Love First…

10 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Hiland Rose in Little Toes and Big Tummies: All Things Baby

“We must try to stop sinners from bearing more sin into this world. They have not found our Faith yet, so continue engaging in lustful activities rather than promoting love and God’s laws. I am tired of supporting these sinners with taxes that go toward curing the ills their lust causes, and paying to imprison the sinful, disease-ridden, drug-addicted adults their children become. Therefore, I would rather pay for these sinners not to have children now as opposed to paying to support them and the sinful children they bear later. We must stand together and encourage Obama to stop these ungodly sinners who cannot control their loins from creating more sinners. “

I want to thank Arch Angel for posting (his/her) comment on my article.  It sparked something.  The remark was vague, self righteous and targeted at a generation yet to be conceived by people (he/she) doesn’t know and will never meet.”

It got me thinking about something else, nearer and dearer to my heart…. the debate, the war being waged on human life.  It is as old as humanity itself.  With that war comes propaganda, rhetoric and emotional, sometimes visceral responses.  I have some personal experience in the trenches.  Some good, some not.  I have seen more harm done by the rhetoric spouted on both sides of the issue of Choice than anything else.  We get caught up in the propoganda, the battles of words, the gory pictures and the shouting… we miss the opportunities to reach out, to see the woman in the seat next to us on the bus, the waitress at the coffee-house, the customer in the store or business where you work… We miss the chance to plant the seeds, to blossom later.

I started my journey into the pro-life arena as a volunteer for a local out reach.  I was a teenager, about 15 or 16 years old, we held a baby shower at church for the organization to provide supplies and baby clothes.  I was so impressed with the woman who came to talk to us, by her common sense non political way of presenting the mission, that I asked my parents if I could volunteer.  I worked every Saturday for almost a year and a half, mostly sorting clothes and donations but I was really doing something for pregnant women who needed help, for young moms who needed a leg up not a hand out, not just talking the talk and handing out literature.  That was my first taste.

I was still so green and a little self-righteous as was evidenced by my bungling a relationship with a girl who was a friend of a friend who found herself pregnant…. I opened my mouth and out popped,” I don’t condone what you have done, (meaning fornication)  but if you need anything, let me know.”  Not exactly in those words but pretty darn close, much to both our mortification, there was no recovery from that… she lost the baby to a miscarriage later, double whammy.  My first hard lesson, sometimes being right isn’t as important as loving first.

A year later, my boyfriend’s best friend got a girl pregnant.  I remember walking to the church where my mom worked, with my boyfriend beside me… we were talking about our mutual friend and my beau dropped the bomb.  “Her parents made him pay for the abortion.”  I sat down on a brick garden barrier near by and shook.  I felt like my insides would explode.  I looked at him and the tears started streaming down my face.  He was distraught, he didn’t know what to think or what to say, “Maybe it’s better some how, he’s ok, it’s all over.”  All I could do was shake my head, he didn’t get it, he didn’t understand… he regretted telling me but he had to talk to someone.  I never told his friend I knew, he had been sworn to secrecy but he couldn’t do it.  I didn’t tell anyone for years.  I watched this young man throw himself away after that…I watched him self destruct.  He literally went mad.  A rift grew between me and my boyfriend too… I watched my boyfriend fall into a pattern of jealousy and self-hatred that signaled the tendency toward becoming abusive.  We were on again off again for a year after that… he did not value life, or chastity like I did, it blew us apart.

The  most intense experience  was a few months after my husband and I were married.  A friend of mine had been dating someone pretty seriously.  She and I had a casual surfacey kind of friendship mostly.  She was a lot of fun to be around and we used to laugh and have a great time.  She was not of any particular religious background she lived life,  like a modern liberated woman.  I didn’t approve of everything she did but had learned a little bit more about loving the sinner and hating the sin by this time.  She and I met for lunch one day.  Over a salad, she and I had a heart to heart about her feelings for this man.  She was scared, he was getting so serious and she wasn’t sure herself where she stood on the idea of marriage.  Me being a newly wed at the time, I thought maybe things would work out and she just needed some time to think.  I suggested she take that time, to separate herself from him for a while and think it through.  If she was anxious there had to be a reason….

Well, she did have a reason.  They hit the rocks, and after that she found out she was pregnant.  I didn’t see her for two or three months after that lunch.  When I ran into her again, she said, ” I need to talk to you.”  I set up a date for coffee at a local restaurant.  I had no knowledge of what happened yet.  We sat down at the table and made small talk for a few minutes.  She twiddled with her fork, she hadn’t really eaten a bite of pie, then she just spilled it all right there.  She told me she had found out she was pregnant, two days after she decided to break up with the guy.  She had a friend from work drive her to Denver to have the abortion done.  She started to cry, and played back the message her ex had left on the cel phone, he was weeping and apologizing, he couldn’t live without her.   She didn’t get the message until after she got home from the abortion…. She hadn’t told him.  I couldn’t say much.  I grabbed her hand from across the table and cried with her.  I was stunned.  I told her about Project Rachel and a local priest here in town that she could talk to, gave her the number of the church office.  She regretted that decision, she was afraid because she couldn’t go it alone as a mom.  The man, I don’t know if he knew or not but, they got back together and got married.  I attended the wedding, I went to the baby shower for their first-born.  I haven’t seen her in years, life kind of moved on and moved us apart.  I don’t know if she ever sought healing for this wound in her heart, but I do know it changed her forever.  It also put up a barrier around her heart to her husband…  they are still married as of our last Christmas card from them.  There were a lot of challenges for the two of them.  I still pray for her and her family.

