Wanted

This past week, a local radio station held a radiothon for Duke Children's Hospital. They held it to raise money for the children at the hospital for various needs such as stuffed animals for the sick kids, medical equipment, and anything else that they would need in the treatment of some very sick children. I wasn't able to listen to most of it because I was at work, but some of what I did hear made me think about our society today.

Several of the stories that were shared were about kids with cancer or other terrible diseases and how they learned to deal with the huge inconvenience of having it in their lives at such a young age. Some were always trying to cheer others that they saw as in worse shape than themselves. Other kids were cracking jokes and always looking at the positive side of the whole ordeal. But the stories that caught my attention were the ones that some of the parents shared about their time at Duke with their premature infants. All of their worry, anguish, and dread was focused on the precious little treasures hooked up to all the machines needed to keep them alive. From one minute to the next, they would go from elation at progress to wondering if they would ever be able to touch them and bring them home.

From there my mind went to how the timing of those births made all the difference. For many people today, if they had been younger, busier, or just not in the mood, they wouldn't have thought twice about killing the same baby that they were wanting to take home now. It is such a sad oxymoronic thought that at one point in someone's life, he or she wouldn't think twice about aborting the baby, but a few years later when another baby is premature, they would fight tooth and nail to save the life of the baby and bring him or her home. What's even worse are those people that have been at Duke with a premature baby and will turn around and scream out that a "woman must have the right to choose"!

Choose what? Choose my career over the life of my baby? Choose my boyfriend over my baby? Choose to kill the innocent growing inside me because I am not ready for the responsibility? Choose death over life because the timing is off? The whole situation boils down to this one word: wanted.

When we want something, we will give it our all to get it. When we don't want it, we will give it our all to keep it away.

God help us to see that each baby is precious to Him and that He has a reason for them being conceived no matter the circumstances involved. We should never try to second guess God.