Thank you, Carrie. You had the right. You had the choice. You could have found out, and you could have stopped it. But you knew, long before I did, that God knows better than we do what we really want. I’m still catching up to that wisdom.
The author of this article says, “That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company. The evidence is clear that most women confronted with the same unhappy alternative would make the same decision.”
Carrie is not “most women.”
I didn’t expect my book to shame women who have made that choice. I didn’t want it to. But at some level, it’s unavoidable. The mere existence of William – his presence in the grocery store, his picture in their social media feed, even his being in the church – sometimes reminds women of their choices. Perhaps they feel a pang of regret or fear when they see or hear him, or maybe they don’t. I don’t know.
But sometimes, it does feel like people avoid him, and us, because coming into our lives means confronting that memory, that choice, maybe even that grief, one more time. So instead, they move to the other side of the hall. Their eyes turn away.
Maybe seeing my book on the shelf makes them feel that way too. Maybe they look away from his slanted eyes, his broad forehead, his tiny ears.
I’m not one to judge. My hands are unclean too. There are times where I am reminded of my negligence or complicity in someone’s suffering, and I look away. I confess that.
I’m not saying you have to listen to me, as if I know what it’s like to be a woman confronted with that choice. I didn’t have that decision to make. But Carrie did. Listen to her, I beg you. Listen to women like her, women who chose joy, or maybe more accurately, who had joy chosen for them.
And please, don’t avoid us at the grocery store. Come up and say hello. Share your story with us. We will listen respectfully. We want to help you find forgiveness and acceptance in Jesus’s arms. More than that, we want to build a community and a church that makes this choice irrelevant, because people in that community, regardless of their genetic identity, find the love, acceptance, resources, support, and health care they need. Tell us what you need. We don’t want you to be alone, or fearful of the future. We want you to find the joy we have. We don’t want to keep this to ourselves.