I still wonder why she came to me after the fact.  I wept on my husband’s lap that night, (after I attempted to put a hole in our bedroom wall with my fist.)  The pain was intense.  He and I were trying for our first child, why didn’t she come to me before?  Maybe we could have worked something out.  I was so mixed up inside.  How are you supposed to feel?  There was no ivory tower here, there was no literature or medical science here.  There was no logic either.  She responded to fear, this fear was perpetuated in the clinic as they emphasized her right to do this, they gave her the justification, she could donate the parts to science for cures of diseases.  She signed the body of this child over, believing she had made the best of a bad situation.  None of this gave her peace when it was over.  She came to me knowing how I felt about these things.  She came to me because she knew I understood the gavity of her situation and I wasn’t going to poo poo it, or tell her she was right to do it.  I listened, I cried with her and for her baby.  She never told her family. She carried that secret…. she couldn’t carry it alone.  I hope and pray she has faced that choice, that she has accepted her responsibility for that choice… I hope she has found healing.

Often times, in order to have compassion for someone, the only way you can really know what they are going through is to have some experience with it yourself….

Our first miscarriage happened when our son was just over a year old.   I was devastated, I was angry I couldn’t understand why my body betrayed my baby. (As I saw it)  I read the receipt, the doctor explained that  Spontaneous Abortion was a medical term for miscarriage… it didn’t matter.  My body failed this baby some how.  It wasn’t until I spoke with my pastor, a wonderful priest who is very involved in the pro-life movement here in the city.  I asked him through gritted teeth “why?”  His only answer comforted me more than anything, “God just wanted her more.  He just wanted her more.”  Her name is Dionna Irene.

Our second miscarriage happened two years ago now.  This one was more heart wrenching for me…. I am pro-life, I love my husband and kids with all my heart.  This child, she was conceived in one of the most difficult years we had lived through.  I was terrified to be pregnant, we were on the verge of losing our home, our  my husband was losing his mind (later diagnosed with bipolar disorder)  I was struggling to keep my self together mentally because of the burdens weighing on us.  In a panicked moment I regretted my pregnancy, I even prayed that God would take this from me…  I was not thrilled at all to be pregnant,  I did not want another baby, I had no idea how we were going to make this work with no insurance and no hope for better income on the horizon…. we didn’t tell any one for several weeks.  I was already getting comments from family members on my side about our family size and income level.    Two weeks after that test, I felt something was wrong….I remembered this feeling from before…..Micheala left us.  I held my husband, who was the only person who knew, we cried  we prayed… I begged for forgiveness…. I started bleeding the next day.  She, I saw…the tiny kernel of her body, my womb was her sepulchre.  I could not face my parents at first… I couldn’t I wouldn’t… My husband bless him, told me I couldn’t hide.   I  called and told them we lost her, I was asked why we waited to tell them were pregnant.   I got the least comfort from where I wanted it most… I was told that I had four other children, I was told that it wasn’t so bad, at least it wasn’t while I was still building my family, I should have something done to make sure I would not have to go through this again….bitter words.  Hard words from the one person in my life besides, my husband, that I needed comfort from.  I still invited, they couldn’t make it to our private memorial for my second daughter lost in the womb….

I conceived again three months later, our youngest and our fifth born is now 16 months old and adorable… my second born child, was conceived two or three weeks after we lost her sister.

I can understand the fear, the anguish and the desire to run from the consequences, when a woman finds herself pregnant when she really didn’t want to be.  Yes, there are choices…. there are consequences.  I am not downplaying the role of sin, or the fact that women make the choice to give their bodies but not their hearts within the bonds of marriage, or outside of marriage, that men and women fornicate, leading to the destruction of life because of fear or inconvenience.  I know the grief I felt, and still feel,  from time to time,  for what ever reason those two beautiful girls just couldn’t be born.  I can’t wrap my head around the idea that someone could choose that for themselves.  To bring themselves not just the grief but also the guilt, the separation and depression that this causes.  The emotional scars are so deep, and raw, long after the physical ones heal (if they do.)

I just want people to move past the rhetoric.  Being right doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing God’s will…. Being right is a matter of facts, Love goes beyond that.  I don’t do a lot in the public pro-life movement because I am too busy trying to take care of my family and working right now,  but perhaps, this little corner, this place where I am, can by my platform.  I would encourage those of you who read this, to look at your own corner… to see the people around you in it.  Smile and say hello, strike up a conversation and see where it leads.  A statement my Mom is fond of, rings true here, Jesus has to have skin on… meaning we have to be his hands his arms on earth.  We have to reach out, to teach and love, even when it looks impossible.  Mother Theresa, now Blessed Mother Theresa was the best role model I can point to for this… She did not condone, but she still gave everything she had, whether people chose well or not, whether they were right or wrong.  It is my hope that I can do likewise when I am called on again.