A resurrection story

Last year around Easter, I found myself compelled to poetry by Good Friday, that beautiful contradiction. 

This year, for whatever reason, I was inspired by the time in between Friday and Resurrection Sunday, when all the disciples had to show for all their learning was a dead rabbi and a hostile community. What would it have been like to walk home after Jesus' burial, anything but assured of his resurrection?

In particular I wanted to explore Peter's perspective, and the complex emotions that I'm sure he was wrestling with after Jesus' death. He wasn't just a passive observer of the event. He'd been intimately connected with Jesus, the only disciple recorded as being confident enough in Jesus to say that he was the Messiah. And even after all that drama, all that conviction, in Jesus' time of suffering, Peter had still denied him to preserve his own well-being.

It must have tortured him. Imagine the relief, then, when Jesus came back--not only justifying all the disciples' faith in him, but willing to embrace Peter as a brother and to empower him to share the fulness of the Gospel with anyone and everyone he could. What a comeback story. And what an encouragement to me it is to see Peter's cowardly yet all-too-relatable failure turned so magnificently into Spirit-driven fire. 

Without the resurrection, we're all stuck in our failures. But Jesus defeated death so you too could rise up out of it and become his champion. 

Saturday

The world was ending.

more precisely,

the world had ended yesterday

a few hours after noon—

the visible simply took time

to catch up

with the invisible.

The Truth, invisible to so many,

still cloudy, even to his closest friends,

had been marched to his death

only yesterday afternoon.

His body,

heartbreakingly human,

lay lifeless, empty as a shattered vessel.

His blood had been red as it poured out,

no more extraordinary than a loaf of bread.

What was it he had said? 

For you I am broken, drained. 

Remember me always.

And as he passed the bread Peter had thought,

I would sooner forget my own name 

than You.

But he had been wrong. In weakness he’d failed

even while praying for the courage to fight.

Now his one hope, his redemption was gone,

hidden away in a tomb

whose stone, rolling to seal it,

had lodged itself in his throat

and would never be exorcised.

Don’t be afraid, he’d said. I will return.

But it couldn’t be true. 

Even if it were,

surely Peter had soiled his portion.

That wine-red blood was on his hands.

And the rooster had crowed his death sentence

even before they had condemned his Christ.

What sacrifice could cover the shame 

so real to him now, 

so much more piercing than any fable of forbidden fruit?

No, the golden hour had passed.

They had killed him,

and he had died like any man.

The dawn of that Sunday

Peter’s mind was an island,

a sheer, desolate crag.

A place no miracles could grow.

Blasphemer or coward, he’d earned

his reward. 

Someone burst in the door–

doors still existed, even in a world at its end--

Mary had been running.

She stood, eyes bright with tears,

catching enough breath to utter two words.

Two words,

and Peter’s legs couldn’t take him fast enough.

Two words:

He’s alive. 

Happy Easter!

Pregnant again

Yes, we are having another baby! Our new baby boy is 17 weeks old and growing! 

And yes, this is a good, good thing. 

My husband and I are blessed with three children now, two who have been born, and we couldn't be more grateful for the love and support we have found over the last couple years in starting our family. 

After the first baby, a lot of things are different, and one thing that's stuck out to me in this most recent pregnancy is the change in tone when people find out. 

I just want to say this isn't a complaint. I'm very excited to have another new baby join the club, and I don't need others to validate me because I know all new life is a gift from God. But it's weird how the negativity seeps in further with each new addition. People will be happy for you, but there's a wariness to them. A fear that maybe this time the new baby won't be a blessing but a burden.  

I'm past the point of wanting people to say different things. Everyone's going to say something, and I shouldn't expect them to shape their though process to what fits my worldview best. There's been plenty said to me by the few people I told about this pregnancy early, and all of it varied widely--even though everyone in my life we shared our news with is supportive and wonderful.

I said before I don't want to expect people to change their words to suit me, and that's true. But I do think the way we talk about things matters. It matters because our words shape our perceptions more than we'd like to admit, and the words we hear from others operate in the same way. In our society we're accustomed to labeling children as a burden. When we Christians, who should know better than anyone what a blessing a baby is, who follow a God who has never said anything but positive things about children, start to absorb this worldview, it comes out even when we are happy about a pregnancy.

