Reimagining Pro-Life: 30 Days With Save the Storksنموونە

HEART //

It’s a good and godly thing to love and care for friends and family members, but God doesn’t want us to stop there. He asks us to love and care for strangers, too! We should be as loving, as caring, and as provisional toward those that are different from us as we are toward those that are like us. We are called to serve people that look, live, speak, and think differently than we do. 

After all, Christ loved us unto death even while we were alienated from Him! Romans 5:8 tells us that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” There couldn’t be a bigger difference between two people — between the sinner and Jesus — at the moment when He died on the cross! He is infinitely holy. We are infinitely frail. Jesus loved the stranger to an incomprehensible degree: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4–5). 

If we, as God’s people, really want to establish justice for the unborn, then we cannot be satisfied with only helping people that we know. We must be ethnically and socioeconomically diverse with our love, care, and provision. Remember, all people are made in the image of God! 

The unsettling facts are: The abortion rate of women on Medicaid is 3 times higher than other women. The abortion rate among women of color is 3.5 times that of caucasian women. Whatever our neighborhood, social status or skin color, we must all be willing to reach outside of our comfort zones to encounter and support one another — even those who seem like strangers to us. Even though we don’t always know first names, God has counted the number of hairs on the head of every passerby (Luke 1:27). He values and attends to all human life. Will we?

There is always the temptation to go into a ‘camp’ mentality, choosing one camp or another and pitting ourselves against those who haven’t joined our side. But Jesus is the Lord of all, and He loves and knows those in the other camp! Think of the imagery that God gives us of a body: the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). There are major differences between an eye and a toe! So many differences in function — and distance, even — that they may feel like strangers to one another, but they are nonetheless a part of the same body. 

What better strategy of the enemy than to get parts of the body to work against one another, fighting each other — rather than moving forward in their own gifts and unity? God commands us to love the stranger. Sometimes that’s someone who doesn’t know Him, and sometimes it’s people who are a part of our own body who we just haven’t noticed before. Either way, it will take us all, moving forward together, to make an impact on our world. 

There’s no way for us to know the wonderful plans that God has for women who, in your city today, are considering an abortion. Many are mistreated or feel completely unsupported. What are God’s plans for their precious unborn babies? It should be enough for us to know that our Lord made them all wonderfully, that we link arms in order to help them become the people God wants them to be (Psalms 139:14). Let us be people who love like Jesus does, refusing to ignore the stranger.

// WORK

One way that you can support people facing unplanned pregnancies is by supporting a local pregnancy resource centers. The staff members may be strangers to you, but you can still partner with them. By encouraging them with your words, you can bring them a breath of fresh air. The truth of the Scriptures; gift cards; a sticky-note reminder that their work matters to you and to your community — any of these could be exactly what they need on a tough day. Many workers at pregnancy resource centers are bombarded by discouragement in the face of such a huge and complicated problem. 

So, in addition to fasting negative speech this week, send an encouraging note to a pregnancy resource center near you. As you empty yourself of many unhealthy words, you should also be filling up with Christlike goodness. So, you have encouragement to pour out! Use the power of your words for good. If we really want to effect change in the abortion crisis nationwide, we have to build a tribe that supports each other in a unified, reimagined pro-life voice expressing love, compassion, and action toward those who may be in the crux of making that decision or having already made it.