Educating, Inspiring, and Motivating Christian Women

The Real Heroines

Greater love has no one than this,
that one lay down his life for his friends

(John 15:13).

 

I started to write this blog because we are living in difficult times physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It has become all too painfully real that we will not achieve the dreams that our parents hoped we would.

While we have more possessions, they are mostly junk. They are items which we will use up and toss away immediately. Or they are items that we will toss in a few months because nothing is manufactured with the care and quality as things were a generation or two ago. We pop more pills and spend more money on drugs than the rest of the world combined. We spend billions of dollars on health food and exercise clubs, yet we are way out of shape compared to our ancestors. And so, we are not better off physically.

We spend more money on counselors and psychiatrists than at any other time or place in history. Yet most people walk around dissatisfied with life. We are an emotionally bankrupt country.

As for spiritually, well, you don’t have to look around too far to see that we have forgotten God. We have replaced Him with New Age philosophy, Eastern religions, or just plain agnosticism. All of these replacements have only served to further the selfishness and degeneracy of our nation. These other faiths all center on the practitioner. You can be your own god, deciding for yourself what is right or wrong. The problem is that your ideas may clash with those of your neighbor. How will you sort that out? Who will be the ultimate decider? Which one is willing to show true love by giving in to the other?

Only in the Christian religion do we find a call to give up your own wants to serve someone else. Christ gave us the example by dying on the cross for us. There is no greater love than that.

This blog is filled with stories of courageous women, mostly Christian, who realized that happiness comes in serving the Lord. They have learned that serving Christ means serving others in the way that God has called them. So for example, we have stories of great women like Amy Carmichael, Mary of Nazareth, Darlene Deibler Rose, and Sophie Scholl to name only a few. These women were totally sold out to the Lord and they changed the society around them. Some of them stood firm even to death as a martyr. They have a lasting legacy.

We can’t all be famous like these women. In fact, they make up a small minority. The majority of Christian women however are still making a difference in the world in quiet, unseen ways. Without the women who plod along, daily doing their work, the world would be in even worse shape than it is. The faithful Christian mothers in this country are the glue that is holding everything together. Faithful mothers teach their children to love the Lord and love others. These children grow up as the givers in society, not the takers. We need to recognize the tireless efforts of the vast majority of godly mothers. They are the real heroines.

It takes a lot of courage to daily maintain a belief in the right to life for everyone, including the unborn. Because it seems that those who think women should have a “choice” to murder their unborn children outnumber those who want the baby to have the choice, godly women can feel isolated. I believe that they should have all of the encouragement we can give them to continue on in the faith. Being criticized and blasted by media and liberal friends is not fun.

Not all of these everyday moms will be called on to do something drastic to prove their faith.  The highest price many will pay is the verbal persecution of the “politically correct” crowd. But you never know. What if you were called on to make a decision that would enable someone else to live, but the cost was your own life? Would you be willing to stand firm in your faith?

Consider the story of one woman who did.

Stacie Crimm had been diagnosed with head and neck cancer this past July. The doctors told her that she needed chemotherapy. But Stacie unexpectedly found that she was pregnant. She decided that she would not expose her unborn child to the dangers of the cancer treatment. She put her own life on the line instead. She refused to have the chemotherapy.

On August 16, Stacie collapsed in her home. She underwent an emergency C-section, and her daughter, Dottie Mae, was born, weighing only two pounds. Doctors managed to save the baby and resuscitate Stacie and placed both in intensive care.

At first, Stacie seemed to be improving, but three weeks later her condition deteriorated and she stopped breathing. Doctors managed to resuscitate her again, but this time they had to give the grim news to her family that she was dying.

The doctors told the family that it would be impossible for Stacie to see her daughter. But two nurses intervened, and found a way to safely move Dottie Mae, who was still in an incubator in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Stacie’s brother Ray Phillips later told the beautiful story of the first meeting between mother and daughter:
“They laid Dottie Mae right on her chest and they just looked at each other. Nobody really said anything. It just got real quiet,” Phillips related. “It was the perfect moment. That’s what I always call it.”

Stacie died three days later. (September 14).
Dottie Mae already weighs over 5 pounds and has been allowed to leave the hospital and live with the Phillips’s and their four children.

What a wonderful story of love. This woman died rather than risk the life of her unborn child. She would probably say that she was only doing what was right. If she had to do it all over again, she would probably do the same.

What a contrast to the many women today who would rather kill their unborn baby than lose their figure, or their boyfriend, or some other minor inconvenience. The two kinds of women are poles apart. A woman like Stacie reflects love, respect for life, heroism, and unselfishness. Women like Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood, reflect hatred, disregard for life, cowardice, and total self-centeredness. This should be obvious to all.

Pray for Dottie Mae and her family. Pray to end abortion. And be thankful, that there are still so many real heroines in our country who silently go about doing what is right.

 

 

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In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.                 

~ Phil. 2:5-7