Can You Hear the Weeping?

Today is inauguration day, 2009. In history-making fashion, a black person, Barack Obama, will assume the most influential political position in the free world. And there is much rejoicing. The media and the musicians, the neighborhoods and the nation, the politicos and the poets, all are hailing the arrival of a black president.  And they do so with propriety. The country today is saying something deeply right about the image of God in all persons - no matter what their ethnic background.

Yet, amidst the hailing, there is quiet wailing.

Rachel, and her daughters are weeping for their children - dead, gone, their young lives aborted. 

            "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation,
             Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted
             Because they are no more" (Matthew 3:18).

Herod feared a competitor to his rule. So he commissioned the killing of all male toddlers in Bethlehem. It wasn't the first time, and wouldn't be the last, when a ruler approved the murder of children in order to gain power. Every world leader who approves of abortion follows this same path.

My observation is just this: while abortion harms all persons, it uniquely pierces the soul of a woman - she whose highest call is to nurture and cherish the beauty of life.

There are many ‘Rachels' today. Women who have had abortions, live pierced by their guilt and shame.  Girlfriends, daughters and wives being prodded into abortion by boyfriends, fathers and husbands, live with conflict in their souls. Single women, impregnated and abandoned, terrified at the consequences of a ‘choice'. Young girls indoctrinated into a self-image that cannot tolerate a swelling middle. Grand-mothers whose love-made blankets lie folded.  Godly women, filled with the Holy Spirit who grieve with the very heart of God at just the mention of this sin against the innocents.

John Piper has said abortion is a kind of racism - it largely has been foisted upon blacks throughout U.S. history.  He has also rightly observed that abortion is a kind of sexism. It has and is being used globally to wipe out one gender to the preference of another.

My claim is this: abortion is also an assault on both physical and spiritual womanhood. It grieves with unspeakable pain, the heart of the woman whose very existence, as the full image bearer of God, inclines her to nurture life. Those who truly have a woman's best at heart, cannot but strive against the evil of abortion.

The ascension of a black president is now a unique moment in world history, to deal a double blow to evil, and gain a double victory against racism and sexism by bringing the legalized murder of children to an end.

There is for Presidential ears to hear, behind the cheers and hails, a woman's voice weeping and wailing, for her children are no more. To him who has ears to hear, let him hear.