Browsing Tag

Abortion

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Alabama Supreme Court Grants Legal Protection to Frozen Embryos

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday that frozen embryos are children. The landmark  decision has longterm implications that could ultimately provide legal protection for unborn embryos, including those that have been frozen in the in vitro process. The wording was strongly based in the Word of God. (“Theology-riddled” is what opponents call it). 

The ruling was based in Alabama Constitution Section 36.06 which argues that each person was made in God’s image, meaning each life has incalculable value that “cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” 

The ruling specifically said “Section 36.06 recognizes that this is true of unborn human life no less than it is of all other human life—that even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing His glory.”

Opponents of the ruling are warning that the ruling may have “harmful consequences” for fertility treatments in Alabama, of course referring to in vitro implantations and the freezing of left-over embryos. The problem of abandoned “freezer embryos” is mammoth nationwide. There are currently over a million frozen embryos and the numbers are drastically rising each year. Hundreds of thousands have simply been abandoned and cast aside. 

The case before the Alabama Supreme Court was one in which the embryos had been accidentally dropped at the storage facility. Parents had filed a wrongful death suit. The Alabama Supreme Court overturned a Mobile County court decision to dismiss the suit. The couple may now sue for wrongful death. 

I have great sympathy for this couple in this wrongful death scenario. I offer prayers for the hundreds of thousands of abandoned lives in storage facilities across our nation. And I have never been more proud to be an Alabamian. I hope you will pray as this ruling faces the possibility of appeal. Who in this world will stand against the atrocity that most commonly accompanies in vitro fertilization, if not Christians?

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Christians only care about babies until they are born.”

Just a short thought about the conversation following the overturn of Roe vs. Wade: 

It seems to me that there are voices on every platform at the moment descrying the sincerity of Christians who are rejoicing about this Supreme Court ruling. “How hypocritical for Christians to want abortion to be criminalized, while they are not able or willing to take care of the unwanted babies after birth.” The way the argument is phrased is generally this: “Christians only care about the babies until they are born.”

Just three points: 

  1. Of course, Christians care about all innocent children. (…and all people for that matter. People are made in the image of God. That’s why we are pro-life.) God did not mince words when he talked about the responsibility of His people to care for the fatherless (Exodus 22:22-24; James 1:27). 
  2. But the simple fact is, making the case that I should be able to kill my unwanted children if someone else is not going to take care of them is tantamount to saying I should be licensed to kill ANY family member who becomes an inconvenience to me at any stage of life, unless someone else is able to come in and take his/her care off my plate. It’s an incredulous idea. 
  3. Truth remains. The legalization of the taking of innocent human life has spiraled our nation downward into a society that places a diminished value on life. This devaluation of human life affects all aspects of our morality. 63 million babies on the American conscience has defiled that national conscience in ways that will be very difficult to ever put right. 
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Saving Babies: March for Life Trip Update

The Deep Digging trip to Washington, D.C. for the March for Life is on (https://marchforlife.org)! The date for the March is January 29th.  Ladies will be responsible individually for transportation to Washington and for transportation from the airport to meet the group. We will be staying at the Westin in Alexandria, Va:(https://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/wasxw-the-westin-alexandria-old-town/. If you are willing to share a room with three other ladies (2 double beds per room), your cost for the two nights (checking in on the 28th and out on the 30th) will be approximately $100.00. (Cost will increase, of course, if you prefer not to share.) I need a final count by January 10th, so we can cancel, at no cost, any rooms that we do not plan to use and so that we can make a plan for our meal and devotional time together on Thursday night.  Please remit 50.00 via paypal by 1/10 to colley@westhuntsville.org (or send us a check)  and let us know it’s for the March. This deposit will be applied, of course, to your final hotel cost. All ladies will be financially responsible for all meals and incidentals while on the trip. West Huntsville ladies will be traveling on the church van. There may be an extra seat or two there for ladies in our area. I will let you know. 

I’m working on getting us hoodies (…it was cold last year) so we can match and represent Digging Deep and Life at the rally. These pro-life DD hoodies will be available to those who go on the trip at cost. If you want one and are not going on the trip, they will be priced at retail. We will pre-order these, so there will be no leftover hoodies in my basement. =) I’ll get a pic of these hoodies for you soon! It’s fun to be able to find each other easily and stay together.

