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Confronted By My Beliefs February 2, 2009 By David
Green There I sat
dumbfounded. Everything froze and then began to move in slow motion.
Then, like in some surreal time warp, my mind raced to and fro.
It had hit me like a curve ball and sucked the wind right out of
my sails. The unexpected unexpectedly grabbed the insides of my
heart and began to strangle the intellectual jugular of my mind.
Everything I ever believed or thought I believed was brought in
front of my face and paraded before my eyes. It was the fall
of 1984 and I was an aspiring intellect at a well-known Big Ten
university. A college purveyor of “truth” and intellectualism, I
was on top of my world. I was at the pinnacle of my career as a
young student. Emboldened by the teachings of great professors,
I was going out into the world as a secondary education teacher.
If there was anyone in the world walking around with a chip on his
shoulder, I surely could have been the poster child of chip holders.
Filled with
these “new” philosophies, I would surely change the world. Child
by child, student by student, I would teach and help facilitate
a revolution of change into the heartland of the American mind set.
How could I fail? I had the teachings of Nietzsche, Freud, Jung,
and Maslow at the foundation of my pursuit. With Pink Floyd's “Dark
Side of the Moon” and the sexual revolution of the sixties pushing
me forward into this mass matrix of society, how could I fail? The
voices of feminists like Gloria Steinem and Marylyn French screamed
down the corridors of my brain, reverberating and echoing their
mantras on equal rights and the feminist movement. I had read so
much of the feminist literature concerning the male patriarchs and
the biases of this unequal system, that I was mad at all men, including
myself. I was mad at all those who pushed their ways and tried to
make me into their image. I was mad at anyone in authority or anyone
who was unrelenting in the quest to perpetrate an already too far
gone and broken system. Armed with this vast array of knowledge,
like an intellectual matador, I had the proverbial bull by the horns
and nobody was going to get in my way. But then the bull came charging
home! "I am pregnant,"
my girlfriend said with a shattered stare of unbelief. So there
I was staggered and speechless, and all I could do was try to reign
in the moment. Vacillating between what I thought I believed and
what I truly believed, I momentarily sat stagnant in the midst of
a truth that I could not deny. My girlfriend had just told me she
was pregnant with my child. There in the student union my thoughts
encompassed me with the reality of this truth. In her womb, my baby
was growing and, in an instant, all that I ever believed or at least
what I thought I believed came to a crashing halt. Like the Apostle
Peter, weeping bitterly when he was confronted with what he really
believed, I, too, sat motionless in a sea of emotions as my past
crowed before me. I don't remember thinking how this could happen
to me, but realizing that there was a baby in her womb and that
baby was mine. I don't remember feeling like a victim or even bitter.
To me, the next step was obvious: we would get married and I would
be the father to my child. But to my chagrin, the words my girlfriend
spoke were carbon copies of all the things that I thought I believed.
Pro choice, women's rights, and the ERA spoke from her heart, and,
when she said she wanted to have an abortion, all I could hear her
say was she wanted to kill my baby. Her lips moved, but I really
could not hear what she was saying because I was finally confronted
with what I believed and it did not match anything that I thought
I believed. All the feminist rhetoric and political ideology that
was born in the pursuit of logic and intellectualism could not withstand
the assault of the confrontation of my beliefs. This wasn't a mere
piece of flesh in her womb, nor was it a fetus, a blob, or any other
politically-protected name the feminist movement hid behind. This
was a growing living human being, and, not only that, it was MINE. I was frantic
and trying to come to grips with reality. My words were firm and
sure; let's do the right thing. But her right thing and my right
thing were two different things. Now that I knew what I truly believed,
I would not go down without a fight. Knowing I could not hit her
with a direct assault, I tried to move stealthily and subtly. Hiding
pamphlets advocating the birth of our child or statistics concerning
abortion, I tried a myriad of plans to dissuade her from her foundation
of feminist ideology. Soon she became aware of my subtle ways and
became more openly repulsed by the idea of keeping the baby. The
more I fought, the more determined she became to stick to her course
of action. She insisted it was her body and she could do with it
what she wanted. With or without me, she was determined to get an
abortion. I don't really
remember saying much as we walked together to the off-campus abortion
clinic. And though we walked together, we were both alone. Illusionary.
Surreal. Dreamlike. Pretend. Make-believe. The memories of that
day are faded and somewhat masked behind a pain that is difficult
to describe. Life as I knew it would never be the same. I was a
changed man. And after the abortion, there was no doubt that she
was a changed woman also. Her words expressed it and her emotions
forever echoed from her conversations from that day on. Soon, our
relationship began to spiral downward and out of control. Two very
different worlds had collided and exploded in our faces. Like on
some Hollywood picture screen, the inevitable course of sin had
played itself out. Lust, sin, and then death. I don't know
where she is today nor have I heard from her. I do admit that I
think about her from time to time. How could I not? We shared this
past, and I do wonder how she is doing and whether or not she has
recovered from that tragic moment in our lives. There is a saying
that “time heals the wounds that no one can see,” and, even though
it's been over 20 years, there are times when my past tries to reconvict
me and put me on trial again for the murder of my unborn child.
When that happens, I have to fight back with all that I have been
taught in God's Word. I have to resist, believe, and know that God's
forgiveness is as far as the east is from the west. His mercy is
everlasting and my life is now in His hands. But these are the scars
and weights of sin that many of us carry with us into the future.
The deep and hidden pains of ignorant decisions guided by nothing
but carnal knowledge that rises up to haunt us and try to stifle
the new creature that God is creating in each of us. And when this
past tries to blur my future and cloud my mind, I look over at my
beautiful wife who loves the Lord with all her heart and I hug my
two precious daughters and love them with all the love that I can
muster up from within me. I am a changed man. I am not the same,
and for that I am thankful. In these moments, I remember what I
have learned and how that moment forever changed me. It was a pivotal
point in my life when I learned that talk really is cheap and it
is easy to say you believe something, but, in reality, you really
won't know until you are confronted with what you believe. David Green
has been working with youth for most of his life. Until recently,
he was a high school teacher and the principal of his church school.
He also served as youth leader. Today he is an assistant Pastor,
as well as an avid runner and student of nutrition and natural
healing. "Pain
is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year,
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