They Matter

They are loud. They are crazy. They eat constantly. They are made in the image of God. Here's the thing, the above can easily work for both the four boys on the right of the picture and for newborn babies, perhaps minus the crazy. Yet we live in a world that says they don't matter. They are an inconvenience. Women worldwide marched yesterday to demand rights to control their bodies as they saw fit. Today other women marched to demand that life be protected, life at its earliest of stages, when it is still blossoming in the womb. A right denied regularly on the basis of 'women's rights' to many humans. Tonight I write not on what people did yesterday because as humans they have the right to protest but instead on why people marched today, the protection of all life, a right far more important, the right to live.

I spent the weekend with four 8th grade boys and a few hundred other students learning about the final words of Jesus. Over the past three years those four boys have been in my small group and from Friday to Sunday they stayed at my house.Those boys aren't afraid to dig into deep things and it has been so much fun watching what has been repeatedly told to them finally starting to stick. Ask them what God is and you will likely hear the words sovereign, faithful, and true before His other characteristics. The P word is tossed around most every Sunday as an answer to a question because pride is a big deal.

Our society says that they don't really have a place yet. They are self-absorbed and addicted to technology. Oddly enough that is much the same what they say about my generation. That society doesn't see a bunch of middle school and high school aged kids who raised just under $600 in a few minutes to donate so that other children can eat and have access to safe water and an education. Mostly they just see a noisy, inconvenient, smell.

This morning I watched those same students step out of their seats in a packed sanctuary and stand in front of a mass of adults to worship. It wasn't planned and it isn't a normal occurence on Sunday mornings. This wasn't lead by an adult, but by a senior boy. He started and the rest followed. Oh to be free of pride and the fear of what it would look like as they were this morning. I don't know that the other adults in that room knew quite what to think. I've seen them do it before, I watched them do it this weekend, but it was still a powerful moment. One that brought me to tears and made me stop what I was doing for just a few seconds to see the grace of God in action. It's an honor to do what I do with these kids on Wednesdays and Sunday's. I've been doing it almost as long as our current 6th graders have been alive. But, watching God move among them will never grow old.

While I was standing there this morning I realized that on this Sanctity of Life Sunday that millions of humans were denied this chance to worship. Tomorrow more will be killed. This won't happens with guns or with drugs. It will happen disguised as a choice masquerading under a thin layer of 'rights'. I long for the day when we won't have to fight for someone's right to live inside the womb because it is viewed as sacred as when that life is in the outside world.

Despite what society says they matter. Those tiny heartbeats and fingers and toes displayed on the screen bear the image of God. The awkwardness,loudness, and life teenagers bring matters. We need them.