Life

I went to adoration today to pray for the end to abortion, and while I was in the chapel a funeral was going on in the Church for a 17-year Texas Army National Guard veteran and Federal Air Marshal Service agent, who died in a winter field training exercise on a Black Hawk helicopter conducted by the Army ROTC unit at Texas A&M University.

I could see out the window the Patriot Guard Riders lined up holding flags and saluting. So moving.

As I prayed for life, I was watching the sadness of a life ended too soon.

My prayer for this country, this President, and for all of us, is that we can envision a world where we truly understand the gift of life.

In the Thornton Wilder play "Our Town," the character of Emily joins the dead souls in the town cemetery and sees life as she never did on earth. She exclaims, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?"

Like so many of us, she never saw what was right in front of her. How fragile and wonderful our humanity is. If we could only understand that, really understand it, then there would be no need for an abortion law because there would never be a need for abortion.

A life given is the world's greatest gift. A life taken is the world's greatest grief.

I felt both of those today. I was thankful for the life that had grown within me. My children are my unending joy. And I was sad for the life of a soldier no longer with us, and for the lives that never had a moment on this earth.

I pray that God will bless all those hurting from abortion. I pray that like Emily, we will grasp the simple truth that every life matters, that every life is precious and worthy.