Abortion Stigma: Emily Letts and the Mark Left Behind

Abortion rights activists have begun a new campaign, one that is designed to erase the negative social “stigma” associated with abortion.  As part of the push, the Abortion Care Network sponsored a “Stigma Busting Video Competition,” and I’m sure by now you have already seen one result of that competition:  Emily Letts’ bizarre video of her abortion procedure.  Emily, who says she was inspired to become an “abortion doula,” says that she wanted to do the video to help women get over the guilt that “our society breeds.”

I don’t entirely blame Emily for her distorted view of where abortion guilt is coming from.  After all, she is only a pawn, albeit a fully knowledgeable and intelligent pawn, being used by the abortion industry.  She is trying to be brave, and she probably believes in some ways that she is helping women.  Yet, her speeches on the video aren’t very convincing proofs that abortion is easy or that you aren’t filled with immense regret when it is finished.  The activists are weakly trying to use her video to inspire more abortions, but I doubt that it is having the desired effect.  Emily seems sad, withdrawn, and sullen, even though she is saying some of the right things.

I’m afraid poor Emily is finding out first hand that the social stigma that her video claims to fight against is the least of her worries.  Emily and other deceived women who were told it was no big deal, that they aren’t ready for children, that they can’t handle this baby, are now plagued with a different kind of stigma.  You see, stigma has another meaning.  It can mean, simply, a mark.

So, these women move on with their lives, and they have no stretch marks to show for their pregnancies.  They have no sagging breasts or widened hips.  They have no squishy bellies that say that they once carried a living being inside of them.  But, they are marked.  They live with the knowledge of a baby that should have been.  And, they carry the heavy burden of guilt and remorse, even if they do feel relief that they didn’t have the baby.  The stigma that marks their spirits–mothers’ spirits–can’t be erased by thoughtful videos or enlightened-sounding conversations about abortion in Cosmo.

In fact, the spiritual stigma that wears on them and wears them out and seems everywhere is much, much harder to live with than the social stigma.  Because no voice of reason can truly make it go away.  No amount of loud postulating or quiet offerings of this-was-right-for-me can make it disappear.  It is real, and heavy, and immovable.

But, there is one who can cover the stigma on broken mama spirits.  And, He has a stigma or two of his own.  His hands and feet are marked with scars that say that no dark spot on a human soul need remain.  His marks whisper love to the Emilys of the world.

Jesus, the stigma bearer, the only hope for any of us.

Flashback Friday: Real Love

Originally posted on December 12, 2012.

We recently had a bout of the stomach virus at our house.  Anyone who has ever experienced such a thing knows how very unpleasant it is.  Anyone who’s been through it with kids knows things can get downright crazy.

At one point Sawyer was literally covered in vomit. I walked him to the bathroom to put him in the shower, and he was so miserable, so sad, so tired, he simply laid his head against me while we waited for the shower to warm up.  And I wasn’t disgusted by that.  I wasn’t sitting there thinking that I wish he wasn’t my son or I that I regretted getting pregnant and birthing him almost five years ago.  I didn’t yell at him to get away from me or tell him how gross he was.  I stroked his hair and patted him and told him everything was okay.  If anything, my love for him soared in that moment, when he needed me.  Then I took care in cleaning him up, putting clean clothes on him, and getting him tucked warmly into his bed again.  I spent the rest of my night straining to hear him in his room, ready to jump up if he needed me again.

It struck me later that for some reason we don’t think God can love us the way we love our children.  I am such a flawed, terribly imperfect human being, yet I felt such love for my son in his totally unlovely state in the middle of the night.  Why would I question whether God can love me in the same way? In an unfathomably better way?  When He finds me in a disgusting state, maybe He isn’t angry (the way I picture Him sometimes).  When I am so needy that I have to lean on Him just to stay upright, maybe He doesn’t get annoyed or frustrated. When I am covered head to toe in everything that is repulsive to Him, maybe He doesn’t regret that I am His child.  Maybe His love for me soars.  Maybe in those moments God enjoys just patting me and reassuring me that everything is going to be okay.  After all, if I can love Sawyer so much, how much more incredible must a holy, perfect God’s love for His children be?

I believe in that kind of love.  I’m so glad that I am His child.

Love and Other Tough Things

Following Christ is hard. Living the Christian life well is hard. The Bible is filled with hard teachings. We are called to love others, even those who hate us.

