Spiritual Perspectives
'Let's Roll!'

By Brian Kruis
Special to The Independent

Let me tell you the story of our daughter Elizabeth, who brings daily joy to the life of our family and many others. Elizabeth was very likely conceived in early April 2002. Science has proven that within 24 hours of the egg and sperm uniting, the DNA in that first cell had the entire plan for every part of her body - her little toes, her gender, her brain, her curly hair, and her contagious smile and laugh. What an amazing miracle!

For the next nine months, God continued to knit Elizabeth together in her birth mother's womb to be a beautiful girl. I would imagine that it was a pretty peaceful nine months for Elizabeth, but not so for her birth mom. You see, when Elizabeth was conceived; her birth mom had just had a baby one month earlier. Soon after she got pregnant, the birth dad was off the scene, not able to give financial support or help with her other two children. Elizabeth's birth mom felt like she could not adequately care for another child. She was strongly considering having an abortion.

But God had another plan for Elizabeth. An uncle of Elizabeth's birth mom encouraged her to make a very difficult decision instead of taking the life of the child to put the child up for adoption. Her birth mom decided to place her baby up for adoption, and we became the beneficiaries of that life-giving decision.

Early December we got a call that a baby girl was born and that she was ours if we wanted her. We were expecting an adoption sometime in the next year, so we were taken completely by surprise, but Elizabeth was the perfect gift for us that Christmas. We spread the news that we had a new baby girl, packed our van, and took off as soon as we could to bring her home.

Can you imagine giving a child, your child, your own flesh and blood to perfect strangers? This was our second adoption, so it was the second time we experienced the tears from the grief of giving a child, mixed with tears from the joy of receiving a child. Elizabeth's birth mom would not leave the hospital until we arrived. She had to know that Elizabeth was in good hands. What an amazing act of love. Elizabeth was spared death through abortion, and allowed the gift of life.

Some of you may remember that I wrote a column about celebrating life last fall. So why am I writing about this issue again? First of all, I think abortion is one of the deeper spiritual issues facing our country today. The deaths of unborn children rob each one of us of the gifts that these children could have added to society. In my last article, I wrote that there have been 30 million abortions since Roe vs. Wade. I have been told since that, that the number is closer to 40 million. Can you imagine how this grieves the heart of God?

I am also writing this article because I believe it is time for us to be spurred on by the famous words, "Let's Roll!" spoken by Todd Beamer, 9/11 hero. Now is the time for us to roll to help stop abortions. All people Democrats, Republicans and Independents need to act with utter courage, teamwork, deep faith and prayer to make changes in abortion legislation. Our president and a majority of Congress want to defend the rights of our unborn children. Let's pray that key Supreme Court justices will be replaced with people who value the lives of unborn children.

Because of the election issues in the fall, I was able to talk to many people about their views of abortion. Almost every person I spoke with, Republicans and Democrats, were personally against abortion. Some people I spoke with didn't feel like we can legislate morality in reference to abortion. My response to this is that our country legislates morality everyday. We legislate against drug trafficking, prostitution, murder, child abuse, etc. Why should we not legislate for the rights of unborn children?

When I look into the eyes of my daughter Elizabeth, I am amazed in our "civilized" society that we even offer the possibility of choosing to destroy the life of a precious child. Each of our living children are survivors of the holocaust of abortion. Let's do everything we can to move towards life for our children. LET'S ROLL!

Brian Kruis is a high school teacher at Rehoboth Christian School. He can be reached at bkruis@rcsnm.org.

This column is the result of a desire by community members, representing different faith communities, wishing to share their ideas about bringing a spiritual perspective into our daily lives and community issues.

For information about contributing a guest column, contact Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola at the Independent: (505) 863-8611, ext. 218 or lizreligion01@yahoo.com.