How Do We Value Life?

I pick up the telephone…

"Hi Nancy, I’ve got exciting news. God is blessing us with another baby but I’m too scared to tell our parents, as there’ll be such a scene. I’ve got to tell someone so I’m calling you."

"Oh how wonderful! This is your second baby since a reversal, isn’t it?

"Yes, and such a welcome surprise. Our last baby was also an unexpected blessing after waiting so many years. We are over the moon."

"But I’m sure that your parents must love your last baby, don’t they?"

"Oh yes, he is the delight of their lives."

"Isn’t it amazing how once the baby comes the parents and ill-wishers all love and embrace the baby?"

"Yes, I guess we’ll just have to get through these next nine months."

The above conversation is typical of hundreds of mothers that talk to me over the phone and at meetings, month after month, year after year. Why is there such a negative attitude toward life? Why do many grandparents throw a fit when they hear of a new baby coming – and yet they adore the baby when it arrives? Why do so many people (Christians included) despise the unborn child and even the prospect of life?

Is it because we have gradually succumbed, without realizing it, to Satan’s tactics which are to "steal, kill, and destroy"? John 10:10. This is his strategy. He hates life. His aim is to snuff out life any way he can – before conception or after! Satan’s kingdom is a kingdom of death and darkness. When we don’t want to embrace children we take the side of the enemy.

God’s kingdom is a kingdom of life. He is the author of life. He is the one who breathes life into every human being. He is the one who desires life. Malachi 2:14 asks the question, "What does God want from your marriage?" We listen and back comes God’s answer, "I want a godly seed." This is God’s heartbeat. This is His theme throughout the Scriptures.

When God wants to bless His people, He says, "I will multiply you…and bless the fruit of your womb." Deuteronomy 7:14. When God wants to reward us, He says, "Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them." Psalm 127:3-4. "Full of children?" did I hear you ask? Yes, "full of them" God says. "Ha, Ha, you won’t get me doing that. Two are enough for me!" you reply. But does this attitude line up with God’s heart toward children? No, this is the attitude of the world that Satan has now cleverly instigated in the church.

I can expect this attitude from those who don’t acknowledge God, but it causes my heart to ache when I find it is the attitude of those who own the name of the Lord. Some weeks ago I spoke at a homeschooling meeting and in the course of my message I asked the question, "Hands up those who have a new life in their womb? To my amazement, no hands went up! And this was amongst about 60 women of childbearing age!

How can this attitude be on the lips of those who preach on the behalf of the God who loves children? Last year a mother came to an Above Rubies retreat in Wisconsin. She had been convicted for about four years to get a reversal from her tubal ligation but was waiting for her husband’s consent.

At the retreat she purchased A Change of Heart that she took home to her husband and God touched his heart too. They shared their desire with their pastor who was so antagonistic that he put them out of the church!

Does our attitude about children line up with God’s heart or have we been squeezed into the mould of the world? God’s attitude is "Allow the little ones and do not stop them from coming to Me, for of this kind the kingdom of heaven is composed." Matthew 19:14. And "Whoever receives one such child in My name, receives Me." Matthew 18:5. I think we have to ask ourselves the question, "Choose you this day whom you will serve." Can we say as Joshua did, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."? Joshua 24:15.

Dear precious mothers, don’t despise the gift that God has given you. You have been ordained to nurture and bring forth life. You are a life-giver. This is the most awesome privilege in the whole of the world. Not only do you have the honor of bringing a life into the world, but a soul that will live forever. When a new baby is conceived in your womb, you have eternity in your womb. You bring forth a life that will last forever and ever.

Motherhood is an eternal career. It carries on into the eons of eternity. One of the greatest deceptions of Satan is to seduce mothers to be captivated with their careers and ministry outside the home so they don’t have time to create life. All these "things" will be left behind. Instead, they will be empty of that which they could have taken into eternity – the redeemed souls of their children.

The enemy knows the power of LIFE. Every human being that comes into the world is another potential for God’s purposes and glory and to destroy the works of the enemy. This is why Satan tries to destroy God’s purpose for mothers. The greatest threat to him is a mother who understands her calling, to nurture and nourish life, to train, polish and sharpen these children for God’s mighty purposes – and for the eternal age.

At every strategic time of history Satan has tried to eliminate life. At the time that God was preparing a nation to show His light to the world, Satan tried to kill all the baby boys, but Moses was spared. When the time came for God to bring His holy Son into the world, Satan once again tried to kill all the babies, but Jesus was spared.

