Pro LIFE

I'm a little behind, but only by a day.

The anniversary of Roe v. Wade was yesterday. Many of my bloggy friends have posted about it. I have always been adamantly pro-life and I admire all of the pro-life posts I've read. I had it on the tip of my type-writing-tongue to make my usual platform speech...Including the fact that 90% of babies that are diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted and how sad that is....it makes my heart break and makes me want to knock down their doors and beg them to change their minds, or give me their sweet little bean-bag babies...and then, it struck me to my very soul that they are not only missing out on a love and insight to their world, but that they are missing out on LIFE. And not *just* their child's. Theirs.

There are more and more tests that are coming out, with earlier and earlier detection. Many of the tests that are supposedly close to 100% accurate have been wrong in both detecting and missing kids with Downs....I am absolutely positive that there have been babies that have been aborted with no abnormalities due to those tests.

I know someone who is currently pretty sure that they are expecting a baby with Downs. They have called on their friends and family to pray that their baby with be born without defect...and I am praying with them...but I pray with a torn heart...and I actually find myself sad. I understand, I mean I REALLY understand, that it is scary and not what you had envisioned for your life... We have mourned the normal and walked the terrifying corridor of massive health problems...but sometimes ...Sometimes I feel genuinely sorry for those who do not have an Elise in their lives. I mean it!!

I wonder sometimes what Elise would be like without the bonus chromosome...who she would be, what she would be like...what she would say...But I always come back to the FACTS.

Elise has made our life fuller. She has made our life more ALIVE. She is the light that illuminates the corners that we would have missed otherwise. Sometimes I regret she was not our first so I could have truly appreciated Gabriel's babyhood...but my excitement when my kids hit their milestones is actual and genuine. I do not take them for granted. They all deserve a celebration.

I feel that God can use dark and scary times to show us "Abundant Life" such that our previous life looks paltry. I find myself echoing the story I heard once. (And of course, now that I want to link it up, I cannot find where I saw it! Give me a shout if you know!!) A sibling once told his family that "everyone should have a baby with Down Syndrome!" And I agree.

She is Pro LIFE, and lives it fully and gives it in abundance!! She is God's little catalyst of joy in my life.

Sometimes I wonder that if we were really living life fully and accepting the abundance that God has to offer, would we even care if our lives were not the picture perfect that is so often longed after? And I am putting my life to this microscope, so don't think I am just sitting here in my perfect life looking down at you.

John 10:10b "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." Are you accepting that gift? Are you actually as pro-LIFE as you think?