Life

    One of the most powerful movie scenes ever able to stir my blood so thoroughly was toward the end of The Forgotten.  If you haven’t seen it, then I apologize ahead of time for giving away the entire plot.  I recommend you cease reading immediately and go rent it.  After much suspense and intrigue, our main character Telly is in a stand-off with an extra-terrestrial fellow who is part of a team whose goal it is to see if they can erase from the minds of a selected handful of humans the child that each parent gave birth to and raised. 

   Telly has managed to hang on to the memory of her son by saying his name aloud every day.  She spends the entire movie searching for him and trying to get him back, and she refuses to quit even though no one else remembers Sam, and they are all convinced she has lost her mind.  The frustrated alien finally pins her down and, forcing her to give up every memory of Sam one by one, he clears her mind of him entirely, leaving her lying prone and exhausted on the ground.  He starts to walk away, leaving her there, satisfied that his experiment was a success. 

   Until the faint sound of a tiny heartbeat makes him stop in his tracks.  One memory remains: A woman sitting on a park bench on a sunny day, with a hand on her pregnant belly and a smile on her face. 
   Telly slowly pulls herself into a sitting position as the alien turns to face her.  She stands to her feet and he scowls back at her.  Her face radiates certainty and defiance as she slowly and deliberately declares: “I had life inside me.” 

   The alien cringes.  His experiment has failed.   

  She continues, “I had life inside me.  I have a son.  I have a son and his name is Sam, you son-of-a-bitch.”  At which point the alien gets sucked back to wherever he came from (no doubt to receive punishment for having failed so miserably) and Telly gets her son back.   

  

  Women were created by God with some pretty intense instincts to fight for and protect our families, especially our children.  There is everything strong and noble and pure and sacred about a woman carrying life inside her.  By nature a mother is willing to give her own life for her child.  How is it, then, that the world has accepted the backward idea that it is okay for a tiny unborn life to come to intentional harm?  My friend Whitney made the excellent point recently: “Why is it that if scientists found single cell organisms on mars - they'd declare "THERE"S LIFE ON MARS!!!" but a fertilized egg - even as far as a full term baby - EVEN babies that have been BIRTHED - are disposable. It’s all backwards.” 

   Allowing abortion to continue isn’t progressive.  It goes against the very laws of nature set down by the creator of the universe.  Women have become victims of the unnatural idea that killing babies is alright.  Whether they’ve been temporarily or permanently convinced that the life they carry is not worth fighting for, that it doesn’t deserve a chance at life or even a second thought, they’re the ones that lose, because they’re denying their true nature.  And they suffer for it. 

   I know at this point some of you are saying, “You just don’t get it.  It’s her choice to do what she wants with her body.”  Well, it may be my choice to put my fist through your face (it is my fist, after all) but your face has to deal with the results of my actions.  Besides, separate DNA and even separate gender determine that the baby inside a woman definitely does not count as her body.  

    And as far as using the excuse that the baby isn’t a human yet, take a moment to consider how history is full of examples of people who tried to use the excuse that certain groups of people didn’t count as real people.  Take our old friend Adolf Hitler for example.  He wasn’t a big fan of Jews, Gypsies, or Gays, and went to great lengths to exterminate them like roaches.  He acknowledged the Jews as a race, but not human.  Consider that slaves in America were treated as property to be bought and sold, and as such were regarded as less than human.  Both of these practices were widely accepted in their time, and it’s only looking back through time that we recognize the atrocity of considering Jews and African Americans to be less than human.  How long until we view the unborn in the same light?  Given its track record and the horror and disgust that are associated with it from past decades, I’d say the phrase; “It’s not a real person” deserves some serious scrutiny.

   I’m not a mother, but it is my greatest hope to be given that honor someday.  I can say right now that nobody better try to mess with my kids at any stage of their lives, because you can be sure I will fight tooth and nail to ensure their safety and well-being.  

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."
                                                  -God  (Jeremiah 1:5) 


If you can spare 30 minutes, watch  this video it is incredible. 

Queries

     Questions can be funny things.  There are hypothetical questions and philosophical questions and rhetorical questions.  There’s the question you realize you already know the answer to as its coming out of your mouth and you wish you had realized it sooner so that you could have withheld the question and seemed smarter longer.  And then there’s a personal favorite of mine: the dumb question (who’s existence is denied by some).  In my recent pondering of questions I found myself questioning the question.  I realized that there are some questions that perhaps should not be asked in the first place, and if they are asked, call into question the true nature of our personal integrity, not to mention our priorities. 

   I read in a book recently that the point at which a little white lie becomes an actual lie differs for all of us.  Imagine if we got a group together, discussed the point up to which each of us felt comfortable white-lying and why and for who’s intended or supposed benefit, and then averaged everyone’s white-lying comfort zone, and established the mean point at which a white lie crosses over to an actual lie and becomes officially unacceptable.  My question to the question “When does lying stop being okay” would be “What on earth.  Shall we not just all put a hefty effort into being as honest as possible with one another?” 

   In the dating world, one tends to ask one’s self, “How far is too far?”  Or for others, “How soon is too soon?”  My answer to that is far too archaic for most to swallow: “Wait until marriage.”  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying its easy to find the one you love and hold off expressing that love physically.  Far from easy, it’s the hardest thing I ever had to do.  But it is possible.  That’s asking too much, you say.  Well, just hold on a minute.  How many women want to be swept off their feet by the man of their dreams?  The great majority, if we’re being honest, from childhood through adulthood, at which point the feminine heart is inclined to grow weary of the wait, and despair at her current male selection and settle for whatever guy tells her she’s pretty.  Girls, how many guys would step up and become the men we as a culture need them to be if we put our foots down and said, “Absolutely not, you don’t get the goods until you promise before God and witnesses to love and cherish me and only me for the rest of our lives.”?  Because let me tell you the complete trust and security and love and fulfillment in that scenario far surpasses any fairytale expectations there are to be had.   

   One more interesting question I’ve heard: When does a fetus count as a human?  That’s a slippery slope when you stop and think about it.  I like to say, “At the first available opportunity, better safe than sorry.”  But there are other schools of thought.  Some people feel comfortable with it around 28 weeks. A common idea is to wait until the mother decides she wants to keep her baby before letting society as a whole determine that the life inside her is something to celebrate.  There are those who refrain from bestowing upon people the official title of “human” until he or she pops out of the chute…or to use a more official phrase, until it is “viable outside the womb”.  A human child is such a helpless creature; when are we really viable outside the womb?  If we were to plop a child down in any environment, when would it realistically be capable of self-survival?  At the age of twelve maybe?  For that matter, how many functioning adults would crumble under less-than-ideal circumstances (“thrust into the wilderness” as Frank would say), given our dependence on technology? 

   How viable are any of us really?  Some people are disabled and are never able to care for themselves.  Are they not human by some standards?  Some people grow very old and need intensive care.  Should we off them because nurturing them takes it out of us?  When we begin to try to draw our own personal lines for when we think humans get to be humans based on whatever…where does it end?  Maybe it ends when somebody decides that blue eyes and blonde hair is best, and that some religious cultures are no longer acceptable.  

   We are faced with many questions throughout our lives.  What do you base your answers on?