There have been times during the course of history when the call to love and to love well and to love everyone was considered the ultimate goal of Christianity. That love alone trumps every other truth of the Bible. And, if it were true that we could boil down the whole Bible to the simple truth: Love others, then Christianity might not be quite so hard to live out. If we could say that nothing matters more than loving others, then we would never be hated. We would never have to say hard things to one another. We would never have to speak truth that is unpopular.

But, the Bible has one other major command in it that cannot be ignored. The command is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And that command, to love God with all we have an all we are, demands that we are obedient to our Father. It means that we wrestle with our sins. It means that we stand up for the truth of His word. It means that we sharpen each other as iron sharpens iron, using the word of God to guide our every choice, every motive.

The Ten Commandments were handed down to Moses, not just to give us a set of rules follow, but to give us a clear way to see how far we are from the holiness of a perfect God, to show us how much we need a Savior in Jesus Christ. And, when Jesus arrived, He made it so clear that it isn’t the “rules” that matter, but the spirit behind the rules, which is one of total obedience, complete surrender to the God who loves us, who saves us, and, yes, who demands that we turn away from our sin and reach for a better way of living. A huge part of that way of living is loving others. But, there is much more to it. And, the other stuff? It’s a lot more involved that just saying “I love you.” It is laying down your life for others. It is laying down your life before a holy God, chasing Jesus’ example of living with love, with reverence for God, with hatred for sin, with humility of spirit, and with the knowledge that we are unworthy of His care and blessings. This way of living is being unpopular, even hated, for trying to kill off the sin in our lives, and it is being scorned for saying that we should.

And that is why Christianity is hard.

I know many who read this will laugh, scoff, tell me I’m ignorant, uneducated, naïve, brainwashed, and who knows what else. But, there is one authority in my life: the Word of God. So, throw stones as you see fit. My God can take it.

And, with His strength, I can, too.

Child Sacrifice in America

Disclaimer:  The anger in this article is directed at the abortion industry and the legislators who refuse to shut it down.  The anger is not for the women who have been victims of this industry.  If you have had an abortion, there is forgiveness and healing in Jesus Christ, and there is support in your local church.

I want to tell you a horror story. Many, many lifetimes ago, a people lived on this earth called the Amorites. They were a dark and sick people. Imagine with me that this morning dawned bright and cool in an Amorite city just as a beautiful, dark-haired angel of a baby boy entered the world. He cried as babies do when they leave the warm embrace of their mother’s womb. But, instead of being quickly wrapped in a warm blanket and placed in his mother’s eager arms, someone lifted him by one ankle and carried him, startled baby boy, cold and disoriented and hurting, outside, into the bright sunlight, into the cold morning air. He hung there, naked and crying and being shaken violently by the person who carried him so carelessly, so meanly. Soon they approached a large roaring fire, prepared and waiting. And, with little ceremony, the baby boy was thrown into the fire. People watched as he squirmed and squealed and made noises that didn’t even seem possible, trying in his instinctual way to escape the agony of his burning flesh. And, no one cried. And, no one felt much of anything. It was simply something that had to be done.

After a few moments, the baby stopped squirming. He stopped making the terrifying noises. He lay still and melted away on a pile of rotted wood and ash. And later someone gathered up whatever wasn’t burned away and threw it outside of the city, where they forgot about it.

It is believed that scenes like this one happened repeatedly during the history of this evil people, the Amorites, and we are disgusted when we read about it. Every part of the humanity inside of us cries out in protest as we think of this precious one, and others like him, being burned alive and left for dead by the very adults who should be protecting him. Whatever the reason behind this practice, we would never be able to say, Well, in that case, it’s okay. Burning babies alive is necessary in some instances. No, we would never, could never, ever say that. Because we know, no matter when or how or where or why, burning people, especially babies, until they are dead is inherently wrong and evil and unforgiveable.

Fast forward many, many years. The year is 2014. In the past twelve months, over a million babies have been sacrificed in similar ways, many burned alive by a harmless sounding solution called saline. Somehow it seems so much easier to condemn the Amorites for their evil practices than to condemn us for ours. Yet, here we are, the by-standers. The people who go about our daily routines, knowing that helpless human babies are being carelessly yanked from their mothers’ wombs and thrown into the fire, where they melt into mere waste and are thrown out with the garbage.

The reasons, they seem important.  They almost seem legitimate until we remember, precious baby, round and healthy, the pulling, the shaking, the squirming, the agony.  The melting away of a human soul into a pile of trash, nothing more, and everyone goes home and has dinner and watches TV.

