Life is Precious

I am a member of a Southern Baptist church, and our church believes in the sanctity of life. Whether it is an elderly person, one who is handicapped or brain-damaged, or whether the life is still in the womb, every person is created by God and every one is unique and special. Every life is known by God before birth and after. David said in Psalm 139: "You knew me before I was born. You knit my bones together" (paraphrased).

God is the giver of life, and we do not have the right to take that life away. A baby's heart begins to beat eighteen days after conception, before the mother even knows she is pregnant. That heartbeat is the pronouncement of life.

My last post was about a book that focused on women dealing with abortion, adoption, and miscarriage, titled Fill These Empty Arms. This is a subject very near my heart. I had a miscarriage when my husband and I had been married about two years. I remember it today, more than 50 years later. It was a heart-wrenching time for me. My grandmother tried to soothe me by saying "You will have other babies," but I could not be soothed. That was my first baby. I loved him or her already and wanted to give that baby life,  and I grieved because that life was gone.

I had another baby, then three more, and all are precious to me. But I remember that first one. Would it have been a boy or a girl? Would his or her hair have been blond and curly like my husband's or dark and straight like mine? What was that baby's life work to be? How many precious sayings did I miss hearing because that baby was never given a voice?

Our youngest daughter, Cindy, suffered from infertility for several years. She and her first husband had been married fifteen years before they were able to adopt a baby girl. She counted the days of her period, had fertility treatments, and cried many tears during the years she tried to become pregnant. Her arms ached for a baby of her own. In my book A Heritage of Faith, I describe in detail our daughter's feelings as I was aware of them while she agonized over whether she would ever be a mother.

God knows every child who is conceived. His or her personality, dimples in his or her cheeks, the color of eyes and hair, the bone structure, skin color, the propensity to weight loss or gain, all those qualities are formed when the egg and sperm unite to make a baby. It's not just a piece of tissue. That baby is a person. God knows what that person will do with his or her life. God knows whether he or she will come to love Him and believe in Him before he or she is born. The Bible says God sees the baby formed "in secret." That means God knows when a baby is conceived. If the baby is aborted, all the plans God had for him or her are gone.

In our country there are 3,000 or more abortions a day. How many musicians, writers, doctors, teachers, company CEO's, never get a chance at life because their lives are taken before birth? If a baby is aborted because it is an inconvenience to the mother and her family, the world might miss the next Billy Graham, or the next Marie Curie, or the next Steve Green.

Tomorrow in Southern Baptist churches across America, adults will study about the Sanctity of Life. My heart is heavy because of all the things I have read while I studied to teach this lesson in my small group. I pray that people will take this lesson to heart, and that because of tomorrow's lesson, a life might be saved; a baby may be allowed to have life. Perhaps an unmarried girl will decide to carry her baby to term and allow a couple to adopt it.

Life is worth something. Babies should have a chance to live.