Life Shelter

Yesterday (January 20) is set aside for many as a day to remind us of the tragedy of abortion. The millions of lives each year that are cut short in the womb can't speak for themselves so someone else must. To respond in a Christlike way, I need a good foundation. What does God think? We say He is pro-life. What does that mean?

When we say God is pro-life, we begin with the understanding that God is the author of life. The profound mystery is this however: God has given humans stewardship of this power. The Hebrew text in Genesis conveys that God placed in Adam and Eve the "lives" of the human race. Dr. Jack Hayford explains it like this: "He breathed into them the breath of chayeem--that is, "lives"...God gave mankind the gift of lives. The concept transcends the obvious Creator-gift of life for each one to experience and reaches further to the gift of lives placed within each one's capacity to beget.We have been given the awesome ability to reproduce eternal souls as well as physical bodies." (Jack Hayford, I'll Hold You In Heaven, pg. 20)

This should be the foundation for our theology regarding abortion, pregnancy, contraception, and child-rearing. God is the author of life and we have been given the sobering responsibility of stewardship of not just our own life, but lives.

So our responsibility doesn't end with sheltering the infant in the womb. As one who is pro-life, I can be involved at other levels:

> being a shelter for the single Mom who is struggling to survive as a parent and provider

> being a shelter for the life beyond the womb...the toddler and the teenager

Of course, the one big difference is that the unborn cannot cry out--at least in a way that we can hear. They do cry and God hears them. He is looking back at us to see if we will find creative ways of becoming a shelter for the lives of the unborn as well as the born.