Sarah's Choice

I believe it would be fair to say that the life of a Christian will be one of ups and downs. After all, the life of Christ was. For that matter, the life of God Himself is. One moment, the world cries out to Him, the next it wants Him to go away. Humanity, as a whole, is bipolar. We just don't know what we want. We want the love and security of a Heavenly Father but we don't want the accountability that comes with that. Far easier to worship things and find scraps of love wherever they can be scrounged.

I wrote a couple weeks ago about Sarah, one of my clients at the pregnancy clinic. A client who I think adequately represents where my life could be if I had done everything my way. If God had not intervened by whiping out one of my role models at the age of 23. I've already outlived her, which is mindblowing to me.

At any rate, as I backed up my bags last Friday to head out to visit old friends, I received a call from Sarah. After weeks, and I mean weeks of battling about what is right and what she should do, she caved. Two weeks ago, her little girl went to be with her Creator. The product of her mother's bad choices and fear.

I often wonder what that reunion must be like in Heaven. I wonder if Christ, the Creator, stands there at the edge of Heaven. As the Spirit pleads one last time with that mother to change her mind, I wonder of the mansion being prepared for this little one. I wonder if she doesn't show up in Heaven completely bewildered by what just happened, by the pain and terror that penetrated her safe little world and consequently ended her short life. I believe our Father weeps as He reaches out His arms to her and knows that all of the hopes and dreams He had made her for are now gone. How that all works is beyond my comprehension.

I don't know what happens in Heaven, but I do know what happens here. I do know that Sarah spent an hour on the phone with me weeping about her decision, wishing she could take it back. I do know that an anger rose within me as I learned she was weeping the whole time she was at the abortion clinic. They shouldn't perform abortions on women who aren't sure. My heart broke as I listened to her. Part of me wanted anything to have called her that day and just asked how she was doing- maybe, just maybe, if I had, she would have changed her mind.

But Sarah said something that blew me away. She is a very head-knowledged Christian. She can spout Bible verses right and left and tell me all about what God thinks about this and that and the other thing. She knows her stuff. But as our conversation came to a close and we were discussing where to go from here in regards to a pending divorce she said, "I just wish I knew the right thing to do. I can just never seem to figure out the right thing to do."

That, my friends, is the difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. Until you allow God's truth to govern your life, you have nothing.