I won’t be passive about the evil destroying women and children

greyscale photo of woman sitting on chair
Photo by Daryl Wilkerson Jr on Pexels.com

First I want to confess, I’m a coward by nature. I, like Pilate, avoid conflict, washing my hands of decisions that might cost me peace. Without the reigns of the Spirit of Jesus in my life, I would trot off down the path of keeping peace, shutting my mouth. I would disguise my passivity, hoping it would come off as piety- seeing both sides of an issue- yet never taking a stand.  That said, I am my mother’s daughter, and when I smell injustice I want to hunt down the predator and rescue the prey from his mouth.  But most of the time this fierceness gets stamped out by the part of me that doesn’t want to deal with the damage my truth-telling might cause- mostly I don’t want to be cut off, or cast out.  This putrid, passive stance would be me without Jesus every day.  But I’m not without him. He exposed me with his words, rescued me with his line in the sand, calling me daughter.  He’s been making me brave ever since, trading my peace-keeping comfort-lust for peace-making confrontation-in-love.

Taking up your cross and following Jesus is not a self-flagellating quality that proves your worth. Taking up your cross and following Jesus is what the Bible Project call, “the way of the exile.” It’s a practice of what they call subversive hope, where by both speaking boldly and serving self-sacrificially, a Christian exposes evil and suffers the pain of another’s sin and judgement.

So I need to take up a cross and say something: Deliberately destroying the life of an unborn human being is evil.  Saying that, I hear my friends and my passionately-left, now-with-Jesus grandma’s argument that the evil done to women is too great and that if someone has to die, it shouldn’t be the woman or girl.  I see both sides. I can’t help it. The self-preserving nature in me would see both perspectives and say nothing. But Jesus, who said to the woman at the well, “You’re right. You’ve had 5 husbands and the man you’re with now isn’t your husband,” and then offered her his life, won’t let me be silent about the evil destroying women and their children.

The argument that Pro-Life anti-abortionists are hypocrites because they don’t do anything but protest abortion and make women in vulnerable positions feel condemned is an attempt at diversion. In a tweet thread I read today (can’t remember who wrote it) the writer pointed out that just because a person stands openly against abortion and for the life of the unborn doesn’t mean they are not doing their part to support women and girls in crisis with unwanted pregnancies. It doesn’t mean they aren’t for life-preserving sacrifices for the elderly, the disabled, the immigrant, the poor and the marginalized.

The argument that women in crisis shouldn’t have to go through the torment of pregnancy and child-rearing or the torture of giving their child up for adoption comes down to a belief about suffering and human worth. If you believe that the woman’s life or quality of life is more valuable than the unborn child’s life or quality of life then you believe the child should suffer the death required to keep the mother alive and well. But if you believe that someone is going to have to die in this sin-bearing relationship of mother to child, and you believe it should be the strong who lays down their life for the weak, then the mother should be the one to suffer the daily death and maybe even the ultimate death to give a child life.

Giving life to another always involves some dying to self. It’s just the way life works. Even seeds have to die for plants to be born.

I’m reading the Dignity Revolution right now (finally). Last night I read this:

“…I wonder, had I been a German Christian, living under the rule of the Third Reich, would I have possessed the unyielding conviction to resist the pressure to conform, to see the Jews as less than human? Would I have had the courage to step forward and affirm in my actions the dignity of those being sent off to their deaths, even at a high cost to my own privilege?” (Chapter 2)

It’s easy to look back on the Holocaust and be aghast at the atrocities, condemning those who were explicit, implicit and passive in the evil done to Jews. It’s so obvious. How could they have thought it justifiable? The same way we do.

One day, just as Karen Swallow Prior wrote at Vox, posterity will look back on me, on us, and be appalled at the evil we perpetuated, justified or did nothing to speak against or stop.  As I live in the presence of the One who laid down his life for me, I cannot be silent.