Bring snacks to the actual rally/march because, last year, we got very hungry and there was little accessible food on our route. Bring good walking shoes, warm socks and an outer coat, just in case. Please do not include any wood or metal in any signs you may bring, but feel free to bring paper/plastic signs. We may have some Digging Deep signs specially made for us to carry, with our website info. Who knows?… We could be “discovered” and enlist some new diggers! (Let me know if you have a good and cheap source for signs for us to carry. This could be someone’s important contribution.)

Of course, the political climate may be very different by the end of January, 2021. However, the March, historically, has been extremely peaceful and the security is excellent. You will be surrounded by thousands upon thousands of people who take the sanctity of life very seriously and that makes the environment comfortable and relatively safe. 

The people there will be of various faiths, with the largest numbers of marchers being Catholic. For that reason, there may be religious comments from the stage in the rally that precedes the march with which we do not agree. There may be prayers led by people who are not New Testament Christians. We will be together as a group, though, and will certainly, throughout the weekend, be lifting our own prayers and praise. Our huge endorsement and support of the cause that brings this crowd together does not imply that we endorse everything that might be stated publicly while we are there. 

I think it is important, though, that we make some effort during our short trip through life, to state that we are in extreme opposition to the heinous violent sin of our day: the killing of the innocents. You may be choosing another venue, or multiple other ways to voice opposition. But all of us should be making our voices heard. And yes. The killing of over 60 million does eclipse the rare (but awful) illegal killing of innocent persons by police brutality. This legal massacre eclipses, in reference to numbers, even the holocaust of the Third Reich.   

(One more thing. I’m pretty tired of hearing, often from people of faith, that the Republican presidential terms are historically the ones with the most abortions. This claim is often made in justification for supporting people who are openly promising to proudly continue the killing. This statistic, even if true, is irrelevant. Making murder illegal is the right thing to do, in any nation, regardless of any statistics on any ledger.

But, just think about the current situation, for a moment. Our [apparently] outgoing president has just placed three justices in the Supreme Court who, we believe, will fight to limit abortion rights. The last one was Amy Coney Barrett. Barrett had no time to do her constitutional duty in the Court during the tenure of Mr. Trump. It will be during his successor’s term in which she, along with what is now a majority of constitutional preservationist justices, will be making decisions that will limit abortions. The numbers will absolutely be reduced during Mr. Biden’s presidential term if the strategy of the republican president is effective.  The after-effects of a pro-life president are often very positive DURING the term of a pro-choice president.

Remember this:

  1. Legalizing murder is fundamentally immoral. Always. [Pretend that those being killed are two-year-olds. Is it still okay to support those who want to keep the killing of our toddlers legal? It’s the same thing.]
  2. The reduction of abortion numbers due to legislation and judicial choices often is not immediate. Citing numbers that indicate fewer abortions during the tenures of pro-choice presidents is a disingenuous tactic.)
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

When Christians become Complicit in America’s Mass Murder

Something chilling happens in elections like this one. Voting has a way of pulling back the cover from people who have compromised basic morality in their hearts to the degree that they defend the minimization of America’s abortion plague. It just isn’t as serious as other social ills around us. And, hell has served up a list of talking points to persuade Christians to defend abortion on the logic that there are many things as bad as, or worse than killing over 600K babies each year. (For perspective, in all our nation’s wars combined, fewer Americans have died as babies we kill every two years.) Those who wear the name Christian will smile and with a condescending elitism tell pro-life people that they are just wrong.  “Even if abortion is wrong,” they say, “there are things we should all be smart enough to see that are just as bad or worse in today’s culture.”  

“Racism is a more serious problem.”  

Scripture doesn’t use the word “racism”, but it condemns hatred.  And yet, because we’ve come so far to create equal opportunity for all citizens in this country (Do you know of any job that discriminates based on color?…If you do, then you also know one that’s breaking the law.), one has to strain to see that white people promote systemically (that is, as part of our imbedded and basic system of doing things) racism in the US. Of course there are pockets of racism in the country and there are some people who hate others based on the color of their skin (black and white), but most of us have to think hard to name anyone we currently know who can be accurately characterized as racist. Besides, our laws already prohibit injuring an innocent man because he is black or because he is white.  I do not know a man of any political party who believes laws should permit a man to abuse or kill another man based on skin color.  

