LOVE will overcome abortion: Part 1

Mother Teresa is probably a person who I should know much more about.  She is a blessed person and someone who loved the people of this world much like Jesus Christ did.  For that I respect her.  She never stopped trying to love people.  She just loved people!  I can definitely learn a lot from her!

So, I am reading this book called ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments by Randy Alcorn.  When I am done, I'll write a book review on it.  I've barely gotten out of the introduction and I would already recommend it to anyone!  But in this book, there is an excerpt from a speech Mother Teresa made at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast.  Just the little bit that was in the book inspired me, so I decided to look for the rest.  I found the entire speech here.  It. is. amazing.  And it's not just about abortion.  Wouldn't you know it?  It's about love!  And it reminded me of something:

Day before last was the Fourth of July.  Different people have different things that they do on the Fourth and my family goes to a huge park called Riverfront Park that is in downtown Spokane, the city that I live in.  The park has a band come every year and a big fire works show and lots of booths where you can buy food and crafts and different things and it's really fun!  But there are also many, many people that smoke, get drunk, break rules, wear immodest clothing, and well, you get the picture.  These kinds of people scare me and disgust me.  For one, I'm not used to people like that, the "normal" people for me are Christian people who go to church regularly, don't smoke or have tattoos, don't swear constantly, and are law-abiding citizens that have a job.  So the contrast between those people and the people at the park last night was, shall we say, quite distinct.  After I got tired of all those people looking at me and coming too close to me, I sat down on the ground and hid behind my family. 

Then I prayed for every person that walked past me.  I wish I could say that I did this like God wants me to, humbly and lovingly, but I really didn't.  It was kind of an excuse to hide and I still felt that I was above them and better than them.  It is true that most of those people are to blame for the way that they are living, but does that make me any better than them?  After all, Jesus came for sinners, and sometimes the worst of sinners can understand and appreciate His love better than the best of them.  Mother Teresa, in her speech, paints a beautiful picture of what love should look like.  She was not afraid of picking up people on the streets and loving them as Christ commanded.  She had the courage to love, even those who were beneath her.

I have realized that I do not have the courage to love.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will give me that courage.  I pick and choose who I want to love, and the people at the park last night did not fit into my category of the people who "deserve" my love.  The problem is, I didn't realize that I don't deserve to love them!  Or, for that matter, to be loved by Christ, my Savior, the Man who loved me and everyone else (including those people I think are beneath me) enough to die.  So why am I writing this?

I am writing this because the Church (in America, in general) does the same thing to women who have become pregnant and who have had an abortion.  We judge.  We condemn.  Like we have any right at all to condemn those women!  We feel that we are above those women.  The Pastors in our Churches don't preach on abortion because they feel uncomfortable with it.  But this communicates to women who have had an abortion that their sin is too big for God to forgive.  This is why the best way to combat abortion right now is to love!  Making abortion illegal will help, I'm not saying we shouldn't try for that, but will that fix the real problem?  People (both girls and guys) are trying to find worth in dating and sex and when they make a mistake, they try to fix it with abortion.  Making abortion illegal won't stop people from trying to find worth in a boyfriend or a girlfriend.  But love will.  I encourage you to try to help those struggling in your school, and in your Church.  God calls on us to love, so please, love.

I encourage you to read Mother Teresa's speech (the link is above).  It has helped me gain a new perspective on what love really means.

In CHRIST,

Aubry

*Part 2 to come soon!*