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I have a dilemma! I am creating a altered art collage about abortion?

and I don't want it to be judgemental. However, I am using a medium sized wooden church and I have tiny plastic babies. I plan on putting cut up plastic baby parts in a pool of blood (paint) inside the church. I will also have empty tiny baby bottles, tiny rocking horses empty, and a stork holding a bloody baby. My theme is that I am blessed that I never had to make that most difficult decision. My dilemma is that I have a family member who loves my work but she had an abortion...I don't want to offend her but this is a project that just won't leave me alone...I tried to make it less morbid but then I am not staying true to myself. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Hi, I have an idea, perhaps strange and equally disturbing as your original idea. Let me explain where I am coming from first, though, and then perhaps when you address the issue of your project with your family member, you can let her know where *I* was coming from.

Personally, I never had an abortion, but there was a several-year span of my life where I stated on more than one occasion that I would if necessary have one. So I know what it feels like to seriously consider abortion as a form of "birth control."

However, miscarriage is something I have been up close and personal with. My idea is stemming from the way *I* felt after having had a miscarriage. But before I give you the idea, let me give you an issue of how childless people are sometimes treated by Christians.

(I *am* now a Christian, by the way, and I know now that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to have a relationship with the one true God. I am not dissing Christianity or any other religion, but attempting to explain my idea for your project -- keep this in mind please and continue to read.)

In the body of Christ, many people see children as a blessing from God, and as an extension of one of God's directives to the early humans in the Bible: "be fruitful and multiply." How did God say that he would bless Abraham and Isaac? I think it was... with many descendants. So it's no wonder that a lot of folks in the church think of babies as a blessing.

Having had a miscarriage, I have at times felt as if many people around me were thinking, "if she were a better person, she would have been blessed with a living child, not a dead one." Now, mind you, this is not always what people WERE thinking... but it was my own perception of what people were probably thinking.

With women in the church who have chosen abortion (or had it chosen for them by a "loved one"), there is this same "unblessed" stigma attached to childlessness. That in itself, even for me as a woman who simply lost a child to miscarriage, is a heavy burden to bear. Thank God, in Jesus, I have found freedom from the burden! The truth is that blessings are not counted by our possessions, our descendants, or anything else of material, physical value here. Real blessings are eternal and begin with a personal relationship with God, followed by a love for all people because God loves them too, just as much as He loves "me."

But many women who went through abortions have not found this freedom yet, and are still under the heavy burden of this childlessness stigma due to their own misconceptions about God's ways of blessing people.

I have known many women who had abortions, many who chose to have the abortion and believed it was the right and proper thing to do, but who later regretted the fact that they were never able to have children after that. They FEEL unblessed, sometimes even as if the previous child's blood is on their hands.

Every idea you mentioned is a good idea, I believe... because the stork did deliver me a bloody baby... and as hard as that is to think about... it is a perfect way of relating my own tragedy to your project.

Have a woman kneeling, with blood flowing out of her lower parts, her head held in her hands...

Have one woman kneeling with her face showing complete distress as she looks up to heaven, with one hand on the empty crib beside her.

Be certain to have a judgmental crowd standing near the altar and pulpit... back far from the bloody woman and the distressed woman with the crib who are near the back of the church... the crowd with faces aghast, jaws dropped open, judgmental looks in their eyes, and some with complete disgust, perhaps, pointing especially at the bloody woman.

Perhaps have one single Christian standing near each of the two women, but standing at a distance, with one hand outstretched toward the woman, but with the woman seeming oblivious to their presence.

If there was a way to have one person standing near the crowd, sort of between the crowd and the two women on the floor with their two lone samaritans standing beside them. This particular person should be holding up a cross and pointing to it... and appearing angry with the crowd.

