Another February 6th

"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer


Two years ago today, all my wrong choices caught up with me in a way I couldn't escape, though I tried. 


February 6, 2009. 


Before that week, I never knew such pain was imaginable. The deepest parts of me were shaking, screaming. My soul was crying out for a Mighty Rescuer. Inside of me, I knew the gravity of what I was doing. I tried to run from those feelings that suffocated, but the tears were evidence of a heart broken. 


My heart was shattered. 


I drove to Planned Parenthood that Friday morning. It seems odd now that it's called Planned Parenthood, like I could somehow change the fact that I was already mothering a babe in my womb. The nausea I was feeling day and night was a constant reminder of this. I had never planned for this. I had never wanted a baby before marriage. I never thought I'd have to deal with such a thing.


Two of us entered that clinic...my nineteen-year-old, selfish, sinful, broken self and my six-week-old child. Only one of us was able to voice what we wanted. Only one of us made it out alive. 


I lost my first child to an abortion. 


I took what was God's and decided I knew what was best. A loss I'll live with the rest of my life. I have nothing tangible to grieve this loss. No pictures, no momentos like I have for Lily. Sometimes I want to call Planned Parenthood and tell them to give me the ultrasound picture of my baby. I want the proof that he existed, that he was real, that he was my first child, flesh of my flesh. 


My mind often goes back to that place, that place that's hard to go. There's healing there now. But, the what if's will remain. What would my baby be like today if I had chosen LIFE? Would my baby be a boy or a girl? Something in me tells me a boy. Just as I knew Lily was a girl before anyone ever told me. Somehow you just know. 


This gift of life...we all take it for granted because it's a given, we all have it. But, what if someone took your life before it ever truly began? What if someone screamed so loud they wanted their way that your silent scream, your plead for a chance to live and be loved was smothered out?

Ever thought of it like that?


For this child, my child. And for all the other helpless, innocent ones may we...

Be the voice that can't be heard. Their silence is a voice in itself, speaking volumes if only we'd listen. It tells of the lives that never got to be, but were.

They were.

And even if you explain it away, these are souls, not just bodies. And they need a voice. And HE is that voice. And HE is to give me that voice.

My mind wonders to thoughts of a child, gasping for every breath, but with lungs too frail to survive. I see the fight in his eyes, the desperation of his sweet spirit. And I know his own mother chose that.

That her own child would suffer. And die.

I'm hooked. One thought of these helpless lives, and a warrior rises up in me.

My heart bleeds for each of these silent ones. I will not remain silent. I will be a voice. Their voice. And I will tell the world of this.