Today, I saw a clip from a PBS documentary on elective abortion.  In the short clip, a woman early in her pregnancy with twins took the first of the two medications that would kill her unborn babies. And she knew it. And at the end of the clip she said, “What I hope I feel, is a sense of peace, not only with myself and the decision that I’ve made, but also a sense of peace with these two beings that I’ve chosen not to bring into the world. Thank you for choosing me. And I’m honored to be given this gift of life. And also I can’t do it right now. I can’t accept that mantle in terms of the other lives that I’m taking care of and I’m responsible for.”

Life is always born out of someone else’s sacrifice, someone else’s sort of death.  Confusion breeds evil. This woman’s confusion about where life comes from, and who should die has her believing the evil that says, “Life. You can take it or leave it. It doesn’t have to cost you anything.” But the truth is all life is born at the tearing, the bleeding, the breaking, the dying of one for another.

I hear the critics of my convictions about abortion crying foul and I am listening. I’m examining myself. I’m asking what I can do to apply my belief about suffering and sacrifice and life and human worth to all human beings, no matter their sexual orientation, color of skin, immigration status, age, religion, income or addictions. I believe I should die. I should lay down my life. I should be willing to suffer so that others might live. I believe husbands should do this for their wives, and leaders should do this for their followers and mothers should do this for their children, and Christians should do this for their neighbors.  All of them.

Thinking of Julie

Summer break is over. The kids begin their first full week of school tomorrow. The first day of school was Wednesday last week. Made for a nice testing of the waters before the full fledged dive in this week.

 I’ve had much on my mind. Heavy things. Hard things. I can’t speak it. I can’t write it. I’m just… heavy.

James has been selected to fill a temporary sergeant position at work.  He’ll be switching from a 6 am to 4 pm, Monday thru Thursday, come home for lunch if you want, get called in at 3 am and not come home till 9 pm the next day schedule to a 8 pm to 6 am four days a week schedule.  Yep. Night shift.  Which means two parents will be working nights in this house.  I don’t think it’s gonna fly.

I spoke with my supervisor at work Saturday night to see if I could possibly switch to a days shift position.  I don’t really want to work days to be honest.  It’s much more… chaotic.  Too many doctors and therapists and managers asking you to do this and that on top of what you need to do to actually see the people in the beds and care for them. I’m not very good at switching from one task to the other in rapid succession without lots of balls being dropped.  And when the balls you juggle as a nurse involve people’s lives, dropping is not an option.  Needless to say I feel a bit nervous about possibly going to days.  We’ll see.

Suicide has left it’s deep, debilitating scar on my life.  When I was 15, one of my best girlfriends from 8th grade shot herself on her elementary school playground.  I had just come home from a mission trip to Mexico with the youth group at my church.  Something, at the time, I really didn’t want to do, but was pushed into by my parents who were worried that I was hanging out with the wrong crowd.  I’m so glad they pushed me.  It was a turning point in my life.  A turning toward my Savior.  I’ll never forget my mom sitting with me in the parking lot of Fred Myer in Roseburg, Oregon telling me that Julie was dead.

Julie is not in this photo.  This was take at my 15th birthday just a year or so before I went to Mexico and before Julie took her life.  My best friend at the time, Delcina, is to the right and one of my other “Mod” friends, Laura, is on the far right.  Both of these girls were part of the group of kids I was hanging out with that had my parents so concerned.  They were good friends.  We were stupid kids.  Completely self-centered.  Totally absorbed with our own inane thinking.  Nothing we obsessed about was worth taking our lives for.   We were thinkers though.  We wanted to be different.  We wanted to live outside the box.  We thought were breaking away.  We had no idea we were dead in our trespasses and sins or what that even meant.  We had no idea we were utterly loved and rescued by the One who created us.  We had no idea we were created to know and be known by God.  We had no idea real life was someone who really was outside the box- a new Man. We had no idea how He loved us!

Julie was a poet, an artist and a drama queen.  She was fun loving and reckless.  When she decided to end her life, her violent act struck the many who loved her too.  It didn’t just take her life, it destroyed parts of ours.  My heart aches for Mr. Williams’ wife and family and friends.  My heart aches deep in that wound Julie left for Mr. Williams and the dear ones I have known who bought the lie and in the darkness and poison of that lie took their life and irreversibly wounded the lives of those around them.

