Download LifeDate Summer 2023
by Diane Albers, President of National Lutherans For Life
It all began with the gift of a mug from my friend inscribed with these words:
Today’s Goal: Keep the tiny humans alive.
That has been a daily goal of mine for many years. If you are reading this, it probably is your goal, too. Sometimes I physically worked on that goal, but I always prayed that God would keep tiny humans in the womb alive and that He would use me somehow to do it. Of course, that goal broadened to include keeping people with disabilities and terminal illnesses alive until their natural death.
“Therefore since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
That great cloud of witnesses that came before us was more often very life affirming—saving Roman babies left to die, taking care of people during the plague no one else would care for—so that our modern forefathers did not consider abortion and took care of their family members with disabilities as an act of love. We are in good company! But they did not stop with their loved ones, and neither can we.
Revelation 7:9 tells us, “… behold, a great multitude that no one can number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb ….”
To God, all life is sacred because He created it. With their faith, the great multitude will stand before the Lamb on Judgement Day, just as we will. So, to us who follow Jesus, we must continue to uphold the sanctity of life for each person, no matter the nation, language, or their political stance.
This leads to my second mug which I picked up at our church’s rummage sale. It says:
Love Never Fails – 1 Corinthians 13: 8
The ESV uses the phrase “Love never ends,” and the passage continues to say everything will fail or end, but never love. Remember that when you do “things” which seem not to work—few people come to a planned event, few donated to the pregnancy help center, no one wants to join the Life Team or Life Chapter—you are doing them in the love that never fails! God will use your efforts to uphold the sanctity of all life in ways you cannot imagine.
We have that new commandment: “… love one another: just as I have loved you …” (John 13:34). If everything you do is done in love, you are running the race with endurance, and you cannot fail!