pro life

“Abortion is HealthCare” Billboard is Missing One Small Detail

/ Jana / Leave a comment

Empower women. That is the mantra. But when you kill one woman to empower another, that’s not true healthcare. I call that entitlement at best and delusional at worst. It is a distorted elitism of “I deserve to live and you don’t.”  Listen, this isn’t my first rodeo around abortion rights. It used to be “it’s not a fetus.” Scientific evidence shut that down decades ago. Yet instead of awakening our feminine hearts, we have devolved into madness. Today the notion of “my right” to healthcare and happiness and control means that I can kill my own child even past birth.

In what universe do we separate abortion from any other hate crime?  We cry out for racial, gender, and religious freedom. We harangue every sign of offensive action or speech toward perceived targeted groups. Yet we turn a deaf ear and deadly weapon on the unborn. We destroy the most unprotected among us and celebrate their deaths as women’s advancement. Animals have more advocates and compassion.

I am not offended by abortion. I am outraged. And yes, I am post-abortive. And yes, I KNOW what it means to trapped by an unwanted pregnancy. And yes, I support women in crisis pregnancies.

And I also know that murder never solved any problem anywhere.

I want to lovingly, boldly lay down this gauntlet for my on-the-fencer abortion rights friends. These are the women and men who are “personally against abortion but believe women should have healthcare.” You have been misled if you think the argument is about safe clinics. It’s never been about that. It never will be.

It’s about the life and death of a human being and who has the “right” to live.

I know Jesus died for us all. I know He loves us all even in this painful controversy we find ourselves in. And, I know this to be His truth. Jesus spent His whole beautiful Being bringing people to  Life. Not ending it. He plants life. He  resurrects life. He defends life.

As women, as men, we must raise up our voices, votes and prayers.  Almost 30 years ago it was said, “if today we can kill our kids in the womb, one day we will be able to kill them outside the womb.” We are chillingly closer to that statement every day.

God have mercy on us.  Please, LORD, resurrect our maternal instinct to protect the young.

Photo by Katherine Brown.
(One of my most favorite pieces of all time. Oh that He would heal us all.)

We Are Slaves No More — Part 1

/ Jana / Leave a comment

“I’m pregnant.” These words provoke either sheer delight or absolute terror. Sometimes a mix of both. They are words that have caused me to weep before the Lord in recent days. As I prepare for Undaunted and seek God’s face on His opinion of women, my heart has become more and more — what’s the word? — disturbed, burdened, awakened, even explosive with the call that we, as women, must rise up to defend our image of God. We must raise the bar on ourselves so that our daughters and sons might have better role models. Fasten your seat belt, this could get uncomfortable.

I could, and will, talk about the social blight of male promiscuity. I could, and will, talk about the responsibility of men to be protectors and providers instead of predators.

But today, I want to ask you, just how willing are you, as a woman, to protect and defend yourself, your fellow sisters, and the next generation? I see three topics where we are so politically-charged and biblically off-base that women have become more oppressive to women than the men.

Topic One:  Let’s talk about abortion. Some prominent female authors I greatly admire speak of God and the beauty of women and yet they promote and campaign for women to have the “right” to their own body. I understand this completely.

It is the woman who is “trapped” by a baby. The woman whose body must “suffer” the contortion of physical changes in pregnancy. It is a woman who must “sacrifice” her dreams and goals because she has been “caught” in the act. It is the woman who often lives in poverty trying to care for children in single parent homes.  We have to do something to “empower women globally” is the cry of pro-choicers.

baby-hand-holding-mothers-hand1-1

However, instead of empowering women, have we have created generations of cowards? We have so lost our identity in God, so lost our personal responsibility to “above all else guard [our] heart” that we have actually fueled a hellish deception that women are victims and shouldn’t be penalized by sex.

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For The Wounded Ones in the Abortion Battle

/ Jana / Leave a comment

Because I know you are out there…

I know that every time you even hear the words “pro life” or “abortion” or “pro choice” you get a pit in your stomach, or lump in your throat, or rush of fear, anger or regret in your heart.

