The crisis pregnancy centers are also equipped with ultrasound machines. These machines are perhaps responsible for saving the lives of more babies than anything being done today. Studies have indicated that when a mother actually sees the child she carries in her womb, the likelihood of her aborting that baby is reduced by 60 percent.14 In many respects, the ultrasound machine is the modern equivalent of Psalm 139:13–16. It enables mothers to see exactly what David wrote so vividly and with such wonder about the unborn child.

In an attempt to support our two crisis pregnancy centers, our church launched a four-month fund-raising campaign. We bought more than five thousand baby bottles and distributed them to our entire congregation, from children through adults. We challenged our people to fill these bottles with their loose change and return them to our church by Mother’s Day.

I cannot remember anything that has captured the enthusiasm and love of our people like this campaign. Each week our members return hundreds of bottles filled with change; and without exception, the donors want the bottle back so they can fill it again. At the pace we are on as I write this chapter, we will raise considerably more than one hundred thousand dollars to be divided between our two centers.

Our prayer is that many infant lives will be saved to fulfill the glorious possibilities God has reserved for them.

Before You Were Born, God Knew Your Legacy

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

—JEREMIAH 29:11

The prophet Jeremiah wrote this verse to the Jewish exiles in Babylon to assure God’s people that He had not forgotten them during their seventy years of captivity. But the verse certainly has application today: It assures us that we also have a future and a hope.

Yet the verse raises persistent questions about God’s love: If before we were born, God knew everything about us (which He does), did He know about the difficult and painful things we would experience? If He knew about them but didn’t prevent them, what does that say about His love? What future and hope can one have in the face of physical deformities, mental and congenital defects, and other disorders children are born with?

Though it is hard for many to imagine in a culture that judges value by “quality of life,” even people bearing serious defects have a future and a hope. Many of them live in a state of joy that amazes the rest of us. One such person is Gianna Jessen, the inspiration behind the hit movie October Baby.