A Story: Sophia's Abortion

 

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**This is heavy. And hard.**

**This is not meant to be a political post or a post to argue or something, it's just me reflecting & telling a story & really just asking for prayer.**

**If you've experienced a loss of a baby, or had an abortion, or are highly sensitive or hostile to these type of stories/subjects, and feel you can't read them, please don't. 

I don't want to open wounds, argue with or hurt anyone.***

2 years ago, we heard about a friend of a friend who was about to have an abortion. Her name was Sophia.

Zachary and I quickly prayed and asked for Sophia’s number and asked that she meet with us for lunch.

Sophia is Chinese and was married to an American, who had just hit her. He was put in jail, and she at 5 months pregnant, decided it was time for a divorce and that she didn’t want his baby anymore.

We met her at lunch, she with a black and bloodied eye, us desperate, and begged her not to have the abortion and to consider letting us adopt her baby. We told her we’d pay for everything. She told us the baby was probably disabled. We said we didn’t care. She said she'd think about it. We listened to the baby’s heart beat,  recorded from the ultra sound on her phone, and we smiled and laughed.

I dreamed that day. I dreamed of having a new baby in 4 months. I dreamed and prayed.

I prayed that day. I prayed that she know Jesus. I prayed that she change her mind, keep her baby, and that a beautiful story grow from that black eye, pregnant belly and that lunch on Coffee Street.

I believed. I believed that Jesus would trade Beauty for ashes. I believed that she’d know Him.

I couldn’t see it any other way.

The week that followed, we texted and we prayed. We waited for her decision, only to find out that she was at the hospital, that day, alone, waiting for the abortion.

Zachary and I, upon hearing 'she' was having an abortion, Sophia who was someone near us, not a statistic, not a distant story, but someone real and that we could touch, responded the way I’ve known we would always respond. We responded, because of God’s love, in love. Not because we’re awesome or strong, but because our God is so awesome and strong, and we believe, and are sold out for, His beautiful Kingdom. We pray, “Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” And we believe that 'on Earth as it is in Heaven', means adopting babies and standing with mothers who are suffering, among thousands upon thousands of more beautiful God's love type things.

I raced to the hospital, so she wouldn’t have to be alone. She was in the baby hospital, too far along to go to the regular, “quick and easy,” abortion wing of the main hospital. She was in the hospital with all the other mothers, waiting to hold their living babies, counting fingers and toes. The elevator held people with balloons & smiles, the hallways held the sound of crying, living babies.

Sophia was in the far room on the fourth floor, with another mother, who had been 8 months pregnant. Sophia was in pain. She was experiencing contractions and waiting for the shot that they pierced her belly with to start working, to force the labor, to kill her baby. We sat and waited for the poison to take effect. We waited all day. I listened, listened to her rant and rave about her husband. I watched her spunk, what looked almost like giddiness, and her passion, as she gossiped about him. I stared and prayed at the lady sharing the room with her. She was 8 months pregnant and found out her baby was missing an artery in his heart. She had him, pushed him out like mothers of all time have done. He was alive and crying. They put him in another room in the hospital, alone, to let him die, alone. I watched as her husband sat with her and heated her soup. They barely talked, only whispered. I couldn’t get them out of my mind.

I tried to pray. I tried to yearn. I tried to breath. It was hard. It was hard to pray as I sat there listening to Sophia, smiling, laughing and gossiping, while we waited for poison to kill her baby and induce labor, the other ladies 8 month belly still bloated in my peripheral and the sound of babies in the hallway crying. It was hard.

How could I be like Jesus in the midst of it? Where was God? Where was the Kingdom?

All I knew to do, is sit there. Sit there, and be like Jesus, in the midst of the messy. Sit there and be the Kingdom of God, let the Holy Spirit, who dwells in me, fill me with strength to keep sitting, keep listening, keep praying.

Sophia’s father came in for a few minutes. He asked her where she wanted to bury the baby. She flipped her hand and grunted, "anywhere." She could care less. I saw Jesus in that Father’s question. Why did he or should he even care? Don’t they just usually throw them away? But he cared. And he asked. I saw Jesus.

The poison took too long. My head was pounding, splitting. I couldn't sit there any longer. I had been there for hours. I had to go. I told Sophia good bye. I smiled at her, tried to offer her words of love. I went home. Defeated. Confused.

She had the baby the next morning. She pushed him out, like most mothers have for all of time. He was whole. Perfect. She took a picture of him. With her iphone. She took a picture of the baby whose life she choose to end, whose life could have been filled with her love and laughter, or our love and laughter, with diapers and training wheels. She took a picture of him, covered in blood, and showed people. She showed people while laughing and saying how she was going to show her husband and his mom, out of spite, to hurt them. Her laughs sound like a witches laugh in my memory now.

She texted a few weeks later inviting me to a BBQ at her house.

I didn’t go. I couldn’t go. It was too much.

I was too confused. To confused by what seemed like utter evil.

It took me awhile to process. She’s from a culture where it’s normal to have abortions. Where it’s okay to leave a living baby in another room and let it die alone, because it’s heart didn’t develop enough. She’s from a culture that often gets one shot at a baby. Why would she want that one shot to be with a man who left her eye bloodied? People don't ask those hard questions here. They don’t pry into each others souls, asking the questions, like, “How will you feel when you’re married again? Pregnant again? Why would you take a picture? How will it make you feel better?” I get it.

But I find myself, almost 2 years later, with thoughts of her again, prayers for her again. And I just wonder, why did I stop believing?

Why did I stop believing that God would turn ashes to beauty?

Why did I stop believing a beautiful story would rise out of that bloodied eye, pregnant belly and even that breath constricting hospital room?

I don’t want to stop believing. I want to have faith and believe! Because while I was still a sinner, and still am a sinner, Christ died for me! The Kingdom of God doesn’t stop with an iphone picture or a young girls malicious laughs. The love of God doesn't stop with an iphone picture or a dying baby, left alone in a hospital room. His love never fails. His love hasn’t failed on Sophia. It hasn’t stopped. His love for her and pursuit of her, that I felt that day on Coffee Street, is still there, longing for her to know His grace, redemption and love.

Pray for me. Pray for me to have that Jesus love fill my heart and pray for me to find a way to connect with her. I don’t have her number. Pray for me to be able to find it and reach out to her. Meet with her, talk with her, love her. Pray that her heart has softened. Pray that she come to know God’s great, beautiful, forgiving love for her!