That's how you end up congratulating someone on a new baby and in the same breath saying,

"Children are expensive." 

"Pregnancy is traumatic."

"When are you going to be done?" 

"They'll be so close in age, you'll be exhausted!"

"Bet your husband is planning his vasectomy already!"

"I'm just glad it's you and not me."

These are all things I've heard people say to expecting moms (most of them to me) upon their pregnancy announcement. As if they feel compelled to temper their joy with a dose of reality. And I've been guilty of the same thing myself. Why do we feel we have to do this? 

I think life so often disappoints us that we feel the need to buffer our happiness with a layer of doubt. We stop ourselves from diving in to the joy of life because we don't want to be taken by surprise when things are hard. We project our own fears or struggles onto other people because we don't want them to suffer. We fear that if we experience joy too fully, it might seem to others that we don't see their hardships. 

This kind of thing is not only unhelpful, it's dumb. I say that from experience. It's dumb not to allow yourself to appreciate blessings, for any reason. It's dumb to let your anxiety taint the joy of others. It's dumb to look at a good thing and, because it isn't easy or because we live in a world full of bruises, to say that it might actually be bad. Good things are good, and they can be good even here.

Our mindsets need to change on this. Yes, having children isn't all rainbows all the time. Nothing is. That doesn't mean every child isn't a masterpiece handcrafted by God. 

If motherhood has taught me one thing it's that I can't control everything. I actually pretty much control nothing. And any time I start feeling it's my responsibility to ensure that everything is the way it should be for my babies, God sees fit to remind me that ultimately it is He who takes care of all of us.

He's taken care of me my whole life, and He takes care of my children. 

He takes care of the children whose mothers don't. Who've been abandoned by their fathers or shunted into the system. He watches over every soul on this earth, the forgotten, the lonely, the impoverished, the enslaved. He knows their circumstances better than even their parents could. And He loves them better than anyone. Children are precious to the Lord, their Creator. So how can I see them as anything but precious, a thing to be cherished, a gift to be in awe of every day?  

Not every mother can see this, or has ever even heard this truth about her children. But we followers of Jesus are ambassadors of His truth, His light. We should take this responsibility seriously, not using our words to discourage, but to uplift. 

You're worried a mama you know is going to have a hard time--so what? It's the perfect opportunity to ask her if she needs anything. To come alongside her and let her know you love her and her baby and want the best for both of them. To not discourage her by saying something negative. 

Next time you speak to a mama, encourage her. Affirm that her baby (or babies) are loved and created for a purpose. Rejoice with her! Let God open your heart to her. If she has needs you can meet, give generously to her family. We don't have to let joy blind us to need--we should joyfully participate in the will of God to meet those needs. That way, we don't keep our joy hoarded away, not to be shown. Instead we get to share it with others, and point to the One who makes our joy complete. 

God does answer prayers

June 24th is the new favorite holiday of all pro-life people. A poem for the occasion:

Finally, an Answer

Is this the first one:
It feels like the first real victory,
the first time we rallied
and overcame the enemy.
It feels like the first day in decades
we've breathed clean air

But is it, really,
when for the light to get here
it had to travel quite the distance,
one point in history to the next,
too far away to see at first,
now blindingly here,
leaving behind
a trail of undaunted footsteps.

Every domino set, a victory.
Every step forward, a battle won.

No,
when God was silent
He was not absent--
He was there, baton raised
breath poised,
kinetically focused,
never hasty.
Our lens is a pinpoint;
our frame too small
to realize how short our time is,
how infinitesimal the gap
between silence and sound,
between earth and sun.

So in the darkness, still I will thank Him
for the speed of light. 

All is vanity?

The past weeks in our communities seem to have been plagued by evil. Maybe it's just my childhood innocence shedding its scales, but it seems to me that the older I've gotten the heavier the weight of grief and loss in the world has become. Some days I sense a burden of things inexpressible by any language. 

Since my children were born, I've only felt this angst deepen. I know this world is passing away. I know that darkness must increase so that when the light finally banishes it, the glory of that moment will endure forever. Though this is true, I also know that even as darkness grows, hope will too. Hope will never be out-shined by darkness.

