Yesterday, the senior pastor and I went out to the Westside Pregnancy Resource Center in Santa Monica. Talitha Phillips, the Executive Director, gave us a tour of the facilities and then the three of us sat down to hear about the work the center does. This is an amazing organization. Not only do they do pregnancy care, crisis counseling, abortion alternatives counseling, single mother support groups, and ultrasounds, but they also provide supplies for new moms, help them find jobs and housing, work with pregnant women to tell their parents or boyfriends/husbands, and do abstinence/healthy dating instruction for youth groups and schools. As Talitha recounted stories of the women who come back to the center, broken and distraught after having an abortion, I was broken again for these women.
One of the most common groups of people who come in after having an abortion are Christians. "It is easier to come to the church with an abortion that to come to the church with an unplanned pregnancy." Talitha said that this quote epitomizes so much of the work they do. What is wrong with our churches that we tell our women that God will forgive them whatever they decide? God will, but why are we sending our women into pain, regret, and emotional turmoil? These women are so broken, and we send them from one sin straight into another, from one mistake into another. At what point do we truly partner with the organizations like Westside? When do we stop to spend time with them? To learn from them how we can love and support the women in our midst who are dealing with the turmoil of an unplanned pregnancy or the heartbreak of a past abortion? When will we start providing the resources and assistance that these women need so that abortion doesn't become their only option?
Then there are so many stories on the other side. Time and time again I hear the pain and anguish of the couples in my churches who have tried and tried to have children. These couples have been told that they are not able to have children, or they have grieved miscarriage after miscarriage. They are broken by their pain, and we are too often insensitive. I think about groups like MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers). They gather to give support to other moms in their situations, which is exactly what we should do: share wisdom and encouragement. Then these women plan events like women's dinners or trips to special stores, and they exclude women who do not have children. So my sisters who have lost baby after baby are excluded from fellowship in the church because they have not been blessed with children of their own. They serve as Sunday School teachers or youth group leaders, working with the children of these other women, but they are not able to share fellowship with the women themselves. I think about the Father's Day sermon I sat through on Sunday, where we celebrated the men in the congregation who are fathers and prayed for a young boy in the congregation who's father died. Again, these were good things to do, but I wondered about the men sitting next to me that are unable to have children of their own. These men and women tell me that they really do rejoice with their brothers and sisters who have children. They pray for them, and they help raise the children up in the faith, just like they committed to do when the children were baptized/dedicated. We support our families, but when will we start supporting the other brothers and sisters in our congregations? When will we surround them with prayer and love, and welcome them into our lives without excluding them because of their own pain? When will we hear the pain of these couples among us?
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2 comments:
It's easier to go to church having had an abortion than with an unplanned pregnancy because the woman doesn't show... I think abortion is still looked upon as the worse (less Christian/moral) decision, and I think people, especially Christians, judge women who have had abortions more harshly than women who carry through with unplanned pregnancies. I don't think it's an issue of churches telling women that either option is fine, forgivable, and otherwise equal as much as it is an issue of appearances. If an unmarried, pregnant woman walks into a church (and people find out she's not married), she has to deal with people's judgments and prejudices right then and there; if a woman who has had an abortion walks into a church, she may be able to find some safe people first, but sometimes interactions at church can be so superficial that she may never feel comfortable sharing her pain and may never find healing there.
That could very well be true. What was so upsetting about those statements is that those are the stories of the girls with whom Talitha works. They are told they'll be forgiven for an abortion, but they aren't told they'll be loved and supported if they carry the child, and too often they aren't.
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