Now at this end time when God is looking for a people to fulfill His purposes like no other time in history, Satan is once again trying to eliminate the army of God. Over these last few decades he has been very successful. Born again, God loving Christians have fallen into His deceptive plan and helped him reduce God’s end time army. How long will we continue to become his pawns? May God help us to truly live in the kingdom of God which is the kingdom of LIFE.

Isaiah 59:19 says, "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." May God help us to lift up the standard of life, which is God’s standard.

NANCY CAMPBELL

Depo Provera Devastated My Life!

In 1989 I was a volunteer counselor at a Crisis Pregnancy Center. In the course of conversation with the director I learned something that changed my life. I learned that the pill does not always prevent ovulation but changes the endometrium in the uterus so that the newly conceived child cannot implant and grow. It withers and dies. I was on the pill at the time so I had to find out the truth. My husband, Mark, and I did much research and found out that it was true!

During our investigation we also came to another conclusion. We found that

• As Christians we are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1
• Children are a reward from the Lord. Psalm 127.3
• God is able to open and close the womb. Genesis 30:22; 1 Samuel 1:5
• God knows us before we are even born. Jeremiah 1:5; Hebrews 7:10

We decided I could no longer use the pill. At that moment we fell to our knees and I offered my womb as a living sacrifice. We asked God to open or close my womb as He saw fit. We were willing to receive as many blessings as He desired to give us. This decision was not easy, especially for my husband. We had one child at the time and had no intention until this time of having more than two children.

I became pregnant within a few months and we were very excited. God was already starting to bless us. Over the years God blessed us with five beautiful children. But this is where my story beings.

Our first four pregnancies or births were difficult. I had one premature baby and three cesareans. When the birth of my fifth child approached I was very apprehensive. I didn’t want to go through another cesarean. The Lord heard the desires of my heart and blessed us with a wonderful birth in the confines of our home. My midwife, my husband, my mother and a close friend attended. It was wonderful.

Shortly after I had my baby I felt overwhelmed. I didn’t lean on God’s strength. It is a lot of work to raise children and I tried doing it without the Lord’s help. I forgot that God knew where I was. I forgot that children were a blessing from the Lord. I forgot that I had given God the control of my womb. Instead I began worrying that I would become pregnant again. I was tired of the negative response from people about how many children we had. I was tired of justifying why we had "so many." I just wanted to be normal.

So I started justifying in my mind why we shouldn’t have anymore. I persuaded my husband that we should speak with the pastor and his wife (who did believe in birth control, and I knew it!) I wanted to get an okay for what we were about to do. And I did.

I went in for my post-partum checkup and planned to get a diaphragm. However, I was persuaded instead to start receiving these "wonderful" injections once every three months of Depo-Provera. I would never have to worry and I wouldn’t even have periods. I wanted to talk to my husband about it first but was told that I needed to get it right then if I were to use it. I agreed.

I had a lot of the side effects – unusual bleeding, major depression, weight gain. I even went to another doctor to check if I had hypothyroidism and was told that my problems were caused from the Depo-Provera. But I still kept getting the injections for over a year.

During that time my relationship with God dwindled to close to nothing. I was filled with remorse. I tried to busy myself with church activities on one end and at the other end I felt guilty about my decision. I began doing things I would never have done before to take away the hurt. I lived a double life. I ruined my testimony before my family that I had tried to build for years. They had previously seen my life change for the good. For years I had focused on living what I preached. I didn’t want to be a "lukewarm" Christian. But now I was a hypocrite. July 1997 I came to the end of myself. I saw where I was and I couldn’t believe it. I prayed and prayed for God to forgive me. I repented.

Within one week of my repentance and decision to turn this area back to God I had a miscarriage. Wait a minute. I was on Depo-Provera I couldn’t be pregnant. Or could I? Within another week I met someone, who not knowing all that had taken place, invited me to a Right to Life meeting. What I heard tore me apart. Depo-Provera, like the Pill does not always prevent ovulation. I had killed my baby by being on it.