The Bible says there is Liar out there.  A Father of Lies who’s sole mission in this time and space is to kill, steal and destroy.  His lies are alluring.  Violence looks inviting.  Death looks like hope.  Destruction looks like pleasure.  A trap looks like freedom.

The Bible also says there is One who is the way, the truth and the life.  He has come that we might have life… to the full.  And at his side, beyond the cross we bear as we die to ourselves and follow him, are pleasures forevermore.  He is right, if you desire to keep this life you will loose it, but if you loose it for his sake, you’ll keep it.

Quieted,
Sheila

Road trip day #1

Today after church we began our annual road trip to “Oregon”… We always say that but really it’s initially a road trip to Redding, CA where my sister lives. Eventually we get to Oregon.

In the past, I’d wake the kids early in the morning, load them in the car, and we make it closer to Sacramento before stopping for the night. But since we didn’t get on the road till about noon, after church, I decided to stop for the night in Thousand Oaks, CA.

I like Thousand Oaks. Everything grows here! Only the Santa Monica Mountains separate us from the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to go to the beach tonight but I’m just toast. Working night shift Friday night and then getting up early this morning has my body pretty fatigued. I plan to go to the beach either in the morning with the boys or on the way back home to AZ on Thursday.

I love road trips! There’s just something about the open road. I guess I like the feeling that I’m going somewhere. Sometimes life feels like you’re going nowhere. When you’re on the road, you’re going somewhere.

I’m glad I stayed for church this morning. I needed to get my compass pointed the right direction before I hit the road. It’s hard to hear the preacher preach on a subject that is a specific point of sin in your own life. As I listened today, I wondered if this is how folks feel when they hear a sermon on divorce after they’ve gone through one- or more- themselves. It’s hard, but it’s good.

I’m confident not a single person who’s gone through a divorce would hear a sermon on what God has joined together let no one separate and be opposed to what they heard. They, in fact, would probably be the first to stand up and say, “Amen!” They know the pain themselves. They know the damage. They know God hates divorce. They know… they hate it too. The same goes for the woman, who married an unbelieving man, who listens to the pastor preach from Ezra 9 and 2 Corinthians 6. Amen! The damage is extensive. There is no fellowship. The heart is drawn away from God, and then, when won back (if won back), is faced with the heartache of being separate in what God designed to be joined together.

During the sermon my oldest son looked over at me with a, “You’re busted,” look on his face. He knows. He grieves. He feels the ripping apart that comes with living with unequally yoked parents. Even though I hate it for my kids, I pray that the mercy and grace of my good God will use the pain they experience now to prevent them from going down the same path and cause them to love God’s ways, which are good. All the time.

We’ll talk about it tonight before we go to sleep.  Which is in about 30 minutes.  Time to sign off.

 Quieted,
Sheila

A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches.- Proverbs 11:16

I get myopic real easy.  Especially when I’m in pain.  I need to go to church once a week if for no other reason than to get my head pulled out of the proverbial sand and aimed higher than Tuesday!

I’ve used up the 9 volt battery in my Tens 3000 which has effectively taken me from unbearable to bearable in the pain department.  But I’m glad that didn’t happen until after my head was lifted.  It’s easy to give thanks when the trouble has passed, its faith to give thanks in the midst of the trouble.

This morning, sitting there, cringing for a less painful position, faith came by hearing.  Hearing God’s word.  Truth greater than my circumstance.  How petty.  Who cares!  It’s gonna pass in a flash and what’s waiting is better than Italy!  Thank you Lord for your patience with my numb-head self and your Word which yanks me out of the pit and into the light!

My back is actually feeling a lot better tonight after three days of rest, ice, and electricity.  I hope to learn something from either the chiropractor or the physical therapist or both that will help me prevent this from happening again.

My sister is fighting a much tougher battle with her broken wrist, post-surgical plat and pin placement.  Numbness and tendon damage may be irr-reversible.  Lift her head Lord!  Lift her head!  I pray tomorrow’s follow-up brings news of surprising improvements and a positive prognosis.

Tonight I read about Christians in Syria fleeing for their lives.  My husband read about another high-school teacher having sex with her students and her husband’s non-issue with it since they regularly engage in threesomes. And tonight Ryland asked me what Nine – Eleven is.  

