“I’m pregnant.” These words provoke either sheer delight or absolute terror. Sometimes a mix of both. They are words that have caused me to weep before the Lord in recent days. As I prepare for Undaunted and seek God’s face on His opinion of women, my heart has become more and more — what’s the word? — disturbed, burdened, awakened, even explosive with the call that we, as women, must rise up to defend our image of God. We must raise the bar on ourselves so that our daughters and sons might have better role models. Fasten your seat belt, this could get uncomfortable.
I could, and will, talk about the social blight of male promiscuity. I could, and will, talk about the responsibility of men to be protectors and providers instead of predators.
But today, I want to ask you, just how willing are you, as a woman, to protect and defend yourself, your fellow sisters, and the next generation? I see three topics where we are so politically-charged and biblically off-base that women have become more oppressive to women than the men.
Topic One: Let’s talk about abortion. Some prominent female authors I greatly admire speak of God and the beauty of women and yet they promote and campaign for women to have the “right” to their own body. I understand this completely.
It is the woman who is “trapped” by a baby. The woman whose body must “suffer” the contortion of physical changes in pregnancy. It is a woman who must “sacrifice” her dreams and goals because she has been “caught” in the act. It is the woman who often lives in poverty trying to care for children in single parent homes. We have to do something to “empower women globally” is the cry of pro-choicers.
However, instead of empowering women, have we have created generations of cowards? We have so lost our identity in God, so lost our personal responsibility to “above all else guard [our] heart” that we have actually fueled a hellish deception that women are victims and shouldn’t be penalized by sex.
Instead of women being the keeper of their own castle, honoring and owning their own passions because great is their treasure, some women have become witless commodities free for the taking. And if they get pregnant, no problem. There’s an easy fix. Two of my friends, “just couldn’t bear the thought” of having a another baby. But the thought or action of murder seemed easier to stomach. Just how twisted have we become?
Just for the record let me remind you, I had an abortion at age 19. I am all about 100% compassion for women wounded by abortion. But we still have to stand for 100% truth. I tramped around in pro-abortion dogma for years spouting the “pro woman” propaganda until God interrupted my life, and my paradigms, like a stick in rolling bicycle wheel.
It was a big crash and as I lay on the proverbial floor with my breath knocked out of me, I realized I had fallen for one big, fat lie after another.
Sex is my right and my choice.
Sex is the same for men and women.
Sex should be as free for me as it is for men.
Every one of these demonic lies are aimed at the destruction of God’s perfect design and identity of a woman and her ability to give life. Do you hear the enemy of Eden, “enmity between the woman and her offspring”?
As we embraced these lies years upon years, destruction indeed took place and a new slavery was born. Women murdering their own offspring. It was first touted as a “necessary evil.” (Let your mind absorb the irony of those two words.) But now we hail this as an achievement of women’s rights. Women’s freedom. We post videos of the murderous procedure on Facebook. Celebrities applaud mothers killing babies as women’s advancement in the social sphere. We sell unborn body parts over dinner and don’t blink an eye.
This is why I am sliding the BS card right across the table. You cannot be pro-abortion and pro-woman. You cannot oppress the most vulnerable and defenseless person on the planet and call it progress.
Murder and oppression has never empowered any nation or people group. Just look at these stats. We all cringe at these past and current social atrocities.
Slavery: Between 9 and 11 million people were taken out of Africa
by European slave traders whose lives ended in death or forced labor
Holocaust: At least 11 million people were killed
Refugee Crisis: Estimates of 300,000 killed
The numbers are astounding and gut wrenching. Now look at this in comparison:
Abortions: 58,586,256 killed in America since Roe V. Wade since 1973
50 million people are dead because we bought the lie that our right to freedom is more important than some unborn person’s life. It didn’t add up for the slave owners. It didn’t add up for Hitler. It doesn’t add up for the Syrian Conflict. It doesn’t add up for our country.
Again, I tell you I know the blood of Jesus washes us clean. Yet it is the wisdom of Jesus that would have us live differently. We can no longer turn our heads, or mumble inane comments about choice, or fear being called judgmental. We can no longer dismiss the political process as candidates make bold pro-life statements.
For the sake of our own hearts, and the heart of women yet to come, we must re-align ourselves to our true identities. We are slaves no more. Not slaves to men’s passions or our own weakness. God gave us the mantle of life-givers. Life protectors. Nurturers. Warrior Women.
We must become Women of God who value their own bodies enough to defend and protect them before, after and during marriage. Women of God who have the courage to live with mistakes and seek God for strength instead of getting “rid of the problem.” Women of God who rise up and boldly stand in God’s truth, without compromising compassion for mom or baby.
Our lost identity and connection with God is the real problem. But thank God, we are slaves no more.
Sisters, rise up.
photo credit pixlisting.com