Alpha Women's Center is a crisis pregnancy resource center that my grandparents (Tom and Donna Wood) helped found in 1985, and serving over 1000 women each year, they celebrate 30 years this year. As they progress in years of being able to provide women with diapers, clothes, counseling, formula, adoption resources, they were also able to take a glance at the wake they've left behind them. Upon turning around, what met their eyes were beautiful stories where, because of AWC, in the court room between life and death, last minute decisions were swayed causing the gavel to ring out with a resounding "Let The Child Live..."
Hi, my name is Toryanna and I am the baby who's life hung in suspense in those last moments. I am a child who, from my mother's womb, because of Alpha's help, and my mother's wisdom, heard the gavel ring "let the child live". I was an unplanned pregnancy. My mom had been with my dad for a few years dating and when she found herself pregnant, she seriously considered aborting. She considered adoption, and finally decided to keep the baby. It's a strange thing to think that my existence was completely in someone else's hands. It's strange to think that I had no say whatsoever, and that so quickly, so easily, I could have never been born. It's strange to think that if I wasn't then maybe my parents would never have gotten married, and divorced. It could have been different, my siblings could have grown up differently, would they even be here? Am I a mistake? Was God punishing my mom by getting her pregnant? Am I a punishment, a burden? Am I the one who made my family's history what it is today? You know, I always knew I was unplanned, but I have never taken that as my identity, and those questions are weighty and loud. They are. And they are lies. They are doubts, and they're not loud enough to be heard over truth. There are a few things I know about God. 1. We are his masterpieces. Masterpieces people! He put his heart, and every ounce of his effort into creating us. It's not a masterpiece if it doesn't take everything, and folks, he gave his life. He can not give masterpieces as punishment. Maybe having sex outside of marriage is a screwup, a sin, but the child, the child is the redemption. God chooses when a woman does and does not get pregnant. He knits the child within her. Fearfully and wonderfully made. [Psalm 139] The child is a reward, and he uses the baby as a hand against the mother's back to say "Are you done yet? Because I have so much more for you..." 2. My Father is GOOD. He is Good. His heart is pure, his heart is true, and his heart is for us. Not against. 3." And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 18:3 Papa loves children. He does. He wants all of us to be like them. No way is a child a mistake, or a punishment. On another note, if Papa has decided to gift a woman with a masterpiece, all mothers know that children are borrowed. They grow up, and ultimately Papa is the one who is responsible for carrying what He has created. Is it a woman's choice to kill or not to kill Papa's child? Hi, my name is Toryanna and I am so incredibly grateful to be alive, and that my mom chose on my behalf when I didn't have a voice. This past year traveling and doing missions work, living in close community and solid truth, I've learned a lot about me. I have big callings on my life. I have big talents, I have important rolls in people's lives. We all need each other. I know that I am called into government. I know that I am called to change things. Big things. Hi my name is Toryanna and I am going to change the world. Isn't that just like Papa? To take the unwanted, the unplanned, the outsider, the lonely, the poor and powerless, and change the world. 49 Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. 2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. 3 And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”[a] 4 But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.” 5 And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him-- for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength-- 6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 7 Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” Isaiah 49:1-7
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Change : to make the form, nature, content, future course,etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: a transformation or modification; alteration, Oh guys, change is such a deep thing. It’s such a hard thing, usually painful, at the very least uncomfortable. We live for consistency, for something so stable in this life in which, by definition, things never happen the same way twice. Change is when Papa digs his whittling knife in, and shaves away hard knots, knots we believed to be part of us, the knots we believed were hard enough withstand all of life’s inconsistency. And its paradoxical because the tenderness of his hand is ever present as He holds us, turns us this way and that, admires us, and we feel it. Yet it is the same tenderness in his hands that seems to be scourging us. The knots that Papa is shaving off, shaping, they’re not all bad things. It is not that he seeks to perfect us. He just simply can not leave us alone. He’s just a God of change, or should I say, a God who is Trustworthy. We know that God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on our side, God is with us, God is for us, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on us continually. These, all of these, are our saving grace. But sometimes change means loss. Sometime its not just the fear of the unknown that accompanies change, but it is also shrieking pain. The kind that leaves you breathless, hanging on only to the fact that you know God is not against you…none else. The last season of my life has been this way. I don’t even know when it started, or if it has stopped or not. There are no definite moments in linear time, only moments of defined depth, both in being known, and in surrender. (Are those one in the same?) Only journal pages describing my white knuckled grip attempting to cling to the gargantuan Rock that is higher than I, knowing that my God is not against me, and nothing else. When my grandfather died in October, it was unexpected, and there was pain. So. much. pain. But I could not accept it, for there was another loss that I had not accepted, and to accept one, I had to accept both. Friends, it was the