And in this we condemn ourselves.  Turns out we are no better than the wicked and evil and brutal Amorites.  We are committing sins that will call for such a reckoning.  I’m not sure if we can withstand the judgment.  And millions and millions of children, who would’ve been adults, who would’ve been who knows what, who would’ve mattered to the world, are crying out from their dumpster graves for justice.

But, we just can’t seem to stay focused.  Not when it’s so difficult to think about.  Not when it seems far removed from our church pews.

Not when people deserve choices.

I wonder if that little Amorite baby would choose the warmth of his mother’s arms over excruciating death by fire?  I wonder.

Murder is easy.  We look at it, and we say what a shame and we tsk, tsk and justify and justify and justify.  And, somehow we think ourselves better than the ignorant ancients who threw their babies on the fire to appease some non-existent god.

But, we’re not.  Not at all, actually.

At least the Amorites were trying to please a make-believe God.  We are only trying to please ourselves.

And we keep kindling the fire.

How We Take Pride in Our Sin

I’ve always found it sort of trite, the moment when someone tells you their story, filled with bad decision after bad decision, riddled with tons of errors in judgment, followed by the inevitable statement: But, I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything I’ve gone through has made me the person I am today. 

We’ve all heard it.  Most of us have said it.  And, I get the thinking behind it.  We look around at our current life.  We see that, yes, we made it.  We’re smarter now than we were then.  We have gained lots of blessings, some of which seem like the direct result of some big mistake we made in our past.  And, so, we reach for that obvious conclusion:  BECAUSE I did that dumb thing, I received this wonderful blessing.

But, that is faulty reasoning, if you’re a Christian.  Because the mistakes that we’re looking back on?  Most often they are more than just innocent errors in judgment.  Those mistakes are sin.  We’re actually looking on sinful disobedience from our past, and we’re glorifying it.  We’re declaring that our sins were okay because they set us on a course for getting a big blessing.

And, our sins MAY HAVE set us on a course for a big blessing.  But, not BECAUSE of our sin.  There’s is only one reason that we are ever blessed in the midst of our sinfulness.  And that is because God has mercy on us.  He accomplishes His will in our lives despite our mess ups.  And, He blesses and blesses even though we don’t deserve it.

So, when we are telling our stories, we should be filled with humility.  It’s okay for us to acknowledge the incredible blessing that came from a bad situation.  But, let’s not try to turn our sins into something to be celebrated.  We can and should celebrate the victory we have over those past sins, thanks to the blood of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of God.  But, with hearts respectful of the Father who blessed despite our disobedience, let’s acknowledge that while we wouldn’t change the blessing for the whole big beautiful world, we sure would change the disobedience that plagued our past.

And then we humbly turn our hearts toward God to help us keep from stumbling today.

The Bitter and the Sweet

Watching Adelade become a Christian was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  Watching her grow as a Christian isn’t so easy.  I see her growing pains as she confronts her own sin.  She has moments of truly detesting the disobedience in her life.   She’s an eight year old preacher’s daughter who has been in church her whole life, aware that “all have sinned” since she was in the two year old Sunday school class.  When we look at her life, we may think that her sins are pretty insignificant.  But, to her they are huge.

She’s reached an age where we battle over what she will wear.  She wants to wear t-shirts and jeans.  I want her to dress up sometimes.  We’ve had many talks about the attitude that she gets when the little line on the toe of her socks is bothering her.  The incredulousness when I suggest that she might need to take a nap.  And, she can go along like that for awhile.  And then one day it all caves in on her and she is overcome by her hatred for her disobedience, her sin.

It’s not popular to talk about children sinning.  Or to suggest that they should be mindful that they are disobeying God when they disobey their parents.  But, this is Truth.  And, whether I say it or not,  Adelade struggles.  She has classic  Romans 7:15 moments: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  She cries and wonders if she can be obedient.  She truly does not understand why she sometimes chooses to disobey.

And, I watch her wrestle with this.  It breaks my heart because I understand exactly how she feels.  Wasn’t it just last week that I was in tears myself, wondering why I continue to do what I hate?  Asking why it is that I don’t do the things I know I should?  Why I choose to disobey God?  Why I can’t seem to cut the sin out of my life that I detest so very much?  The Christian life is full of so many bitter and sweet truths.

The bitter truth is that we will never be sinless in this life.  The sweet truth is that God loves us anyway.

