4,000 Steps

This morning, I went with my dad to the First Choice Pregnancy Solutions walkathon fundraiser. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot. All my life, I have really cared about the pro-life cause, and I enjoyed this opportunity to learn more about what our local crisis pregnancy center is accomplishing.

I have heard plenty of sobering statistics all along, but sometimes they are just numbers. Today, they began to sink in and impact me in a new way.

A particularly striking statistic I learned was that one out of four women in a church have an abortion. This could include women who had an abortion in the past before coming to know Christ and getting connected in a local church; I'm not sure. Regardless, there are a lot of women who would claim to be Christians, discover that they are pregnant, and choose not to carry their baby.

When the rubber meets the road, and the time comes to actually live out what you claim you believe, many women fall into the easy "solution" and terminate their pregnancies. However, that's not all. Many of these women choose not to keep their babies not just because their own ideals cave under pressure, but also because they fear the judgment of others.

Women facing an unplanned pregnancy have many obstacles to overcome, and a huge one for any church-attending woman is how her congregation will respond when they know what she has done. As the body of Christ, we are called to show unconditional love and acceptance, but let's face it. Even though some people act that way, collectively we do not. An unmarried pregnant woman in the church has to deal not only with her own shame, but also with the judgment of others.

Christians know that we have "all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". (Romans 3:23) We know that, aside from the grace of God and Christ's sacrifice, we would be completely separated from God. Even so, it is easy to feel that your sins are just minor ones and to point fingers at that girl.

Sin is serious. We cannot brush hers aside by saying that we all fail, but nor can we brush aside ours by saying that hers is bigger. Either way, we are wholly dependent on the mercy of God.

While serious and damaging, sexual sin is not unforgivable. We need to show grace and love to people who struggle in this area, not shun them. It would be a wonderful testimony to the work God has done in our hearts, and would also lessen the pressure a churchgoing woman feels to end her pregnancy and hide her sin.

If such a woman is truly a Christian, all her sin is paid for, once and for all. God does not use the labels that we apply to ourselves, or that others apply to us. He doesn't see the "good Christian girls" as the one who gossips, the one who lies, and the one who is rebellious. Their sins are paid for, and He sees them as His children, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Likewise, the girl who sins in "worse" ways is also a daughter of the King. He does not think of her as "that teenage girl who got pregnant" or "that woman who had an abortion". Her sin is paid for, and she is a child of God.

If God looks at that woman and does not see her by the stigma of what she has done, but instead calls her His child, can we not quit judging, and instead show acceptance and love to our sisters in Christ? They have made a mistake and will live with its consequences, but the judgment for that sin has been placed on Christ and dealt with forever. We must hold accountable, but we cannot condemn, not when the ultimate Judge has wiped out the penalty and fully redeemed.

"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved." 

- Ephesians 2:4-5