loss of community. It was the transition through loss that every missionary deals with, though I think I’m choosing to believe there is more to it than that. If you know me, you know that I do things with 100% of me. (Except school work?) I have a burning within me for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. In fact I struggle, when God tells me to do things that I don’t feel like I can or want to put myself 100% into. We struggle about that, He and I. (School work, see.) And you know what else? I’m sure all of my close friends could recite my complaints and whinings by memory at this point. Actually probably anyone who knows my name could tell you my complaints. I’ve been complaining. The magnitude of the circumstances were(are?) too overwhelming, to swallow at once, so I didn’t. I just held it in my mouth, didn't digest it, didn't process it, and so I’ve also been hungry. So. Hungry. Every met a hangry person? They’re dissatisfied. Very dissatisfied. The reality is that things like literal overnight life change, and death are too big to swallow, they just are. And God uses this to create hunger within us, to let the pangs of dissatisfaction resound in every fiber of our being, to drive us to food. These are the things that expand our capacity to eat more meat, and to drink less infant milk. As a baby, at first while that hunk of meat is sitting in front of you, its frustrating. You know you can’t handle it, and you give God the same eyes that your dog gives you when you give it a piece of lettuce, after its been intently begging you for your food. “I can’t eat this! I’m hungry and I can’t eat this!” *Tilts head to the side* But your stomach is demanding, so you figure out how to get your mouth around this thing, and then you’re stuck, because it’s huge, and shoot, you might choke! Your face is bulging, and you can’t really get your lips back together down in front, honestly it’s a miracle that you’re still breathing around this thing. Papa asks you to try to chew, “mmmrrhm mmm mrrrm mmmhm” you protest. Here comes the complaining, crying even, possibly snorting and even as far as feigned gagging. And it is here that you stay, while your stomach turns over, growling within. Because it’s scary. You’ve never accepted anything this big before, and nothing as unknown, nothing as threatening, nothing that’s such a possible choking hazard. You thought you were eating big meat last time this happened, but it was definitely different then… Your stomach is screaming for it, and your tongue is pleased, but that fear is absolutely paralyzing. Paralyzing. Because if it doesn’t go down, you’re done. Out. Eyes bulging, Heimlich, 911.(Heck isn't that where you basically already are?!) And everything you have known God to be is a lie. You know, God is good, God is kind, God knows, and God is gentle. God is on your side, God is with you, God is for you, God is faithful to His own word, He will do what He promised, He will finish what He starts, God has mercy, and showers it down on you continually. These, all of these, are your saving grace…. Yeah. It is in this cloud of doubt that His mercy carries you through your drooling, and crying while you sit there like a two year old eating peas, scrunched up face and all. The entire time your capacity is expanding. Your vision is expanding, your hunger is more consuming. ‘I need more. I need more.’ For, there is more to be had. So here I was, sitting with this hunk of meat in my mouth, complaining to everyone, dissatisfied. And this whole meat metaphor is light hearted, and maybe even amusing, but the reality is that I am talking about real pain, the first Christmas at my grandparents house without my grandpa’s laugh, or his nicknames, or his fantastic work on the roaring fire or the cutting of the ham. A Christmas when the weight of loss weighs heavy on the family who just lost their leader, their father. The first Christmas spent without the other half of her heart, after 55 Christmases together for my Grandma. And for me it’s a Christmas spend divided between 3, 4, 5, houses because of broken relationships, a family quite literally in pieces. It’s a Christmas without some of the pieces of my own heart, because they’re held by people who are scattered across the world, relationships restricted by distance. These are things that happen, amongst all others, to everyone. They are things that heal with time, change with maturity, things that can but don’t need to overcome a person, but this is what I am holding in my mouth. And in my fear, my fear that everything is lost, that God might not be good enough to make this worth my while, that he might not actually know what his kids need, that this meat will kill me, my hunger and my capacity begin to reach levels equaling my fear. Now, here, is where the Lion looks at me and growls from deep within Him, snarling: “LET Me be known for who I AM, who I really AM.” A God of Love. And when He roars, my hands fly above my head in surrender before I can even take my next breath, and I am steadfast. Let God be God. This is all about knowing Him, the God who is Trustworthy. It’s about trusting a God who is out of my control. My Father loves me, and more than anything just wants to be closer than close to me. “Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it”. -Brennan Manning He so good, that He would not leave me alone. As in, would not leave me friendless, would not leave me abandoned, would not leave me without the only thing that I want; relationship. And with every knot that is shaved off of me, there is a new deeper place that the Father’s tender hand has touched, and I have been known to this extent. This is intimacy. With every level of shrieking, there is a greater level of lullaby, because the Father is there, and He is with me, feeling what I feel, being where I am, and His lullaby is His banner of love over me. The knots are not necessarily bad. [But God] can not leave me alone. He’s a visionary, He’s got ideas, but more so, He’s in relentless pursuit. He can not put me down, can not stop turning me this way and that, can not stop having new ideas, and deeper desire for me. He will keep changing His ideas for whatever it is that He’s making out of me, just for the sake of the relationship that change brings. He knows that the knots hurt me, but He knows they are the closest and closest is where He desires to be. For He can not leave me alone. |