My messy, messy life.

"You must be doing something wrong. 

People just don't have that many bad things happen to them."

Go back and read that again.

Seriously...

This was said ... out loud, on purpose.

A dear friend, a long-time-not-old-cause-that-sounds-rude friend of mine told me...
someone actually said this to her.

My friend, who has had so many years of so much crap, of so much hard and messy and scary.

She told me this
       and then I yelled, out loud.
Really loud.
Like Norb opened the door and checked on me kind of loud.

Obviously, this well-intentioned-overly-opinionated (careful Kathy) person,
we've obviously never met.
Or she's never met any of mine. Because we are people and we have many bad things happening to us. Right now. Over and over.
Her heads in the proverbial sand... way down deep.

We've got a bunch of messy going on over here.

And I've realized it's not gonna clean up any time soon.

Don't mock... I love these!

Me + Messy = not so good

I'm the label-maker-loving, drawer sorting, color-coded-filing lover of all things neat and orderly. I love a made bed. I love a beautiful pile of folded clothes.

I hate piles of paper and corners filled with clutter and junk.

Don't mock... I hate this!

And herein lies the irony.

Life is messy.

If you think you're the only messy out there. Take heart... you are not alone.

If yours is not messy, if your life is predictable and relatively easy, I'm not writing this to mock you. I don't even doubt you. But pay attention. Broken lives. Struggling families. Addiction, incarceration, sickness, chronic disease, families and friends who are in a crisis. They aren't to be judged, corrected, or bullied.

You might say your intention isn't to bully or criticize, just to correct and to help.

Perfect. Do that. Minus the correcting part, there's One who does that beautifully, and without shame. He's got it covered. Trust Him with it... and don't think because you ate pizza before bed last night that the revelation and wisdom oozing out of your brain means it was God. Because your hormonally imbalanced this week, or you read something once by someone somewhere and it sounds something like this. That doesn't mean now you know the answers to all of their problems.  Because the thoughts are in your head, it doesn't meant they should come out of your mouth.
"Because I love you" doesn't make the cut, doesn't give permission to say it.
Trust me. That one was thrown in my face once, in a church lobby... but that's another story.

And now that I'm writing this I'm freaked out
I'm afraid I've been that person.
I'm realizing that I've believed I had the authority to tell someone how messed up they are, believing I said it in love.
I was wrong.
I don't wanna be that wrong any more.

God forgive me for taking on your role without your permission too many times.

You might ask, doesn't God use people to help other people?
Yes. God does place us in conversations and relationships that allow us, command us, to walk through stuff with someone. To confront addiction, to confront destructive behavior or abusive relationships.

When God truly calls someone to speak up I believe it is usually preceded by soul-searching, some agonizing, but not preceded by I can't wait to set them straight.

Doesn't God use us?
Isn't there anything we can do to clean this up, to make a difference, to help?
Oh yes... beautifully and deeply and affectively.

We help by praying.
We help by praying for them, not at them.
We help by loving them.
We love by loving their kids, or their parents, or their husband or their wife.
We love by helping them move, by bringing them food, by taking them to coffee, by paying their rent, or their utilities, or buying them a car, or paying medical bills.

We help by loving, we love by showing up and shutting up.

We should love.

Not by trying to make their lives look all neat and organized like yours or how I wish mine could be.

But by just showing up...
Taking a seat beside them...
Loving them, in their messy, oh so messy life.

If you have ever walked into an abortion clinic... then you know.

Today I got a text.

She's going to have an abortion tomorrow.

Pro Life?
Don't get all condemning here.
Pro Choice?
Don't get all defensive.

It really shouldn't matter what we think. 
It doesn't matter what your philosophy is or your conviction is. This is a big deal.
Anyone that says abortion is a benign thing ... you're lying to yourself.
Any woman that doesn't see this is a massive decision? A life-altering decision?
...
Huge.

