First Fruits Friday - Joy & Sorrow
At a recent leadership meeting at Seneca, our staff and volunteers reflected on our theme for 2021: Joy & Sorrow. In his poem “On Joy and Sorrow,” Khalil Gibran says it beautifully:
“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Today, on the 48th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade we see reasons for both. Each baby who loses their life to abortion, and each parent who experiences the resulting grief of abortion bring us great sorrow. Still, we find joy each time these families find healing, abortion workers quit, and parents choose life for their children.
On a local level at Seneca, we witness much of the same grief in our clients’ stories. Still, through our long-term journey with clients, we are blessed with many moments of joy and delight. In fact, as the poem goes on to say “they are inseparable.”
Recently, a client opened up to us about how experiencing and processing sorrow is giving her more space for hope and joy in her life:
Her friend decided upon abortion, but this Mom of a one year old chose life. It is not that she did not think about abortion. In many ways, it seemed easier. After all, the father of the children was in and out of doing drugs. She knew that she could not rely on him. It was what life had shown her all along.
Abandoned by her parents due to drugs, and raised by her grandparents, this young woman was full of anger. When the client was 12, her mother finally cleaned up her act, but her grandfather would not allow the client to have any interaction with her Mom. Her Mom then died. Not only did she feel abandoned once by her Mom, but twice.
The client then subconsciously fell for men romantically who did the same thing to her, and continued to make her feel abandoned. Her trust is now at an all time low, and even with Seneca, she is wary.
Still, our Case Manager is working with her weekly to assist her in getting work so that she can be self-sufficient. She’s also working through some of her past hurts. According to the client, this is the first time she has been so open about her past and truly allowed herself to grieve. Through the tears she lets flow freely for the first time, she now feels "hope".
At Seneca, our tears flow freely when Moms and Dads decide upon abortion. Since 1973, there have been an estimated 62,502,904 lives lost to abortion*. This past weekend, 34 individuals in our local community made the choice to not continue the life of their children. Still, we rejoice in the life affirming choices that our clients make every day, and celebrate each new baby who is born and each person who seeks healing. Please pray with us as we witness the life and death of these precious creations of God.
Source: https://poets.org/poem/joy-and-sorrow
*Source: National Right to Life: “Based on numbers reported by the Guttmacher Institute 1973-2017, with 3% added for GI estimated possible 3-5% undercount for 1973-2014. Another12,000 per year added for 2015-2020 for abortions from “providers” GI says it may have missed in 2015-2017 counts. 1/21”