Sacrifice and Love

Do you ever have those moments where you truly want to think about absolutely nothing? That’s exactly what I was hoping for when I set out to ride. Now that we have set the clocks ahead an hour there was still plenty of daylight left for riding after work. Personally I wish they would leave the time alone but I guess my opinion doesn’t really count. As I set out to ride and started conversing with God and with myself, I was trying to just clear out all of my thoughts and “enjoy the ride. ” Well as the Bible says, our thoughts aren’t always His thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways,” says the Lord.

The subject that popped into my head over and over was definitely not something I’d even been thinking about during the day and was much deeper than anything I wanted to ponder while I rode. No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t shake it. I will not get into politics in this blog but there is a recent issue that has haunted me and I can’t even begin to imagine how or why such a law came to be that we can now legally kill babies in some states up until the very minute they are born. If someone kills a pregnant woman, they can be charged with both murders, yet a woman can choose to have her baby aborted, murdered, up until the minute it is born and it’s legal in some states! This is incomprehensible.

Having had 3 miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy that could easily have taken my own life had it not been discovered when it was, I can’t fathom this no matter what the circumstances. This decision has to grieve our Heavenly Father immensely. I can remember during my 3 successful pregnancies, the Dr. asking me if I wanted to do tests to check for Down’s syndrome or other “abnormalities.” My answer every time was no because even if that was the case, there was nothing I was going to do differently. God blessed me with those babies and He would see me through raising them regardless, and he did.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

I honestly believe every child is a gift from God and should be treated as such from the moment of conception. There are so many women out there who cannot have babies that would love to have a child if they were given the opportunity. I thought then about Jesus and how God sent his only son to die for us, to take on our sins so that we could have eternal life with Him. Would you be willing to sacrifice your child or any loved one for the sake of a bunch of sinners?

There have been times when I would have given my life for a loved one, but I can’t think of a circumstance where I would have done so willingly for someone I didn’t know. I would give blood, or a kidney, or bone marrow if it would help someone else, but my life or my child’s life? I am an organ donor upon death, but that seems to be where the line is drawn. Does that make me selfish? Maybe, but I think it just makes me human. I will sacrifice and do without so others may have, but there’s also a line drawn that I will not willingly cross on my own.

Again, no matter how hard I tried to change the subject in my mind while I was riding, I couldn’t. I tried to think about the beach, about the weather soon changing for warmer and longer riding days, about my granddaughters, the older of which just turned 2 already, and so many other ideas. None of those stuck with me. My mind constantly returned to the subject of children and sacrifice. When we become parents, at least for me, there’s nothing we won’t do for our children if we feel it’s in their best interest. Their needs come first.

I may not always agree with the decisions my boys make, but I still love them as only a mother can, despite those disagreements. Love is unconditional. Loving someone doesn’t always mean approving of what they do, but we are to love others as God loves us. Sometimes we have to love someone enough to let them go. We have to give them over to God. I have had to do this with a few people in my life, one of them being one of my sons, but that’s not because I didn’t love them, it’s because I did love them. I cannot change certain situations, but God can. My holding onto things out of my control are not beneficial to anyone involved.

I don’t believe this pertains to innocent babies not yet born, this pertains to humans that have reached the “age of maturity ” when they are making their own decisions. Innocent babies are not sinners and should be treated with the utmost love and protection we can give them. Anything less makes us all guilty. This is a rock I have carried in my pocket every day for several years as a gentle reminder to focus on love first.

How did we get to a place where we flock to the beaches or the mountains to watch the splendor of a beautiful sunrise or sunset, are in awe of Fall foliage, become mesmerized by the sight of snow falling, and yet don’t value the birth of a child? It blows my mind and makes me question our morals, our values, our motives, our very existence.

I know we are not supposed to understand everything now, but this is just so hard for me to even begin to comprehend. I simply can’t. I have to pray hard for those involved in these situations, for our country, our leaders, and our world. I would not want to be raising a child in our current culture and I ache for a better world for my grandchildren to grow up in. It’s time we get back to the basics of life; family, love and most of all allowing God back into every aspect of our lives. We have become so afraid of offending others, yet we seem to have no issues offending our creator. The signs are everywhere you look. It’s time to take a stand, to pray, and to have a true revival before it’s too late.

There’s an old song called People Get Ready and a former pastor of mine sang it from the pulpit one Sunday after his sermon and it was so powerful. He has provided us with everything we need, we just have to be willing to accept it, then live accordingly.