Perspective

It's been a crazy week. It's been a crazy year. 

I am tempted to be disheartened and saddened by the division, ugliness, anger, spew of manipulation and "my opinion versus your opinion." 

I am continually brought back down on my knees, in a bent-over posture of pouring over the Word of God, seeking His wisdom in all of this for: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Proverbs 1:7)

The inauguration was yesterday, the women's march was today and this week is sanctity of human life week along with MLK Jr.'s birthday this past Monday. 

So many huge things. 

It's hard to sort through the enormous amount of crap, emotions and agendas. 

As we held our 6th annual Memorial for the Unborn, a memorial service for the babies whose lives were ended through abortion, Brent Lambert,the CEO and founder of Birth Choice at our location, spoke to us (the staff and volunteers) about the work that we do at Birth Choice. 

He said that someone had recently told him that this world too terrible and scary of a place to bring a child into. And then he went through a brief synopsis of our country's history since the start of WWII, where we have come from and what horrible and crazy things our nation has faced, until now with our 45th president. 

He reminded us that it's always been this way. Terrible and scary. Opening up scripture, we will always find that this life and this world is one full of selfishness, hate, destruction and corruption. 

He reminded us that there may come a time that places like Birth Choice will be shut down because laws may be passed requiring abortion to be performed or at least referred in comprehensive healthcare laws for women. We will never perform or refer for abortion. There may even come a time that to even secretly do the services we provide, without being paid, we may be put in jail for what we do. He reminded us that this election could have ended very differently and accelerated all of these possibilities. 

And then, he reminded us of Esther's worry of dying at going before the king to fight for her people and Mordecai's admonishment to her: "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:12-14) 

It must have taken the great boldness and strength of the Holy Spirit as she responded with quiet resolution to fight for the salvation, safety and lives of her people. To go before her husband, the king and the man who desired to kill her whole people group, begging him for the lives of her people to spared. 

Brent Lambert reminded us that every life has been put on this earth for such a time as this. 

Are we bowing the knee to Christ, seeking His kingdom to come on this earth as it is in heaven? 

What is God for: protection of those who cannot protect themselves! He is a God who loves life and wants us to fight for it and protect it! 

We fight injustice with honor and humility, like Esther, not demanding but proclaiming the truth, realizing that it will be received by those to whom the Spirit of God is revealing the truth (Jesus Christ) and rejected by those who reject the Spirit of God and the truth of Jesus. 

It is our job; it is mandated by the Lord, to be obedient, submissive to Christ, our King, realizing that He is our Judge and our Savior. 

Asserting ourselves over other races, opinions and women asserting themselves over men is a disordered distortion of the lives that God has given us, and is rebellion against our Creator. (And I say this as a strong, independent single women of 23 years old who is not afraid to speak her mind.) 

Also, the greatest injustices in our world right now are the dismemberment (yes, the tearing apart) of babies before they can draw their first breath and the underground enslavement of child, labor and sex slaves. 

Stats on abortion: 

http://www.numberofabortions.com/
(Also, food for thought: https://lorishouse.org/americas-silent-holocaust/)

Stats on slavery: https://www.walkfree.org/modern-slavery-facts/

If we are not with and for God and what His Word says, what are we for? 

Are we putting our own understanding of God on His Word, trying to fit it to our finite understanding of justice or are we seeking His Spirit to reveal His truth, realizing that the only way that we even know Him is because He first drew us to Himself? 

What are we truly living for? 

If we truly believe His truth, it will be manifested throughout all that we do. What we actually believe will come out of our mouths and be shown through our actions. 

WHY are we doing what we are doing? 

DO we truly believe? 

"Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God." (2 Cor. 4:13-15)

We believe, so we speak and act according to what we truly believe and think. Whether we are conscious of it or not. 

I have been told that abortion is a one-sided issue, it's a small problem when there is so many more problems happening in our nation. If this is what you believe, I beg you to look again at how God views this issue. 

God has purposed that these babies' lives should exist and have a purpose, no matter what their gender, use to society, standing, convenience, planned or unplanned, conceived in rape, incest or a one-night-stand. This baby was made in His image, in His likeness, for His purpose, formed by His hands! Will we so easily diminish the act of taking these lives for the sake of convenience or any other reason? Is murder of innocent life so easily abstracted and justifiable? 

