Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.
This statement strikes me as terribly sad. Actually terribly sad doesn't even begin to relate how I feel. It is a terribly sad day when our economic status determines whether we will carry through a pregnancy or not.
No wonder God spends so much time in Scripture talking about money. He is concerned about it because we are concerned about it. If God can't transform our relationship with money, it's doubtful he can transform us in any arena.
My wife and I had our first child when I was in seminary. We struggled mightily to make ends meet. Then 16 months later we had our second after I had graduated from seminary and while I was underemployed looking for a calling. We didn't have insurance. We were scrapping by. But it never crossed our minds that we should have an abortion because we couldn't afford our child.
We now have three kids, we get by on one income, and my future earning prospects are modest. (You don't enter the ministry to get rich!) In fact, by this writer's standards, we probably earn a "grubby lower-middle-class" income.
I guess it comes down to trust and faith. Do you trust God or do you trust yourself and the dollar to provide for you? It's also a question of sacrifice. Are you willing to sacrifice some financially in order to bring children into the world?
Finally, I don't understand why this writer didn't decide to give these babies up for adoption. There are so many people who want to have children but can't. There are so many wonderful homes where a child would be welcomed.
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