Can I be honest here?

This topic feels daunting to me. I have shared and shared and shared…prayed and prayed and prayed… and it still feels like a mountain too steep for me to climb.

This topic is one that is controversial. People on either side have STRONG opinions that are immovable.

It is one that has effected people from 80 and 90 years old to those who are just a wee speck in their mother’s eye.

Yet, here I go, beating on that drum still hoping to make some difference, a beautiful noise, in this orchestra of opinions.

Life. It matters. So much. That baby still in their mother’s womb. That baby born just two seconds ago. That baby born 6 months ago. That person born 86 years ago. Each one, each soul, conceived into this world and walking through a life that was not necessarily one they chose.

Sin has tarnished this life with grief, hurt, pain, sadness, terror, sickness. Each person in this world will experience one of those things, but most likely multiple of those things in their lifetime. No one is free from the pain of this sin-stricken world. The soul who is still in their mother’s womb, to the soul who is 86 years old. Each of us, feeling the pain. Each of us, trying our best to manage and cope with what life is all about.

I can see where those on the opposite side of the spectrum are coming from and I know they don’t have ill-intentions. They don’t think abortion is “good,” per se, but they say it is a necessary evil. They want women, who have been treated as “less than” for so long, to be treated with “equality.” Good endeavors and great intentions. They look at the rate of children born into this world to families that are subpar. They see the rate of children born into this world without families at all – motherless and fatherless. They see the rate of children brought into this world where the mother has to deal with the pain and scars of rape. They are told their baby will be born with a birth defect or with a disability. Where is the fairness in bringing a child into the world with those odds against them? These things are a reality in this world, so I get it. I get that you want to fight against them; I do.

To be honest, it pains me that that is the reality of this world. I want to fight against them. But, it has been that way since Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God. It is a painful reality (but, thankfully, not one without hope).

I think, in the world’s venture to rectify the wrong they see, they end up choosing another wrong choice. In the process of “saving” those children from a life condemned to poverty, pain, sickness, terror, and hurt, they end up condemning those sweet children to death.

Each one not even given the chance to redeem their own story. I have countless friends who have been adopted and have rewritten the story that was supposed to be written for them. Friends who have families. Friends who now have stable jobs and houses and cars and things. They weren’t even supposed to graduate high school because they grew up in the foster system. Yet, in the world’s standard, they are making it. I would say they are even thriving.

And to take it even farther beyond just the world’s standard, in God’s standard they are “making it.” They love Jesus. They are following him and walking alongside of Him. Their life is producing fruit.

But, but, but…they were born and are in foster care waiting to be adopted. But, but, but…they were born into a family with only the mother. But, but, but…they were born into a family with teen parents.

Why do these things matter? Why are you condemned to death because your parents don’t want you? Why are you condemned to death because of your parent’s choices? Why are you condemned to death because of the sin of another?

Asking these questions, I am reminded of someone else who was in a similar situation to these sweet children. He had teen parents who were not yet married when he was in his mother’s womb. Though his parent’s did not sin, they were looked on by the community with disdain. If it was current day and if fear or shame got the best of them, they could have chosen to make the same decision that many parents in this world make – to take their child’s life in the womb.

Jesus came into this world birthed by a teen mother. She was betrothed to Joseph, but they weren’t married. To those in her family and community, and even to Joseph at one point, she was seen as an outcast and untrustworthy and deceitful. Once the baby was born, the ruler of the time wanted to kill her baby (crazy environment to be born into). But, she carried on because she had purpose and conviction. She knew, as a woman, what her responsibilities were; she was entrusted this baby. And she knew that if she did the right thing and followed the Lord that it would have an outcome much bigger than herself.

And it did. The baby she bore went on to be the savior of the world. He was born so that the world could be saved. He was born so that he would die a criminals death though he was without guilt.

That is the crux of the whole issue here. When we decide to play God and take life and death into our own hands, we rob the world of the chance that that sweet soul has to make an impact on this world. There will not be another baby Jesus (and thank God that “it is finished!”), but each person, because they are created by God, has a right to a chance at life.

Who are we to decide that their situation is not “good?” If Mary had made that choice, we would be in a completely different place than we are now, wouldn’t we?

What blessed hope we have, because even when we make the decision to choose what God does not want, he still has forgiveness, grace, mercy, and love for us!

Daily we rebel against his wishes, yet he welcomes us and adopts us as his own. That’s the beauty of the gospel message – we have hope! Those sweet babies born into horrible situations have hope. That teen mom in the crisis pregnancy has hope. That sweet woman who was brutalized and terrorized now with a young baby in her womb has hope. Jesus does not discriminate against the type of sin we have. In fact, because we are sinners we are qualified now to receive his grace and mercy.

So, that daunting, steep mountain that seems impossible to summit…well…it isn’t impossible with God. He has overcome death, and that powerful Jesus that overcame death now lives in us.

I choose life. Regardless of the world’s standards. Regardless of the worlds attempts at fixing and rectifying. I choose not to try to make something right by doing another wrong. Join me, will you, in this fight for hope to win, in this fight for love to win?

I want to make a beautiful noise while on this earth, and I wont settle for mediocre or subpar. I want to be excellent. I want to please the One who created me, not this world.