This Hard Calling – Pro-Life Talk – Guest Post

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Pro-life talk is everywhere. I hear people protesting and yelling about the rights of the unborn. I see people typing behind the safety of handheld devices. I hear opinions of when life begins and ends and all the in between.

I know there’s anger and justifiable frustration behind the words as people do their best to advocate for life. But pro-life is more than speaking your opinion about the value of life in the womb.

If we are pro-life (and not just anti-abortion) our lives should look more like it. We must be willing to die to ourselves to save the lives of others.

There’s more than a line to draw in the sand. There’s not just a fetus to speak up for. There’s also a mama, woman, a valuable life. The storyline has two valuable lives.

Over the years, we’ve brought home many fragile new lives as biological and foster parents. I’m forever thankful for their mother’s choice to let them live. It’s sometimes a daunting decision for them and the impact is eternal.

This pro-life choice our family makes over and over and over again is never convenient. It’s always overwhelming and uncomfortable. It always costs us something-convicted choices always do.

I’ve missed birthdays and soccer games and school plays and date nights. I’ve surrendered my free time and me time and all the in between time for this calling. It doesn’t make me a martyr. It makes me willing and available and breakable.

And it’s given way to the hope for life in ways I never thought I didn’t know. I’ve been on the front row for watching new life breathed into places wrapped in despair and sorrow. I’ve handed babies over to other caregivers and I’ve been allowed to be part of their story forever. Nothing is more breathtaking than sewing into someone else.

We must continue to check our hearts and ask ourselves if we really are pro life. Because if we are, we will also be pro-family, pro-community, pro-sacrifice, pro-healing, pro-connection, pro-wholeness.

 

-Kristy Sutton

Kristy is a biological mama to four beautiful kiddos and has called twelve other babies hers since starting their journey as a foster family in 2012. They say yes to the hard and crazy as they follow Jesus on this journey of surrender and obedience. She speaks and blogs at This Hard Calling. She also co-founded Foster Florida.