Can A Woman Forget Her Child...

"Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you." Isaiah 49:15

My heart has been burdened these last few days.

It all started when I watched Slumdog Millionaire and watching it I remembered stories my father told us from his time in India. He said he had never been so aware of poverty in his life. As he was driving down the street, people were everywhere, laying on the sidewalk, sitting under trees, trying to stay out of the sun. When he asked what they were all doing he was told, "they have no home." They were all homeless. He also told us of the beggar children that were everywhere. Kids of all ages, on the streets begging for money. He said the sight was unreal and only seeing it with your own eyes would truly capture the extreme poverty the majority of this nation lived in. It was then that I knew one day I would adopt a child from India.
Many years later and a couple of my own kids, I had kind of dismissed the fact of adopting internationally. I still wanted to adopt, but thought, why not adopt here in the States? Then I watched Slumdog Millionaire and my heart was sent back to that desire.
I think being a mother myself now has made my desire to "rescue" that much stronger. To imagine a child my daughter's age with no true caretakers, living on the streets, not always getting a meal. After watching the movie I started doing some research into the children of India. Here are some facts:
* A staggering 10,000 babies die every single day from easily preventable causes such as malnutrition and diarrhea
* More than 2 million babies die each year before they celebrate their first birthday
* Every 6th girl-child’s death is due to gender discrimination, also known as female infanticide
* Over 10 million children go to sleep on the pavement each night hungry and unprotected
* Over 40% of children live in poverty and extreme hardship
* The third largest crime in India after drugs and gun smuggling is child trafficking – over 45,000 children go missing each year
* Over 2 million children, mainly girls aged 5-15, are forced into prostitution and sexual slavery
* Each year 500,000+ children are forced into the sex trade with an annual increase of 10%

I also started looking into adoption requirements and Jon and I have to both be at least 30 and married for 5 years. So we have a few more years to go before bringing an adopted baby into our family, but I know that it will happen one day. Maybe it won't be from India, but I know for sure that I have a child out there that did not come from my womb. I know it sounds weird, but I've always known that. There is a baby out there (maybe not born yet) that is destined to be my son or daughter. I actually already have a prophetic word from the Lord about him/her.

Anyways, so that was last week.

It started again when I saw this video:


My heart started that familiar ache because you see the "issue" of abortion is very close to home for me because nothing gets me going more than when innocent children are being abused, neglected or unloved.
I've personally never had an abortion, but there was a time in my life where I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I would have become pregnant I would have gotten one. I had already made the decision. Now I know that's not the same thing as having one by any means, but I went from being VERY pro-choice to VERY pro-life and one of the main reasons is of course I began having a relationship with Yeshua. I began to see things more through His eyes and the importance of life became revelation in my life. But not just any life, INNOCENT life. That's why seeing children alone, hungry, unprotected and exploited in India (or anywhere) makes me ache inside.
It's this desire to protect innocent life.
Children are blank canvases. We as parents and caregivers are given the responsibility to shape and mold them and give them the tools and character they need to walk in the fullness of their callings. It hurts me to my core to know that children are not getting the love and attention and care that they need. Even when it comes to their basic needs. I sometimes think about the fact that there is a 2 year old out there right now who has only known abuse and neglect and I weep. When i think that there is a 6 year old out there that sleeps under a bridge and goes days without eating, I weep. They have faces to me. Those faces look like Ashlyn, Madysen, Kadyn, Lyric, Judah, Shiloh... they are my frame of reference and I know how vulnerable they are at that age. I wish I could rescue them all, but I know I can't...
I am digressing.
So I watched that video of that woman's story and was rocked by her words, "I was hated since conception. But I was loved by God. I'm his girl. You don't mess with God's girl."
I know it's such a simple line, but it echoed in my spirit. These children who are aborted are hated and despised for the sheer fact that their conception was not ideal. Yet their Father in heaven loves them with a fierce love... wow. I wish I could adequately describe what that knowledge does to my spirit, but I can't. It's too deep, I think it would just come out in a groan.