Your worst fear is to be found out. Your deepest desire is to be forgiven, finally. You wrestle with what your parents, pastor, boyfriend, husband, friends said before and after your decision. Or what they would say if they only knew…

You replay the day. Over and over.

You flinch at babies. Or you long for a baby.

You can’t stop crying. Or you can’t stop raging.

You can’t stop hating yourself. Or the father, or person who pressured you, even if that person was you.

You can’t even think about heaven. Because what on earth will you say to your child?

And then there is God…how could he love you now?

Even churches act like your choice is too bad, too big for God’s mercy. Will God punish you forever?

Do Christians even care about the scared, trapped pregnant woman or just the baby?

Sisters (brothers), God’s grace is greater than all our sin. It truly does wash us white as snow. When we sing “Jesus paid it all” it means He paid for that day in the clinic as well.  Not partially, or conditionally, but it is completely covered by His redeeming love.

I pray you will have the courage to begin the journey to freedom.  One of the steps to my own healing was to talk about it. I had to open the door to let the shame and fear out but also to let His breath of cleansing freedom in. God led me to a grace-filled believers who really, really understood the Power of the cross. They spoke truth over me that Jesus came to save the world not to condemn it. (Thank you Nan Sprouse and Pat Gilley.) They cried with me. They grieved with me. They loved me with the eternal Love of Jesus.

Look at John 3:16-18 with fresh eyes:IMG_1318
“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.

The gospel of Jesus, His desire to make the world whole applies to  you. You are not disqualified. You are not cast out. You are not unlovable or unforgivable.

Truly, as the song says, “God renders miracles of our sin.”

For the wounded ones of the abortion battle…Your child is with God but you are still here with us. I pray that God will lead you to people that will love you into freedom.

Pro-Choice…I once was blind, but now I see

/ Jana / Leave a comment

“If you don’t want to have an abortion, then don’t have one. If I do want to, then it should be available.”

“What right do you have to tell me what to do with my body? It’s my choice!”

“Thank you [HIllary Clinton] for always speaking up for women.”
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Let’s play a little game, shall we? Let’s translate some of these comments from people who advocate abortion:
“If you don’t want to murder someone then don’t, but if I do want to murder someone, then I should have all the tools to do it.”

“I have the right to do what I want with my body, even if it means I am destroying someone’s body in the meantime.”

“Thank you Hillary Clinton for only protecting the women who are able to speak for themselves and not the ones who are currently silent in the womb.”

I did have an abortion.
I was pro-choice.
Until I realized how selfish and ridiculous my logic was — I was guilty of murder so let me help more people be guilty of murder.

What aggravates me about the abortion debate is many  people are so high and mighty about their personal rights and so condescending to others who value all human life.  What I want, what I think, what I need.  One woman said she couldn’t imagine bringing her baby into prison to see the dad. So she aborted instead.  This is crazytown.  Death is better than hardship?

And on top of it all, the personal hell that abortion brings is the most UNDERrated dilemma ever.  How many women and men have I walked with who carry life-altering grief, shame and guilt.  They made decisions based on too much fear and too little help and  hope. No one talks about this reality in the pro-choice camps.

Thank you Jesus for washing that blood off my hands.  Thank you for healing my broken heart. I pray the same for those who still suffer from this choice.

Today though, I want to address the staunch pro-choicers…If you are in favor of murdering the babies for mom’s convenience, preference, and shortsightedness about the future (I can say this because I did it) then proceed.  Let’s just agree to call it what it is: Perverted human rights. One human life valued above another. Period.

Don’t call it empowering, or justified, or noble. Just call it murder. I pray that somehow, you will one day see that we have “choiced” away a huge portion of our country’s resources and wounded our own soul in the process.

God have mercy on us all.  Give us eyes to see the truth Lord.

Photo Credit: Salem Spicka