So this is my charge to you, fellow pilgrims: seek beauty, hold on to hope, have faith, be brave. Go outside in the springtime. And listen to your mom <3 

Solomon's despair, revisited

Mom said write a poem about a rose
when all I can think of is the world's
love of death.
She said,
go outside where things are still green,
somehow,
and be reminded that not all is death,
not all is lost in darkness.
There is a vivaciousness
in the vibration
of the air.
There's a residue that lingers, persistent
long after words have faded
into ink on a page.
There is life amidst this dying,
a new Spirit that brings buds to bloom.
So in the end,
a rose, or a poem, is not a frivolity.
No fleeting beauty is meaningless,
but it comes like a fragrant breeze
through a still room,
stirring whispers of long-suffering hope. 

Easter for the guilty ones

Barabbas is an afterthought in the Easter story, but this year I find myself compelled by his experience. He was guilty of great evil, yet the Jews demanded Jesus be crucified on the cross that had been prepared for him. 

What would it have been like to be the very man who was exchanged for Jesus on that Good Friday? We all are Barabbas in practice, all of our souls exchanged for the one perfect Jesus--but he was granted this intensely personal view of Jesus' propitiation for our sins in a way that no one else has ever known.

I hope he didn't take it for granted. I pray I never will. 

A Good Day for Barabbas

All I can see is the cross.

Lurking behind, looming before me

around and above me,

inescapable.

I know only one emotion now.

Fear.

Fear of dying.

And beyond that, the still more ominous fear

of death.

I know nothing good can await me there.

It is a dead end, the road to it paved

with pain and humiliation

and overshadowed by that sadistic tree.

They will come for me.

They will open the door and speak my name.

Barabbas,

they will sneer. 

They will spit it out like sour wine.

And then will come the real fear,

the slow and masochistic march.

I will see the cross,

feel its crushing weight

cut into my back.

My ears will fill with the sound of my name,

spoken with contempt, with derision.

Never again

will I hear love in those syllables.

I will feel the life within me churning,

writhing as if caught in a snare,

not knowing its escape will also be its downfall.

They will strip me bare

like Adam in the Garden.

The nails will snap shut their jaws

and I will wait to die, blessing and cursing every breath.

The cell door opens.

Barabbas,

they call. The first stone.

But the next ones fall from their hands.

They want him, not you.

Him

not me.

Who is this man, 

condemned to take my place?

Ashamed, I realize

I do not care.

Him, not me.

Not me.

I am a free man, an impossible 

contradiction,

but I cannot go home.

They may have freed me, but

they will never welcome me. 

My life is tainted by death.

Where else can I go but that inevitable place?

I am drawn to the hill,

the place where he died,

where my blood should have watered the ground.

My blood, not his.

But I am here, I am whole. And he is not. 

Who is he? I look up,

as if Heaven might answer

but when I lift my eyes, all I can see

is the cross. 

Abortion isn't Healthcare. It's a Holocaust.

I can't stop thinking about those babies. 

More than likely you already know what I'm talking about, but if you don't: last week, the bodies of five babies were recovered by Washington D.C. police in the home of a well-known pro-life advocate. For days the pro-life community has been calling out for an investigation into their deaths, which appear not only brutal in nature (as all abortion is), but potentially illegal as well. There has been nothing but radio silence from the D.C. government in response. 

This is our holocaust. 

I do not use that word lightly. Some may think I use it inappropriately, but I don't care. The time for sparing feelings has long since passed, and abortion is a holocaust on a grander scale than any Nazi ever could have dreamed. And yet, so many of us are silent. So many are content to stand by and do nothing. So many are content to keep the truth buried inside.

And what's our excuse? Social ostracization. Unpleasant conversations. Imperfect solutions. The Germans in 1940 had better excuses than we do. 

After a week like this, it can be hard to remember that evil is destined to lose. But I still believe in the God who defeated death. 

Lament for the Five

Five.

Five children dead.

Five sons and daughters mangled, abandoned

to blood and fear, cold and betrayal. 

