Recently I heard a young lady describe a whirlwind season in her life. She met a young man and a relationship began. Their relationship moved quickly and they came together in what she described as a night of love and passion. The next few weeks of the story take a different turn as she discovered the young man was controlling and abusive. A few weeks later she decided that she shouldn’t be in a relationship with him. As quickly as it began it came to an end. Or so she thought.
She soon discovered she was pregnant. Whether the young man knew she was pregnant I’ll never know. She didn’t say. But she knew she faced a difficult decision. Should she become a mother before she had planned to take on the responsibility of a child or should she terminate the pregnancy?
She chose the latter.
She offered some grounds for her decision. The time she spent with the young man was filled with love and passion, but it wasn’t a lasting love. In fact, it was now overshadowed by the abusive nature of the young man. She believed the life of the child would remind her of that difficulty and disappointment every day.
I’ve made some observations since hearing the story. It seems the young woman regretted being physically intimate with a man that would not provide her the love and care she needed. In the end she believed their relationship was a mistake. And when we make mistakes there are consequences. The consequence was the pregnancy. Consequences bring penalties. In this case, the penalty was the termination of the baby’s life.
This logic plays out in all of our lives. We are all prone to make mistakes, reap the consequences and pay a price. An interesting consideration in this story, though, is that someone other than the young woman also paid a price-the baby, the innocent byproduct of their night of love and passion.
The Christian worldview understands the idea of paying a price for mistakes. The concept of an innocent person absorbing the consequence of the guilty is a central theme. Scripture teaches that Jesus lived the only perfect life that has ever been lived. Because he had no guilt of his own, he was able to take on the guilt of those that will trust in him and give them peace with God. Jesus Christ died for the guilty. That is the story of the cross. His resurrection from the dead proves that he is able to deliver forgiveness and healing.
Jesus is the one meant to absorb the pain of our mistakes, not the unborn.