Run Toward the Tragedy

After the Boston Marathon bombing, there were reports of kindness and bravery in the midst of tragedy. One thing that I read over and over was that as the world watched the videos, we saw people running TOWARD the blast, not AWAY from it.

In his article, "Running Toward the Marathon Chaos" Zachary Bell wrote:

Yet last Monday, I saw something more jaw-dropping than the tragedy at the Boston Marathon itself: people, many of them civilians, running toward the chaos. I saw police officers, marathon runners, race volunteers and even bystanders who did not flee, but moved toward the bomb blasts, without regard for their own safety, trying to provide assistance to the injured.

While I listened, watched, read and prayed about Boston, I did the same for the Gosnell trial. Sadly, you may not even know what I'm talking about when I say Gosnell. This is from a transcript of an interview for PBS Newshour:

 Gosnell is being tried on eight counts of murder, seven of them for allegedly killing babies that prosecutors say were born alive and viable. The eighth count is for his role in the death of an immigrant from Bhutan. Attorneys say she died of an overdose from a sedative she was given. The case stems from an FBI raid on his Philadelphia clinic in 2010.

Investigators found horrific conditions and say he performed some abortions after the 24-week legal limit in Pennsylvania. 

It would be horrific enough if Gosnell's was the only abortion provider in the world. But he isn't.
Please watch this video from liveaction.org.





As Kathryn Jean Lopez writes, "This Is the End of Looking Away".

Are you turning away? plugging your ears? closing your eyes?

These babies and their mothers need a hero. Cry out for them. Run toward the tragedy. 

http://www.supportrcfwcorinth.org

http://russandmegan.blogspot.com/2013/04/unplanned-pregnancyperfectly-planned.html

When I vote yes....

Okay, I have more to say.

I wanted to add to what I wrote previously. I told you that I would vote yes on 26.There is a responsibility that comes with voting yes. Because I choose to vote yes, I also choose the following things:

1. I choose to pray daily and fervently about foster care and adoption. I choose to be open to either in our future.

2. I choose to be open to, prayerful about, and looking for opportunities to help those that are in crisis pregnancy situations. No matter how small I think my contribution might be, I want to be avaliable to help. My heart, my home, my pocketbook, and my love are prayerfully open to them.

3. I choose to support mothers and fathers who struggle to provide for their family.

4. I choose to spend time with children who need love and leadership because their parents are absent either by choice or by necessity.

5. I choose not to abandon the babies I fight for after they leave the womb.

6. I choose to withhold judgement and give out love instead.

I can't do everything but I can do something.

What Can I Say?

I've found myself at my keyboard, staring at a blank screen so often this past month. Every attempt to put my heart into words has failed. What can I say that hasn't been said by someone else?What if the person reading it takes my words in a different way than I mean? My vote is my own personal decision. I don't have to share what I think. But, maybe you want to hear it anyway. So, because the election is TOMORROW, I will try now.

I know you have probably seen this question over and over but I will include it here again:

"Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof?"

When I read those words for the first time, I knew what they meant to me. My question was, "what will this mean to those that interpret and defend our laws as they apply this proposition to our lives?". Frankly, I got a little scared.

You know what I didn't do after that? I didn't panic. I didn't poll my friends about the issue. I didn't believe everything that I read on Facebook.

You know what I did do? I prayed. I asked God to take away the fear and give me a sound mind. I poured out my concerns to Him. I listened for His answer. I read His word to see what He says about personhood, fertilization, cloning and the functional equivalent thereof. I sought wise council from my husband and a few others whom I trust, whom I know prayferfully consider issues, whom I know seek God's will through application of Scripture. I weighed the information against what I know to be true.

This is the conclusion I came to:

I believe that a fertilized embryo is a person. This proposition protects those persons.

If this amendment takes away some or all birth control, I trust that God can handle that.
If this amendment limits IVF or takes it away, I trust God can handle that.
If this amendment limits healthcare in any way, I trust God can handle that.

I have never been raped. I have never conceived a child by an abuser. I am so grieved that this happens. But the fact that the child is conceived in those situations does not make the child any less of a person. I believe that child has a right to life too. I trust God to heal in these situations.

I do believe that the life of the mother will be considered in light of non-viable pregnancies, i.e. ectopic and molar pregnancies. I trust God has the lives of those mothers in His hands too.

I don't know what "unintended consequences" that the words "cloning or the funtional equivalent thereof" will have in the distant future, but I trust God can handle that.

For those of you who will read this and say that God doesn't have anything to do with this, I beg to differ. The Creator of the universe has everything to do with everything.

All life is precious. I believe that this proposition adds to that and doesn't make any other life less valuable.

So I thank God in advance for the outcome tomorrow and know that God already knows what it is and can handle it.

I will vote yes tomorrow on Initiative 26.

So pray, pray, pray. On your face in the floor if you have to. But get peace about your vote tomorrow and go cast it however God leads you.




Philippians 4:5-7

New King James Version (NKJV)

"Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;  and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."