Besides that, I have been told that we do not care about the woman and her life, but just about the baby who lives inside of her. 

At Birth Choice, we fight for two lives whenever a client comes through the doors. Our actual focus is the woman, meeting and attending her and her needs, educating her on everything, the ENTIRE picture, and most importantly, sharing the gospel with her and providing her a safe place where she knows that she will be loved no matter what she decides and that she will always hear the truth from us. We would NOT exist if we did not care about her. We would not care shed tears (sometimes with her and sometimes before or after she comes in) as we wrap our arms around her to love and dive deep into the struggle, sharing the grace and mercy of our Lord whether she is life-minded, abortion-minded, post-abortive, or wherever else she stands. 

We know what we all deserve and we all know what we have received and we want more than anything for these women to walk with us before our Lord in eternity one day. This is kingdom work. 

Are you fighting? Are you fighting for or against it? There is no in between and you cannot remain silent any longer. 

May everything that we do be for the glory of CHRIST, walking in the Spirit of God, which is eternal life and not the flesh, which is death and reveals that the truth is not in us, furthering His kingdom until Christ comes putting it all to right finally. (Romans 8, 1 John 1, 2 & 3) 

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Cor. 2:16-18) 

Praise God for the hope that we have in Christ and may we encourage each other while we have today, for tomorrow is not promised, but may we live another day to fight for the tomorrow of those who cannot fight for themselves, if not, then, praise God for we will be with Him. 

Day 1: Rhode Island Adventure; Returning to Roots

Trees- one of the best analogies for life 

and representative of the beauty of this trip: 

we grow and struggle; 

we are powerful yet dependent, 

shaped by our surroundings but enduring still. 

(A painting commissioned by a co-worker at Birth Choice)

Setting the scene: 
8 years. That's how long my family lived in Rhode Island. 
The longest I have ever lived anywhere. 

10 years. That's how long it's been since I had been to Rhode Island. My family moved from Rhode Island a couple months after my 13th birthday.

13 years + 10 years = 23 years. 

I moved when I was 13, 10 years have passed and, now, I'm 23. 
Simple math. 

But, not so simple years that were enriched and complicated with hormonal adolescence, a couple more moves to the different cultures of the Mid-West (Indiana), West (Colorado), and then two different flavors of the South (South Carolina and Tennessee). 
I have lived in Tennessee for the past 5 years- longer than anywhere else in these past 10 years, long enough to call it home- but I still claim New England as my roots. 

It was time to go back. 10 years was long enough. 
I had the time. 
The round trip ticket was about $100 and I could afford it. 
Being single, I had no family obligations and was able to call the shots by myself. 

Adventure is out there. 
I watched the plane ticket prices rise and fall for the month of October... 
And took the plunge. 

2 round trip tickets: 
Leaving on Thursday, December 15th from Nashville to Boston 
Returning on Tuesday, December 20th (early morning) from Boston to Nashville 
(5 days for a visit to Rhode Island)

Leaving on Tuesday, December 20th (evening) from Memphis to Denver
Returning on Thursday, December 29th from Denver to Memphis
(9 days in Colorado for Christmas with my family) 

I had many ideas, but mostly, my plans for my Rhode Island trip were extremely loose. 
What was certain: 
1) House sitting for my family friends, the Mellos while they were in Indiana for Abby's graduation from nursing school. 
2) Picking up their car from the T.F. Green airport in Rhode Island.
3) Taking care of Carol Mello's (I feel like I should still say Mrs. Mello) plants. 
4) Picking up the Mellos from T.F. Green airport before the end of my stay. 

The rest was yet to be determined. 
So, this is what happened:

Thursday, Dec. 15th: 
Because I lived almost 3 hours from the Nashville airport and my flight out to Boston was mid-morning, I drove up and spend the night at a dear family's house in Nashville (the Pedens). Mr. Peden graciously dropped me off at the airport on his way to work, sharing some wisdom and encouragement for most of the 20-30 minute drive. 
I flew JetBlue from Nashville to Boston, arriving around 3pm. 

SIDE NOTE: (I love flying. It's amazing to be defying the fact that we are land-bound by flying thousands of feet at such a great speed with people of all shapes and sizes and styles from all different backgrounds and walks of life. But, my severe and deathly peanut/nut allergy can be stressful on a plane, especially when I haven't flown with the airline before. It's a very small and very close-knit atmosphere, thousands of miles away from any medical aid besides my epi-pen that will only slow and not stop my anaphylactic reaction.)