Five dead faces speak for millions,

and the wicked heart calls this barbarism 

beauty.

These words, these thoughts are poison,

bitter herbs and stinging bites.

But how can I write anything else

when my mind is full of them?

Words of sorrow and rage,

hateful condemnations,

silent screams. 

I am anger,

I am a blunt weapon.

I am fatigue, I am nausea.

I am everything unrighteous. My heart

turns against me.

I hate death and desire destruction.

I desire the destruction of the wicked

yet my own maladies would condemn me.

Pain and death surround me.

The pain of the innocent encroaches on my safety.

With every breath

fear and hopelessness snatch at my joy.

The dead lurk behind my eyelids.

I cry rivers of blood,

never enough to satisfy a cruel world.

But the Holy One of Israel will not be thwarted.

His hands heal their misery,

for them now just a memory, 

while left behind,

we live still, in the echoes.

Come quickly to save me,

Man of Sorrows and Prince of Peace.

Wipe the tears from my eyes.

Let me write of beauty and love.

Let me sing songs of hope,

courageous ballads.

Let me dance and be joyful.

No more songs of lament

will flow from my lips,

no tears then

Except tears of laughter when I see You.

You, always before me,

just in your anger. Eager in mercy.

Perfect in goodness and

inescapable.

Let me rejoice and find in You my salvation.

find out more about how you can fight the evil of abortion at liveaction.org

No, you can't be a Christian and be Pro-Choice

Many calling themselves Christians disagree with me. They say any number of well-intentioned things, things which come, ultimately, from a love of the world and a reluctance to divide themselves from it. And the "Pro-Choice Christian" answer sounds good to the world. It sounds like empathy, and understanding, and freedom of choice, and freedom from suffering. It sounds like caring. It sounds like love. 

But it's not the duty of a Christian to reconcile her faith with the world, and it's not indicative of faith in God to seek the world's answers. So in this issue, as with any important question, I'm asking God. What does His word have to say about this situation we find ourselves in? What do I know of God, what does the example of Christ tell me about how I should live my life? 

I know that God is omniscient and omnipresent. I know he sees all of us in our individual circumstances and knows us completely.

I know that God loves His creation, and created humanity to be in relationship with Him. I know that apart from that, we will always be lost, wandering in search of a soul-filling love.

I know that God hates evil, in all its forms. He hates the evil that makes us hurt each other in anger. He hates the evil that causes us to seek our own comfort above anything else. He hates lies, and greed, and unfaithfulness, and selfishness, and disobedience. He hates pain. He hates murder. 

I know that in my own sinfulness I have nothing to offer God. I know that it would be just for me to die in my sins. But I also know that God created a way, in Jesus, for our relationship to be restored, and gave me a shining example, in Jesus, of what that restored relationship should look like. 

I know that Jesus is the perfect Son of God. I know that He commanded me to love God, and love my neighbor. I know that He calls me to turn from my sin and follow Him. I know that He chose a miserable death rather than leave me in my hopelessness--that greater love has no one than this.

What does this tell me about abortion?

It tells me that God is a God of truth, not of easy answers. It tells me that the truth is sometimes, if not often, painful. It tells me that all the suffering we experience in this world is because of sin, and because of the evil that lurks in our own hearts. It tells me that my own heart is untrustworthy, and if I listen to every natural instinct I have, it will lead me to destruction. 

It tells me what love truly looks like: 

It is unconditional. 

It is self-sacrificing.

It is moved by compassion. It does not rejoice in the suffering of others, but endures pain in order to do right by others. 

It rejects fear, rejects selfishness, rejects simple and quick solutions. It forgives even when the offense is unpardonable. It forgives even the evil of abortion, if indeed abortion is evil.

God is Love. These three words are true, yet this simple phrase is used by many to justify selfish and sinful acts. But if I truly believe God is love, then I must trust that His answer to this question is better than the one I'd come up with on my own. I must trust that no complexity can excuse evil. I must trust that He sees the situation in its wholeness, and knows what it requires better than I or anyone ever could.

