Making Sense of Love

Sometimes I get emails from David, the orphanage director's son in El Salvador. David is 18, studying to be a lawyer. He's lived most of his life with the many children his father would find on the streets of El Salvador, children abandoned and with no other place to go. Children who find love with this family.

David always tells me that he is praying for me and my family, for my church. Each year we take presents to the kids in El Salvador. The other day, David asked me, "Do you know who sent my present? And who is helping to pay for my university? I just need to know for my prayers."

And, let me be honest. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to me, the kind of faith that David has, the kind of desire he has to pray for others.

Often I think of the children in El Salvador. Their faces come to me like snapshots. I see Saul before he goes to bed, wanting to hear a story. I see Vanessa washing clothes. I see Javier being silly because he's young and loves attention.

And sometimes the thought that comes to my head is, "So which one would you choose?"

And maybe now it seems like the thought going through my head is a good one. And maybe now it seems like I'm wondering which child I'd bring home if I could.

But that's not it.

Let me speak plainly.
Let me be practical.
Let me be sensible.

Abortion is illegal in El Salvador. And, let me also be honest; the legality or illegality of abortion is to me, even now, pretty much a non-issue. Though I believe strongly in legislation that protects and affirms the sanctity of life, I understand that illegality doesn't mean that abortions won't happen; in any work I do that is pro-life, my only real concern is that women and men know that they are loved, that they have other options, that they won't be judged, that they have a community that will care for them. Those things don't change, whether abortion is legal or illegal.

That said, abortion is illegal in El Salvador. El Salvador is the poorest country in Central America, and the number of children who are homeless, without parents, and abandoned is staggering. In Soyapango, children roam the streets at night--some in gangs, some on drugs, some prostituting.

A few years ago, it occurred to me that there was something lacking in the logic of pro-lifers who seemed unable to see a connection between the unavailability of abortion and the fact that there were so many unwanted and neglected children. Surely, they must understand that, were abortion legal and readily available, there might be some decrease in the number of homeless children, that there might be some movement toward every child being a wanted child.

But, this connection wasn't being made. And it didn't make sense.

If I was to be practical, I had to admit that there was something amiss in the logic of pro-lifers who didn't make that connection. Again, I'm just speaking plainly. I'm just being practical. I'm just being sensible. I, even a few years ago, would have admitted that I thought abortion wasn't a good thing. It's certainly not something that we want to happen. But, as I thought of this connection a few years ago, I had to think that sometimes good can come of even those things we think of as bad. Maybe there is such a thing as a necessary evil.

Fast forward a couple of years.

I'm making cookies and bread with David. Javier comes by to look sweetly at us and hope we'll be nice enough to give him a cookie. Vanessa is still washing the clothes and hanging some up to dry. Saul is asking for a story.

And, the thought goes around in my head again. So, just choose one. If quality of life is an issue, if poverty or ill health prevent that quality of life from being what it could be under better circumstances, if the option is no longer illegal but readily available. Then just choose one.

But, I can't. I can't because I know them. I can't because I love them. I can't because I now understand that our collective poverty is so much more if just one of those children is not here. I can't because, though it sometimes seems that there is so little love in the world, I know that, because of these children, there is so much more love than there would be without them. I can't because I have some hope that their love, so pure and unselfish, is the only kind of love that saves us. I can't because, in each of their faces, I see Christ.

And, it doesn't make sense. But it is love.