Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion on demand. I spent most of the day thinking about my own daughter's birth. She was born with severe lung problems. The hospital decided she needed to be transported to another NICU that could help more. While I was in the ER signing paperwork, the unthinkable happened. Tristan, my daughter, crashed. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating. A paramedic named Art immediately jumped to Tristan's side and feverishly began performing CPR. For over 30 minutes they worked on her, but there were no signs of life. I have never felt so utterly helpless, to be only a few feet from my daughter and to be unbale to do anything for my darling girl. I simply watched, despaired, and prayed as she turned from pink, to blue, to the sickest shade of gray I have ever seen. At one point a Church of God Hospital Chaplain was called in to be with me and try to convince me to leave--which of course I did not. After praying with me, he quickly left the room, too shaken to stay. Eventually, people around him told Art to stop...that she wasn't alive. Art looked up at me, sweating, red faced, and out of breath. He shook his head and said "let's keep trying". Friends, I can tell you that even though people said she wasn't alive, God said different. At that moment of unspeakable grief, I prayed without words for God to spare my baby. And he answered. I heard a voice as clear as any I have ever heard say "I am the resurrection and I am the Life!". When I opened my eyes, she had started breathing. God had decreed that Death would not touch my daughter that night. Nor in the weeks and months that followed. Not one hair on her head would be harmed. I am so thankful to God that I can hold my little girl today. I am also so thankful to Art, because he saw life where nobody else did and knew it was worth fighting for. Art is a hero. Sadly, over the past week, I came to the realization that, for the past 40 years, in abortion clinics all over this country, medical professionals not so very different from Art have worked just as diligently to stop millions of babies, not so different from my little girl, from ever drawing a breath. For 40 years, people have said these babies aren't alive, aren't even human. And in every case, God says different. Friends, this great shame on our nation has to end. I pray for more people like Art, who have the wisdom to see life, no matter how small or weak it may be, and have the will to fight to protect it. Let's pray and work to see the US return to herself and realize that of all the rights endowed by God, the first is the right to life. Never give up in this great cause of our time, because in the blink of an eye it can all change. Perhaps you want to be an Art. Perhaps you will consider lending your support to Anglicans for Life (AFL) whose faithful witness in the AC is a wonderful counterweight to the pro-choice/pro-abort message supported by TEC's leadership. Also, consider praying with me a prayer for life. PRAYER FOR LIFE: Lord God, thank You for creating human life in Your image. Thank You for my life and the lives of those I love. Thank You for teaching us through Scripture the value You place on life. Help me to uphold the sanctity of life in my church and community. Give me the strength to stand up to those forces that seek to destroy the lives of those most vulnerable, the unborn, the infirm and the elderly. Today I commit myself never to be silent, never to be passive, never to be forgetful of respecting life. I commit myself to protecting and defending the sacredness of life according to Your will, through Christ our Lord. AMEN! The lives of preborn baby boys and girls are small, frail, and weak. But there is life there and it's worth fighting for so "let's keep trying". God bless.
God bless these defenders of life! WASHINGTON, DC: Fourteen Anglican Bishops March for Life http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=17148
I appreciate the post, Lowly Layman. This is one thing we can all unite against: the genocide-like intensity of this mass slaughter. Even if human fetuses were not "ensouled" until a few months into pregnancy, they are still "potential" human beings whose only "actuality" is humanity. To destroy even an "unsouled" fetus is to destroy that which it was made for, is, and is meant to be. It can never become anything other than a human person, and to destroy that is murder from any angle. Here is an evil advert for Roe v. Wade 40: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8xiNx7mXm4 Pray for the souls of those who joyfully murder human beings... and for ourselves, that we have mercy and forgiveness enough to accept and receive into the Christian fold those who do repent.
There is great confusion as to whether a "liberal" group produced this to gloat, or whether conservatives did it to mock the Decision.
Give it a few more years and it'll actually exceed the civilian + military dead of the Second World War... By the way, Lowly Layman, in my anger and zeal against abortionists, I neglected to even read or think about your own story. Having read it now, I deeply apologize for this lack of interest. What an unspeakably beautiful thing - from the simple natural human heroism inspired by the grace of God, to the great power of Jesus Christ's Holy Name in that declaration. He truly said Ταλιθα κουμ, Talitha kum, LITTLE GIRL, ARISE... do you understand what you and she experienced?! You participated in exactly the same power that night which Jairus and his daughter knew! That's beyond humbling and amazing!
Lowly Layman...............Amen! My wife worked as a NICU Nurse for 17 years at our local children's hospital, and your story rings familiar many times over. God continually confounded the pious Neo-Natologist's, with miracle after miracle.
When my daughter was barely 12 weeks pregnant she had a video ultrasound, and I was blessed to have a DVD copy of it. The video clearly showed my Grandaughter moving, kicking, and at one comical point, she crossed her little legs and started sucking her thumb. She had hiccups, and once she clearly was irritated by the ultrasound probe on the outside of my daughters abdomen, and she kicked at it. How some "intellectual" could say that my Grandaughter was merely a lump of flesh at that point (or any) , is beyond comprehension. Jeff
Beautiful, Jeff... One thing we must remember - unlike the man who shot the abortion doctor a few years ago - is that even the worst monsters are redeemable by the Passion of Christ our Redeemer. They are just as human as the fetuses they snuff out. Sometimes it's hard to believe that Christ made satisfaction for all sins, but that is just what He did: for us regular sinners, and for the most twisted. It is a great comfort to know that the LORD Jesus will hear even two or three gathered in His Name to pray for the conversion & repentance of abortion doctors and supporters. He cannot do any other, for He Is Love! Let us never become hard-hearted.