The Choice

Since October is Respect Life month, my mind has been working around the issues of life and death. When I was younger and complaining about the injustice of it all, my mom explained that changing the laws won't matter unless we also change hearts. It's true. The government could overturn Roe v. Wade, and then the states would decide for themselves whether a mother was justified under law to have her unborn child murdered. But if we change their hearts so that they see how disgusting it is that this is even an option, there will be little to no need for laws. It just seems like common sense to me, that it's wrong to destroy life at its most innocent, precious, helpless stages. Why are we so surprised when kids go to school with guns when their generation is not even safe within the confines of their mothers' wombs?

It is a culture of death that, sadly enough, goes beyond abortion. Hearts have been corrupted by lies. They buy into the instant pleasures the world offers, and they seek success so that they can gain more of these pleasures. People seem to have forgotten about God because they have what they need for a comfortable, secure life. God's "rules" interfere with that, so they disregard Him completely. But when this life is over--and we never know when it will be--where will these shriveled hearts go? God does not "send people to hell." They choose to go.

This is a choice we all have. We can choose to love God with everything we have and everything we are, and spend eternity with Him in heaven. Or we can choose to ignore Him, to reject Him, to say, "That's not for me" and spend eternity in misery. Really, God's "rules" don't seem like such when we love Him, when we want to please Him, when we see the world as He sees it. When we ask for it, He gives us His Heart and His Love to share with the world. St. Therese wrote that most people don't think about death enough. She didn't mean that we should think of death in a depressing, paint-your-fingernails-black-and-hate-the-world kind of way, but in a Gladiator, "What you do in this life echoes in eternity" kind of way. If we choose lies now, we will spend eternity in darkness. If we choose truth, we will live in the Light.

It makes me wonder, thinking about faith and salvation as this choice we have between life and death, why do we try to be politically correct about it? Why do I try so hard not to make other people feel uncomfortable when I want to speak of God's love? "Let sleeping dogs lie," I suppose. But these aren't dogs. These are people, humans created in the image and likeness of God, brothers and sisters on this earth. If we truly believe that what we believe is the True Way to eternal life, that all sin leads to death, why do we keep silent?

I admit that I know the answer for me: I can be incredibly shy around others, so I found a peaceful existence in being an overly polite person who has limited, surface-deep interactions with others to keep from making anyone feel too uncomfortable. I can sit behind my computer and my journals and write things like this, but when it comes down to it, I am silent when it counts, when it is a matter of life and death. So here I make my choice to break out of this peaceful, comfortable existence. I want to stir things up. I cannot do it alone, but "The Good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity." (St. Therese)