We were asked today what on the list of 13 from Romans 12:9-13 were most missing from the Church in 2012 Phoenix Metro. 

“Abhor what is evil.  Hold fast to what is good.”  I said it out loud tonight as James was reading the headlines.  I told Ryland very matter-of-factly, “Men set out to do evil on September 1, 2001.”

I was convicted.  Its easy to see the evil of 9-1-01.  The evil of sexual deviance is poo-pooed not abhorred.  What about lying?  Causing division in a family?  Having a looking-down-my-nose-at-you look in my eye?  The taking of an inconvenient life? (Check here for more)

Create in me a clean heart oh God!  Renew a right spirit within me!  Cause me to abhor what You abhor for You are good.  Totally and completely good!  You are love!  You never hate something wrongly!  You don’t abhor something that is ok.  You don’t twist truth.  You aren’t calling wrong wrong just for the fun of it.  You are good.  Nothing you hate is good.   Give me the courage and humility to say what You say.

Quieted,
Sheila

Truth fails

Have you heard of this, Whale Wars? It’s a new series on Animal Planet. I watched a piece of it the other day and here’s what angered me.

Here’s a group of people who obviously are passionate about saving the lives of a creature God made… whales. They take great risks and go to great lengths to disturb and disrupt to ultimately stop the process of whaling on the part of the Japanese.

Here’s what Animal Planet says about the groups tactics and purpose:

The Society’s fight to eradicate Japanese whaling on the high seas — where
international laws are interpreted by different countries and organizations
in different ways — utilizes some aggressive techniques, including ramming
and disabling whaling ships; disrupting whale carcass processing; engaging
in physical entanglement; and boarding and dispersing fleets of whaling
vessels. For the campaign this season, Sea Shepherd christened its vessel in
honor of the iconic conservationist Steve Irwin with the blessing of his
wife Terri, both of whom support the organization independent of Animal
Planet.

Whaling has no place in the 21st century,” noted Watson. “Sea Shepherd
will not stop until the killing ends.”

Oh my heart!!! All I can hear when I read about this group, or see their show, is the silent cries of millions of unborn, and newly born humans babies… the only creature on the planet God created in His own image and in whom He puts His own Spirit… and I cry, “Infanticide and abortion has no place in the 21st century… in any century!!!!!” Will I not stop crying out until the killing ends?!

I want to cry, “How is this happening?!!! This is not right!!!! There shouldn’t be millions of dollars and programs on T.V. going to the dangerous effort of ending whaling, when the most precious of creatures on the earth are being slaughtered daily under the oppressive lie that it’s a “right” and a very “controversial issue” so one dare not speak too loudly, much less make any kind of disturbance in the process! “

Where is truth!!!!!?


I had all this on my heart this morning and then I read Elizabeth Elliot’s devotional. Here’s some of it:

Give Them Parking Space, But Let Them Starve to Death

Another moral threshold was crossed when a tiny baby boy, at the specific request of his parents and with the sanction of the Supreme Court of Indiana, was starved to death in a hospital. “Infant Doe” (he was not allowed the usual recognition of being human by being named), born with Down’s syndrome and a malfunctioning esophagus (the latter could have been corrected with surgery), died, as the Washington Post (April 18) stated, “not because he couldn’t sustain life without a million dollars worth of medical machinery, but because no one fed him.” For six days the nurses in that Bloomington hospital went about their usual routines of bathing and changing and feeding all the newborns except one. They bathed and changed Baby Doe but they never gave him a bottle. Over his crib was a notice, DO NOT FEED. Several couples came forward, begging to be allowed to adopt him. They were turned down.

What went on in that little box during those six terrible days and nights? We turn our imagination away. It’s unthinkable. But if I were to think about it, and put down on paper what my mind saw, I would be accused of playing on people’s feelings, and of making infanticide (yes, infanticide–call it what it is) an “emotional issue.” Let me suppose at least that the baby cried–quite loudly (at first). One report says that he was placed in a room alone, lest his crying disturb others (others, perhaps, who were capable of helping him).

