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THE IMPORTANCE OF LIFE
We
are just a day from the year 2013, so I thought I should share something a
little touching. Not many people appreciate the fact that they’re alive to see
the next year. This is because they do not understand the importance of life.
When we do understand how sacred our life is, we will take great care of not
just ours, but others’. A lot of people ae going to be making new year
resolutions. What’s important is not making them, but implementing them. I do
hope we add the appreciation of life to our ‘shopping cart’.
When
we broach the issue of the importance of life, it
is important to note
the meaning of life itself. The meaning of life is a concept that provides an
answer to the philosophical question concerning the significance of life or
existence in general. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, in his book
The way to inner peace, wrote, “Never before in the history of the
world was there so much wealth, and never before so much poverty: never before
so much power and never before so little peace: never before so much education
and never before so little coming to the knowledge of truth”. These words
written in 1955, seem just as applicable today.
We
live in a time when the value of human life is under attack. At the very least
the value of human life appears to have been significantly diminished. Today we
measure our value and the value of others in terms of material possessions,
wealth, power, position, title, education, houses, cars and pleasure. There are
those who tell us that it is the quality of life that is most important and
that when the quality of life diminishes, it’s no longer worth living.
This little story below which I’ll title “A MOTHER’S SECRET” is an
illustration of how sacred and precious life is.
She
was a beautiful young woman, just into her twenties. Happy, outgoing and
extremely friendly, Beatrice had no trouble making friends. She was little more
than a year from finishing university and her dream job would be awaiting when
she finished. But now, for the first time in her life, things were in total
disarray. Her boyfriend of several years had just broken off the relationship
as he chose to take a job offer half way across the country. What he didn't
know was that he would not only be leaving Beatrice behind, but he would be
leaving a daughter behind too.
Weeks
before her boyfriend moved away, Beatrice suspected she was pregnant, but
didn't want to further disrupt things by saying anything. She knew that while
she had loved her boyfriend, they would both be able to move on to
independently forge happy and successful lives. After having confirmed her
suspicions about being pregnant she took some time to contemplate. She had met
with several doctors and finally decided it would be best to quietly end the
pregnancy. A few weeks later, after having researched her options, she went in
for an abortion and came out assured that she had made the right choice.
Beatrice
eventually got married and did in fact build a happy family. No one ever knew
her secret, but it was best that way. At times she did think about the past and
the daughter she almost had, but for the most part, life was good to her. This
afternoon, things changed.
Beatrice
was on her way to pick up her two teenagers from school when her car was
side-swiped by a semi-trailer. No seatbelt or airbag was a match for the blunt
force that likely killed her instantly. Beatrice's story doesn't end here.
Death
found Beatrice and she stands before God in heaven. It is her judgment day - a
day in which we all must face God and answer to Him for our life on earth. For
the first time, Beatrice will look up and see the face of God the Father, with
Jesus Christ sitting at his right hand side. At that moment, she will notice
the face of an innocent young child who is sitting on Christ's knee. Beatrice's
secret was never truly hidden, and now her own daughter asks - "Why did
you kill me mommy? Why didn't you choose to love and accept me the way God
loves and accepts you?"
I
don't know how Beatrice responded to that piercing question. I can only imagine
the surprise that baby girls' father will have when he dies and meets the
daughter he never knew he had.
The very foundation of our
importance as individuals, lie in our
creation. We are important because we are created by God. We did not just
“happen”. Our creation was not some accident of passion, neither were we
created by chance. We exist as a result of a conscious, deliberate decision by
our infinite, all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving God.
He called each one by his name, he gave us our
parent, he chose the hour, day and year of our birth. He gave us the freedom to
act on our own, to make our own decisions. He could have created the world
without us, but didn’t. He chose us. He
made us in his image and likeness. Rev 1: 27 states “ So God created human beings making them to
be like himself”. Do you know the most
wonderful of all; he gave us the right to live. Now if our omnipotent,
omniscient and omnipresent God deemed everyone from the tenderest of zygotes to
the oldest of men, fit to live, who are we to go against his will.
Think about this, if a man builds a house or
creates something of specific value, consider the fact that he’ll be in a state
of euphoria once it is successfully completed. Imagine the pain he will feel if
the house is destroyed, the rancour with which he’ll attack the perpetrator of
the act, will be matchless. He would not feel the same if he had destroyed it
himself, because he alone has the right to destroy it, unless he gave those
rights to someone else. I want to use this to illustrate the fact that God is
unhappy when his creation is being destroyed because he has given no one the
right to take away life, not even our own. That is why in Ex 20: 14, he told us
not to commit murder. This just infer its literal meaning, rather it refers to
every act that takes away life, this include euthanasia, abortion, homicide,
amongst others.
A final food for thought….. If our
blessed mother, when she conceived Jesus, decided to terminate the pregnancy
like Beatrice ….. what will be our faith now??? Who will be saved???
Please let
us all treasure this life, and respect it because… life is sacred… life is
precious….
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