“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” – Colossians 3:12
I recently traveled to Iowa and the communities in which I grew up. I reconnected with friends, many of whom I hadn’t seen since high school. I so enjoyed those moments, whether with coffee, lunch, or dinner, the hugs received, the catching up, the learning new elements of their lives and their interest in mine. I no longer have living family members there, but visiting the graves of my maternal grandparents and other relatives brought a rush of memories as strong as the Mississippi River which flows next to my hometown.
Those memories and those reconnections brought smiles and tears … and a strong sense of gratitude.
Working in the pregnancy help world for nearly 13 years taught me one critical lesson: human beings need community. We need connection. We need relationships, especially positive ones. My colleagues and I encountered numerous pregnant women who felt they had no one to support them, to encourage them, to help them.
Pregnancy help organizations, and the staff and volunteers who make up those organizations, stand in the gap, supporting women who have often been abandoned by family and by partners, people these women wanted to lean on, but for whatever reason, felt (or were told) they couldn’t.
Broken relationships bring doubt. Positive relationships bring hope.
Pregnancy help organizations offer hope and important services, creating relationships vital for choosing life for the unborn and vital for traveling the journey of life for women.
While in Iowa, I visited a pregnancy center that I’ve written about previously and whose name reflects what pregnancy centers do: offer hope.
Cradle of Hope Pregnancy Resource Center is a small organization covering a large area of southeastern Iowa. Serving as a medical clinic, Cradle of Hope recently opened a mother’s home and experienced its first Abortion Pill Reversal (APR). The director and her husband drove several hundred miles to pick up this woman who was pressured to abort by her boyfriend and who felt unsafe in her community. The APR saved her child’s life, and she stayed at the mother’s home to regain her bearings and begin a new chapter of her life. A relationship developed between this woman and the staff and volunteers at Cradle. She, and many others, came to trust the people operating Cradle of Hope, and they found hope as well as encouragement and strength.
Pregnancy resource centers and medical clinics offer support through the services they offer and through the loving kindness of strangers, things they may not receive from people in their own circle. Though illegal, many minors are kicked out of their parents’ homes. Boyfriends leave. Friends stop calling. Pregnant women often feel helpless, alone, and afraid. Those relationships they counted on, leaned on, depended on disappear, often abruptly, and it’s the pregnancy help organization crew who come alongside them, offering services, resources, shoulders to cry on, ears that listen, hearts that care.
Tweet This: Pregnancy resource centers and medical clinics offer support through the services they offer and through loving kindness.
I recall a young woman who came into the center at which I worked. She became pregnant while in college. Her friends turned their backs on her. She returned home and though her parents tried to be supportive, she said she felt judged. She told our program director, “You all became my family. I’d come every week, and I had someone to talk to. I never felt judged. You all cared about me and my feelings, and I what I was going through.”
The journey through life and the journey to life requires positive relationships, connections woven with kindness, compassion, and love. Those are the qualities of Christ, and for those who are Christ-followers, we need to be His example.
Jesus tells us we are the light of the world (see Matthew 5:14) and He instructs us to love others (see John 13:34). The Apostle John reminds us of what Jesus said when he writes, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7 & 8).
Love means being in positive relationship with someone. Love, kindness, care, and compassion are the pillars of pregnancy help organizations because they are also the makeup of Jesus and our Father God. Love is what we show our clients. Relationships are what we build with our clients. God wants to establish a relationship with them also, and so we introduce them to the One who is Love, who desires a relationship with them. If we don’t build a loving, trustworthy relationship with our clients, how can we expect them to know and accept a compassionate, kind, caring, and loving God?
We are ambassadors for Christ; therefore, we need to develop sincere, caring, compassionate relationships with the women we serve.
Humans are designed to be in relationship with others, caring, trustworthy relationships, and with God, who ultimately is kind, caring, loving, and trustworthy. May we continue to be that light for Christ and be trustworthy, kind, compassionate, caring and loving, as He desires us to be.
“… encourage one another and build each other up …” – 1 Thessalonians 5:11
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currently the subject of two lawsuits brought by state attorneys general concerning sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
