March for Life

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Lynn

I will never forget what it felt like to hold my son for the very first time.  He was born on a Sunday but I didn’t get to hold him until the next day and when he was placed in my arms it was love at first sight!  After two traumatic miscarriages and the doctors telling me I would likely never have another baby after the birth of my first daughter, adoption became our only option to have another child.  By God’s design, our son became our chosen child, born to a young unwed teen mom.  She could have chosen an abortion, but instead she made the tough, courageous decision to give her child up for adoption.  Her selflessness allowed us to parent our precious son to adulthood, and allowed our older daughter, who was eight when he was born, to be a “big sister”.  That God blessed me with a baby girl three years after our son was born, proving the doctors wrong about me carrying another child, was just another example of God’s grace to me.  My three children are my greatest gifts from God and just five weeks ago my son and his wife blessed us with a new grandson!  Our third grandbaby!

When my son was a young child, I became involved with the Crisis Pregnancy Centre in our small town.  They asked if we would open our home up to have an unwed teen mom live with us.  Scared and ostracized by her family, she became one of several young moms whom we cared for through their pregnancies.  Two of the girls elected to parent their babies, another opted for adoption.  In each case, I grew to have compassion and great love for the girls and an even greater appreciation for the young woman who chose life for our son.

In 2010, I published my first book, Shoot the Wounded, and one of the themes focuses on a young, unwed teen mom.  Ronnie’s character is a tapestry of the teen moms we have known and loved through the years.

As I was holding my new grandson, shortly after he was born, I couldn’t help but wonder how he will fit into God’s Great Big Story.  As I posted yesterday, 60 million babies never had the chance to live but neither did the millions of offspring THEY might have had!  Again, I feel an overwhelming sense of loss!

So, this past week I have been trying to raise awareness of those precious babies who cannot speak for themselves.  Abortion ends their hopes and dreams forever; not only theirs but THEIR children!

This past week, I came across a Facebook post that had me weeping with joy as I read it.  I’ve asked Heidi if I might share it:

“So I typically keep things pretty light on Facebook but I have something weighing heavy on my heart:

I have been watching, on all platforms of social media, the #womensmarch that has literally broken records and brought so many together. I have felt proud to be a woman and yet in a way I’ve never felt more disconnected from my fellow womankind.

You see, while I agree that women should have equal rights to vote and live and work and enjoy life, the “right to choose” is one …that is tough for me.

The picture on this post is of my grandma and I (just after her 80th birthday). My grandma is a very kind and generous woman who has blessed many lives. My grandma is also a strong woman. My grandma is a fighter. My grandma is a miracle.

My grandma is a failed abortion.

In May 1935 my grandma was aborted at about 26 weeks. When my great-grandmother was induced and birthed my grandma live, the doctors and nurses told her that this fetus would not survive… she did!
My grandma has 2 of her own living children, 6 grandchildren (me included) and 7 great-grandchildren who are alive today because it turns out she was a baby girl who would become a woman; and she had to fight for her right, not just to choose, but her right to live.
I’m so grateful she had the strength to survive and thrive.

(Before you react or comment, please understand I’m only sharing my story. I’m not judging others, nor can I begin to comprehend the vast circumstances and life experiences of the potential readers. I just felt compelled to share my heart.)

I am blessed to have strong women in my life. If you are a woman reading this, thanks for sharing in my journey. Let me know how I can support you in yours.”

To all my Journey Thoughts readers but especially to all women, if you must march for something that will make a real difference in this generation and the next, March for Life on Friday, January 27 in Washington, D.C.  In Canada, the Campaign Life Coalition has information about marches for life that are held throughout the year in each of the different provinces.

March to honour the 60 million babies who were never born, and march for the ones who still have a chance to live and to discover their unique place and purpose in God’s Big Story.

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Mourning 60 Million Lives

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Lynn

hats-cropped-newOn January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in the case of Roe v. Wade, which recognized that the constitutional right to privacy extends to a woman’s right to make her own personal medical decisions — including the decision to have an abortion.  Forty-four years and 60 million abortions later, this “landmark” decision continues to divide women, physicians and politicians based on their belief about how old a child needs to be in the womb before it is considered a viable human-being.  In other words, does abortion kill an innocent human being? If not, then there is no moral or ethical problem. If however, abortion represents the killing of an innocent member of the human family, it is immoral, unethical and cannot be justified. There is no such thing as a right to kill innocent people.  So the question is, at what age, or at what point after conception is a baby considered an “innocent member of the human family”?