God sees every struggling mother. He sees her in her pain, in her terror of the unknown, in her hopelessness and doubt. He sees the woman he knit together in her own mother's womb, fearfully and wonderfully, grown into a mother herself and fearful of what that means. God sees in her the broken heart that has led her to this choice. He sees in her the possibility for strength, bravery, and beauty that He will give to her, if only she could reach out her hand and take it. 

And God's sight does not end where ours does, with the veiled outline of new life, impossible to grasp fully because we are so limited by our eyes. God sees the new life budding inside every mother's womb. He sees a new child, one whose every cell is numbered and known by Him. He sees that child, in all its unfathomable smallness, and loves him or her with the same love that caused Him to visit a womb Himself, in the form of the baby Jesus. 

If you believe what God has said, that humankind has been created in His very image, then you must include every human being in that image, as He does. God--Love--does not look with disdain on the smaller, the weaker, the more vulnerable. He does not dismiss the humblest of us. He does not ask of what use we can be to him, in our imperfection. He does not measure our worth by what we can be, or what we will become; rather, He measures it by what we are--loved with an eternal, unconditional love, and created in that love to be a part of His story. 

Created, in that love, to be saved and redeemed for no other reason than that it pleases Him to love us fully and completely.  

Jesus gave his life for us when we were at our worst. He called us friends as we sat around his table, plotting to betray him. He chose us and saved us, rather than leave us in our misery. How can we, then, as recipients of that incredible grace, demand that our very children die for us when they are at their most innocent? How can we deny them the same love that Christ demonstrated for us when he went to the cross? How can we take the life, in brutal and murderous fashion, of a precious human being, created in God's own image? 

There is nothing, nothing of the strong, faithful, self-sacrificing Christ in abortion. There is nothing of Him in the fear and pain and selfishness that drives many women to seek the destruction of their offspring. There is nothing of faith in that choice. Abortion is the very antithesis of the life-giving hope that Christ has given us.

So no, you cannot be a Christian and support abortion. 

You can wrestle with the complexities of human suffering, you can question how best to help those who are struggling with unplanned pregnancies. But you cannot claim Christ and abortion in the same breath without lying about one of those things. 

This question will divide us. It will separate us from the world, and sometimes from each other. But that is what Jesus said would happen as time went on--those faithful to Him would be revealed by their fruits. And abortion is not a fruit of Jesus' death-conquering Life. It is a fruit of Satan, of sin,
and of the evil, corrupted world we live in. 

Anything that is of darkness is not of God. And as followers of Christ, we are called to love only the things of God. To call an evil thing good, to make room for it in your heart, to support and cheer for it, is to deny Jesus. Without Jesus we walk in blindness, but once we have been given the Spirit of new life in Him, and our eyes are opened to the truth, we are still accountable to love and seek that truth. 

A choice, then, lies before us. Faith or fear? Hope or cynicism? Jesus, or abortion? It can't be both. Choose wisely. 

A fearful world needs courageous people

We live in a moment of fear.

Fear is inherent in our culture; we breathe it in as we walk outside. We speak it into our relationships. We cower before it in the public spaces where we should be able to be free. 

It's part of the natural human condition to be fearful--what's unnatural is the transcendent ability to overcome fear and even defeat it. To replace our visceral, human fears with focus, with confidence, with hope. It is unnatural to believe that's even possible.

But to the Christian, it is the reality of everyday life--or at least, it should be.

And yet many of us still remain trapped in our fear. Fear of our peers. Fear of injury. Fear of failure, censure, death and sickness. We watch movies and read fairy tales about daring heroes, but none of the real life we consume seems to fit that model. What we see in our media most often reflects the basest degeneracies of human life: destructive speech, violence, addiction and anger. Babies and children are murdered, abandoned and hated by their parents. Innocent people hurt while evil people seem to flourish. 

Evil is real in our world, which is why we have always needed courage to meet it. But courage isn't a ready part of our vocabulary anymore. It's one of those lost Old English words Shakespeare used to use, but which now have no real meaning. 

What is courage, anyway? 

It's not the absence of fear. Actually, it's just the opposite--it's the presence of fear, and the defiant choice to push forward through very real danger, because what you're heading toward is worth the pain, or the ridicule, or the suffering. 

