The image of God is reflected in the unborn

The Unseen Image of God: An Expectant Mommy at the March for Life

on February 1, 2017

[Editor’s note: The original version of this post about the image of God and the March for Life was published by Patheos.com. Click here to read it.]

Five 3-D sonogram photos of my unborn daughter hang on my refrigerator door. Five incredibly clear images of a 19-week-old life in utero. If you took a glance, then you’d see her tiny fingers, teeny toes, ears, eyes, and a fuzzy patch of hair growing on top of her head. If you looked closer and know my husband, then you’d notice she already bears a striking resemblance to her expectant daddy. But I don’t have to look at those pictures at all to know she also bears the image of her Heavenly Father.

My 20th week of pregnancy aligned perfectly with this year’s March for Life, the largest pro-life rally in the world. My time spent at the Evangelicals for Life conference and March for Life rally were exceptionally emotional experiences.

As various pro-life experts addressed unborn children’s humanity, I sat in my seat feeling my unborn daughter wriggling and fluttering around in my womb.

I thought of my last pre-natal doctor’s appointment and of the ultrasound technician’s frustration as my daughter kept swishing away from every attempt to check her vitals.

I thought of how my unborn child has a morning routine as she prefers to practice her reflexes around 5:00 AM every day.

And I thought of the day I didn’t feel her move at all. The fear drove me to bounce and shake my belly in hopes of a response. Thank God, she wriggled and I was able to get some sleep.

No, this year I didn’t need pictures nor speakers to remind me of the sanctity of life in the womb.

As joyous an occasion as my pregnancy is, it is also filled with new levels of anxiety. Countless nightmares of misplacing, dropping, smothering, or breaking my baby persist. Worry? Check. Insecurities? Check. Second thoughts? At times.

“That’s normal,” they tell me. Sometimes I believe these well-intentioned consultants, and other times I don’t.

So as I stood at the 2017 March for Life rally, squished between more pro-lifers than I’ve ever seen in years past, I considered the sanctity of expectant mothers too. Some joyous. Others scared. Both bearers of babies and the image of God.

All this is to say, I’m grateful. I’m grateful our inherent dignity does not depend on our size, location, level of development, nor circumstances, because the image of God need not be seen to be known.

(P.S. I shared a few more of these thoughts with the March for Life while attending their rally. Watch here:)

Warming up for the March! So much enthusiasm! #WhyWeMarch

Posted by The March for Life on Friday, January 27, 2017

  1. Comment by Ted R. Weiland on February 17, 2017 at 3:58 pm

    Praise God!

    However, the tragedy in this is that most of these same people are promoting the genesis behind Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade is just one of tens of thousands of consequences of the whirlwind today’s America is reaping thanks to the wind sown in 1787:

    “”[B]ecause they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law … they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind….” (Hosea 8:1,7)

    “…3. Every problem America faces today can be traced back to the fact that the framers failed to expressly establish a government upon Yahweh’s immutable morality as codified in His commandments, statutes, and judgments. (Would infanticide and sodomy be tolerated, let alone financed by the government, if Yahweh’s perfect law and altogether righteous judgments [including Exodus 21:22-23] were the law of the land? Would Islam be a looming threat to our peace and security if the First Amendment had been replaced with the First Commandment? Would Americans be in nearly as much debt if usury had been outlawed as a form of theft? Would crime be as rampant if “cruel and unusual punishment” had not been outlawed and criminals were instead punished with Yahweh’s altogether righteous judgments? Would we be on the fiscal cliff if we were taxed with a flat increase tax rather than a graduated income tax?)….

    “On February 27, 2009, James Dobson conceded that we have lost the culture wars. This is the consequence of Christians [including Dr. Dobson] having spent the last two centuries lopping at the rotten branches of our culture’s corrupt tree while watering and fertilizing its roots.

    “We should lop away at the tree’s corrupt branches (infanticide, sodomy, the economy, etc.). However, until the root of these problems is Biblically addressed, we will never shut down the infanticide mills, we will never defeat the sodomites, and we will never fix the economy. In short, we will never win the culture wars. This issue is more than important for anyone concerned about God, our nation, and the future of our posterity, it’s the cutting- edge issue of our day….”

    For more, see our Featured Blog Article “5 Reasons the Constitution is Our Cutting-Edge Issue” at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/.

    Then find out how much you REALLY know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey at http://www.bibleversusconstitution.org/ConstitutionSurvey.html and receive a complimentary copy of a book that EXAMINES the Constitution by the Bible.

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