Joseph Sobran, in his column in the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, suggested that “opposition to infanticide will soon be deplored as the dogma of a few religious sects who want to impose their views on everyone else.” The language sounds sickeningly familiar.

There has been a conspicuous silence from those who usually raise shrill protest when other human rights are violated–the rights of smokers, homosexuals, and criminals are often as loudly insisted upon as those of children, women, and the handicapped.

The handicapped? What on earth is happening when a society is so careful to provide premium parking spaces to make things easier for them, but sees no smallest inconsistency when one of them who happens to be too young to scream, “For God’s sake, feed me!” is quietly murdered? It is in the name of humanity, humaneness, compassion, and freedom that these things occur, but never is it acknowledged that the real reasons are comfort and convenience, that is, simple selfishness.
“Abortion not only prefers comfort, convenience, or advantage of the pregnant woman to the very life of her unborn child, a fundamentally good thing, but seeks to deny that the life ever existed. In this sense it is a radical denial not only of the worth of a specific life but of the essential goodness of life itself and the Providential ordering of its procreation” (R.V. Young, “Taking Choice Seriously,” The Human Life Review, Vol. VIII, no. 3.)

But weren’t we talking about infanticide and haven’t we now switched to abortion? The premises on which abortion is justified are fundamentally the same on which infanticide is seen as civilized and acceptable. What Hitler used to call eugenics is now called “quality of life,” never mind whether the life in question happens to be the mother’s or the child’s. Death, according to three doctors who put the issue out into the open in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1973, is now considered an option in the “treatment” of infants; in other words, a mortuary may now replace the nursery. One cannot help thinking of the antiseptic “shower rooms” of the Third Reich, where the unwanted were “treated” to death. Nor can one forget the words of Jesus, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40, KJV).

Can any Christian argue that the smallest and most defenseless are, by virtue merely of being too small and too defenseless, not His brethren?

Oh dear Lord Jesus! I’m overwhelmed! I immediately think of Isaiah 58, where You teach me to fast and pray, not for strife or debate, or to strike with the fist of wickedness, but to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke, to share with the hungry and be hospitable to the poor, and to cover those who are naked and not hide myself from my own flesh. (Isaiah 58:4,6-7). I want to fast for strife or debate about the “abortion issue”! I want to strike with the fist of wickedness like the “Sea Shepherd”… it’s what immediately rises up in me! But the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God! (James 1:20). So Your Spirit shows me the answer and the problem:

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him… He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak. According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay… the coastlands He will fully repay. So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun; when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.”

Isaiah 59:14-16, 17-19

Truth fails in the west, in the coastlands, in the place where the rising of the sun is. And what is our part? Not to fast for debate or strife. Not to go the way of Peter in cutting off the offenders’ ear, or the way of the Sea Shepherd in pirating whaling vessels, or bombing abortion clinics… NO! Our part is departing from this evil, though in doing so we make ourselves prey!

As Elizebeth wrote, “Can any Christian argue that the smallest, and most defenseless are, by virtue of merely being too small and too defenseless, not His brethren?”

We who call ourselves the Lord’s must repent of our own sins against the lives of the small and defenseless, and depart from this evil though it makes us vulnerable to the lying, murdering culture we have had a role in creating. WE must abide, and join with, the One who has interceded for us and intercede in much praying! But we must leave the vengeance to the LORD and be thankful that He will repay in perfect justice, not so we or they will be destroyed, but so we will again fear the name of the LORD in the west, because He’ll show us His deliverance when the enemy comes in like a flood and He raises up a standard against him.

We must wait on the LORD and pray fervently and ourselves depart from evil and be willing to be vulnerable to the violence of others when we lovingly speak the truth and cry out for the smallest and the defenseless, teaching others that Christ has made the life of all humanity more valuable than any life on this earth.

May His love draw others out of lies into truth, and may we be willing to suffer as prey to prove His love in our own lives. May we be quick to repent of our own evil and quick to cover the nakedness of others praying for the perfect, loving, merciful justice of the Lord to come to us in the west… that we may fear HIM again!

****

About the Baby Doe case cited in Elizabeth Elliot’s article.
Redeeming the time,