Choosing Life

Choosing Life

A True Mother

Read: 1 Kings 3:16-28

Allie hesitated, bit her lip, and then signed the paper. It was heartrending to think that in just a few seconds she had given up her rights to the baby girl she had delivered three days earlier. Allie knew that she needed to finish school and grow up before she would be ready to be a parent. She felt grateful that she had been able to choose the couple who would adopt her daughter—she knew that the Fosters already loved the baby and would give her the life that Allie couldn’t provide. But as her parents drove her home, Allie ached as she remembered holding that warm little bundle for the very last time.

Allie showed love for her child in a similar way to one of two women who came before King Solomon. When both women claimed the same baby, the king ordered that the child be cut in half with a sword so the women could share him. Solomon knew that the woman who was willing to give up her baby was the real mother. No matter how painful it would be to relinquish her son, she would put his safety first. She would abandon her rights to him so that he could live.

Girls and young women who give up their babies for adoption are some of the most devoted, courageous mothers who have ever lived. Our society offers women in unplanned pregnancies a supposedly easy way out through abortion. But in reality, abortion means death for a child and physical and emotional health risks for the mother. Even after making the choice to give birth, women have to struggle against their natural maternal instincts as they give their baby to another couple. No matter how good a home the adoptive couple provides, young women like Allie have already given their children a precious gift that no one else could give them—the gift of life.

Choose life, so that you and your children may live.

Deuteronomy 30:19, NIV