I have a story to tell:     Once upon a time way back in the early 1900’s, there was a thirty-two-year-old mother of five with the youngest being only a few months old.  Besides their own biological children, the older widower she had married brought four children into their marriage – children nearly her age.  Their abuse of Ellen, plus her endeavor in trying to care for all nine brought the young woman nearly to a breaking point.  She had had birthed her last baby in February of 1911 – and three months later found herself pregnant and expecting another baby in one year – February, 1912.   Facing the realization of this, it did break her . . .

She kept the pregnancy a secret, but in a panic, she had to do something!  And she did.  Ellen hitched up a rickety old buckboard to a mare from on the farm and set out for a ninety-mile journey to find a doctor in a city.  Her intent was to have the baby she was carrying aborted.  After a three-day trip, worn and beyond weary, she stopped at the first doctor’s office she saw.  After handing him her few dollars, she let him know that she was there to be rid of the unborn baby in her womb.  Can you imagine the shock, disappointment, frustration (and more) she felt when the doctor told her that he was a Catholic and could not do an abortion.  But! – he kept the money.  After all he had ‘seen’ her – waited on her.

With no more money to see another doctor, I can’t even imagine where her thoughts were – or if God ever entered into them – or if perhaps she had felt like just driving off in the opposite direction of the ninety-mile trip back home . . .    I don’t know!  But, she did make it back home – made it through the ensuing months of pregnancy – and delivered a strong and healthy baby.

In this story, Ellen was my grandmother (from whom I received my middle name) – and the unborn baby she so badly wanted to be rid of was my mother!

Several years ago, a dear friend from Maine who spent much of her life championing the lives of the unborn was to bring her ministry to my church in Massachusetts.  But because of an impending nor’easter resulting in having to cancel her speaking engagement with us, she asked me if I would speak on behalf of her ministry.  The Saturday evening before I would relate the information on my friend’s life-changing/life-saving work, I called an aunt to ask her to pray over me in this endeavor.  That is when I learned the information concerning my grandmother’s wanting an abortion – to abort my mother!  I was shaken to the core!  Always having been Pro Life, my talk filling in for my friend at my church the next morning took on a whole new and very personal passion. I heard a few gasps from the congregation – and saw looks of such dismay on several faces.

I was almost never able to write this story.  I was almost never to be born.  I was almost just a thought in God’s mind which was nearly wiped out by the gross sin of abortion.  I would have preferred to have written this article for next month in February – the month of my mother’s birth, but January is the Sanctity of Human Life Month.  In 1984, Ronald Reagan declared the first Sanctity of Human Life Day to be commemorated on the third Sunday of January.  ‘Churches across the United States focus their attention on God as the Giver of Life – and on the Church’s role to value and protect the life of the unborn’.

The Bible teaches that human life is different from other types of life.  We are created in the image of God!   Genesis 1:26,27 tells us that “God created man in His image – in the divine image He created him.”   And, Psalm 139.13 – “For YOU formed my inward parts; YOU wove me in my mother’s womb.” (emphases, mine)   Scripture after Scripture teaches us the sanctity of life.  I could go on and on to more, but will just add one from Ecclesiastes 3:1,2  – “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die . . . “  – and those times belong in the hands of our Creator – in Whose image we were created!

In many countries of the world, abortion is used as ‘birth control’.  I have read that an abortion is performed in the country where I minister about every 3 seconds!  No one has the right to take a life except the One Who created it.  A definition of abortion (also known as termination) is ‘the process of ending a pregnancy, so it does not result in the birth of a baby.’  To me, termination is a PC way of saying ‘killing’ – dare we use the word, ‘murder’?  It truly was the hand of God that rested on my grandmother in preventing her from aborting my mother.  There would have been no ‘me’.  I can’t imagine having missed the life that the Lord has given me here on earth – being His eyes and heart, hands and feet in all He has called me to do.’

Final word – “for those who have had an abortion, we need to remember that the sin of abortion is no less forgivable than any other sin. Through faith in Christ, ALL sins can be forgiven (John 3.16, Romans 8.1, Colossians 1:14).  No matter her reason, a woman who has had an abortion, the husband or boyfriend who has encouraged an abortion, or a doctor who has performed an abortion can be forgiven by repenting and placing their faith in Jesus . . .”  Not just in the month of January, but let it become our lifetime mind-set to champion the Sanctity of Life!