She echoes my own thoughts when she says America has compartmentalized and turned abortion into an "issue" and refused to face the truth head on. The issue is that aborting a child is indeed murder to the most extreme, murder of the innocent. It's truly the silent holocaust.
Case in point, it's been reported that over 50 million babies have been aborted since its legalization in 1973 (Roe v. Wade that interestingly is a Texas Court Case).

50 million babies. That is the combined current population of the states that are highlighted in red. That is sooo many babies.
6 million Jews were exterminated in concentration camps during World War II, yet over 50 million babies have been aborted in our country and we all just turn a blind eye and say it's just a political issue. I personally don't think that's going to cut it when we stand before The Father.

Then to top it all off, I opened my Google Reader this morning to read this post by Penelope Trunk, a popular career advice columnist. She is Jewish and is not very religious and is known for her in your face/blunt style of writing. But this post did not grieve me for it's bluntness, it just once again gave me that dull ache in the pit of my stomach.
In her post "What's the Connection Between Abortions and Careers?" she discusses the two abortions that she has had. The first one being a 2nd trimester one. Here's is an excerpt:

"When I went back, I had a panic attack. I was on the table, in a hospital gown, screaming.

The nurse asked me if I was a religious Christian.

The boyfriend asked me if I was aware that my abortion would be basically illegal in seven more days.

I couldn’t stop screaming. I was too scared. I felt absolutely sick that I was going to kill a baby. And, now that I know more about being a mother, I understand that hormones had already kicked in to make me want to keep the baby. We left. No abortion.

My boyfriend started panicking by suddenly staying really late at work and going out with friends a lot. I stopped playing volleyball because I got tired so quickly.

People kept calling me: They said, “Think about how you’ll support the child. Think about what you’ll do if your boyfriend leaves you. You’re all alone in LA with no family. How will you take care of yourself?”

People gave me advice: Get a job. Once you have established yourself in a career, you’ll feel much better about having kids. Figure out where you fit in the world. Get a job, then get married, and then have kids.

I scheduled another abortion. But it was past the time when Planned Parenthood will do an abortion. Now it was a very expensive one at a clinic that seemed to cater to women coming from Christian countries in South America. I knew that if I did not go through with it this time, no one would do the abortion. I was too far along.

So I did it.

I went to sleep with a baby and woke up without one. Groggy. Unsure about everything. Everything in the whole world."

I cried when I read it. I cried for her. I cried for her baby. I cried for every woman out there that was so scared that she just did the most "logical" thing and chose herself over her child's life. But the truth of the matter is something that she says later on:

"And I want to tell you something: You don’t need to get an abortion to have a big career. Women who want big careers want them because something deep inside you drives you to change the world, lead a revolution, break new barriers.

It doesn’t matter whether you have kids now or later, because they will always make your career more difficult. There is no time in your life when you are so stable in your work that kids won’t create an earthquake underneath that confidence.

I think about the men I was with when I had the abortions. They were not bad men. One is my ex-husband. So much of life is a gamble, and I think I might have had as good a chance of staying together with the first guy as I did with my ex-husband. And I am not sure that my life would have turned out worse if I had had kids early. I am not sure it would have turned out better. I’m not even sure it would have been that different.

You never know, not really. There is little certainty. But there are some certain truths: It’s very hard to have an abortion. And, there is not a perfect time to have kids."

I think that outlines it. You never think you can do anything until you do it.
I never thought in a million years we would be able to function on only Jonathan's income, but we took the plunge and made it work. It may not always be easy and it may be stressful at times, but we make it work and I've never been happier.
I never thought I would be able to work a job full time and go to school full time, but I did it. I did it for two years. Was it hard? Yes, but I made it work.
I never thought I would be able to be on bedrest for 3 months. I thought I would go insane and our finances would go down the drain and my daughter would be neglected and our house a mess and we would never have clean laundry, BUT IT ALL WORKED OUT!
I never thought I would ever leave Texas and I'm scared to death to leave my comfort zone, but I'm doing it and I know it's going to work out.
The bottom line is you never know if you can handle something until you are there handling it. Facing the tasks head on and embracing what life throws at you.

So my heart hurts for those babies that weren't given the chance, and the mother's who didn't have enough confidence in themselves to know they could do it.

My heart is heavy for the innocents.

"Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you." Isaiah 49:15