The Pregnant Girl Problem

-Pastor Melissa Fain-

Sex. I need to get it out there before we begin. It’s not a dirty word, unless you’re in a Church. In a Church they don't even mention it, because no one, with their mild sensibilities, knows how to deal with that word.They know it must happen. After all, they want kids in the building, and almost all of them require that three letter world to come into existence. Just make sure the light’s turned off so Jesus doesn’t see.

Before you clutch your pearls and run away, no one knows you’re reading this smut. You don’t have to tell a soul that you saw the word “sex,” and kept reading. I promise it all has to do with faith and God. (And for those who are turned away by those two words, it will also have to do with sex.)

Covid and Masks

Damn! I’m hitting all the spots I’m supposed to avoid, aren’t I? 

Long long ago, when we were talking about things going back to “normal” like we wanted the 80’s polka dots back, I realized things were not going back to normal. I also knew I was going to put my masks away. The question had to be asked: When would I take the masks back out? I decided if I was feeling a little under the weather without a temperature, I’d wear a mask. 

Well, wouldn’t you know, I felt a little under the weather last Saturday. I pulled out my mask, and put it on to go grocery shopping. Then I stopped myself. I actually considered what people would think seeing me in a mask when I haven’t worn them recently. Would they think I caught COVID and was going out with a very transmissible disease? 

I seriously considered putting that mask up! Just the illusion that I was doing something wrong filled me with horror. Then I realized, anyone could make up any damn thing they wanted about me and my family and I couldn’t stop them. What I could do, was keep my little runny nose to myself, and not give it to anyone else. Rolling my eyes, I put my mask on and did my grocery shopping.

The Problem with Society Seeing Someone in "Sin."

et’s say a 15 year old girl had sex and got pregnant. First of all, there is a boy involved too.This complicates things. It’s an action that took two people, but now there is only one who has to literally live with it every moment of every day. 

A friend from the long long ago once said to me, “All actions are selfish.” 

Oh did I clutch my own set of pearls with those words. I also spend a good part of my adult life testing those words against different people. (Which in my mind means they were good words if I carried them around with me for so long.) 

Whether it’s good or not, I feel there are ways to walk a selfless path. It’s just extremely difficult to do. Selfless people are difficult to find, because they don’t take credit for their work, and they are few and far between. Almost everyone, even the ones trying to be selfless, act from a want or a need, and want credit for it in the end. (I’ve talked about selfless and other-centered in the past, so check it out if your interested on my take.)

When that 15 year old girl announces she’s pregnant, most people see a big pile of stinky doo-doo. The rule is: “Sex outside of wedlock is wrong,” so even being near that would give the illusion that anyone near the girl is also wrong. Therefore, she is ostracized, While not literal, the girl is told to wear Hester Prynne’s Scarlet Letter. 

This is really what gets me about these Evangelical churches.You are all pro-life until you have a girl who just made a poor decision, or was raped, or was lied to…  Let’s be honest, she’s not going to talk about the decisions leading up to the act, and you are not going to ask, because once you discovered she was pregnant, you stopped caring about her story. 
She can’t take back what happened, but how the Church responds to her can change what she is going to do about it. Most of us are so selfish, we can’t live with a little crap to help a girl in need.

I’m going to say this, and I mean it from the depths of my heart. It is the Evangelical Church that causes the most abortions in the United States. 

See, if that girl finds out she is now pregnant, no one would know she got pregnant and had an abortion. Everyone would know if she remained pregnant. I she got the abortion, she would be treated with the same love and respect as before. Very few would love her if she was an unwed, teenage mom. She might even believe she’s making the wrong choice getting an abortion, but when not getting an abortion looks the way it does… I can start to see why she would make that choice. After all, almost all of us are selfish creatures. We created the space where her only realistic action was abortion.

Meanwhile, we praise the boy who chooses to make the hard choices and take care of the girl and baby. What a sacrifice on his part, amirite? The single mother who kept the baby and did it all by herself, doesn’t get the same praise. 

Being a Christ Follower Now vs judging things that cannot change.

We do more to turn "sinners" into cautionary tales, than actually act like Christians towards them. If we don't turn them into living examples, we dissect them until they die from from it. Pick them apart piece by piece. 

It's easier for society that way, while completely destroying the person in question. 

We do more to hide the problem rather than fix it. 

That's why cities put pointy granite under overpasses and build benches with arm rests in the middle- to hide homelessness. 

That's probably why we're uncomfortable seeing someone in a mask. It makes us question the idea of health.

That's why we shun the 15 year old pregnant girl, so she'll go away and we don't have to think about it.

Out of sight; out of mind. Only God's eyes see clearer than ours. We cannot change what has been done, but we can always change what we do about it. When we choose the hide the problem (and let me make this clear, the girl isn't a problem. What she's going to do by herself and how she is going to exist is our problem) we choose to put God's eyes on us. I don't want God looking at me that way. 

God, help me understand love. God, help me act in righteousness and humility. God, help me.