Monday, March 01, 2004
I woke up at around 4 A.M. when Tee-tee Boy got up to use the potty. His daddy wakes him up to go so he won't go in the bed. Little One cries all the way to the potty and back. Heehee! Anyway, all the fussin' woke me up, and I couldn't go back to sleep.
Here in the darkness the mind starts working and takes me places sometimes that I do not want to go. I turned on the radio and got on the laptop and surfed until I finally found the Carter's side-snap baby undershirts I have been scouring the surface of the earth for.
Ugh, Butterfly Kisses is on the radio. Way too sappy.
I think part of the reason I can't sleep is because in three hours or so the plan is to see Elise's face for the first time. Today's the day for the 4D ultrasound. They're going to give me a disk of jpgs, so you too might see Elise today!
Wella, wella...It's still not quite six in the morning, so I guess maybe I'll try to catch one or two winks before the big event. I'm sort of dreading going to the office a little bit because everyone is so dang grumpy there all the time, and yes, I have every intention of asking a healthy person if I may have her seat on the couch.
My MIL is taking me because my husband has taken so much time off of work that he is starting to get nervous. It will be good for her to see Elise before she is born and doubly good for her to take some pictures back to my FIL, a preacher, who has told me such things as "Abortion isn't my issue," and "It's not a baby until it comes out crying." My husband says his dad doesn't really mean these things and that he's just protecting himself because he lost his grandchild in an abortion. My MIL once told my husband that ending the life of a gestating child is "a choice between a woman and 'her' god." That may be, but the one and only God has told us which choice is acceptable to Him
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.” Deut. 30:19
Dealing with my in-laws' perspectives has been deeply, personally painful for my husband and me, and in the context of preachers, Christianity and God, I have to say that I wish I could make this avid, church-going couple really care about these little people, created by God's own Hand.
“Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” Job 31:15
By His own Word God calls children His reward.
“Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from Him.” Psalm 127:3
Further, I wish that everyone who professes faith in Christ could understand that a woman does not belong to herself.
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
One who bears the mark of Christ upon her soul can only make the choice that God advocates—even when the temptation to escape a crisis pregnancy is overwhelming. When God compels a woman: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” (Mark 12:31), He advocates the choice of love.
“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.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
And Love, ladies and gentlemen, does not make a woman a grave.
“For he did not kill me in the womb, with my mother as my grave, her womb enlarged forever.” Jeremiah 20:17
Ben Franklin had it right when he said, "Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other." That is me all over. I supported abortion staunchly and yet was somehow simultaneously "religious" for 25 years of my life. Nothing any "lifer" ever said affected me. Ironically, abortion itself made me understand that if my child was a child they all are. And when is it ever OK to kill children? Is there ever a reason that really justifies it? When we see heartbreaking pictures of starving, suffering children do we think “bomb them” or “feed them?” What is happening to us? The shock of realizing I'd been duped by rhetoric and, appallingly, my own egocentricity all my life, combined with the traumatic aftermath of abortion, finally made me take notice of how contradictory my ethics were. And I learned what God really has to say on His terms. It doesn’t take the problems away, but it does convince me that there have to be other solutions. God’s solutions.
And I'll tell you one thing: When Jesus said, "Let the little children come to Me," (Matthew 19:14) I don't think He meant for us to pack them into jars and ship them to Him personally.
Ben Franklin had another wise saying: "He that doth what he should not, shall feel what he would not." And, from the perspective of a woman who aborted her child, I would not want anyone to feel what I feel.
Later today I will see the face of my unborn daughter, and I will see the truth.
