Today I was reminded how powerful outside influences can be in shaping a person. For example, I remember vividly the day I became bold. I was preparing to audition for an all state choir competition, learning the soprano part to the piece we were each to perform for the judges, and apparently I was eeking out the words with the force of a sneezing mouse. My choir director, whom I dearly love to this day, became irritated and got in my face, half shouting, "Tonia, you are NOT a timid person!" "Oh," I thought. "I guess she's right." Unfortunately, I wasn't the world's best soprano and didn't make the cut for all state, but I came away with something better - confidence - thanks to one person who built me up.
From that point on, I was bold. I became passionate about defending the cause of the unborn and became active in the pro-life movement. I started volunteering at Friends for Life, a local pro-life group that provided information on abortion and its alternatives, and eventually ended up serving on its board of directors. We lobbied the Kentucky legislature and participated in life chains, the annual march on Washington and letter-writing campaigns to law makers and newspapers alike. I even spoke to youth groups and the occasional public school classroom, which I later realized potentially could have gotten those teachers fired. Actively opposing abortion had become like oxygen to me, and I loved being a part of something I knew down to my bones was of eternal significance.
So that was the fruit of my confidence born on that single day in choir. But I also remember when I lost it. I was in college, about to pursue a career in journalism. No one directly admonished me to drop my pro-life affiliations, but it was pretty clear that if I wanted to work anywhere with a circulation larger than my neighborhood I'd better tone it down. So I turned down the dial. All the way. And while I ended up getting a wonderful reporting job, I soon felt like a helium balloon that had lost its lift. I'd learned to sit in corners at meetings in silence, scribbling down other people's empassioned arguments and in some cases stuffing what I knew to be true. That's what the job required and that's what I did, but something inside of me was dead.
It's been a decade since I graduated from college and a couple of years since I've worked in journalism, yet I still haven't regained that fervor for speaking out for the unborn. I find myself listening to others laying out the case against abortion, shaking my head in tears and thinking, "Why didn't I say that?" I'm ashamed that as all these years have ticked by, millions of children have lost their lives and millions of mothers have been emotionally wounded in the name of choice, and I've said next to nothing.
About 50 million babies have been aborted since the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down Jan. 22, 1973. After sitting through probably the best sermon on abortion I've ever heard, today I'm feeling like I share some of the responsibility for their deaths. Silence is a form of abetment, and I don't intend to continue in it. May God forgive me and our nation.
