Consider your own life. Hasn’t much of it happened while you were making other plans? We never foresee the bends in the road ahead. But God anticipates all things, and He sees the complete lives of people yet unborn. He sees your children, your grandchildren, and all the generations that will follow. His unending love for you includes filling your life with eternal meaning. He knows the things He has yet to do through you—the legacy you will leave through the lives you will touch and the lives that will be touched by those lives.

The language of Psalm 139, describing life in the womb, is powerful and irrefutable. The term “skillfully wrought” literally means “embroidered.” God has embroidered us. We are part of His intricately designed tapestry, the design in which He weaves all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). It’s the design by which His intentions are slowly but surely fulfilled.

You have a place in that design—a place far greater than you can imagine. As a single thread in the tapestry, you can see only the threads that you cross. But God sees the entire length of every strand. He knows exactly what He will accomplish through your life, exactly what good works He has set aside for you (Ephesians 2:10). The full scope of the legacy you will leave is beyond your ability to see. You must simply believe, on the basis of Scripture, that the thread of your life will extend through time, influencing those you have never met.

I began this chapter with a story about a fictional carnival barker, and I want to finish with a story about a real one—a woman named Norma McCorvey. Norma was twenty-one years old in 1969, unmarried, and the mother of two children—one in the custody of the child’s grandmother and one given up for adoption. While working at whatever jobs she could find—including being a barker for a traveling carnival—she discovered she was pregnant for a third time. When she sought an abortion, she found they were illegal in Texas except in cases of rape or incest. So she lied and claimed rape, but the claim was dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Two attorneys used Norma’s desire to have an abortion as a reason to file suit against the state of Texas. To protect Norma’s privacy, they gave her the fictitious name of “Jane Roe,” a name immortalized in the now-famous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case (“Wade” was the local district attorney in Dallas County, Texas). In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Norma McCorvey’s favor, and abortions on demand have been legal in America ever since. (Norma’s third child was born before the case was decided.)