Tenderhearted women have cooked their own children. They have eaten them to survive the siege. [Lamentations 4.10]
Perhaps no other passage in the entire Bible describes the appalling nature of abortion better than Lamentations 4.10.
Women are tenderhearted by their God-given nature. This does not mean that a woman cannot suppress that beautiful nature (as many do today), but that that nature is there in every woman as part of her creation.
As all of Jeremiah's writings reveal, idolatry is at the root of suppressing mankind's undivided trust in God alone. Idolatry offers all manner of alternatives to God.
In its ultimate digression, idolatry eventually leads to the unthinkable treatment of children. The Bible consistently speaks of children being offered/burned/sacrificed where idolatry is unchecked. Abortion is not the problem but rather the symptom of the problem of idolatry.
Idolatry is trusting anything other than, or even in addition to, God. At its worst, idolatry terminates innocent human life. As the subject passage above reveals, the digression of Israel into idolatry (not trusting God ALONE) eventually manifested in otherwise tenderhearted women cooking and eating their own children in order to survive.
Abortion is not a mean-hearted act of murder (although it is murder), but rather the desperate attempt of an otherwise tenderhearted woman to survive - but without God. This explains why abortion is so damaging to a woman's life (created by God). Abortion is a man-made solution to a God-less problem. The solution of abortion seems reasonable without God, but it tears at the very soul of the woman who is created by God to be nurturing and tenderhearted.
As stated above, a woman's tenderheartedness can be suppressed. Without God, her instinct to survive selfishly sees her children as expendable. It is no use to appeal to the suppressed tenderheartedness of a woman without tracing that created tenderheartedness to the Creator. Again, abortion is not the problem but rather the symptom of the problem of idolatry - not trusting God the Creator ALONE.
In Genesis 21, a child was conceived as the result of not trusting God ALONE. As the story goes, Hagar, the mother, eventually suppressed her tenderhearted nature leaving her baby under a bush to die. Although she was devastated, she went off to survive without the child. In that wilderness of Beersheba, God came to Hagar:
But God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, “Hagar, what’s wrong? Do not be afraid! God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Go to him and comfort him, for I will make a great nation from his descendants.” [Genesis 21.17-18]
God reassured Hagar to not be afraid. God instructed Hagar to not allow the child to die, but to go to him. When God showed up, circumstances changed!
Then God opened Hagar’s eyes, and she saw a well full of water. She quickly filled her water container and gave the boy a drink. And God was with the boy as he grew up in the wilderness. He became a skillful archer, and he settled in the wilderness of Paran. His mother arranged for him to marry a woman from the land of Egypt. [Genesis 21.19-21]
The solution to abortion is to help mothers to see God. The solution to abortion is to help mothers see that God is not to be feared, but to be trusted. The solution to abortion is to help mothers trust Creator God, and therefore trust the tenderheartedness He created in them, to preserve the life of their child.
Only God can open a mother's eyes - and, when He does, she will see that the solution is not abortion, but the solution is to trust God and raise her child.
Father, of course the world will never see the validity of what is said here. However, help Your people to see it. Help Your people understand that not trusting You (idolatry - with all its symptoms, including killing innocent children) is only remedied by trusting You ALONE. Help us give up our own way, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. So be it.