It has been over two years since my last injection. My periods have not yet returned. My body has shut down. I have now learned that this is common. In fact, many women now suffer the consequences in their bodies from taking Depo-Provera, Norplant, the Pill and the IUD. I’ve tried herbal methods and I’ve gone the medical route but nothing has worked. I don’t know how long it will be before my periods return. All I know is that because I couldn’t trust God with my body, I now have a toxin in it that no one can guarantee when or if it will ever go back to normal. I’ve heard from some women that they are still sterile after a few years

The turmoil that I go through over this is indescribable. My emotions are on a roller coaster ride One minute I lay it at His feet and be at peace, then out of nowhere something will hit me and all I can do is scream from within, "What have I done!" I have cried so much in the last few weeks I can't imagine having any tears left, but sure enough they come again. Every time my children ask for another sibling it feels like a knife is stabbing into me. How can I ever tell them what I've done? And I am only 28 years.

I beg God daily to be normal again. I long to be able to carry another child in my womb and then in my arms. I don't know if He will ever answer the way I desire.

Now I ask myself this question. Why do people in the church no longer consider children a blessing? Well, maybe the first one or two or even three are blessings, but after that they become burdens.

"Oh, I couldn’t handle that many!"

"I can’t afford any more!"

"God gave us the brains to know when to stop!"

"I couldn’t bring a child into the world the way it is1"

"The world is overpopulated, didn’t you know?"

"They would interfere with my work for the lord." (Can someone please explain this one to me?)

I take whole-hearted responsibility for my actions. But how many more women are going to be deceived? We easily allow any drug into our system by trusting the one who prescribed it. Why can’t we trust the Creator of the universe, the one who has the stars, as well as the hairs on our head numbered?

MELISSA CARROL

Wooster, Ohio, USA

Mark and Melissa have five children, Justin 11, Miranda 8 ½, Matthew 7, Bethany 5 and Benjamin 3 ½.

Trusting God For Our Family Size

By the world's standards, we have a large family - six children. However. until our son, Owen, was born, my husband and I did not consider the size of our family something to consult the Lord about, let alone give Him control over. since our last name is Moore, Harry's joke when I was pregnant with Owen (our fourth-born) was that we were going to name him "No" - "No Moore!"

After much conviction and struggle, Harry and I came to the place in our lives where we felt the Lord was asking us to commit the size of our family to Him. We felt that He wanted us to stop trying to control things and to allow Him to give us all the children that He wanted us to have.

It was difficult for me to be obedient in this area. Many thoughts went through my mind - mostly selfish ones. What will my body look like after having all those children? Would I ever be able to do anything besides change diapers, nurse babies, potty train, etc.? I even tried to calculate how many children I would probably have between then (age 38) and menopause! I also did not relish going through labor and delivery numerous times. Given a list of things to do on a particular Saturday, giving birth would not be my first choice!

I struggled with seeing most of my friends' children growing up and watching these ladies have more and more freedom to pursue new interests. During my struggles with all these thoughts, Romans 12:1 kept coming to my mind: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." I knew that God was asking me to present my body as a living sacrifice by being willing to be pregnant, go through childbirth, and to give up my "rights" as to how I spent my time.

Six months after Emily's birth I was pregnant again. I was not excited. God's timing in my mind was rotten! However, before I could work through accepting God's "blessing" I had a miscarriage. We buried Amy Catherine on January 6, 1992.

With the miscarriage I recognized my ungrateful attitude. The Lord was blessing us again and all I could do was murmur and complain. The irony of the situation was that by October, when Amy would have been due, I was more than ready for another baby.

One year later I was pregnant. We were so excited. Owen had long been praying for a little brother, since he was the only boy in a house full of sisters. Our excitement was short-lived, since again the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. We buried Samuel Adam on May 23, 1993.

When a year later I discovered that I was pregnant once again, we immediately called the elders for prayer. There was such an electricity as we prayed, that I felt sure the Lord was going to use this child to further His kingdom in some special way. However, on April 2, 1994, we buried Robert Steven.

After the third miscarriage, I remember saying to Harry that I did not think I could go through all of the emotion and pain of another miscarriage again. Harry was patient and gentle and he just listened. God was patient and gentle too. He seemed to be saying to me, "My grace is sufficient...I'm not asking you to go through another miscarriage today or next week. However, if I require that of you in the future, I will sustain you through it, just as I have through these other three."

Through the hurt and suffering of losing these children, God has taught me so much. I thought that He was asking me to be obedient to have many living children - to be willing to spend my life raising booocoodles of them for Him. However, I found He was asking me to do something different - trust Him no matter what the outcome, and to continue to trust Him when I don't know what the future will bring.

God has also showed me how presumptuous I was. I just assumed that because He had blessed us with six children and we were willing to give up control in the area of family size, that He would give us many more children. These miscarriages and giving God control in that area has made me truly realize that God is the giver and sustainer of life. He is the Creator. We are only His tools.

