Tag: unborn

I Learned Something Crazy

Dale Pollard

There’s a process in which cells from a developing baby cross the placenta into the mother’s body during pregnancy. These baby cells can migrate into the mothers’ tissues and organs like the brain, heart, liver, skin, and bone marrow. This can stay in the mother for decades or even for a lifetime (FFM,cordblood.com). The different effects this has on the mom aren’t entirely understood– but there’s some interesting theories. Some studies seem to show that the DNA of a mother’s children can help fight off the growth of tumors or integrate into her tissue and help repair damages. It goes deeper than that, so feel free to chase the rabbit on your own.

Here’s what words came to my mind:

Intimate & Formation

“You create my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139.13-16).

We don’t understand how true that passage is but the more we discover, the louder it becomes.

Pain, Protection, & Connection

With painful labor, the mother of all living (and every mother since then) gave birth to children (Gen. 3.16, Gen. 3.20). Motherhood is a God-ordained role of sacrifice and protection. The modern understanding of microchimerism shows that she will literally carry living remnants of her children and afterwards she’s biologically “programmed” for lifelong connection and care.

Mystery & Image

“That’s why man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2.24).

Paul would describe this as a “profound mystery” (Eph. 5.31-32).

While this is primarily about marriage, the “one flesh” language elucidates that fancy cellular mixing that occurs by design. Why would God make us like this? Probably for many reasons that aren’t understood yet, but it shows us how the image of one can be transferred and mixed with another.

A husband and a wife are mysteriously intertwined. A child’s DNA integrates with its mother. Those two things help us wrap our minds around Genesis 1.26-27 where God states that His creation is made in His image. What does that mean? It likely means more than we understand, but it seems to be illustrated in the overall design of mankind. Its complexity is another reminder of our immortality, purpose, and connection to our Creator.

Destroying What God Loves

Neal Pollard

God encouraged and comforted Jeremiah, a man He had delegated for a difficult task, with these intimate words: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations” (1:5). This knowledge is intimate knowledge, spoken of God’s intimate acquaintance with Moses (Dt. 34:10) and even Adam’s sexual knowing of Eve (Gen. 4:1). This consecration is “that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred” (TWOT, 786). This appointment is an intentional act of giving something or someone based on the value of the gift. God was sending Jeremiah to the people because of how highly He regarded this one who would become His prophet. Taken together, Jeremiah the fetus was cherished and beloved by God. He recognized Jeremiah as totally human in the womb as out of it.

How startling to read, then, that God “hates…hands that shed innocent blood” (Prov. 6:16,17).  This echoes what is said elsewhere in the Old Testament (Dt. 19:10; Prov. 28:17; Isa. 59:7). Certainly, the unborn are as innocent as can be. Judah’s punishment (70 years of Babylonian Captivity) was sealed because King Manasseh’s sanctioned and encouraged the killing of the nation’s children (2 Ki. 24:3-4; Jer. 15:4). The people paid the price for destroying God’s precious children, known, consecrated, and appointed by Him for work only He knows. 

It is not newsworthy for me to tell you how many abortions have been committed in our nation just since January, 1973. Those facts are frequently shared. However, it is helpful for us to ask what influence we have in trying to turn people’s hearts toward righteousness.

  • Focus more on soul-winning. Converting men and women to Christ will persuade more to sensitivity to God’s will on everything that matters, including this.
  • Thoughtfully examine the positions and voting records of every person seeking political office. Forget party affiliation. Investigate and use your constitutional rights. The lines in the sand on this issue are already horrific, yet they still keep moving.
  • Pray for national leaders to care for the precious unborn and courageous defend them.
  • Stand with and encourage groups who fight for the rights of unborn children.

Only God knows how full America’s wine vat is with the grapes of His wrath. Perhaps, like Judah and Manasseh, it is too late to save this nation. That is a matter for constant prayer. Let’s be infinitely more concerned with saving the precious life within the womb than we are the personal comforts, freedoms, and privileges we enjoy in this nation.

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