Cultivating Love

Most Ethiopians make their living by farming. Farmers cultivate things. God is a farmer. God cultivates people. Jesus Christ says in John 15:4 Amplified Bible, "Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.] Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me."

Love is fruit God wants creyentes (believers) to bear. In Matthew 22:39 Complete Jewish Bible Jesus Christ says, "...You are to love your neighbor as yourself."

In China people are being taught to hate themselves and their neighbor through China's one child policy with forced abortions and forced sterilizations. Ma Jian writes in her May 22, 2013 The New York Times editorial "China's Brutal One-Child Policy," "Village family-planning officers vigilantly chart the menstrual cycle and pelvic-exam results of every woman of childbearing age in their area. If a woman gets pregnant without permission and is unable to pay the often exorbitant fine for violating the policy, she risks being subjected to a forced abortion.

According to Chinese Health Ministry data released in March, 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations have been carried out since 1971. (Though the one-child policy was introduced in 1979, other, less-stringent family planning policies were in place before it.) ...

Almost every one of the pregnant women I spoke to had suffered a mandatory abortion. One woman told me how, when she was eight months pregnant with an illegal second child and was unable to pay the 20,000 yuan fine (about $3,200), family planning officers dragged her to the local clinic, bound her to a surgical table and injected a lethal drug into her abdomen.

For two days she writhed on the table, her hands and feet still bound with rope, waiting for her body to eject the murdered baby. In the final stage of labor, a male doctor yanked the dead fetus out by the foot, then dropped it into a garbage can. She had no money for a cab. She had to hobble home, blood dripping down her legs and staining her white sandals red."

Whether an abortion is forced or not, a baby boy or a baby girl dies and the child's parents and family are affected by the abortion. Hannah Rose Allen was an American teenager who got involved in sex outside of marriage and a baby was conceived. She thought that abortion was the simple solution and learned through experience about the emotional turmoil abortion causes parents. Allen writes in a May 28, 2013, editorial for LifeNews.com "Planned Parenthood Lied: My Abortion Destroyed Me; But Jesus Saved Me," "On February 6, 2009, I took the RU-486 pill, and after a night of darkness, it was over. I was relieved to get back to my normal life. I wanted to move on, as if the nightmare had never happened, and forget the immense pain. I was deceived into thinking that I could forget about it. The counselor at Planned Parenthood had told me that some initial sadness after my abortion would be normal, but after a couple days, if I was still feeling depressed, that wouldn’t be normal, and I should seek help. How wrong she was. Much of those days before and after my abortion are a blur of heartbreak and tears. Sleepless nights were spent, with agony at the depths of my heart and soul, rattling me to the core. There was nothing “wrong” with me for feeling that way.

Trying to forget what I had done, over the next few months, I sought comfort for my wounded, aching heart through partying, drinking, and living promiscuously. I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a pit of destruction and despair. Four months after my abortion, I was pregnant…again."

The death of an unborn child by abortion or miscarriage hurts. Allen didn't choose abortion for her second child, but her second child's heart stopped beating near the end of her pregnancy. God, a farmer who cultivates people, used the death of both her babies to bring Allen into a close relationship with Him and to speak out for the lives of the unborn.

God cultivates both women and men. Bob Fu is a Christian who experienced China's one child policy. When Fu and his wife lived in China they were pregnant without a pregnancy permission card. They left China, and their son, Daniel, was born in Hong Kong. Eventually, the Fu family came to America where Bob Fu is founder and president of ChinaAid which fights for religious freedom and an end to China's one child policy.

Wherever creyentes are, God is cultivating us to love ourselves and other people.