people are marching for life today

It’s an important event, this March for Life…thousands of people converging at the Department of Justice to bring attention to a piece of legislation that never should have happened. So many decades later, it’s still a hot button debate argument, and one not likely to move the masses, um, en masse. It’s not the law that has to change, it’s the hearts of people, and when that happens, everything else will change.

I believe the way this happens is one person at a time. One. It’ll get the job done. Because each of us has a story to tell, and if we’d tell it, well, miracles can happen. I know of one. Her story is hers to tell, but I can share my part of it.

I’ve always been plagued by a cloud of doubt in my faith that creeps upon me unexpectedly. Perhaps it’s my academic training to question, maybe it’s some tragic flaw, maybe it’s just what makes me human — the point is, I know the right things to say, but the conviction? Maybe it’s there. Maybe it’s not. That’s not my story today.

My story is about a couple very dear and close to my heart, and the day they called to tell me that their 5th child, the baby she was carrying, had an irregular ultra-sound and would we please pray. Of course. And then the conversation turned to the quite dramatic medical diagnosis, the shocking news that the obstetrician recommended an abortion, and their plan, which wasn’t much of a plan. You see, all they were going to do was trust God.

That’s all. Not much, right?

Trusting in God’s plan was the right thing to say, but to really have the conviction? I know I didn’t have it at the moment. Still, I prayed with them. For them. For the baby. For some consolation and insight and understanding and strength and peace. And everything else that occurred to me. You see, they asked for prayers to learn what they had to do for their child. They never asked for a miracle to “fix” the grave and frightening realization that a  lobe of their child’s brain had not formed. It was a profound lesson in faith, this trusting in God’s plan and then working with it, instead of begging Him to change it.

The prognosis was hopeless. She’d have a miscarriage. She’d be stillborn. She wouldn’t survive the first 24 hours. She wouldn’t survive her first month. Every milestone that parents look forward to was always cast with the pall of death.

And yet, they chose life. Every. Time.

You might wonder what happened to that baby. I just spent the weekend with her. She’s a delightful young woman, very smart, very athletic, very … full of life. And capable of kicking some ass in this tough world everyone thought was going to own her.

Everywhere she walks is a march for life.