I walked midday, a change from my schedule. No music, no podcast wisdom. I’d adjusted my shoes, the ankle pain lingering.

Hereditary maybe plus jumping from the steps in my 20’s instead of stepping.

My ankle compromised by my choices.

I walked and prayed and thought, remembered about a week ago I returned from walking, sweaty and breathless because I’d added in jogging, my husband sat waiting in the chair he likes in the garage.

He’d been again, watching the news.

So, I spewed all my thoughts on lives mattering and he let me. He listened, I bet was entertained, my talking with expressive hands.

I’m not typically vocal. Even less often assertive. I’m extremely conflict avoidant.

I told him how I felt about the “all lives matter” cultural trend.

People who I thought believed like me are widening the meaning of sanctity of life to include lives lost to violence, poverty, other.

Likening a life that never had a choice to other lives ended in adulthood, still too soon.

I said, “A woman gets pregnant and decides on abortion. Maybe there’s addiction. Maybe there is fear. Maybe there’s a father or a parent because of secrecy, coercing. Maybe there is selfishness, plans for something other. Maybe there is worry that there will be no roof to cover baby’s head. Maybe there are other reasons.

The woman sees a doctor, clinician or other. Woman’s choice leads to destruction of life, disposal.

And the baby had no choice.

In the beginning, God created… Genesis 1:1

I asked my husband to think of times he skirted with wrong places, wrong time, to consider our own sons might have easily made choices that led to criminal ways.

Could’ve been influenced by drugs, alcohol, anger or even bitter resentment. Could’ve decided to get in the face of an officer and not let up, not let go until force led to extreme response.

Unfortunate choices made by young people and adults often lead to lives cut short.

A few weeks ago, I heard my friend tell of what God had spoken, “That wasn’t my intention.”

When babies were announced despite Co-Vid, I found myself thinking, saying,

“Babies are evidence that God is saying, ‘Keep living’.”

Children are God’s creation.

We were all children once.

Created uniquely by God and for a purpose, to live fully while living closer daily to Him.

“In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭17:28‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I’m perplexed over the lumping of all lives together, lives that never had a choice to see what God could do and lives cut short in angry, wrongful, ugly ways.

But, those are different tragedies.

They are not the same. I prayed today, that more influential and articulate voices than mine would cause the bending of ears, the stirring of souls, the returning to the beginning, the intentional beginning of us by God.

In the beginning, God created.

We can be sorrowful over injustice. We can shake our heads over how long it has gone on. We can pray for the difference that’s beginning to be strong. But, we can’t compare a life with no chance at all, to a life cut short, gone wrong or taken tragically. To one with no chance at all.