The bitter truth is that we are tempted every day.  The sweet truth is that with God’s help we can overcome temptation.

In Adelade’s Christian walk I see the sweet:  the worship, the striving to be more like Christ, the reaching out to those in need, the love, the soft-heartedness.  And I see the bitter:  the inner turmoil over sin, the desire to be different, the pain in acknowledging disobedience.

I think in this bittersweet journey of Christianity, and in the bitter and sweet moments of watching my child stretch and grow and endure the pain of being conformed to the image of our Savior, I have a significant role to play.  I can encourage her to run to the Lord.  To ask for help.  I can acknowledge that none of us can manage this task of growing in faith and obedience without God’s help.  I can sympathize.  I can help her see where she is struggling.  I can pray for her.

And sometimes, like tonight, I can remind her that I would die for her.  That I would stand between her and a million bullets or speeding trains or tornados or runaway cars.  And that nothing she does could ever change my love her or God’s love for her.

And then I go to my room and I remind myself of the same thing:  God loves me.  And that’s not going to change.

It’s funny just how much a 36 year old woman can have in common with an 8 year old girl.  We both struggle.  We both need a Savior.  And we’re both feeling growing pains.

Thank God we know a Healer.   I pray that I will point Adelade to Him more than I point her to her own failures or my own victories.  The truth is that her disobedience isn’t an indication that she disrespects me.  It’s a symptom of the bitter problem of humanity, sin.   And, if I want to teach her that the growing pains are worth it, I won’t act superior.  I will simply humbly point her to Christ, admitting that I need Him, too.  It helps to remember that I am not just teaching her to obey me.  I am teaching her to reach out for Christ-like-ness with all of her heart.  The result is more obedience.  God was so smart when He designed things that way.

So, in every waking hour we two will experience some of the bitter and some of the sweet of Christianity.  May we grow toward God together, being more obedient along the way.   Lord, help me lead where I want her to follow.

 

God’s Good Will

Today I engaged in one of my all-time favorite activities. I went to Goodwill. I love digging through racks that are over-stuffed with cast offs. I adore searching for that amazing treasure that is sure to be hidden, just waiting for the person who is willing to weed through all the junk. In fact, I am such a dork about thrift shopping that I just wait for someone to compliment what I’m wearing so I can say the actual Goodwill slogan: “I got it at Goodwill.”

When I’m shopping like that, no kids, no distractions, just me and the rows and rows of faded jeans and holey shirts, I get focused. I mean, really focused. I hardly even notice that screaming children are everywhere or that good-natured workers are singing to the radio. In those moments, it is just me and the challenge of finding some incredible deal buried underneath the worn.

But today, my usually peaceful experience was interrupted by a man a few rows over. He had been wandering around the store with a child in his cart, but honestly I had hardly noticed him before the yelling started.

He stood at the end of his row, yelling to a woman who was presumably his wife. He was hollering about how rude people are. He shouted that no one has any manners anymore. He proceeded to loudly tell her about how many people had been blocking the rows, as if they were afraid he was going to swoop in and steal their bargains. Then he specifically pointed out a teenager who had offended him, all the while yelling across the store, disturbing an otherwise harmonious environment to rudely exclaim just how rude people are. All I could think was, Oh, the irony.

And, wouldn’t you know it, my shopping delight was further interrupted when the thought suddenly hit me right between my formerly focused eyes that I am exactly like the rude screamer. How, you ask? If only you knew how often I have criticized other people for things that I am doing myself. I seem to love to point out sins of others that I personally struggle with. I’m not sure why we have the tendency to do that. I’ve found that the sins we are least understanding about are the ones we are dealing with on a regular basis. Did you know that I have actually gossiped about how much people gossip? Have you heard that I have a tendency to meanly let Chad know about it if I feel he has been mean to me? Do you realize that I can discuss how horrible it is that Christian people would watch a certain movie RIGHT AFTER I have watched some trashy television show?

Oh, yes. I am the epitome of the rude screamer.

I guess that’s why Jesus advised us to be careful about such things:

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.  (Matthew 7:3-5)

If the logs He is talking about are sins that you try to ignore, if they are pet inconsistencies and  the things that plague your spirit, then sometimes I feel like I have a forest or two in my eye.  No wonder I have a hard time seeing my fellow Christians clearly!  Yet, I blindly try to diagnose everyone else’s sin problems.  Meanwhile, I look and sound and am about as effective as the man in Goodwill, being exactly what I hate.  Rude as rude can be.  Blindly pointing out the problems with other people, with a sense of superiority, even while everyone can see that I have the exact. same. problems.

