Love for the Sacred Human Life

    “So, you’re sure he’s the father?”
    “Uh, yes! He’s my husband,” my pregnant wife confirmed to the doctor, as he prepared to give her a shot. She was a bit annoyed and sad that such questions needed to be asked of all patients and that she had given an honest but, to them, a seeming minority answer.
    My wife and I had to face the sad reality that we were an unusual couple in the north suburban Chicago hospital. We were seemingly young to be having children, and we were having children while I was in grad school and washing windows for a living. My wife had a good job that she was leaving for the sake of the family, being always able to nurture our upcoming firstborn. We also surprised a few of the hospital staff with our decline to the pre-natal Downs Syndrome test, the information from which usually determines some couples to abort, which we would never do. We were, sadly, a seeming rare couple that was willing to put finances, goals, and other freedoms (some evil) on the altar for the sake of family. For the sake of sanctity of life.
     This certainly wasn’t the only way that my oldest’s birth portrayed to me the sanctity of life. There was also the magnificence. It’s amazing to think that she was once small enough to fit under my fingernail. Now she too big to even lay across my lap.  I remember being in awe that, as soon as she was conceived, her genetic code was all in place, the details of which will only marginally unfold as we watch her grow. With the creativity beyond that of an artist and the precision beyond that of an architect, He knit each one of us together.
    Life is a miracle of God. It’s sad that it seems Christians are among the few to see it, and its irreplaceable beauty and value.
    Maybe it’s also because Christians better understand the alternative.
    The Bible is replete with stories where the essence of life is defended or even saved by a passionate God. God speaks in Ezekiel, saying that He “takes pleasure in the death of no one.” Jesus, who also declared that God is the “God of the living,” healed the sick and raised Lazarus from the dead, both outraged and weeping at witnessing the effects of death upon His children. The apostle Paul declares to those in Corinth that death is the “last enemy to be defeated.”
    Death is not what God ever wanted for His children. Life is.
    I recently stumbled upon a video on the internet entitled “99 Balloons.” It’s the story of a little baby named Eliot Hartman Mooney, a victim of Edwards Syndrome, born to a young Christian couple. Predicted not to survive even to birth, he continued to surpass expectations, receiving nothing but love, support and affection from his parents, their church friends and fellow patients in neonatal intensive care and their families. He lived ninety-nine days. At his funeral, the attendants released ninety-nine balloons. (Click here for the story).
    When I look at how I was taught the sanctity of human life, it wasn’t from first becoming a father. It wasn’t from the shouting by people that hold up signs outside abortion clinics. It wasn’t from inspirational stories of very fertile couples who (all the power to them) morally raise a large number of children. It was from watching my parents care for my mentally-handicapped little brother.
    And I’m reminded about the sanctity of human life from stories like Eliot Hartman Mooney. Any type of story that gets people to ask, “Why would a married couple, along with their friends, family and even their church, invest so much of their time, money and emotional energy into a child who would not live long to communicatively return their affection or make them proud with some adult-like accomplishment?”
    Because life is a sacred miracle.
    Believe in life. Pass it on.