Being pro-life isn't an easy thing. And I'm not just referring to the fact that being pro-life is counter cultural. It is hard in the living out, day-to-day, moment-to-moment way.
Being pro-life requires a selflessness. It requires putting others before yourself.
This way of living has many manifestations that play out in our everyday lives. For example...
When making the prayerful decision about whether to be open to new life, being pro-life often means giving more weight to things such as God's Will, God's provision and God's standards of a successful and fulfilling life and less weight to personal comfort and material things. It requires trust in God, our loving Father, and approaching the issue with the starting perspective of "Why not?" rather than "Why should we?."
And once another child is on the way, being pro-life often means accepting things such as morning sickness, the prospects of another c-section, sleepless nights with a newborn and squeezing into a house or car that is slightly too small for your growing family. This again requires trust in God as well as being able to see these struggles and sufferings as an opportunity to grow in holiness and a way to bring you closer to our crucified Lord who suffered for us.
And when there is an elderly parent or grandparent in your life, being pro-life often means you have to take time out of your daily life to care for their needs. It can mean making time to visit them, chasing away their loneliness with a phone call, listening to them tell the same story for the hundredth time or making sure to speak louder so they can hear you. This requires reliance on God to give you the wisdom and patience you need as well as the ability to see in this person the wisdom that comes with a life lived Iong instead of someone whose lived past their usefulness.
The pro-life way of life, if lived truly, has a bearing on how we treat our spouse and our children, how we deal with a child with disability, how we approach a serious illness. It has bearing on how we treat our friends as well as our enemies, how we give care to the homeless, poor and all those in need and how we approach those with whom we disagree.
Because, you see, being pro-life means being 'pro' the other. It means living and acting for the other. Being pro-life is not just an ideal that we shoot for or a cause that we fight for. It should be a way of life that we live for and one that we live out.
Truly being pro-life means laying down your life for another. And another and another...for all others that God brings into your life. It means love.
And isn't this just what Jesus taught us?
"This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for one's friends." John 15:12-13
May God, the giver of life, and Love Himself help us to live a truly authentic, inspiring, world altering, heart changing life that is always pro the other. Amen!
Ad majorem Dei gloriam