I think that’s where love comes in.  Love is the answer.  It is what can help me overlook the flaws in others.  It is what helps other people overlook the flaws in me.  God has gifted us with the ability to love as He loves.  Not only that, but He commanded us to do it.

My criticism of other Christians is truly ironic.  It would be laughable if it weren’t so destructive.  I pray that God’s love will spill out of me faster and louder than any negative word.  I am determined to continue to try and clear out some of the dense and dark forests in my eye, because I want to see clearly, not so I can criticize more accurately or with a greater sense of superiority, but so that I can be more effectively used by God to love others.

Just so you know, the rude screamer settled down and left the store without incident.  Isn’t it incredible, though, how God used the man, even in his rudeness, to show me more of Himself?  What a lesson from the Lord.  I got it at Goodwill.

Greater Grace

Motherhood brings many gifts. One of the greatest is getting to see yourself through your child’s eyes. I’ve noticed that children carry inside their little beings loads of grace. It’s as if they are born with extra measures of grace to hand out to others. I’m not sure why we lose that as we get older. It seems like we get stingy with grace as we age.

But, when I see myself the way my kids see me, it’s as if I get a special little nudge from the Holy Spirit. This is how God sees you, he seems to whisper. When they love me despite my faults. When they go out of their way to show me how much they care about me. When they truly seem to think I’m the best thing they’ve ever seen, even though I’m a dork and awkward in a lot of ways and of course one of the most experienced sinners that they know. They don’t seem to see any of that. They just love me.

Last night I got one of those special messages of grace. I have been really beating myself up about some of the things I say. My mouth is such a detriment to my spiritual well-being. Sometimes I think about things that I’ve said about someone, and I cringe inside and my whole being reminds me that I am such a weak person, that I’m such a long way from killing off my sinful nature. And then I stop and think of where Adelade was when I said it. And I picture her sweet face, eyes intently focused on me as she watches me sin. And I wonder how she can stand me. The mother who seems to expect her to always do the right thing. The mother who preaches one thing and often does another. The imperfect mother. The hypocrite.

And I wonder the same thing about God sometimes. How can He stand me? How can He look at me and think that I have anything to contribute to His kingdom when I can’t even shut my mouth? In front my children at least, for crying out loud?

All of these thoughts were running through my mind last night as I stepped out of the shower. The room was foggy, and I noticed some writing etched into the fogged up mirror. It was a message that Adelade must’ve written in the cloudy mirror after her shower. I hadn’t seen it when she wrote it, and it disappeared between showers, so it was invisible to me before I fogged up the bathroom. It said:

Mama and Daddy

I love you!

And there it was.  The message of grace I needed to receive.

In that moment, all of the truths that I know about God, myself, and my children came flooding back to me.  In that simple phrase I remembered that God sees the righteousness of Christ when He looks at me.  I remembered that yes, I am weak, and in my weakness God can shine and show off His power and might.  I remembered that my children know I’m not perfect.  And, trying to act as if I am would be foolish.  They need to see me mess up and make things right.  They need to know that I have as much grace for them as they have for me because I KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE to do what my spirit says not to do.  I understand how easy it is to let the sinful nature rule your mouth and your actions.  They need to know that about me because they need to know that I need grace.  They need to know we all need a Savior.

It just keeps amazing me how I try so hard to be an example for my children, and over and over again they end up being an example for me.  I want to remember that I am living in an unchanging state of grace, that I am who God says I am, and that Jesus has already paid for my past, present, and future sins.  When I am feeling worthless, God, often through my children, reminds me that I am loved.  This love isn’t conditional.  It isn’t based on anything I do or don’t do.  It is based on who I am.  I am a child of God, and I am my kids’ only mother.  I’m so thankful for the grace that God shows me.  I’m so humbled to know that even when I mess up, He sends me messages of love.  And this is how He gives me strength to continue to fight against my sin.  These children and this Savior, they make me want to destroy forever the sin in my life.

Like Adelade’s message in the mirror, there are whispers of grace all around me.  When I see myself through my childrens’ eyes, I can see the beauty that God has infused into my spirit.  Even when things get foggy, when sin makes my reflection unclear, I see His writing on my soul.  It says, Melissa, I love you.