My 74 year old wife of 53 years was born to an unmarried young woman. With the Supreme Court recently overturning Roe v. Wade, I am sure my self-identified Pro-Life Movement friends and family would say I must be thankful her mother did not have an abortion. True, of course, but to me that seems superficial and fragmentary. Without intending to take any political or ethical position on abortion, I believe my gratitude goes much deeper and suggests a significant alternative to the cacophony of arguments swamping current public discourse that do not seem to me to be convincing anyone to change their opinion or move forward in the challenging new environment that is going to unfold in unpredictable, and likely unwelcome ways, for every one of all persuasions.
Not only am I thankful that my wife was born, I am thankful for her grace-filled Baptist grandparents who welcomed her into the family and into their home, taking on her care and nurture for her first six years. I am thankful that my wife’s grandparents had the courage to brave the wagging tongues of their congregation, family, and community. I am also thankful for her aunts who treated her as a beloved almost sister for their whole lives.
I am thankful for the Salvation Army who received her mother into their home for unwed mothers and saw to her birth with the love of Jesus in this time of crisis and upheaval.
Though my wife never knew her biological father, I am thankful to have learned that he faithfully made child support payments until she was six and adopted by the man who married her mother. The family continued to regard that as a sign of character and responsibility that did help with the costs her grandparents assumed.
I am thankful for the man who married my wife’s mother six years after she was born. I am thankful that he adopted her and became, indeed, her real father. My wife’s parents never had any other children. I am thankful that he accepted me and our children as his very own. I am thankful that we could be there for him for 15 years after her mother died. And I am personally especially thankful to have been his direct caregiver for the last four years of his life after my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and he had two broken hips, a broken neck, and a stroke that moved him into assisted living. I am thankful that he came to trust me with his personal and medical care and his financial management. He was profuse in thanking me, and I believe he knew how thankful I am for him.
I am thankful for the grace-filled Lutheran parents of my wife’s adoptive father who received her as their own granddaughter and that they welcomed me and our children as fully integral to their family. I am exceedingly thankful for the host of practical ways they helped us get our marriage launched and our household established.
As our relationship developed before we were engaged, my wife was concerned that I would not want to continue if I knew the story of her birth. After she told me with some trepidation, I assured her that that changed nothing. She was still the woman I was coming to love. She had nothing to do with her mother’s behavior, and her mother had clearly received great grace from her parents, her family, her husband, her in-laws, and from God through Christ. I am thankful that she could appropriate this assurance and continue our relationship. When we got engaged, she was again anxious about how my parents would respond. We are both thankful for their grace-filled welcome into our family.
I am not going to propose a program for post-Roe US, for either prohibitive or permissive states. Nor am I going to propose corresponding action plans for congregations. I am not even going to issue some sort of impassioned call for transformed social consensus or political agenda. I am simply going to assert however any of that goes, I intend to live and encourage grace and gratitude.
