As long as I have a memory, I will know what date it was that Talitha learned what a birth mother is.

On a bitter, freezing January 22–in 2001–we stood with thousands of others outside the Minnesota Capitol, rallying for Life.

Talitha pointed to the line drawing on a poster raised high in the distance. “Look, there’s a picture of a baby being born–like baby Elizabeth!” I could see it was really a sketch of a partial birth abortion, but she didn’t need to know yet the horrors of that.

So I picked up the flow of her thought. “Yes, like your little friend. And like you.”

She quickly corrected me, “I wasn’t born. I was adopted.”

I had been thinking for a while it was time to expect questions from Talitha about her birth. Adoption was an everyday word and concept in our family, but we hadn’t yet talked about one very important person to whom we owe great gratitude.

Question or no, now was the time. And so on the stately steps of the capitol, I stooped to look into her eyes. “Talitha, first you were born and then you were adopted.” I explained that she had grown inside another woman–her birth mother–who could have chosen abortion, but instead protected her and gave birth to her.

Talitha carried home a “Choose Life” poster and put it in her bedroom window.

Today I thank God for the woman who gave birth to our beloved Talitha.

__________

For many of us, being pro-life has changed our families through adoption. A couple of years ago I wrote a series of blog posts telling our adoption story. It begins here. 

A follow-up series, Life with Talitha, begins here.

The oldest of our 5 children was born just 3 months before the US Supreme Court’s Roe versus Wade decision which was delivered on January 22, 1973. That means that those millions of babies — people — killed over the last 39 years are the peers of all my children. Only God knows which of them might potentially have been their playmates, classmates, work partners.

In a few minutes I’ll be gathering with other worshippers at Bethlehem’s south campus to hear my husband’s message to us on this heartbreaking anniversary.

I hope this day might be different than other Sundays for you. Perhaps you might:

• be gathering with others to let your presence proclaim your honoring of the sanctity of human life (For Minnesotans, it’s 2 pm at the State Capitol).
• take time to pray with compassion for mothers who are considering abortion right now and for God’s peace to to be understood and accepted in the hearts of men and women who have been responsible for an abortion.
• remember that no sin is too great for God to forgive. Jesus paid for it already for you or anyone who turns to him with faith.
• read the short booklet about abortion, free at the Desiring God website

May God bless this day to you for his sake among the babies–for the sake of the great name of the creator of all human beings.