The Post That Will Likely Get Me "Unfriended"

I can empathize with the woman who would do anything to prevent her child from suffering.  There is an overwhelming instinct within me to protect my own two children from life's struggles.  Unfortunately, because this world is broken they will face pain and sadness, and sometimes there won't be anything I can do about it.  As a culture, we go to great lengths to avoid suffering.  If a child is having an unusually difficult time in school, we are quick to get him on medication that will take care of the problem instead of letting him struggle through what are usually just normal growing pains.  If we don't have enough financial resources, we put purchases on credit cards and take out loans to buy stuff that gives us a life of comfort, not wanting to delay gratification.  When we are facing hard times of any kind, we often pray for God to just take them away.

Our society is not in the regular habit of dying to ourselves.  What draws many people to Jesus is the same reason that many others reject him.  He willingly endured emotional and physical suffering to save us, and requires us to deny ourselves as well.  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends".  (John 15:13, NASB).  This fierce opposition to pain and suffering is how we as a nation can be horrified and outraged at the shooting of innocent children in a Connecticut elementary school, while at the same time endorsing abortion.

We have gone so far as to delude ourselves into believing that ending a life of suffering is actually somehow humane.  We have taken God out of decision making, so that we can choose for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.  40 years ago when deciding on Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court threw up its hands and said that if medical professionals, clergy and ethicists could not agree on when life begins then neither could they resolve the question.  They deferred to the mantra that is even more popular today of "what's true for you isn't necessarily true for me."

Quality of life is often championed over sanctity of life.  Women like Stacy Delisle and Angie Smith come to mind as examples of brave women who chose the opposite.  Both were given extremely poor prognoses for their unborn children, but chose to continue carrying them anyway.  Despite possible great emotional and financial hardship, they decided to give their babies a chance at life, no matter how slim that chance was.  Angie's daughter Audrey lived for one hour and Stacy's son Isaac lived for 16 minutes before going to be with Jesus.  Though brief, their lives had weight.  They mattered to God.   

Their mothers were not given any special guarantee that the choice they made would result in a happy ending.  They listened to the doctors, watched the ultrasounds and decided to believe in the sanctity of life instead of the fear that their lives would never be the same.  The voice that said the baby would be better off.  The lie that every situation is unique and nothing is cut and dry.  They knew that it was their responsibility as mothers to protect and preserve the lives inside of them, regardless of the supposed quality of those lives.  "Quality" is a subjective term, and the last time I checked only the Creator has the right to determine that.

If a person were to stop the ventilator of a tiny baby who was dependent upon it to breathe, we would call that murder.  But because a baby hasn't passed through the birth canal yet, we feel we can call it "mercy", "kind" or any other feel-good label and justify that it is somehow noble to take the life of a child.  People blur the lines between right and wrong, using terms like "viability of fetus" and "incompatible with life" when God has always been very clear about this.  Every life is important to Him, and He created every one in His image.