One thing fear gets right is that this world is full of danger. We need fear, in a way, to let us know when we encounter that danger--but if our fear doesn't move us toward courage, it's defeated us.

So what do you need, in order to find your courage? The kind that doesn't tarnish, that doesn't quail before hardship, that stands up boldly and says no to evil, no matter the cost?

You need to believe in SOMETHING.

You need to believe in God.

Believe that God is good, that He is active, that He is never listless or lethargic. Believe that He will help you achieve the good He has purposed for you, and for this world. Believe that He will be your courage when you need it.

Believe that God, his holiness and love and truth, the eternal hope we have in Him, is worth anything and everything. 

When you believe that, you become invincible, and everything becomes possible.

When you know in your heart that God is the ultimate good in the universe, when your soul is at peace and confident resting in His truth--the only truth that exists--you will never want to be silent, shrinking away in fearful darkness, ever again. You will take up the cause of the Kingdom with a hope that wells like the ocean inside of you.

This isn't about politics, though the more I think about politics the more I hear this message, the message of hope and courage. In reality nothing in life is about politics--politics are always about life.

And, Christian, your life is more than right or left, socialist or capitalist, individual liberty or common good. Your life is for God--the God who is above all things things and yet can be found working among them. Your life is meant to ask the question, what is God's purpose for this moment?, to seek the answer eagerly, fearlessly, hopefully. 

To find and grasp the truth of God, the truth that He whispers in lonely moments of prayer, the truth written for us in His Word, the truth He has woven into every aspect of Creation, done out of love for us and joy for a good, good thing. God's truth is love, and perfect love drives out fear.

When you know the truth, fear will find no purchase in you. Any fear that gains control over you only does so because you are holding on to it, rather than fixing your attention on God. 

Jesus said it, and I believe it. Fear of the world will destroy you--but fear of the living God will empower you to do great things.

So do not be afraid of them. For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Pro-life is pro-choice. Pregnancy is pro-woman.

