The Love of Life

As you might remember, my sister Meredith and I were very privileged to participate in The March For Life this year. And, yes, we survived Snowmeggadon! It was the first time we had gone on The March, and the first time we had been to D.C., and it will be all the more memorable because of the great blizzard of '16 :)

But I want to talk about more than just what we did on the trip. I want to talk about something I realized while on it.

During the extra days where we (around 400 people from our diocese) were cooped up in the hotel, trying to come up with things to do to entertain ourselves and trying not to go crazy from boredom, I felt a special connection with everyone when we would all gather in the huge conference room. I'd look around and have this feeling like we were all in this together. Most of us didn't know each other, and it's not like we were braving anything ridiculously crazy. We had a warm place to stay, good food to eat, comfortable rooms to hang out in, etc. But I felt like I could have looked at any of the people in the room and asked, "How are you doing with the circumstances?" whereas, if we hadn't been stuck in a blizzard, I wouldn't have felt like I could really relate to them as well.

The priests who were with us said over and over in their homilies that we were each there for a reason. And sitting in a big room crowded with kids, it came to me. I didn't know exactly how to put it into words until we arrived back home, but the feeling was there.

I realized during the course of our pilgrimage that each individual life matters.

I'm almost an adult, and I'm just now figuring that out.

It's not like I hadn't heard that or didn't know that before. It's that I never quite understood exactly what it meant until now.

We encourage mothers to choose life instead of having an abortion, because "God has a plan for the baby's and the mother's lives." But before this trip, it hadn't really occurred to me how true that really is. I finally realized that the mother and father didn't just create their baby. God really does want the mother to give birth to her child, because without Him there wouldn't have been a baby in the first place.

See, before my epiphany, I had had it somewhere in the back of my mind that God sort of sighed when He looked down and saw a young, unmarried mother and thought, "Ugh, time to do my part and give this baby's body a soul, I guess."

But no.

Life is beautiful and sacred and holy, because God decides when and who to allow to become pregnant with a soul that He has designed.

via Pinterest

He is teaching me that. I am beginning to feel a brotherly bond with people I never would have thought I would, and I know that it is more than just me trying to feel that way, because I know most of those people don't feel the same way towards me. I see the bad kid whose future as a saint doesn't look too bright as of this moment, and the annoying, pretty girl who always looks and acts perfect, and I have hope for them, because I know that God was thinking when He created them. For a reason that is known probably to God alone, we were put in each other's lives for some specific purpose. There's a reason why my friends were born in this age, and not 50 years ago; the people who I don't particularly get along with were also meant to live in this time and not 200 years in the future.

It's easy to get caught up in me, me, me. I've always known that God loves me and that He has a plan for me. But He's now making me see that He loves everyone around me too, and has had a plan for them from the time they were formed in the womb, as well. And not just "Everyone". I mean, yes, it is everyone, but that word is so... unpersonal. When you think, "God loves everyone," it's easy enough, right? But when you think, "God loves [insert name of someone who is rude to you]," you feel a small lurch in your stomach and a little hint of a doubt. A "That didn't seem all the way right," kind of feeling. But it is true, and it is absolutely right. God has a plan for each and every one of us, and loves that person just as much as He loves you. Not because it's just what He does. It's because He fashioned them with the same love in His heart that He had when He fashioned you. As one of my youth group leaders said, "Remember that everyone is good. I know that because God made them. And He is good. There is no evil person. There are good people who do bad things."

I'm praying that God, the Father Who loves me and you, will help all of us realize what part we are supposed to play in the lives of those we meet.

via PopeQuotes

via Pinterest