A few days ago, we attended a funeral for our friends’ child, who passed away last week. His story is a sad, but beautiful, one. And their celebration of his life, and how he had enlarged their hearts, is so emotional. The homily was beautiful.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:3-14)
The priest talked to us about being “adopted sons of God” and afterwards we chatted. He told me that historically, during Christ’s lifetime, an adoption was done for adults, in order to secure inheritance. If a couple had no children, they would adopt an adult and that adult would become their heir. The adopted child had, in fact, far more rights than a child born to the family. And an adopted child could not be “set aside,” as some parents do to their own “flesh and blood” child. And so in Scripture, calling someone your adopted son held far more meaning than just giving them your last name. They became your heirs…heirs to your kingdom. And that is what happened to each of us, when we were baptized into the family of God. We became His adopted sons and daughters, and He cannot set us aside. In the book of Isaiah – 49th chapter, where he says “Before I was born, the Lord called me.” (verse 1) he also says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” (verses 15 & 16) The writer is speaking about Israel and its people. However, we can easily see where the New Testament writers incorporate this sentiment into their preaching in the days of Christ, in order that we would know His deep love for us.
In the concrete world in which we live, there is so much chatter about abortion. And as a woman who dearly wanted a large family, and has lost too many infants to miscarriage, I know the ache so many women feel who cannot bear their own child. I know that my heart is large enough to take other women’s babies, and love them as my own. I have fostered babies. And I have adopted outside of my race, but very much in my heart. My youngest child came to us within a few hours of being born. I even was able to breastfeed for a little while (until hunger took over supply!). That child is no different to the two I successfully birthed, or the seven I lost along the way. My heart knew there was room for someone who needed our family. And we readily took that baby, with no forethought or foreboding, just with excitement and love. We opened our hearts, our arms, and our lives and 18 years later, I can honestly say I am more in love than the moment I first laid eyes on that 4-hour-old newborn.
The thought of losing a child pretty much drops me to my knees. Knowing someday, I will pass from this life, I am comforted by the fact that my sons are a loving family, even without their dad or me. They bonded ridiculously well and do not see color or difference in one another. Praise be to God. So all this hoopla about abortion and the right to choose really gets to me. Choose what? To kill your unborn child? There is no empirical evidence that in this day and age of scientific discovery and finesse, that the mother’s life would ever be in enough danger that you would have to kill her unborn child, in order for her to survive. Please, find me a case where that was true. A doctor who is trying to save a life will not take another one to do it. And there is no need. As for rape or incest, why kill the innocent product (child) and add to the pain? Why take a life because you were violated? I have had the pleasure of knowing a woman who was brutally raped. She became pregnant. And through the grace of God and a great family, she raised that baby. What an incredibly loved child it is, too. She does not cringe when gazing at her child; she beams with pride. That child is now a college graduate and is doing amazing things. And to think others told her to “get rid of it.” Thankfully, God also had her heart and her ear, and she chose life for that baby.
Adoption is hungered for all over this country. And adoptive families are somehow so very blessed in this life. We have learned to stretch in ways we never knew we could. Adopting outside your race, or to adopt a child with disabilities, invites comments and stares, and unsolicited advice. It also involves challenges that families who do not adopt or foster ever really understand. We decided to roll with it and have had some humorous encounters, which were meant to somehow shame us or something. But the Lord put this child in our lives because we needed to see with new eyes, I think. We needed to know that love has no skin color, no disability. Love just is.
I had to write this because there has been so much anger out there, thrown at us on a daily basis. The rioting is beyond ridiculous. To think that you have to parade around in hats and costumes representing female body parts, in order to express your rights, is unfathomable to me. Is there no modesty or shame? Sometime their vocabulary truly insults and embarrasses me. And what they don’t realize, it is embarrassing them, too. The mindset that says my body trumps someone else’s, who is so vulnerable, blows my mind. I have lived through Roe V Wade and I have seen the fallout. My senior year in High School, it became law. And the change in our culture has been incredible. And not in a good way. My freshman year in college, I had student health coverage (back then, as soon as you were 18 you had to get your own insurance). I went to the heath center for a sinus infection and walked out with birth control pills and a diaphragm, just in case I wanted “extra protection.” I survived free love, and sex-drugs-and rock & roll, and lived to tell about it, with my brain cells intact (thanks be to God). And with no diseases or accidents along the way (accidents as in driving when I should not have been). I have lived with roommates who had so many abortions I lost count. I have seen friends get pregnant and chose to keep their babies. I have friends who got pregnant and gave their children up for adoption. And I have friends, like me, who have lost babies due to miscarriage. Life is just so very fragile. But in every single case, it was a child. Not a lump of cells. It was not a puppy. It was not a goldfish. It was a baby. One of my roommates kept her pregnancy sonograms for each abortion and I would hear her cry at night. She knew they were babies.
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:13-16
As I looked at the little urn at our friend’s child’s funeral, I kept thinking about what the priest said about being the “adopted sons of God,” and I felt a surge of love in my heart. It was for all the children rescued and adopted. It was for this family, who selflessly took in this little boy and loved him so very well, even on the day of his funeral. It was for our family and how we have grown as people because the Lord brought a special child into our lives. No child needs to die. Not one. Yes, we would have had millions more children in our world; just in the USA alone we average more than 1.2 million abortions a year. And it would have stretched our communities and our homes. But no child is unwanted. No child is not worth that increased burden on our culture. Our homes ache for these babies. Our culture is darker because we have killed them. But God will forgive us. He always forgives those who seek His forgiveness. Our country can turn this trend around. We can be healed as a people.
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5: 21-24
I ask all of you, if I have wronged you in any way, please forgive me. Let’s work on loving first, and judging second. Let’s work on dealing with those who upset us, in love and prayer and acceptance. There’s a saying that goes, “Treat other people with politeness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are nice, but because you are.” If we all did this, our world would be a much kinder place. Kindness will win, in the end. In the meantime, try to spread it. Pray for those who are in situations where they are considering abortion…let them know we, the people around them, are here for them. Donate time, treasure, and your talents to the pro life movement. Offer to work at a life center, or to hold babies in the NICU, born with no one to love them. Become a foster parent, and take in those drug babies who will be placed in forever homes soon, or work with foster agencies to help families who do foster. Every little thing we can do will help save a life. If we show that we mean we are pro life and not just pro birth, the world will change. God will change it, through us.
Respect for life from a natural conception to a natural death.
kaiserswest 