God has comforted me with the thought that one third of my children are already in heaven waiting for their Daddy and me. Two verses in particular from God's Word have special significance. They are Romans 8:18, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." and Psalm 126;5,6, "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

Two years after the last miscarriage, God has not answered our prayers for another child, even though I long for another baby. He has shown me that being obedient to Him does not always have the results that we assume it will. However, He will sustain us, if we will only trust Him.

JOANNE MOORE

Atmore, Alabama, USA

Here are Harry and Joanne's six 'blessings' - Alison (17), Lauren (14), Sarah (12), Owen (9), Melissa (6) and Emily, nearly (5).

Sticking To Our Convictions

Sticking to our convictions is sometimes pretty tough. It’s easy when everything is fine, but it’s another story when things go different to what we had planned and our convictions are challenged.

About eight years ago, my wife and I were convicted by the Lord to stop watching television shows and movies. We didn’t want our children to watch them because of immorality, profane language, etc. There were a couple of shows on TV that seemed OK but the commercials were terrible. Did we want to expose ourselves and our children to this? NO WAY! We decided that we could easily live with only a few selected family movies, gospel tapes and educational videos. We had a peace about doing this and also received the blessing of more family time together and less worldly influence in our lives. This conviction wasn’t too hard to accept.

Shortly after this happened, WHAM, another conviction. This time it was regarding our children’s education. We had never heard of homeschooling before and didn’t know anything about it until we met and talked to friends who were homeschooling. This definitely wasn’t what the world or our family thought was acceptable. After saying we would never homeschool, we changed our confession to "We’ll homeschool if we see our children’s education suffer."

Our daughter always learned well until the school system changed and went with a new program. We found out that she was doing the same math book that she had finished the year before. She became so bored that the teachers were having her clean erasers, blackboards and do errands. Needless to say, we realized her education was suffering. We started homeschooling and haven’t regretted it since. The decision to homeschool became a conviction and we have experienced very few problems. It is now a way of life.

The Toughest Conviction

A couple of years later came the toughest conviction for us yet, letting God plan our family. We wanted God to be in control of every other part of our bodies and lives, so why not this area? My wife was convicted first on this issue. I wasn’t for quite some time, until I put away my selfish desires. We finally both came to a peace that I should have a vasectomy reversal and let God be in control of our family.

Shortly after the reversal my wife conceived, but then miscarried. We were disappointed but didn’t allow it to hinder our conviction. Sherri became pregnant again and miscarried six months after the first miscarriage. This was even harder to understand. We desired to have more children and we were being obedient to God, so why was this happening?

We didn’t let this get us down too much and left it to the Lord. Shortly after the second miscarriage, my wife conceived again. This time she carried the baby just six weeks short of her due date. She was in unusually severe pain so we rushed to the hospital. Eight minutes later, our little boy, Samuel, was born, but we knew something was wrong. He had a severe birth defect and after five hours went home to be with the Lord. This was definitely the hardest trial my wife and I have ever been through.

Could we still trust God?

This wasn’t like any other convictions we had had. This one hit hard. After Samuel’s death I struggled in my mind. "How can we continue to trust God for our children when each one is taken? How can I put ourselves through anymore of this painful torture, especially my wife whom I love very much and want to protect? Why not have another vasectomy? We can’t go through this suffering again."

Then I came to the realization that Samuel was a blessing from God. He touched many lives in his short life, from the hospital staff to our midwife. He also made a difference on our own lives. We have learned to totally trust God and know that He is in full control. We know that when we submit ourselves to the Lord, it is His will that will be done and not our own.

Three months after Samuel died my wife conceived and is expecting our fourth child in August 1998. She is doing very well and we can feel the baby kicking strongly. We pray for the health of Momma and the baby, but also know that God doesn’t make mistakes and He is in total control. We’re so thankful that we didn’t let Satan rob us of our convictions from God.

"Therefore do no cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise." Hebrews 10:35-36.

DAVID LEITER

Columbia, Tennessee, USA

David and Sherri and their children, Amy and Brad, love to sing together. They love to worship the Lord and they love Blue Grass music. And you should see Sherri and Amy clog! They’re good!

The story of David and Sherri’s reversal testimony is written in the book, A CHANGE OF HEART , available from Above Rubies. Sherri Leiter is the Organizer of the Tennessee Above Rubies Retreat, 9 – 11 October 1998.