I have a sweet friend who has made a deep impression in my life of late.
As I step fully into my calling of motherhood today- she has faithfully just ended hers.
Jessica fought well her battle with leukemia the last few years. So many people who love her now carry the weight of sorrow because how she did live her life- full of love and Jesus.
I have been dwelling on the depth of her sacrifice for her children especially. Her story of sacrifice began as a young girl herself. I don’t know all of it, but the parts I do know capture the essence of her beautifully redeemed heart.
Her story stands in stark contrast to all this shouting of “rights.”
(As if one’s right should ever supersede another’s?)
As a young teen my friend found herself faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
She chose to give her daughter the gift of life and gave her to a family ready to raise her.
My friend later married, had twin boys, and a little girl just four years ago. She was diagnosed with Leukemia a year later.
She ran her race well until the very end.
But that isn’t all of her story. For some years, she and her family went to live as house parents to love on young girls caught in the same confusion, pain, and aloneness of an unplanned pregnancy. Girls, who faced a choice that would change them forever no matter which way they diverted.
My friend chose a life of love and sacrifice many times over. I imagine it was not an easy path.
I keep thinking of what Jessica wrote with her life, through the ink of God’s grace. She wanted so much to continue on mothering her children. But I can’t help and think that her story will impress upon her children in ways that a lifetime of words could not touch.
Life is about sacrifices and choices. And she certainly made hers count.
Jessica’s life points to our Savior, someone who gave up His rights for our own- Jesus.
The Bible says He gave up His rights and privileges as God to become one of us, so we could become His. That is the forever assurance my friend lived with and the one she has passed onto her children.
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and came in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” Philippians 2:7.
If the Son of God laid down his rights and privileges as God, how much more are we to?
Motherhood is a calling.
And sometimes it is thrust upon us unexpectedly. It is a call of selflessness all of our days. We must give up our desires, rights, and even needs to use ourselves fully to raise a generation that will bring more hope and healing than we have.
What we have dared to call a choice, God has ordained for His praise.
“You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger” Psalm 8:1-2.
What an infant would teach us even in their inability to speak will be used to silence the Enemy who would have us miss the lessons they would impart.
We are not gifted with the insight that God has- to intimately know all the days of a person before they are even yet born (Psalm 139:16).
We cannot forecast the impact a child will have, even a child with a terminal illness. I know too many stories otherwise, as a NICU nurse, that have deeply impressed themselves on my soul. Parents who bravely navigated their child’s prognosis and allowed them to insert their story into history, whether 9 months in the womb, or a few short weeks lived after birth.
Those children and their parents lived out their stories in the NICU, which bled into mine.
And changed me.
These precious little babies opened my eyes to a supernatural world- one where the mysteries of life, death, brokenness, and a longing for innocent wholeness dwell. And they pointed to a God who would make all this right someday for those who love Him.
I have learned too much to ever doubt the impact of an unborn child or a prematurely born one who has been allowed to tell their story every day that was ordained for them.
Their very days praise God.
Sadly abortion doesn’t allow a woman to see the story her child would have. It doesn’t offer redemption for her struggle and pain. (Though I would say loudly- there is an opportunity for healing, hope, and a new story written for a woman who has made this difficult choice.)
One life is not more valuable because of its length. Life is sacred because of Who counts our days.
I do not believe that to be pro-abortion is to be pro-woman.
It does not change her circumstances.
Or her lack of support.
It affects her reproductive health.
She has a higher death rate among women who have never had an abortion.
It does not teach her about her glorious body.
It does not empower her to remove herself from an unhealthy environment.
It often keeps her in the abusive relationship that demanded the abortion to begin with.
It does not gain her financial support.
Abortion doesn’t allow a woman to grieve and share her grief.
Half of all pregnancies are still unintended. Over 40% of abortions are repeat. 1% are chosen for rape and incest. A little over 1% are medical reasons.
Over 95% of abortions are for financial or social reasons.
And most abortions (nearly 40%) are performed on the next generation of black children who could change the course of history. (Abortion in the U.S.: What the data says | Pew Research Center).
We are failing the next generation.
And are failing women.
My hope is that we would all help support women from having to make this choice in the first place. Woman deserve better options and community that will strengthen them and keep from these hard places.
I am praying my son will be a voice for loving and caring deeply for the whole soul of women. I have cried to know he is being born into a time in which his generation may if we allow, have a louder voice in this, than the last fifty years.
Written in honor of my friend, Jessica Hobbs, who lived her life loudly from the microphone of love.
Movement in a Mercurial World 