Heart Notes~~messages to our heart from God. Scriptures breathed from the heart of God into the lives of all who will inhale. I want to inhale deeply. So deeply that I can smell heaven’s scent. I hope you are inhaling deeply from the Word each Monday.
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A few weeks ago when I chose the August Scriptures, I had no idea that I would actually use today’s Scripture in an email conversation in the coming days. Allow me to set the stage:
I opened my ministry inbox last week to find an email from a jounalist who had read one of the devotions I wrote for CBN.com. The email asked me, as a pharmacist and Christian, whether I believed the medications that were at issue in the Hobby Lobby case were truly abortifacients, or if the Green family were misguided and simply believed the medications caused abortion.
Now, I’ll be honest with you, while I rejoiced over the Hobby Lobby victory, I had not delved into exactly which medications were causing so much angst. This journalist’s email gave me the prompt I needed to do just that. This is where today’s Scripture comes in:
Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Allow me to share with you my answer to the email, and I believe you will find today’s Scripture nestled within it.
Good morning _________________,
I’m happy to give you my thoughts on the Hobby Lobby meds, and the larger issue that was addressed. I’m glad you are not doing a story on this, or using anything I say, because I am certainly not an expert in this area.
As I understand the Hobby Lobby case, the Greene family was only pushing back on less than a handful of medications that Obamacare requires to be made available to employees of a large company. They still covered many contraceptives, giving patients and their physicians ample choice of meds. The medications of concern were Plan B and other so-called, ‘morning after’ pills, and the IUD. There are convincing arguments on both sides of this issue regarding whether these are abortifacients. For me, the issue comes down to when you believe life begins…at conception or at implantation. The medications in question hinder the implantation of a fertilized egg/zygote. If one believes, as I do, that life begins at conception, then yes, the medications are abortifacients. They deny a life, a child, the opportunity to live. If implanted, that fertilized egg will, in nine months, be a baby ready to be born into the world. Whether it is day 1 of life (conception) or nine months of life (day of birth), it is all life. For those who do not believe that life begins at conception, then they can argue that the meds are not abortifacients. When the Psalmist said that God knew him in his mother’s womb, he didn’t equivocate about when God knew him in his mother’s womb. He did not say that God knew him after the egg was implanted or at 3 months gestation. God simply knew him from beginning to end. For me personally, as a pharmacist, I will not dispense Plan B or an IUD because I believe they take the life of a child.
Now, to the larger issue of Hobby Lobby and their right to not cover certain medications. My husband and I are small business owners. We believe that it is our right to run our business the way we see fit. Right, wrong or otherwise, it is our business, just as Hobby Lobby belongs to the Greene family. Birth control, or health care in general is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution. For the government to dictate how we spend our money is an infringement of our liberty provided for by the US Constitution. I believe the government should keep their noses out of people’s business. Government has become too big, and too intrusive. Fifty years ago the Hobby Lobby case would have been a non-issue, because government was still somewhat in its place, and respected individual rights. We are on a very dangerous path, and I fear we have passed the point of no return. I remember a day when far fewer people had health insurance. I’m not saying we go back to that era, but I am saying that the entitlement mentality of our nation has made healthcare seem to be a right.
Perhaps you got more from me than you asked for. I apologize if that is the case. Thank you for asking. May God speak into your heart on this issue of the Hobby Lobby case. Only He knows why He allowed it all. I’m sure there are eternal consequences that our earthly eyes cannot see. Have a blessed day.
Did you see it? God knew the psalmist in his mother’s womb. God fashioned, or knit, together the psalmist’s being there in the womb. God knew YOU, my friend, from the moment your mother’s egg was fertilized with your father’s sperm. God caused that egg and sperm to be united. YOU are not an accident. God is crazy about you.
