Choose Life~Family Trees

My Mom used to say when speaking about her own experiences as a teen Mom that if the church wants to do something then "stop picketing and start mentoring young Moms."  Stop being against abortion and start being for life. 

I think about that a lot as I have lived my life.  When I hear the news of aborted babies and when I work with Mom's and Dad's with semi loads of guilt and shame for babies that they have left behind...I know that there is NOT an easy answer.

Even to say, "Don't have sex," can't be the only answer as if our words without belief and action carry any weight.  Rather I hope that it is a way of thinking and believing and being.  

So here is my story, my passion and my plea.

Choose life.  At all cost.

Whether it cost you gold, silver, time, heart ache, disappointment, grief, loss, persecution and reputation.

Choose life.  At all cost.

Whether it cost you your comfort, selfishness, dreams, goals and desires.

My Mother was raised as a ragamuffin along with her sisters and brother.  Alcoholism and bad choices swept away the parents for a time leaving little ones alone and neglected and starving for love and attention.  Without model or instruction or coaching in the rough world of an oil boom.  Some men who came into her life were abusive and some were respectful and good and gave her hope but she could not see through the distorted perception of the lens she had grown up with.

Until, her cousin came to town with a note...to come back home.  And an Aunt selflessly took in a young woman and a little girl...both with baggage into her home.  Her own eight children had to share space, room and love with these ragamuffin girls.

At my Mother's recent 60th birthday  party, I was able to see the "cousins" again and visit a little more.  One shared with me the story of how her Mom wept when my Mother and I left to go live with the cowboy she had met.   This cousin told me that her Mom loved me as her own.  She let me go because it was the right thing to do.  

I went home that night and cried.  I never knew this.

Someone loved me unconditionally and with full acceptance that has impacted my own future and my own parenting and my own relationship with God.  Someone loved me knowing that she was a mentor and a coach and could never rescue or hold onto.  

She built roots into my heart and into my mind that has taken and grown.  Her own sense of love shaded and protected my Mom and I so that we could become a healthy transplant.

Aunt Ally is not a known celebrity.  She did not die famous or wealthy or validated.  Her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have the blessing of a life who lived well and prayed hard.  And a little graft of this heart of a warrior now lies in the heart of a strange ragamuffin.

I get to love my Dad who gave me his blood and his warrior heart as well as my Dad who gave me his life and sacrifice.  I get to live.  I get to grow as old as I can with my husband whom I adore.  I get to see three boys grow into young men who will carry a piece of their mother within their heart.  I hope to meet grandchildren.

But I also hope that my belief in the young moms that I come in contact with in my working and church life will also take the little bit I have to offer them and tuck it deep within them to carry a hope and change their family tree.

From my journal as my prayer for my boys.

I hope that my writing can give hope to the Mother who has yet to be given her children or to the Grandmother who is racked with guilt and shame.  

To the Grandmother raising her Grandchildren and the young Mom keeping her head above the water.  

To the Dad whose regret weighs heavy and his hope lifts him up.

To the mother who feels like a constant failure...whose lens is contorted and broken...

That my youth and my children's church and my community will know that I love them with the heart of Aunt Ally, and Mom, and my Dads...all who chose life over themselves.

I hope that my little planting in this world can be the compost and the humus that more can grow within.