Choose Life
"Now choose life so that you and your children may live." Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)
The 2017 national March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. was historic by all accounts. For the first time in the March's 43-year history, a sitting Vice President or President of the United States attended the event. Vice President Mike Pence energized the pro-life crowd when he firmly declared, "Life is winning!" Pence wasn't the only high ranking government official who attended the pro-life rally. Kellyanne Conway, representing President Donald Trump's administration, encouraged the pro-life marchers when she said, "We hear you. We see you. We respect you. And we look forward to working with you." And Senator Joni Ernst, the junior senator from Iowa, electrified the crowd when she announced that she is introducing legislation to defund federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider.
I have never marched in the National March for Life, but I vividly remember marching in the 1989 Birmingham March for Life. That march coincided with Daniel's first birthday on January 21, 1989. As I pushed Daniel's stroller along the crowded Birmingham city streets, I wondered how different our lives and our family would be had Bruce and I followed our doctor's advice on our last two pregnancies. Different doctors in two different cities had offered us abortion as an option for both James Bruce and Daniel. I never expected to be personally confronted with abortion, especially as a 29 year old happily married mother of two pre-schoolers. I can only imagine how helpful those doctors' advice would sound to a single pregnant teenager. With the births of James Bruce and Daniel, our confessional pro-life worldview became intensely personal.
James Bruce turned 33 years old last week. His birthday is always hard for me. There are times when I grow weary of parenting a special needs son. I never could have imagined still sleeping with baby monitors and listening for seizures at this stage of my life. Bruce and I marvel at our friends who complain about being "empty nesters," an option that we can never envision. There are times, I confess, when I would love to switch places for just a week. But then I consider all that I would have missed without the incredible blessing of both James Bruce and Daniel's lives. And I am acutely aware that I am not the only one who would have missed out on these extraordinary two blessings. Our marriage, children, extended family, grandchildren, and ministry would also have been very different without James Bruce and Daniel's lives.
Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life is one of my all time favorite movies. In one of the movie's most memorable lines, Clarence the angel tells George Bailey, "Each man's life touches so many other lives, and when he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?" With over 50 million abortions performed in the United States since the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973, that's a lot of holes--and lives.
God, the Author of life, encourages us throughout His Word to choose life in order that we may live.
Amen and Amen!
Donna