Every Life Is Beautiful ...

**Warning:  some may not like this post and/or disagree with its content, some may be moved and need a box of tissues - its my post and it is what it is.

This past weekend was the Life Chain event.  It's a "prayer chain" and public (sidewalk) witness against abortion.  Several from our church participated in this, though, I have never managed to make it to the event.  It would only be an hour of my time but there is usually something else going on.  This year and last year, it occurred on the same day that we arrived back from Honduras.  We arrived home and finally went to bed by 1:00am and then we got up to go to church and go grocery shopping.  By the afternoon, I was REALLY TIRED so I didn't go.  

I should have went ... after reading this, some of you may wish I had because participants in the Life Chain are "silent".  

I have two daughters, abandoned at birth and adopted from China, a country where it is not uncommon for the tiny lives of unborn daughters to be aborted while still in the womb and/or extinguished just after birth.  Terribly sad and very true!  

I know this is a difficult topic and so many choose not to discuss it or get involved and there are those who say that is it "so touchy" because sometimes there are circumstances that are just too horrible in regards to bringing a child into this world.  My response is "indifference" is not a side.  If you're not pro-life, you're pro-choice; if you're not pro-choice, you're pro-life.  

I am Pro-LIFE!

(how does this have anything to do with our mission trip to Honduras, you ask?)

Well, I'll tell you ... 

Each day, after leaving the Mission House and each day before returning, we had to go through this gate, which is only a short distance from the Compound. There was a gatekeeper who had to open the gate for us each time we neared it.    

Just before the gate (or after it, depending on which direction we were coming from) was a home on a corner lot.  

Do you see the little girl in the photo??

 I, along with most of the team, instantly fell in love with her.

Each morning and each afternoon, this little 3-year-old girl would wait and when she would see or hear the bus coming she would get so excited ... 

... she would bubble with excitement as she waved both hands in the air, calling out to us ...

I wish I would have thought to video her so that she could be more real to you.

Gorgeous, isn't she???  

Who wouldn't want to just scoop her up in their arms and cuddle her?

Her mother used to be the "gatekeeper".  One day, as she was doing her job, she was attacked ...

... she was brutally mistreated ...

... she was raped ... 

This little girl is the result of that horrible circumstance.

I look at my daughters and I often wonder if their birth mothers think of them.  I am so thankful that they gave birth to my daughters and I pray that they are at peace with the decision that they made.  But what if they chose not to have them?  There are so many people who have been touched by them ... we are often amazed at how others are so drawn to them.  

This little girl is like that ... everyday, her mother looks upon her small child ... she is probably often the recipient of the joy that radiates from her daughter's little being and I wonder what she thinks.  I'm sure she has thought to herself ... "look what I would have missed!"

I know that the 35+ lives of the people riding our bus each day have been greatly enhanced all because of this one little girl.  Her little life made a difference to us and we're so glad we didn't miss her.