Mk 1:40-45 Don’t Turn Away!A leper came to Jesus and kneeling down begged him and said, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, “I do will it. Be made clean.”
I don’t know about you, but I always dread coming to a stop light and seeing, at the side of the road, a man or a woman begging for money. I have the tendency to turn away and look busy. I might even get on my cell phone and pretend to be speaking to someone. What can I do? Often, I don’t carry any money. Would this beggar understand that? Would he look at my collar and believe me or would he lose all faith in Christ and in His Church because of me!
And so for this reason, I turn away.
But there are many who turn away because they don’t want to see these things that are all too real and all very personal. There is a strong tendency in all of us to turn away from the truth; to turn away from guilt; to turn away someone, especially if that someone is unexpected and unplanned.
I hate to bring up certain themes and certain articles I have read, but I feel like I have to. In yesterday’s Dallas Morning News (or DaMN for short), there was an extremely biased and opinionated article written by Chuck Lindell of the Austin American-Statesman regarding the Texas’ sonogram law. Chuck seems to think that when it comes to women’s health, women should remain ignorant. He reports that “Some women choose to watch the monitor image; some try to tune out the physician’s description of what it shows; most decline to offer to hear the fetal heartbeat.”
The new state law requires that doctors inform and educate expectant mothers of the size of their unborn child, the physical details of their unborn child. I am not surprised at all that some of the mom’s do not want to see these images. It’s probably because they were told by Planned Parenthood that it was simply “a mass or blob of tissue”. If anyone is to blame for this law, the blame should squarely rest with Planned Parenthood. Years of falsehoods, years of denial, and years of betrayal have finally caught up with them.
I may have a problem with a surgeon describing in exacting detail what he plans to do with me and with, let’s say, a tumor inside of me. But I would not have a problem watching on a monitor the image of a tumor. In fact, I would be excited to see it and hear how it will be removed and destroyed.
That a mom would not feel comfortable looking at an image of her unborn baby must strongly suggest that the “blob of tissue” does not look like a blob at all but haunting resembles hands and fingers, feet and toes, a head, a nose, a body, a soul of one of my very own children.
Yes, and in that case, the truth is very hard to watch. But Chuck and the DaMN seem to think that knowledge is a bad thing! Whatever happened to the maxim, “Knowledge is Power!”? I don’t know a single doctor in America that does not carefully go over the details of a procedure. Texas law has finally caught up with the laissez-faire attitude of the abortion industry and their “doctors.”
Chuck writes, “Whole Women’s Health, [an abortion provider], has seen no minds changed to date.” He seems to want his readers to forget that the law has been in place for one week. He goes on to say that the law is a burden to women: “It can be costly. They have to take off two days from work, pay for child care twice…sometimes drive long distances over two days.”
While I was reading these pitiful distractions, I immediately recalled the reactions heard around the country when the Supreme Court ordered desegregation. Yes, students had to drive for miles to go to school. They were even forced to attend schools far from their neighborhoods. All types of people complained. Moms and dads were angry and frustrated. Few people changed their minds at the start of the law.
What a difference the world is today because of desegregation!
Don’t turn away! There are many laws in our land that specifically target and give special rights and protections to groups of individuals. At first people always complain, and few hearts may actually change. But I guarantee you that the unborn child is not complaining at all. For these small, silent voices that are scared to death of being put to death, let us never turn our backs on them. Make no mistakes: We are in this fight for the long haul, not for some short term benefits. If one life is saved, then it was all worth it, especially for that one life.
Let us continue to fight for a culture of life and not a culture of death. Let us continue to fight for truth, knowledge, education and awareness. Let us continue to reach out and touch the untouchables.
Keep Austin Weird! Austin may be a “weird” city. But let’s not make any mistakes: weird should not be equated with dumb.
Planned Parenthood tries to present themselves as oh-so-concerned about women's health and interested in protecting women's feelings. What a joke. What a farce. What liars. In the documentary "Blood Money" (has recently been shown on EWTN I believe), former PP employees admit to having a goal of performing 3-5 abortions on every teenage girl aged 13-18 that walked through their door--and giving the girls low-dose birth control pills and defective condoms to make that happen! PP doesn't care about women, much less about any person in utero; it cares about protecting its lucrative abortion business.
ReplyDeleteChuck and the DaMN make me want to upchuck!
ReplyDeleteI was so excited when SGK pulled out of funding PP so when they reversed, I was sickened. But even though we didn't get what we wanted, we did make some progress.
ReplyDelete#1 Most people didn't know that SGK gave PP millions of dollars or chose not to believe it. Now it's out there for all to see.
#2 For those who knew, they were told PP used the money for mammograms. Now they know that's not true. I heard so many people who were willing to justify their participation by saying 'their' money didn't go to abortion. I"m sorry, but we all know how idiotic that is. Everyone knows that you can't put money in one hand and not have it available to the other!
#3 The way PP bullies and intimidates corporations is out in the open, if people will think about it, they can see how much more intimidating and downright evil they are to young scared girls and women.
#4 SGK, showed that they have no backbone, that they can be bullied and that they don't really care if they are funding abortion or not.
So maybe we didn't get what we wanted. We did gain some ground. Even though PP got hundreds of thousands of dollars when this news broke, I know they will be losing more than that in the months and years ahead. And SGK's reputation has been greatly scarred, hopefully beyond repair.
But I know satan is still out there angry as all get out now! His two favorite 'charities' have been brought into the light.
Let's just keep praying and SPEAKING UP about it, no matter what opposition we come against.
God is on our side, so even when they yell at us, shoot the finger at us and spit on us, just for sharing the truth with them, we know that we are doing what Jesus wants us to do.
Yes, I have had all those things done to me by nice looking ladies wearing pink, raising money to kill more babies.
I have to say, it's been a few years and I cried and felt like crap even though I knew the truth and that they were the ones living in the dark buying the lie.
Knowing I was doing the right thing didn't make me feel better back then, but now I am glad I stood up and was the hands, feet and mouth of Jesus.
And I have to say I did get the message across to some, that I know of, who spread the word themselves. And I know that some of them, did the same, so money was taken out of the hands of evil.
God always seems to work in little increments, one step at a time no matter what the playing field is. And I have to remember that when I don't see gigantic miracles and changes as quickly as I'd like.