When a woman discovers she is pregnant — unexpectedly — her world turns upside down. It’s like she’s surrounded by darkness with no help in sight. Fear rises up and security slips away. She cries out for help … to someone … anyone. Silence is what she hears. Her spirit is crushed, she feels lost and hopeless … brokenhearted.
We’ve all felt this way at one time or another, but few have been thrown into the depths of an unplanned pregnancy without any support. The emptiness is overwhelming. But Psalm 34:17–18 reminds us that there is comfort and hope that can be grasped:
“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
These are verses of Scripture that Human Coalition firmly stands on and freely lives out every day. This is the hope we share with moms who feel backed into a corner with seemingly nowhere to go. Let’s take a deeper look at why we believe in the power of God’s promises in Psalm 34.
We can visualize the promise that God is near even in the darkest, most awful hours of a mom’s life. He’s right there with her, beside her all the way. Through a woman’s sleepless nights and tearful days, God is with her. Through every moment of pain, every mistake, and every disappointment, God is close to her.
We truly believe God’s promise that He is near to the brokenhearted. He rescues those whose spirit is shattered. He lifts them into His light and out of their darkness. In a mother’s bleakest moments, He hears her because He can penetrate any darkness: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1John 1:5, NIV).
No religion other than Christianity offers the promise that God Himself enters into our suffering and pain and bears it with us.
A woman experiences deliverance when God provides her with the strength to endure and not be defeated by her troubles. He doesn’t rescue her necessarily by changing her condition or taking her out of it. He saves her from the threat that those problems would crush her faith. God won’t let her be defeated when she cries out to Him for help.
God’s perspective is often different from that of a mom who is struggling with an unexpected pregnancy. And there are times when He allows her to experience things that are intensely difficult. She may not always know why this happens, but there are good reasons.
Sometimes God does take away the suffering, but when He doesn’t, she can trust that He has a better way. God’s deliverance may not always come the way she expects, but it will always be for her good (Rom. 8:28). This urges her to rest in His wisdom even when she doesn’t understand. Paul reminds us in Romans 8:26: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
Even when she is too broken or weak to express her feelings, God knows the desires of the mom who unexpectedly discovers she is pregnant. Even when the pain is too deep for words, God hears her heart.
And a majority of women who find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy actually want to have their baby rather than get an abortion — IF their circumstances were different.
She can be comforted that when her emotions are falsely telling her that God has given up on her, the very opposite is true — He is near. The difficulty is still there, but it no longer threatens to defeat her. Suffering motivates her to seek the Lord and His deliverance.
But these are more than mere words that are shared with a new mom. We back it up with lifesaving care and support — medical services and counseling, Christlike compassion, and the physical resources that were the challenges that drove her to seek an abortion in the first place.
Through our Continuum of Care program, she’ll be paired with a social worker and a nurse who will walk with her throughout her pregnancy and far beyond the birth of her baby. They’ll help her with finding a job (or a better one), housing, education, transportation, and a connection with a local church so she can feel secure in her decision to give birth and care for her baby.
At no cost to the mom, these resources are provided to empower her to choose life so that she can thrive and her baby can be rescued from abortion. All of this is in order to make abortion unthinkable and unnecessary.
Psalm 34:17–18 urges a broken mom (and us) that in times of trouble, cry out to God. He is near, He hears, and He delivers.
Dear Father, we bow before you, brokenhearted and crushed in spirit. We confess our sins to You. We seek You with all our hearts, trusting that You hear us even when we can’t express our prayers in words. We ask that You comfort and deliver us according to Your will. Give us the strength to persevere and realize your goodness and deliverance from our troubles — in Your proper time. Come near to us, for we desperately need You in our time of trouble and always. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
