“When the earth and all its inhabitants shake,  I am the One who steadies its pillars.” ~ Psalm 75:3

I can remember where I was when it hit me… the crushing reality that took my breath away, sending convulsions through my stomach and piercing my heart with unspeakable grief.

A couple days earlier I had been in my high school english class, when our teacher asked us to choose a side. “Everyone who believes a woman has the right to choose when she has a family, come stand by this wall and anyone who believes that she shouldn’t be allowed the right to choose and that terminating a pregnancy should be illegal, stand against that wall.” Only two in my class of almost thirty students stood up for life. Sadly, I wasn’t one of them. The thought that someone my age could have all her hopes and dreams swept away by one foolish moment hardly seemed fair. It just seemed to make sense that a woman should be free to choose when to become a mother. But as I stood there with the crowd, something (or Someone) told me I was standing in the wrong place. I had never given any thought to the subject. Sure, I had heard about abortion, plenty of times, but usually in political terms and as a teenager, I wasn’t the least bit interested in politics. That sinking feeling that I was wrong compelled me to look into the subject.

As I sat alone in our family room looking out at the billowing clouds rolling over the beautiful North Idaho panorama that was my back yard, I futilely tried to hold back a stream of tears. Nothing could have prepared me for what I read about the process of ripping an infant from a mother’s womb. The reality of abortion hit me like an earthquake, shaking me to the core of my being. In that moment, as I sat grieving with my Holy Father,  I became a Pro-lifer.

Five years later, my husband Mike and I became parents and I felt for myself a tiny wiggly soul growing in my own womb. I certainly didn’t own her, nor was she part of my body, but as I carried her, she surely stole my heart! She was entrusted to us by our Heavenly Father. What an amazing honor and privilege to care for one of God’s greatest blessings! If people only knew! The reality of this little growing life fueled my passion to do whatever I could to help new mommies know the truth. But what could I do? I tried writing letters to the editor of the local paper, but on the rare occasion that one was published, it was so chopped up that it no longer sounded like the loving plea that I intended. After several years (and another blessing of a sweet baby boy) I finally gave up trying. Whenever I wrote about it, the pain in my heart overwhelmed me. My children needed a joyful mom, so I decided to leave this burden at the feet of Jesus and be prepared to speak the truth in love whenever He wanted me to.

Now thirty years later, we find ourselves in a fight for Mike’s life, along with a team of top notch doctors, nurses, friend and family encouragers, and hundreds of amazing prayer warriors. Again, I’m struck by how odd it is that we fight so hard and willingly go to so much expense to save one life and yet we so easily give up on the little ones who so desperately need us… just because we haven’t gotten to know them personally.

Voting for people who support pro-life policies is, without contest, the one issue closest to my heart in any election season. When I hear abortion statistics, my heart and stomach are sickened in much the same way as when I see the heaping piles of human beings in pictures of the holocaust. I am simply not convinced that anyone in the twenty-first century still believes we are merely aborting lumps of tissues. Biologists know the truth. Doctors and nurses know the truth. Anyone who has ever seen a video of an ultrasound knows the truth. When we de-value life on this level, we are sending a very loud message throughout our culture that life has no real value. This one issue absolutely does effect our society’s ethics on every level. Life becomes merely about self- gratification, self-indulgence and selfish choices because that’s the message we’re sending. Nothing is sacred anymore. Is it any wonder that materialism has become our god?.. that we would rather heap up wealth than give out of our abundance to help those in need?… that we’d rather pass the buck and say it’s the government’s responsibility to help the helpless, rather than helping them ourselves?… that so many feel like the world owes them a living and don’t value their families enough to support them?… that our only choices for the leaders of our country exemplify the self-centeredness that has become the stereotype of Americans the world over?

Yes, I do believe that this one issue may be the reason our nation is in such a mixed up, divided mess. So without hesitation, this is the most important issue that I look at in any election.

God is still the highest authority in our land (regardless of our puny opinions of Him or of what is most important to Him). He alone can steady the shaking pillars of our society! God help us… Please!