I made it. Now, what to do? I was still trying to figure out how to get from Boston to the T.F. Green airport where I would pick up the Mello's car. I decided to hop on the bus from the airport to South Station so that I could catch a train to T.F. Green Airport. 
South Station was full of brash Boston accents and everyone rushing to their next destination, stopping only as they waited for their train, staring at a large screen of times coming and going. 
It was awesome. But, I had to catch the train in 3 minutes! 
And, missed it. Thankfully, I was supposed to buy the ticket on the train so I just waited an hour for the next train to Wickford, RI because they would stop by T.F. Green right before turning around at Wickford.

                            My train ride from Boston to Rhode Island 

                           (yes, that is a carpet bag and leather hand bag 

                            and yes, I found them at Good Will)

I chatted with the conductor, who was from New York: he made sure I got off at the right spot around 5:30pm and we argued about whether Moe's or Chipotle was better. (He was wrong, of course, Chipotle is always better.) It was great. 

So, after much walking and a little searching, I finally found the Mello's car and drove to get some Chipotle and Dunkin' Donuts before heading out to their house. (When in New England, always get some Dunkin'.) When I got to the Mello's, I made sure that I knew the combo to the garage door before stepping out into the brisk weather of 20 degrees. And, the code didn't work. I watched the video Mrs. Mello had sent me a few times, trying different ways to punch in the code. No success. 

I called and didn't hear from them. It's been about 30 minutes at this point. I started to think about back up options- well, there's always the car, but I knew that I would need to take care of the plants. 

As I am punching in the code again, the next door neighbor drives up and I decide to flag him down. 

"HEY. Do you know the Mellos? I am a friend of theirs who is staying with them; did they tell you that I was coming? Their garage door won't open and I can't get ahold of them." 

"Uh... No? Yah, I know them. But, no, I didn't know that." 

At this point, I realized that this was not one of the neighbors that Mrs. Mello had told me that I should contact in case of an emergency, but then he said, "Do you want to come inside while you wait to hear from them?" 

And I say sure, as I assess what to do in case he tried to attack me or hold me hostage and whether or not he would do any of those things. Warmth sounded pretty nice. 

"Do you want a beer, some water or something?" 

Warmth is just fine, thanks. "No thank you. I appreciate this so much!" 

Then, I get a FaceTime call from KR Mello, the oldest of the two girls. Carol pops up looking worriedly between her fingers at me. 

After assuring her that I was fine, showing her that I was at her neighbor's house and thanking him profusely some more, I went outside and we tried the code a few times with her walking me through it. No success. 

It had frozen. 

"Okay, Kaitlyn, I want you to go around and open the back of the porch and climb over the plants. You are going to have to break the glass panel above the door knob to open the door." 

What. 

"Are you sure, Mrs. Mello?"

"Yes! You need to get inside!" 

And, so I walk around and do as she says, opening the door, climbing over the plants. 

I look down at the screen of my phone. Blank and black. 

NO. My phone died. Dang it. 

Okay. Just got to do it. No time to go charge it at the neighbor's and try to explain. Just gonna have to do it. 

I look all around the porch for something that wasn't breakable. Finally, I went outside and searched for a rock that was big enough to have some weight but not big enough to break all of the panels of glass on the door. 

One, two, three. Doing it. Done. 

I did it. Breaking and entering (with the permission of the owners and their permission to post this story) on night one. Check. 

I opened up the garage door from the inside as I saw one of the neighbors rushing from down the rode. Okay, that was one of the neighbors that Mrs. Mello was talking about. She told me that Mrs. Mello called and asked her to check and make sure that I was okay, "Did you get inside the house?" 

"Yah. Everything's fine! Please tell her that I am fine and that I will call her as soon as possible! Thank you so much!" 

She didn't need to know about the whole breaking and entering part. Unnecessary information. 

I brought everything inside, charged my phone then called Mrs. Mello back. 

"I am so so sorry. I really didn't want to have to do it." 

"Kaitlyn, I am just glad that you are inside and that you are safe." 

Haha. The Mellos are awesome. 

I knew it was going to be a great trip, but what a way to start. 

After I taped up the window and swept up the glass, I went to bed. It was 10pm or something. That's enough adventure for the night.