Cherishing Motherhood: I Get to be the One

"I Get To Be The One"

Well hello,
Little baby.
Your eyes have never seen the sun
You should know
Little baby
That I am the lucky one

I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one.
Through birthdays and broken bones
I'll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one.

Don't feel alone now,
Little baby.
Do you hear me singing you a song
I can't wait to show you
Little baby
How to crawl
How to walk
And how to run

I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one.
Through birthdays and broken bones
I'll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one.

How does someone so small
Hold my heart so tightly
I don't even know you
I love you completely

I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one.
Through birthdays and broken bones
I'll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one to hold your hand
I get to be the one.
Through birthdays and broken bones
I'll be there to watch you grow
I get to be the one.

-JJ Heller, for my sister Cate, who has a person inside of her right now :)

Old people are people too.

This is what my dear friend, and former roommate said about her grandpa when I asked how he was doing.

I found it so moving that I wrote it down on a sticky note in the middle of our conversation.  It made me tear-up.

Julia taught me so much about loving old people.  She is so good at it!  She taught me how to make sugar-free cookies, how to hold their hand, how to laugh & respond to their incomprehensible comments, and how to ask about their families and childhoods.

Julia taught me how to treat people like people even when people smell terrible.

Her grandpa isn't in the greatest health and it's so tough when your emotional and physical health start failing all at once.  Growing old is hard because I've seen and smelled and touched it and if it weren't for growing old and failing health, I wouldn't have had a job in college.  I've worked at two nursing homes.

Slow-dying is hard.  Your mind decays along with your body and you do things that in the prime of life you could only imagine doing: wetting your bed, throwing food on the floor, falling out of a wheelchair...being in a wheelchair.

But regardless, all of those old people that I've played scrabble with over the years, whose messes I have cleaned up for $10/hour, and whose bedsore bandages I have changed I know one thing:

THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS.

For this reason, I loved my healthcare experience and I will never forget the PEOPLE that I met, served, and formed relationships with, difficult though it was--it was so hard.

And I'll never forget how Julia taught me that making someone smile is a skill whose worth cannot be underestimated.

I hope her grandpa has a week of easy smiling, don't you?

Top Ten Reasons to Choose Life

I just googled "top ten reasons to choose life" because I wanted to just hear 10 positive reasons that people matter.  I got nothing.  So I'm gonna create this list because it needs to be out there.

Why would we call ourselves Pro-Life if we cannot even get beautiful reasons to love our children on the first 3 pages of a google search?

Here goes:

TEN REASONS TO CHOOSE LIFE:

1) Your baby is beautiful, even though it's teeeeeny tiny!

2) Pregnancy unites your and your partner on a journey that will change your lives!
3) When you're pregnant, for the last 3 months you are SUPPOSED  to eat more food.
4) Your child could end up doing anything, everything, and change the world.
5). Everything about your baby will be a reflection of you and your partner--a mini-you yet still unique!
6) Pregnancy is what the female body is supposed to do.  Fatherhood is what the male body is supposed to do biologically and socially and spiritually.  It feels right to do what you're supposed to do.
7) You will have to sacrifice for your child, but your whole life a voice will say, "Mom" or "Dad" and mean you--only you.
8) Babies are the best excuse to celebrate: baby showers, birthday parties, first Christmases, first day of schools, etc.
9) The world only gets one of you and it only gets one of your child.  We need your baby and your baby needs you!
10) Life is a gift.  Give it.

Choose life!

***Of course, every situation isn't easy, every pregnancy isn't supported, every father isn't around, and every baby isn't "perfect" but you, as a mom, can give your baby the best life you are able regardless.  It's your chance to give someone a gift that they don't deserve.  You have power to bestow: LIFE***

Is your soul tormented?

2 Peter 2:7-9, "If he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials,and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment."

Have you ever almost thrown up on a palm (or pine) tree outside of an abortion clinic when the abortionist pulled into the full parking lot and walked in carrying a black bag? Or driven by a "Gentleman's Club" (so backward) or a "Cafe Risque" billboard and teared up and cried out a prayer to God to save us from ourselves? If you have, that's evidence of the Holy Spirit in you. You are a righteous person, made righteous by Christ alone, and your soul is tormented by lawless deeds. You know that the things around you aren't God's desired will.

"We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."

There's a new fairy-tale themed tv show called "Once Upon a Time" that's very popular right now. A little boy named Henry, who is one of the main characters, made a statement in a recent episode that grieved me deeply: "Good loses. Good always loses because good has to play fair. Evil doesn't."

Could this be true about abortion and human trafficking? When I sidewalk counsel in front of abortion clinics, I play fair. I don't trespass, I don't harass, I don't shoot the abortionist or the nurses. Conversely, the staff and clients shout at those silently praying, put dog poop on the grass, and sometimes turn on the sprinklers. Pimps aren't afraid to shoot anyone who interferes with their business, and they mock those who try because they can always find more girls to sell.

Ah, but God says something that directly denies Henry's lament:

"At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage."

Faith that God will do what He promised- and He has promised to destroy evil forever and completely- enables us to stare death, abuse, ugly billboards, brick buildings where babies are ripped to pieces, and every other kind of evil around us in the face and say,

That's a lie. Here is truth. I didn't make it up. God said it, and He never lies: "For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ." (Romans 15:17)

Let your soul be tormented and weary. Then fix your eyes on Jesus, remember it's not forever, and keep on looking Death in the face and telling it about Real Life.

SFLA Conference.

In less than three weeks over 3,000 Pro-life students will gather to learn how they can stop injustice in their neighborhoods.

How beautiful.  I cannot wait to be encouraged because we who love life are not alone.

http://studentsforlife.org/conference/

Young Mom: "Do you want to have a lot of kids?"

Me: "Probably. I like people. Kids are people."

Young Mom: "And with kids you always have somebody to play with."

I love people.

Today I shared some things with my "interprofessional leadership" group. I told them why I wanna help people. I even made a pledge:

I pledge before God to treat patients and everyone I interact with according to Biblical principles of honor and respect, working diligently to protect the physical and spiritual health with all the knowledge I have access to with regards to the situations I am medically involved in. I will uphold the law of the land and the context I am practicing in, and if laws impinge on Biblical values, will discontinue practices which impede my ethical conscience. I commit to pouring personal and professional energy into obtaining all available knowledge and skills to be adequately equipped as a physical and emotional healer for both domestic and international patients I hope to see during my lifetime.

I said humans were valuable:

“What does it mean to be human?” This is a question, the answer to, informs the reason I choose to spend my life with those who need health care and why I want to dedicate my life to public service. I was raised in a family rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition of morality, and it’s where I garnered a deep sense of respect for the sanctity of human life—what it means to be human. A human being isn’t valuable because they’ve done anything for anyone else or because they can give back or because they take too much. They’re not valuable because they’re more developed, smarter, or richer. A human being is more valuable than the GDP of all the wealthiest nations. Human beings are absolutely priceless and worth sacrificing for."

Today I don't think I was understood but I created a visual after the fact to be sure I was sure what I meant.