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Beautiful life...in my living room!
- Jun 9, 2009 at 9:39 AM
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- Comments (3) Total Views (188) Everyone can see this journal post.
I sat back and watched the children playing. Chase (20 months) was running through the living room, eyes sparkling and giggling as fast as machine gun fire. He has a silly, little run - a little off balance type of dance that he does. Even his little legs look happy. With dark hair and dark eyes, he looks so different than most of my children who had blonde hair and blue eyes. His eyes are usually dancing with mischief and he moves quickly from one activity to another.
Following him through the house is a parade of laughing girls. With our youngest now 4, they love having Chase and his newborn sister in the house. Some of our girls follow Chase around and think up activities for him. Young child psychologists, (they have logged more hours with toddlers than most adults have), they find ways to help him burn off energy. The rest of our girls get in line to hold Precious. Her nickname is Angel, because she holds the title for the World's Best Baby. At 2 months old, she is the happiest little baby and is providing hours of entertainment since she can now make eye contact and return smiles.
Precious and Chase (not their real names because of privacy issues) are the foster children of my son Jacob and daughter-in-law Heather. They brought Precious home from the hospital when she was 2 days old. Weighing only 5 lbs. or so at birth, she dropped to 4 something and was the smallest, littlest baby I have ever held. Concerned about her premature birth and weight, there were times they had to set the alarm and feed her every hour. Seeing her chubby, little body now, you would never know she started life so delicately. You see, not only had Precious been born premature and tiny, she was born with drugs in her system because of her mother.
That night, as I watched the love flowing around that room, all I could think about was a poll I had participated in months before on CafeMom. The theoretical scenario was given of a drug using mother who used drugs throughout her pregnancy and would not ever get clean. Should she abort? On cafemom, 22% said yes. As I was watching Chase and Precious, watching the love they were giving and being given, all I could think was: "22% of people think they should be dead." These "hypothetical" siutaions we argue about have names. Two of them are Precious and Chase.
Many pro-choice people think pro-life people are cruel, meanspirited individuals. I watched my son and his wife patiently train Chase. I think of the nights they set an alarm to get up and feed another woman's child every hour. How did saving lives ever become something so ugly and divisive?
I just finished reading a fantastic book called The Hole in Our Gospel. The author mentioned a condition called something like "Compassion Fatigue." Often, we are so overwhelmed by the immense nature of problems in our world, that we feel like we can't make a difference. If we can't solve the entire problem, we give up and do nothing.
However, the author pointed out, if we all gave our 5 loaves and 2 fishes, we could feed a multitude! At 23, my son and his wife stepped up to the plate and performed a miracle! They gave love to two little children when their mother was not able to do so. I am extremely proud of them.
We continue to pray for the children's mother. We pray that she will be healed of her addiction and find a way to improve her life. We also pray that if that is not going to happen, that she will give up custody while the children are young enough to not have their lives disrupted.
I grieve that there are those who think they should be dead because their mother uses drugs. I am so thankful that their mother chose life for them.
I think sometimes people want to know what motivates some of us pro-life people to be so passionate. Right now, a picture in my mind of Precious and Chase will keep me motivated.
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