REAL CHOICES

This post will take on a different tone and a different subject matter than ever before, but I cannot be silent about it. It's too important.

My mom is an amazing woman, and has one of the biggest, fullest servant hearts I've ever known. While growing up, she served my dad, my brother and I above and beyond, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She's the closest thing to Jesus I know, and she doesn't have a mean or spiteful bone in her body. I adore her. Since me and Joe have grown up and I started having kids of my own, she retired from her job as a teacher, and began helping out with Bennett and Jasper, and also began doing volunteer work in several different arenas, including several of the women's ministries at church, tutoring at a Title I school, and most recently, starting up a brand new ministry at our church, called Beating Heart. It's this last ministry she has become involved in that I feel a need to write about.

In a nutshell, and to put it bluntly, Beating Heart is the pro-life ministry at our church. They mainly work with the organization called Real Choices, which is a local place women can go to receive free sonograms and spiritual, emotional and financial support in their pregnancies, rather than aborting their babies. It's an alternative to Planned Parenthood, who stand for "women's rights" and "doing away" with unwanted pregnancies. My mom also works with 40 Days for Life, which consists of 40 days of prayer, fasting and meeting together peacefully to support and save the lives of babies that would otherwise be lost.

Michael and I went to the annual Real Choices banquet a few weeks ago and the statistics were heartbreaking. But even more heartbreaking, is that our churches have no voice on this subject. In the body of Christ, this subject is taboo for reasons I don't really understand, and this should not be so. We should not be afraid of doing what Christ tells us to do. We should not shy away from protecting the innocent, or being lovingly honest about what is right and true.

The Lord calls us to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. For the widow, the orphan, the poor, the sick, and the helpless. If an unborn child does not qualify, I don't know who or what does. It is the Lord's will that we stand in the gap for these babies.

I haven't figured out what this means exactly for me or my family, but I do know that at the very least it means speaking out and raising awareness, and telling the truth. It means being a voice for these unborn children, whose mothers are being lied to and deceived by organizations like Planned Parenthood, who don't understand the repercussions and suffering that comes from what they are choosing, and who often don't realize exactly what they've done until it's too late.

If you are ignorant or unaware about this subject, I would encourage you to do some research. If this blog makes you uncomfortable, I would ask you to ask yourself why. Why, when we're talking about the lives of innocent children, innocent babies who have no chance at life without the help and intervention of others? Why, when God calls us to love and serve and help these women and their babies? If we don't, who will?

If you want to get involved, check out www.realchoicesdfw.com, or if you go to our church and want to get involved with the Beating Heart ministry, check out the home webpage for ways to get involved.