Showing posts with label Wounded Healer. Show all posts

What Is The Intellectual Cost of The Pro-Choice Position?

Introduction

In recent months a major political and moral shift has been underway across America. The legality and morality of both infanticide and murder are actually being debated. But not under those terms. No, euphemisms are being used to obfuscate what is truly at stake- the lives of millions of people- your children's lives, your grandchildren's lives, for generations to come.

If we continue to ignore this debate and do nothing, we do so at a severe intellectual, moral, and personal cost. This post will help you see through the intentional obfuscation of those who are actively attempting to deceive you into supporting these atrocities.

The Terms Used

The debate over infanticide and murder are logical extensions of the debate over abortion. On one side, people argue that terminating a pregnancy (up to and including while the mother is in labor) can be justified (the "pro-choice" position), while the other side argues that there exists no such justification (the "pro-life" position). The pro-choice advocate gets emotionally heated because they believe that a mother has the right to exercise autonomy over the life of her unborn child. The pro-life advocate gets emotionally heated because they believe that no human, including the mother, has the right to exercise autonomy over the life of any unborn child.

In the midst of the emotional exchanges, some advocates on both sides attempt to take a more objective approach and provide evidence for their position in an effort to bring a logical resolution the debate. If one side is successful in this goal, then their emotional responses may be justified by the evidence, but if that position is not justified by the evidence, then the emotional responses (and the position itself) is not justified and logically must be abandoned. The abandonment would include all laws and legal decisions that support the position as well. Today, I want to take some time to examine the available options and see how they square with reality and experience.

Podcast Highlight: How to Heal After An Abortion

The issue of abortion is often very personal and quite emotional. For every child aborted, there are the mother, the father, grandparents, friends, and other family members who are deeply wounded. Many people, who had no choice in the issue or felt as though they didn't, carry the scars of the loss of a family member, and they desperately search for healing from this trauma.

The Silent No More Awareness Campaign- Healing The Shock Waves of Abortion: http://www.silentnomoreawareness.org/

Today I want to highlight a podcast that I heard recently. Patti J. Smith was wounded by having an abortion twice. Since those experiences, she has become pro-life and has found healing from the horrific events. She is a regional coordinator with the Silent No More Awareness Campaign that helps those who have lost a child to abortion. Whether those victims are mothers, fathers, siblings, grandparents, or others, this ministry helps them find the healing that they seek.

In this interview on the Pro-Life Thinking podcast, Patti speaks of the blessing of the forgiveness and healing that she has experienced as a mother who aborted and encourages other mothers who have aborted to seek the same forgiveness and healing as well. I am reminded of the apostle Paul, was dedicated to the persecuting and killing Christians. But Jesus Christ forgave him and gave him the honor of penning the majority of the New Testament, the revelation that would go into all the world to offer Christ's forgiveness to those who have also sinned. Today, Patti is a wounded healer who is being honored with the privilege of helping victims of abortion find the healing they desperately seek and point them to the ultimate Wounded Healer: Jesus Christ.

If you are a victim of abortion and are seeking healing from the wounds, please listen to this podcast and get in touch with the Silent No More Awareness Campaign:

How To Heal From An Abortion- With Patti Smith

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For more resources, please see these posts as well:

A Deeper Understanding Of Christ's Love Through Suffering

Introduction

How can you helplessly watch as a child dies from agonizing cancer? Doesn't the love you feel tell you that that suffering is evil and a God who is all loving and all powerful would rescue that child? How can God be all loving and all powerful if He allows such a child to suffer and die?

This is a challenge that is often raised by atheists to reject the God of the Bible. But today, I am not going to answer the atheist who raises the challenge as an armchair hypothetical that they have never experienced; instead I want to speak to the person who either has experienced this tragedy or is in the middle of it, and it causes them to be skeptical of the goodness and even existence of God.

This Is What Love Feels Like

But could God have a purpose for the pain that you feel? Before I get to that, please watch this tribute to those who have cared for a loved one at the end of their life: This Is What Love Feels Like, by dc Talk, inspired by Toby McKeehan's experience:

Knowing Love Through Suffering

Jesus knew the suffering that would take Him to His physical limits, yet He persisted and conquered: This was His love for you as He suffering the torture of crucifixion. If you have been taken to your limits through the suffering of a loved one, you know this love.

Without the suffering of a loved one, we would not know this love for someone else that takes us to our limits (and live to tell of it), what love truly feels like. Without the suffering of a loved one, we would not have the privilege of getting a trace of understanding of the depth of Christ's love for us that took Him to the end of His physical limits. Caring for a spouse, parent, or child as they leave this world has to be one of the most painful experiences, and we do not escape it unchanged by the suffering it has caused. We are wounded, but we can use those wounds to heal. We can become the wounded healer (see my post "The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose In Your Suffering" for more on this concept). And just as we are alive today to be wounded healers, Jesus conquered death through His bodily resurrection to be the Ultimate Wounded Healer that we point to.

While it is a privilege to experience what this kind of love feels like (though it comes at a great cost, just like it did for Christ), our experience only scratches the surface of the love that Christ has. And our experience is only one person (or maybe a few people in extremely tragic situations) at a time. But Jesus' love, as He suffered death, was not just for you or just for a few people, it was for every person (John 3:16).

Conclusion

We must not forget that our suffering in this life will come to an end. It is finite, and this finite suffering is not worth comparing to the infinite glory that will one day be revealed in us (Romans 8:18) and can be revealed in others to enjoy with us, if we are willing to be used by God to be wounded healers. Do not be discouraged. Our perfect God has a purpose for your suffering. Without Him, your experience is gratuitous pain with no purpose or meaning. But because God exists and Christ is resurrected from the dead, your experience is both purposeful and meaningful. Through your experience, God has blessed you with a deeper understanding of His love for you, and now He gives you the privilege to speak hope, life, love, meaning, and purpose to the brokenhearted suffering and struggling the same as you are.

Recommended Posts for More Hope and Encouragement In Your Time of Pain

The Wounded Healer: Finding Ultimate Purpose in Your Suffering

The Wounded Healer: Finding UItimate Purpose In Your Suffering

Introduction

The other day, I heard a podcast that I want to highlight for anyone who is a victim of the evil and suffering of life and questions God's purposes, His love, or even His existence. Whether our experiences are singular traumatic events, day-in and day-out pain, or a combination of the two, suffering often feels completely unbearable. These experiences can be so painful that many people are compelled to honestly question and seek legitimate answers to how an all-loving and all-powerful God could and would permit the suffering that we experience in our lives and see others experience in our world. This is called the logical problem of evil and has been long recognized as having been resolved, even by atheists (click or tap the link to see how).

Some, though, have wondered if that given the amount of evil and suffering, it is likely that an all-powerful and all-loving God does not exist. Simply stated: "There is too much gratuitous suffering in the world for an all-loving and all-powerful God to exist." While this is a more modest concern that seems reasonable, if it is to be granted, such a denial of God's existence based upon gratuitous suffering is necessarily reliant upon the idea that God does not have reasons to allow the amount of suffering that He does. Further, that depends upon knowing God's purposes (or lack thereof) and how those purposes could (not) be accomplished. However, both the purposes of God and the methods of their fulfillment would have to be extremely limited for one to reasonably conclude that the amount of evil and suffering in the world is gratuitous. God's purposes and methods are not so limited, so evil and suffering cannot be used to reasonably conclude that God does not exist. Yet, even though this answer is reasonable, it does not really answer the question of what the purpose of evil and suffering actually is. That is where I believe that Dr. Emerson Eggerichs picks up from the logical answer to the problem of evil and suffering and makes a deeply personal connection to their purpose.