Dear friends,
I feel the anxiety rise the moment I open any app. I feel joy. Then anger. Then waves of anxiety again.
I delete them. I shut it off and put it away and hold my children and pray for the woman who won't, or didn't, or wanted to and couldn't. I pray for those whose words make the rage rise red in my heart, I pray for eyes to see and ears to hear even as conviction pulses in my veins. I beg for grace, for me and for them. And I remember the truth. The life of every image bearer matters: The one who dies where no one can hear him scream, and one who screams because a government won't let the silent one die.
God sees them both. He wants them both. And Christ died for them both. Can I keep that here, before my eyes? Before my heart, in my words?
Many of you want me to make a statement about the Roe v. Wade decision, just as you wanted a statement about the SBC's cover ups of sexual assault and abuse. And I'll tell you this: I am neither beholden to make such a statement nor ready to do so. But what I AM able and ready to do is point you to a God who loves all lives and hates the abuse of all of them. No amount of excuses would make the SBC's sins less grievous or less necessary for repentance. And no amount of reasoning and can undo the reality that a human life is a life that deserves honor whether it is in the womb, out of the womb, in a prison, at a riot, working at a pregnancy center or attending an elementary school. A consistent life ethic has always been the ethic of Christianity, and no amount of fallacy laden pastel memes can change that.
I have to run to get groceries and as I write this, I am unsure whether Ivan is crawling onto a table - I really need to go check - so I will leave you with a poem I wrote that sums up a little of how I feel:
If, to make space for the hurting,
to be safe for the questioning,
to stand still for the seeking
I must become less who I naturally am,
I will willingly see myself sanctified
for the sake of their hearts.
There is no enneagram excuse
or Myers-Briggs bearing on God's intent
for hearts sold out to Him.
May He become greater, I become less -
not more my enneagram number.