“Climate change is a greater threat.”

Clearly one political party is more vocal for change in laws to favor the view that man-made climate change is the greatest threat we face in this country.  But, Christian, is there Scripture to suggest that man somehow influences wind or snow or rain?  The sun and rain are His (Matt. 5:45). The rain has a Father, and He is God (Job 38:28).  The sea has paths it follows, but God controls all of that (Psa. 8:8).  

I’ve just been reading an article with the word “Fact” at the top, in which the threat of man’s behavior in the 20th century is described.  It asserts that recent human behavior creates temperature extremes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  Here’s a quote: 

Just in the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.  The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia (NASA Global Climate Change, vital signs of the planet).”

Wait.  Do humans really have the ability to effect the earth’s orbit? Are we that strong?

Biblical evidence will give Christians pause while reading these “factual” conclusions in view of the young age of the earth, around 6,000 years (See article, “21 reasons to believe the earth is young.”  http://apologeticspress.org/apPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=1287).  While the political left rails on about “following the science”…this “science” we are to follow is in direct opposition to the Word of God. 

Both major political parties are interested in doing things which are ecologically wise and I do not know a single Christian who is in favor of wanton destruction of our land or air.  However, I have a questioning eye on the assertion that man has the power to influence the atmosphere of the planet earth to the degree the left is promoting.  Some say they argue this way to garner power.  

Are you sure the arguments some are making about climate change present a greater wrong than defending the killing of over 600,000 babies each year?

“We cannot bear the consequences of outlawing abortion.”

This common argument is usually framed in words like these:  “If we make abortion illegal, women will resort to back-alley abortions and put themselves in great danger.  We must keep abortion legal to protect them from that horrible eventuality.”   I’ve always been troubled by the weakness of this argument.  It melts away when placed beside analogous parallels.  For example, this one: “We must keep gun-murder legal, because if we don’t, murders will be committed in the awful ways people used to commit them in history—knives and sticks and rocks.”  Isn’t that essentially the same argument? Cain didn’t kill Abel with a gun, and God didn’t see any reason to tell us what weapon was used. It did not matter. 

The sophomorish argument about the consequence of outlawing abortion should make all of us say, “Wait; the consequence of forbidding murder is not the question here.  All murder, regardless of how it is committed, is abhorrent and wrong and must be outlawed.”

Here are the facts which should drive compromise out of the hearts of every Christian who is tempted to minimize unborn life by supporting elective abortion. They are the same facts that should convict those who boast of how sacred is the right of a mother to kill her child because that child happens to be housed in her womb:

Murder and killing are not identical terms.  Not all killing is wrong (killing animals for food, [Rom. 14:1-3], capitol punishment of the guilty [Gen. 9:6,  Rom. 13:4, Gal. 5:21, etc.].)  Murder is the deliberate taking of innocent human life. Elective abortion is the deliberate taking of innocent human life and is, therefore, murder.

In the Old and New Testaments, God has condemned those who practice murder.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man”  (Gen. 9:6).

 “…you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (I Jn. 3:15).

“Both parties support abortion in some way.”

This is a weak argument.  If you doubt me, ask Planned Parenthood.  They have no trouble telling you who supports their abortion services and who decisively does not.

 

Statistically, abortions in America are slowly declining and that’s good news.

This article may seem political, and I understand its political implications.  But it is primarily spiritual, and primarily for Christians. The world is always going to act like the world and Christians are not of this world (1 Jn. 2:15).  Do not criticize conscientious Christians if they appear to you to be “one-issue voters”. The magnitude of the bloody sin of abortion in American justifies being “one-issue voters”  (even though we are not). 

You don’t have to vote in this election, but please don’t vote to protect abortion. Instead, imagine that you had witnessed the slaughtering, by strangulation, suction and dismemberment, of 700,000 three-year-olds in our country last year.  Imagine  you watched the disposal of all those little limbs without fanfare and then imagine hearing the “good” people you know saying that we need to “not worry so much” about those three-year-olds because there are larger issues at hand. Imagine them saying we’d better, instead, worry about other harmful things like climate change and racism. Because you see, that’s the exact moral equivalent to the situation at hand. That is what we have witnessed.  If you believe the Word of God, you know that’s exactly what transpired at Planned Parenthood and other abortion provider clinics in our country during the past year. And we’re at almost 62 million children since the legal killing began in 1973. God help His people to never look the other way!