As a Christian, the answer is an easy one: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”  (Jeremiah 1:5)  The Lord is speaking to Jeremiah in particular here, but the implication is for any and everyone…

The Lord knew us before we were even conceived!

It also alludes to the fact that God had a purpose in mind for all of us before we were even conceived.  Let that sink in.  Every single human being has a purpose that fits into God’s Big Story before we were even conceived.  Our journey after birth is discovering our place in God’s Story!

What an adventure!

And yet…

Since the Roe v. Wade decision, 60 million little ones never even had a chance to discover their purpose and place in God’s Story.

Let me try to paint a picture so you can visualize in your minds what it means to lose 60 million little lives of potential forever.  If you read my post from the other day: “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!” about the Women’s March world-wide, there are estimates that four to five million women protested around the world and in Washington D.C. alone there may have been close to five hundred thousand.  These women, as you know from my post, were marching for pro-choice rights (the right to abort), as well as spewing profanities at the current government(s).  Most of them wore pink-knitted toques (I’m Canadianizing them a bit), but they were supposed to represent women’s genitalia.  I know, pretty disgusting.  So, picture the streets littered with all those toques lying side-by-side had the women chosen to cast them aside like trash.  It would have been quite a sight!

Now picture 60 million little knitted baby caps like they give to all the newborns in the hospitals.  Pink for girls and blue for boys and gender-neutral colours of yellow and green.  Picture them littering the streets cast aside like trash.  60 million little caps, representing 60 million little babies who never got to wear their cap.  60 million little souls who never got to experience life and find their place in God’s big wide world.  60 million children who never got to play, sing, and experience the wonders of Creation around them.  60 million teenagers who never got the chance to work, to love, to grasp the realities of life.  60 million people who never got to discover who they are and who they could be in God’s Big Story.

It is too tragic to comprehend.

 

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I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Lynn

“I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar!”  That was the battle-cry of women in the 70’s, a Helen Reddy song released in 1971 and one that I sung with all the gusto a 13 year-old girl could muster that year.  It was all about equal rights for women, equal pay for equal work, believing that girls could do anything just as well and maybe even better than boys!

Rather than sign up for the girl’s sewing and cooking options in my high school, my three friends and I signed up for shop class and we became the first girls in our school to do something so radical.  We were ridiculed and bullied for that “rebelliousness” not only by the boys who did not like seeing girls in the shop class, but also by the girls who thought us “freaks” and tomboys.  Still, undaunted, we took apart and rebuilt an old Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine, tried our hands at welding and participated in metal working and at the end of the year felt like we had actually accomplished something huge for the feminist movement.

That was then…

In 1977, I met the love of my life and we married two years later.  He led me to the Lord and together we became a dynamic duo that raised three children to adulthood and we are now involved in the lives of three, wonderful grandbabies.  Over these close to forty years, I have learned the true meaning of being a strong, powerful woman not by the world’s standards but in being “submissive” (1 Peter 3: 1-2) to my Godly husband.  That word has not threatened my femininity one bit because it draws me into rightful obedience to God.  My husband is the Spiritual Leader in my home, and rightly so!  He is the head of our household.  (Ephesians 5:23)  He does not dominate me, he cares and loves me as Christ loves His church.  I am proud that I am striving to become a Proverbs 31: 10-31 woman, because I am more valued and respected now than I ever was during those Feminine Mystique years!

This is now…

This past weekend I witnessed what was touted as “an inclusive event and everyone who supports women’s rights are welcome.”  It could have been an historical event to support women of all races, religions and cultures.  To rally behind the disenfranchised, to show love and unity and let our voices send messages of peace and hope to those who do not have a voice.  However, as I have learned over these few days, what actually transpired was a monumental lie.  It was an inclusive event only if you were pro-choice, and shared the liberal, cultural feminism that pervades our society today.  Women who shared different opinions, who were Pro-life advocates, and held mostly conservative views were not allowed to march.  Instead, they were turned away, ridiculed and even bullied.  In a documented incident here in Alberta, a woman reporter was actually punched by a man as she tried to cover the Edmonton rally.

That absolutely sickens me.

I was appalled by the pictures of women wearing women genitalia masks and the profane-laced vulgarity they displayed on their posters and spewed into microphones to rally those gathered into supporting their hate-filled cause.  That kind of pornographic diatribe was not fit to show, let alone support!

Instead, they ostracized more men and women with their vindictive slogans and venom-filled agenda than they managed to win to their cause.  I, for one, felt violated, horrified and ashamed by what transpired there in Washington and around the world, and I wish the images on T.V. and on social media could be erased from my memory forever.

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