  Pregnancy is a positive good. 
        That this statement is controversial is in itself a tragedy.
But that’s where we are now, and I think it’s because women, in general, have lost touch with their roots.
Interestingly, though the feminist movement has absorbed multitudes of women into its ranks over the past century, femininity itself seems to have lost value to our society.
Meekness is equated with weakness. Subtle, patient guidance loses every time to domineering, aggressive bossiness. Cultivating a peaceful home offers no economic return. Loving submission and service are seen as outpourings of an oppressed spirit, rather than a grateful heart. 
And the most feminine quality of all—mothering, that act of nurturing one’s own offspring, giving of oneself, laying down one’s desires for the good of a dependent child, is now seen as an affront to women. Mothers, we are told, are held back by this degrading natural process.
Men, being free from this biological process of bearing children, are naturally freer than women, and women should seek to shed the oppressive garment of childbearing and become more like men—aggressive, demanding, rational. Children are parasites, burdens, thieves and freeloaders, and women can only elevate themselves by pushing their children downward. Abortion is necessary to ensure the equality of men and women, because women can only be empowered if they are able to do everything exactly like men. Women should put themselves first, in all things, and we should applaud the self-interest of successful women.
And so we are encouraged to grow up, to be our own heroes, to break tradition and seize control of our own destinies. Young girls, so often instinctively drawn to baby dolls and playing house and making cookies in pretend kitchens, are indirectly told that those desires are wrong. That their innate femininity is a curse they need to break free from, so they can have a career, see the world, make history.
The result is a society of women who are so disconnected from their innate feminine desire to mother, to nurture, it is hardly a surprise that they are willing to treat their own helpless babies with such callous disregard as to destroy them through abortion. 
But what if mothering, nurturing femininity was seen as an asset, rather than a weakness? What if our unique ability, as women, to bear and rear our children, is the legacy we are so hungry for? What if our natural desire to mother can be our biggest feminine strength, no matter our stage in life?
Pregnancy and motherhood come with responsibilities, that’s for sure. Becoming a mother means leaving some selfish and childish desires behind. But responsibility is a mold that can shape us into something beautiful. 
You are here because someone is your mother. No matter where you ended up along the way, you began inside your mother, and she carried you until you were ready to see the world. That kind of self-sacrifice, no matter what other flaws your mother may have, was a gift to you—the opposite of selfishness. Becoming your mother, in that uncertain beginning, was for her the first step toward the kind of love no one can even quantify. Whether she chose to see that journey of love through the rest of your life or not, whether she chose herself over you in years to come or continued to love you sacrificially, the very act of bearing you was one of love. And that, in itself, is a good, good thing. A miraculous opportunity, one that only a woman can take—and one that should never be wasted.
In the end, motherhood is defined by choice, but not in the way we tend to see it now. Becoming a mother is not always the deliberate and thoughtful act that it should be. A mother doesn’t always choose her child in the way that one chooses a car or a house. Before a child is created, you are not a mother; as soon as that individual human life erupts inside you, you are a mother, and you make every choice thereafter as a mother—even the choice to terminate that child’s life. 
The real choice in mothering, then, lies in how we respond to motherhood when we receive it. Will we choose to love, to grow, to accept the responsibility that comes with our womanhood, to open ourselves up to the beauty and the life inside us? Or will we choose to abandon that gift and deny its possibilities? 
Some say that in terminating a pregnancy, the mother is only saying goodbye to the possibility, the potential of a child. This is not so.
In reality, there already is a child existent, vibrant, new. The choice to terminate only eliminates the possibilities that await that child in his or her future. It doesn’t erase your child. It doesn’t erase your motherhood. It simply ends a process that could have been the beginning of everything good in your life, and leaves you bereft, the mother of a dead offspring. It takes away all future choices. 
The choice to embrace a child, then, does exactly the opposite. It gives way to the future and all its forks in the road. It proudly accepts the mantle of motherhood, rather than trying to hide it. It denies the selfishness of fear and replaces it with hope. It makes a mother stronger, more loving, more selfless, more in tune with every good thing we are made to be. It gives the child a chance to choose his or her own path. 
In abortion there is only one possibility. In the life of a new baby, there is nothing but possibility ahead. Embracing life, then, is actually the most pro-choice you can be. 
       To the woman afraid to have her baby: you may get an inkling of it now, but you have no idea the untouchable, all-forsaking love you are capable of until you’ve held that child in your arms. There is no strength stronger than that of a woman whose love enables her to give up her life for her child. There is no human force more empowering than the love-fueled courage you will find within yourself as you contemplate the life growing within you.
        Don’t give up on your motherhood. 

A letter to me (a know-it-all)

Not knowing everything makes me uncomfortable. 

I always want all the answers. Decisive, simple, black and white answers. I want to be able to point to something and say "this is bad" or "this is good." I want to know the right direction to go, and the right advice to give, always and everywhere, from now until the end of time.

As a mother and a writer especially, there's always a looming sense of responsibility over everything I do, and everything I learn. If I don't know it, I can't teach it, right? Can I presume to teach anyone out of the little I do know? What is my real responsibility, separate from my perception? To what degree is each of us accountable for what we accept as truth?

These are the questions that swirl around my head most days. It's pretty unfortunate, then, that I'm a fallible and shortsighted human who barely knows how old she is on any given day. Because of course, though the ultimate universal truth of everything is what I desire, I cannot contain all of it in this limited body.

There are a few things I know about this:

1) It is good to seek answers. 

In Matthew 7:7, Jesus says, "Ask and it will be given unto you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened unto you."

The deeper I go in my search for God, the more I wrestle with His vastness and my own inability to comprehend it. At times this brings me to doubt what I know. But do I give up when my questions feel too big for me? No. I keep asking, I keep seeking, I keep knocking. Doubt is a natural part of the Christian life, but in my doubt I must have faith--faith that although I may never run out of questions, God will never run out of answers. 

2) It is impossible to know everything.

Isaiah 43:10 says, "You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God."

Plan and simple, I'm not God--but I believe in a God who is, and that is the ultimate comfort. He understands everything I do not, He knows the inner workings of every heart, and He alone is just in judgement. 

3) It is more productive to follow God's lead in each individual moment than to painstakingly work out solutions to every possible future situation. 

