God's gift of amazing grace! John Newton (who knew what being an ugly sinner is all about) wrote, "Amazing grace ... that saved a wretch like me ... " Jesus came for wretches and Quasimodos!Now, here's the kicker: What in the world is the "church" thinking when we don't also embrace the wretches and Quasimodos who cross our path?! They are just like us - in desperate need of God's amazing grace!What in the world is the church thinking when we don't seize this moment and celebrate God's amazing grace for ALL?! It is definitely a PRO-LIFE moment nationally and internationally!
35 terrible years after Roe v. Wade - 35 years of legalized abortions and millions of babies slaughtered in the name of choice and convenience - we remember Roe v. Wade as the nightmare that has shaped and damaged lives forever! "Jane Roe" was the faceless, silent woman who would be famous for the Supreme Court's landmark decision to legalize abortion. Abortion is easily the single most galvanizing issue in our culture since the US "Civil War." Whether for LIFE or choice, the issue of abortion has dramatically impacted our society. Roe v. Wade made it possible to walk into an abortion clinic (often even without parental permission) and kill the child living in utero. No one warns the mother of the years of grief, guilt and agony she will experience as a result of her choice to abort her baby. Widely disseminated is the idea that the "fetus" is not a baby - that it's just a blob of tissue. The logical conclusion is then that getting rid of unwanted tissue has no moral consequence - of little more significance than taking a bath and scrubbing off dirt. Roe v. Wade was so much more than a judicial case and judgment. Roe v. Wade opened the gate for all kinds of brokenness. "Jane Roe" (aka Norma McCorvey) floundered for many years with substance abuse and guilt. 12 years ago Norma met a man who had the answer for her battered heart. His name is Jesus! According to today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Norma McCorvey finally found the peace she sought in the "change of heart that turned her life around." Jesus restored her heart and filled the empty spaces with Himself! So this Tuesday Norma McCorvey (aka "Jane Roe") will participate in the March for Life in Washington DC - another story of restoration happening one heart at a time!