How could a Christian get his/her own heart’s consent to defend the routine killing by deflecting to conversations about climate change, racism and health care?

Please stop this complicity now.  It is wickedness.  

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Digging Deep Field Trip to March for Life!

Did you see that fly on the head of Vice President Mike Pence last night? (Glenn did get up and swat the screen.) Whether he was a spy-fly, a MAGA fly, a virus carrier or just a swat-able pest, he will never know what an international moment of fame he claimed for those two minutes. During arguably the most intense portion of the debate, he just came in for his landing, enjoyed his up-close and personal observation deck, and then gracefully exited that tense arena. Perhaps others in those plexiglass containers, at the moment, would have loved to have so gracefully exited. 

In every single debate, particularly in light of the expected confirmation of Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court, there will be a discussion about the expected viability of Roe Vs. Wade. There’s light for America’s unborn at the end of a very dark tunnel. I’m praying hard for a path to that light. 

The March for Life in Washington DC this year occurs on Friday January 29 . You can read about it here: https://marchforlife.org.  I’m hoping (and planning) to have a group of Diggers there this year. We’ll be studying from the decalog (and other relevant scriptures) the words “Thou shalt not kill” at that time. I hope many of you will be able to walk from the mall area to the White House with our little group this year. 

We’ve reserved several rooms at the Westin in Olde Town Alexandria, VA, where we will have easy access to the metro which will deliver us right to the spot where the historic March for Life begins. If you are willing to stay in a room with three others, the cost for lodging for the night prior to the March and the night following the March (January 28th checkin to January 30th check-out) is approximately one hundred dollars per person–two nights included in that approximate price.  (No profit is being made in this endeavor at all. The cost of the room split four ways is what you will pay. I think there is a parking fee per night, in addition, if you are bringing a car to the hotel.) On the evening prior to the March, we will meet together at some spot for a dutch-treat dinner and then later in the hotel, for a Digging Deep time of prayer and devotional. Of course, if you want to work out your own lodging in the area and then meet us for dinner and the March, you’re welcome to do that. I think it will be a rich time together for a cause that’s very study-relevant (and precious to all of us.) Some of us may be flying into DC, so maybe we can coordinate travel from airport to hotel and back for return flights. 

Details will come together and I will keep you posted. I understand that there is a slight possibility that we cannot do this, because of COVID. But, for now, we are pressing forward. The March is pressing forward. So be thinking. Let me know if you want to join us  by corresponding on the Digging Deep for Encouragement wall, by private messaging me or by emailing me at byhcontest@gmail.com. I’ll give you an exact total closer to time. I’ll need deposits of fifty dollars by January 10th, so we can know, for sure, how many rooms to retain.

It’s a big thing to do. We’ll have to get out our big shovels. =). Last year I did this trip with four of my West Huntsville sisters and we all agreed it was a trip we definitely wanted to repeat. I hope some of you will be blessed by joining us as we become, in yet another way, a part of a statement that needs to be shouted in every venue at every opportunity by people of God.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Representative Deberry of Tennessee: Blessed!

Today, I’d simply like to invite readers to be encouraged by my brother John Deberry, a great gospel preacher and legislator from the state of Tennessee for the past quarter of a century. This record of his exclusion needs no commentary except the commentary of Jesus when he said, 

“Blessed are you when men hate you,

And when they exclude you,

And revile you, and cast out your name as evil,

For the Son of Man’s sake.

Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!

For indeed your reward is great in heaven…

You can read about brother Deberry here. 

https://www.lifenews.com/2020/04/08/democrat-party-kicks-out-26-year-state-legislator-because-hes-pro-life-on-abortion/?fbclid=IwAR315sqTGZv2Y3ifN9fXHxuWiqTL4Vtx-ZXwby1JjRSsC9VvrlD9dX4XSMI

You can hear him preach here: https://free365.polishingthepulpit.com (and you will want to do that).

(All PTP365 content is free for a limited time. Follow easy access sign in and search John Deberry)

And pray for the pre-born.