The salvation of others concerns me. The future of my child concerns me. How my faith interacts with the issues that accompany being alive concerns me, as I strive to walk with God, to share the truth He's given me, and to reflect Christ in all things. But all of these grand questions are secondary to what should always be my main concern: living with God in the present moment, trusting His Spirit to do the work in me that He purposes to do. 

Ezekiel 3:10-11 says "Son of man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says!'"

I am not God. It's not my job to judge rightly, to determine the state of every person's heart, to understand the precise workings of grace, sanctification, and judgement in everyone's life. It is incumbent upon me to trust the Holy Spirit to lead me well, to learn and accept the truth of God's word, to love correction, and lastly (and least importantly) to help others learn to recognize the truth when they see it. 

God help me, I'd never presume to teach where I have no knowledge and no Spiritual insight, but I believe God gives us truth when we need it, and desires for us to live it out boldly. 

If there's anything I know, it's that whatever I know, I know it because God has given me to know it. Life, wisdom, and discipleship may seem at times to be a tightrope walk between confidence and humility--but my confidence, my faith, is in God's leading, not my ability to follow. I know He is faithful to guide me, and I must be faithful in my humble desire for His guidance. Every word He gives me is like a precious seed that grows in His sunlight when planted. 

In this way life becomes simple: as each moment arrives, I am to humbly follow, and do the right thing on God's authority, not my own. 

I'm tired of expecting the worst from people

I've always been a fighter. Ever since elementary school, I considered it my duty to stick up for kids who got picked on, and to admonish my own friends to become better people. For some reason, the radio antenna of my heart has always been tuned in to truth and justice (with a brief exception in middle school, when I thought it would be cool to be cool). 

This is not a self-brag. I honestly can claim no credit for that goodness-loving quality, though I suspect my parents are to blame, and certainly God had a hand in it. 

Along with this passion in me came a big mouth, which I spent many long years learning how to master. And oddly enough, coexistent in me was a desire to keep others happy and avoid conflict. When I think about it, it does not make any sense, but here I still am, so I suppose I must be real. 

I think this conflict-averse tendency is born out of a real love for people--but also, there's a big fear component to it. In my quiet narcissism I fear that I am the only sane person left on earth, and that there's no point in reaching out for common ground in a world of monsters. 

After high school, my conflict aversion led me to avoid knowing too much about worldly matters. It was impossible for me not to have an opinion at every opportunity, so I didn't even read the news in college, because I didn't want to be angry all the time and I didn't want to fight with people I loved. And I fully expected to be angry all the time once I got back on Twitter a few months ago, angry and tired because no one is reasonable and I am alone in the universe. 

How selfish is that? 

I would rather hide than take the light I've been given into what can be the darkest of places--the scrambling crowd of social media. I'd rather sit in the shadowed corner, thinking my own thoughts, avoiding the discomfort of being heard--or worse yet, that of hearing some truth I've been ignoring, clear enough that I can no longer run from it. I'd rather assume, in judgmental cynicism, that no one else feels as I do, and that everyone who thinks differently than I must want me dead. 

But you know what, that cynicism still made me tired. Tired of expecting the worst from people, and suppressing the best in myself. 

Life and truth and conversation are indeed burdens, as Jesus said they would be. We are burdened with the responsibility, in this age of social media, of having more information available to us than any other generation of people ever living. Burdened we are, yet what a beautiful gift we've been given.

It is a gift, whether we see it as one or not. At this moment we have the ability to connect with people we may never meet in person, but with whom we share many unexpected things. We have the chance to learn so much, and grow so much, if only we don't shy away from the challenge. And most exciting, we have been given a voice to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth, to any who will hear and believe. And they will. 

I don't believe we are meant to neglect this opportunity.

I believe we are meant to take it and run--to run toward truth, and take as many people with us as we can. To invite our fellow humans, fearful and cowardly though we are, to leap boldly into the fray with us, as we stand up shakily and try to be better than that which we hate. To hold ourselves, and each other--even the ones who should be our enemies--to a higher standard. To encourage each other to try again when we inevitably fail to meet it. 

To say boldly to those who don't yet know the truth, and may even be hostile to it: you are worth this conflict. 

Because in the end, if our cause is God's, our fight is for them too.