She's pregnant. She's scared. 
She's young. She's been living on her own since high school.
She's barely out of high school.
This isn't in her plan. And she has some really good life plans. 
She's been dealt some hard stuff since she was little. In fact, she survived abortion herself. Her mom changed her mind in the clinic, years and years ago. Her mom said yes to her life. Here she stands ... very independent. Very hard working. 
A good friend to so many, a good daughter with a dad who loves her. A great sister. A good student and this is in front of her.

Some of us, we can get all pious in our knowing. Or maybe you don't feel pious, but strong, passionate convictions .... the gentle heart beat of a little one in utero. It can create a visceral response, whatever the response is.

I have embraced motherhood. I knew I would be a mom, somehow.
It didn't scare me. That positive pregnancy test. It only brought joy.... and a little bit of fear.
But I embraced it.

My sweet friend. Not so much.
She's terrified.

The only part of this, right now, where I sit, the one thing that pisses me off is the lie she's been given her whole life. Maybe not directly to her. But a society that has taken on a god-complex. 
We've given our selves license to decide life or death stuff. 
We've given ourselves license to judge others, only by what we see.

Of course abortion is her option. For her. Where she stands. What she's been told. 

Tonight, maybe tomorrow before she goes in, maybe she'll say yes to sitting down again with me. Maybe she'll continue to be open to our friendship and know that I care for her. I care for her enough to tell her the risks. To tell her the realities of what abortion is and does. Medically. Physically. To give her options. Beautiful, beautiful redeeming options.

Maybe she'll hear me when I tell her about the emotional repercussions this will have. 
It will have on her.

Asking God to give me the words. Asking God to speak the words to her heart. To a heart that I've seen has been softened towards Him. A heart that is curious about learning about a God who loves, unconditionally.

And... if you've ever walked into a clinic. 
If you've already made this choice ... if this is part of your story

You know. 
This is no trip to the dentist.
This is definitely not a benign operation.

If you are reading this and you understand abortion, intimately
If you have personally experienced it.
If you have personally participated in it.
If you find yourself living in others-inflicted shame

Please hear me... you are loved.

If you feel ridiculed and judged,
If you have felt the weight of condemnation by a bunch of sometimes-well-meaning-sometimes-not pro-life people,
If you have been afraid to tell your story, talk about your past, been devastated by pointing fingers and accusatory words,

I am sorry!

I am so sorry for not speaking up for you - the wounded, scared, abandoned - you know who you are and I for one, want you to know,
You are loved!

I'm not speaking this out of direct experience, I'm not pretending to relate to your sometimes agonizing choices, your anger or your sorrow.
I've never had an abortion.

Yet, I'm afraid to say,
if I had become pregnant at 15 or 16, I'm not sure, then, what I would have chosen. Being pregnant, a teenager who wasn't married. That was just not allowed. 

Pregnant girls were often sent away.
Having a pregnant daughter who wasn't married was one of the scariest, shame-filled things for a "good Christian family."

That is why this happened, I'm afraid.

Before I knew it I found myself driving my sweet friend to the clinic. I didn’t know what it meant. Astonishing, but I really didn’t. I had said no to God long enough before that I couldn’t even hear His voice anymore. Telling me to stop. Turn around. Save this little life. She was my friend and she was pregnant. She asked for a ride. She wasn’t pregnant anymore. And that was that ... 

I played a part. 
Call it ignorance. Call it convenience or immaturity or fear.
In rejecting the voice of the One who never rejected me, I let my friend down. I will forever regret that. Forever mourn the loss, on so many levels.

I'm not writing this to berate a system or condemn well-meaning people. I'm not calling the Church or Christians to task (or maybe I am). 
I do know that God is so patient. Astoundingly patient in my life.

And deep in my soul I do believe in the sanctity of each precious life.
I believe with my whole being that each life is purposed, planned (by God).

He's a God of the fatherless and motherless and rejected.

But I do believe we are playing with fire when we play God. 

Oh I love my darling, scared friend... so much.
And I've never met a baby I don't love.

I'm holding my breath ...