When the rubber hits the road

Recently, I have been watching Boy Meets World in the mornings while the wife is at work.  ABC Famliy - which is actually not very family friendly nowadays - airs five episodes each weekday.  I had been watching it occasionally and happened to catch the last two episodes of the series last week.  This week, they started over at the beginning, so I DVRed them.  This has been one of my better choices in the past month.  It is a great show!  I remember watching as a kid, wishing I could be like Cory and Shawn.  Now as an adult, I appreciate the dry humor of the adults so much more.  Also, being a father and a teacher, I better understand the struggles of Mr. & Mrs. Matthews and Mr. Feeny.

In the first season, Cory grows up a lot.  He learns the importance of friendship, even though it's not always easy being a best friend.  He learns that the adults in his life are not trying to ruin it, but protect it.  He learns that he should be a kid for as long as the world lets him.

There are times when I think about how great it would be to be a kid again.  I can remember a time when I woke up in the morning and worried about who I was going to play with on the playground or what game we could play.  I didn't have to think about how I would get from point A to point B.  In fact, most times I didn't even know there was a point B and if I did, I didn't know where it was.

Now, as a married man with a baby, I have to face the harsh realities of the real world.  There are bills to pay, a list of tasks to complete around the house, and friends to try and keep up with who all have jobs and busy schedules.  More importantly, I am responsible for getting the wife, baby boy, and myself into Heaven.  Oh yeah, I'm also supposed to be Christ to everyone I meet and preach His Gospel.  In today's world.  Which has kind of gone to Hell in a hand basket.

Seriously folks, what is going on around us?  As kids we were taught right from wrong.  Now, as an adult, I can admit that there are situations where there is definite gray area.  However, for the most part, there is a right answer and a wrong answer.  The world is so wrapped up in being progressive and politically correct, people have lost sight of the fact that for many issues, there is a clear right and wrong.  God forbid we offend someone by calling them onto greatness in their lifestyle choices.    

Certainly, there are countless situations our society is currently facing where people have lost sight of any moral code.  Above all the others, the one I cannot seem to let go of (nor should I) is the issue of abortion.

Pro-life legislators in Texas have introduced a bill which will ban abortions after 20 weeks, based on scientific evidence that unborn children can feel pain at 20 weeks.  It was passed on a second reading on Wednesday and a third reading vote was expected yesterday.  Sen. Marco Rubio is readying a similar bill to be introduced into the US Senate.  Representative Michael Burgess (who practiced as an OB/GYN for 25 years) believes that restricting abortions after 20 weeks is too late-he thinks they should be restricted at 15 or 16 weeks.  "Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” Burgess states. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?"  What did the mainstream media have to say about that?  Yep, you guessed it.  Search Michael Burgess on Google and the first result is the Atlantic Wire's headline "GOP Congressman Wants to Ban Abortion to Save Masturbating Fetuses." Really?

Why is this even something we're arguing about anymore?  For at least the last thirty-odd years, scientists and doctors have agreed that life begins at conception.  This quote from 1975 is the earliest I found after a quick Google search: "The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote."

[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]  You can find at least a dozen more here.  The idea that life begins at conception is not news.  How do pro-abortion people even have a leg to stand on?  It infuriates me and makes me sick to my stomach that there are people in our world who are so incredibly selfish that that they will ignore (whether consciously or naively) the fact that from the moment a child is conceived, he has dignity and worth.  There's no disputing that when a sperm and an egg become an embryo, a human life is formed.  That people take it even further and decide that they have the right to end an unborn baby's life for convenience makes absolutely zero sense to me.  While there may be gray area in the world, murder is always black and white.  

I certainly do not hate or look down on people who believe otherwise or even those women who have had an abortion.  While I cannot comprehend why, I am by no means a perfect person and I know that there are things I have done in my life that I will have to answer for when I meet God.  Who am I to judge another person?  This post is not meant to condemn them.  I only pray that those people will have a change of heart and for God's mercy to be poured out on them.  

I know that even as it feels like the world is spinning out of control, God is control and now more than ever, we faithful need to trust in His providence.  We need to have confidence as we are a light in the darkness, because He has already won the victory.

Heavenly Father,

help me to be a light in the darkness of this world.  Give me Your words and guide me so that I may proclaim your Truth with courage.  Protect all unborn children and bring an end to the culture of death.  Pour out your love and mercy on us all and guide us to Your most Sacred Heart.

Amen