changing thoughts.

Currently Listenning to:
Come and Listen - David Crowder Band
The sound of a train on Mopac

Currently seeing:
Sunlight pour in through our sliding glass doors and the first workings of my next stats test sprawled across our table

Currently smelling:
sweet, sweet outside (windows=open).

Currently needing to:
Take a shower before class at 2.

Currently feeling:
Content


So, I prayed for God to teach me about abortion. Because, honestly, I haven't thought much about abortion. I mean, I think about it in that I wouldn't have an abortion and I would love to meet girls thinking about abortion and talk to them and let them know how big God's heart is for them and their child. But, being political season abortion is a hot topic. And since I'm almost always around Mark Proeger, I hear a lot about abortion.

Matt and I had a "heated discussion" about abortion on the way home from the HSL Fall Retreat. Matt is a ridiculously patient man. He explained the abortion debate for the first time to me in a way where it made sense. He explained all about the Supreme Court and the next president probably appointing the next judge (the oldest Supreme Court member is 88 years old...). If a president were pro-life, he would more than likely appoint a person who is also pro-life. Right now the supreme court is spilt, but with another pro-lifer - the country may get shaken up a bit.

My problem with talking about politics is that I'm surrounded by people who are highly, highly opinionated. And so, it's scary. It's hard for me to form arguments very fast or very quickly. Take for instance, Mark. No matter what I "debate" Mark on - I can't ever think of what I'm trying to say fast enough. Not just about abortion but about anything - in life. And the problem with that is that I still speak anyways. So then, I have half-thought about pathetic arguments that aren't well thought out or well researched. Plus, I just don't operate like that. In my opinion, I don't think debating is a very good way to change peoples minds - I would rather see action producing a response you hope for - and then I see the magnitude of what is going on. But that isn't the way lots of things work. For instance, Obama and McCain have mostly just been debating and airing nastly ads against each other.

All of this was stemmed from Natalie and Matt B. going to the abortion clinics and my desire to go with them. I think I need more compassion about abortion. The time I felt the strongest was not too long ago at a Lanier High football game.

There are lots of pregnant girls at Matt's school. There are lots of pregnant girls for a variety of reasons... family pressure, relationship pressure, lack of knowledge about the act of sex. Whatever reason. There are also lots of girls there who have had abortions. This thought hit me hard at a game recently. One of Matt's students last year has a baby. She brings him to football games and I think he is the cutest child I have ever seen. We get along. She lets me play with him and so I spend time with this adorable child. She has a best friend, who I also know. After the first girl walked away from us at the game, I asked Matt where her friend was. He said he didn't know but he did hear she was pregnant. Then he said, I hope she keeps her baby. Which was sort of surprising to me, since I thought that most people at Lanier probably just had their baby because there is acceptance of mothers (hence a baby and his mom at a football game...). But he said that the first girl and the second were pregnant at the same time, only the first girl kept her baby and the second did not. For maybe one of the first times my heart broke about abortion. It's because people can quote statistics to me all day long about 1.3 billion people, or whatever it is, that have abortions - but my mind can't comprehend that number! I can only think of individual cases and how they effect things. So then, I thought of that adorable child who I absolutely love and thought about the absence of another little person who I didn't have the opportunity to absolutely love. Not that their decision should be based on whether or not I get to play with their baby - that isn't the point. The point is in one case there was life, and in another there was an absence of life and for the first time in practical terms I felt the absence of life.

It was an overwhelming feeling - and I can' t stop thinking about it. I want to open an adoption center with endless funds to pay for people to have their children and let other parents adopt them. I searched online recently and found thousands of parents awaiting adoptive children. It's just such a weird situation that requires much thought and prayer. A topic that I never felt strongly about before the last couple months.

That may sound horrible - but there are lots of other things I feel passionate about... and I was never for abortion - I was just never for putting abortion above all other topics....

I dont know.
I'm working on all of it... and I'm just sorting it out through blogging. Que silly.
I'm going to shower.