What I am suggesting, is that everyone appear somewhat guilty in your collage. Not just the women who had abortions, but the churchy types as well. Because God said there is "none righteous, no not one." And it is ONLY by simple faith in Jesus Christ that any person can be saved. Jesus Himself, as perfect as He was/is... said to people, "There is none good but the Father (God)." And I believe this firmly. I am not a good person in and of myself... but Jesus washes me white as snow. And what those judgmental churchy types need to understand, is that Jesus is the only thing that washes THEM white as snow too.

The humanity of every single person in your collage, should, according to Jesus, bind them together, TOGETHER... as lost souls who are so happy to have found a savior (Jesus) that they want to extend that love out to ALL people. But still, too often, people end up on opposite sides, attempting to be "better than" someone else so they can look better themselves.

This, my friend, is your key to not offending. Because the love of Jesus is not offensive. Sometimes people do take offense to it... but it is not at all offensive. It is the only thing with the power to save and heal for all eternity. Focus on the ugliness of what happens, yes, because you believe it is the wrong thing to do, and for me it also is the wrong thing to do.

But focus more on the redemptive power of God in Christ Jesus. He is alive today, He heals, He speaks, He works miracles, He sends each of us personal signs. If we only open our eyes and ears, He will speak truth to us individually. Continue to seek His guidance as you work, and let your collage speak His truth, because His truth is free from judgment of the downtrodden. And women who find themselves heartbroken after abortions are definitely among the downtrodden.

Aborted babies or fetuses are definitely among the downtrodden as well. But I speak this concerning the children only in support of the collage you are trying to make... because it would help for young people to think about these issues hard before they consider them. Your work on this collage may help some of them to think harder about the choices that will be set before them in life.

And I do not speak this in judgment against any woman who had an abortion, but simply concerning the children. The only thing I extend to the women is the love of Christ which is what He wants THEM to know. His love, His healing, His forgiveness if forgiveness is ever needed. Be healed, women! I am the last person who would stand as an accuser of you.

The more I think about this, I may not be giving you "collage" ideas because I'm not even sure what a collage is anymore... however, I hope the thought train I am on will be of use to you.

The main thing I was thinking, is that outside the church should be a cemetery... that is where the plastic baby parts should be in their pool of blood... the rocking horses and baby bottles as well could be out there, and the stork with the bloody baby. If you can find a tiny casket. If you can find a dead woman with a smoking gun in her hand and lay her out there in the graveyard too. Because I know many women have chosen to take their own life later after not being able to come to grips with the choices they made earlier in life. Show their side too, if you can?

I don't think the cut up baby parts are too harsh. I have seen photographs of what abortions end up looking like... they are bloody, harsh, and oftentimes result in being able to see the parts of the fetus which so resemble tiny baby parts. And if, like some women say (and like I said at one point in my life)... if the abortion is just a simple surgical procedure... well, there are pictures put out there of every other surgical procedure known to man, and there is no reason your cut up baby parts should disturb someone who is solid in their stance about abortion. They most they should be able to say is "Ew, Gross!" like folks say about every other bloody thing.

There is no reason your feelings about abortion should disturb them either. If what they say is true, and abortion is simply a surgical procedure, then they will simply write off your opinion as being half-mad. Let them. Some day, they may understand what you were trying to say to people, like I do now but did not before when I was younger. Perhaps they never will understand. That's their decision. Just like it is your decision whether to raise this issue in your art. You have decided; now follow through with it.

But be certain that the love of Jesus Christ flows all through and around your collage, because if you leave out His redemptive power, His forgiveness, then your art is sorely lacking in what it has set out to do.

Since we don't really have good, accurate pictures of what Jesus looked like when He was on the earth... and since, according to my deep faith, we could mislead people by "drawing" Him and causing people to look for a physical Jesus... I would urge you to find some other way to portray His great love for both the women in your collage, and the babies.

Perhaps the one thing you could do, is to write a couple of sayings underneath all this portrayal of cold reality you are bringing into existence here...

"Father forgive them... they don't even understand what they are doing." ~Jesus

And...

"I don't condemn you either. Go and sin no more." ~Jesus

And one commentary about the death of babies in general...

"Allow the little children to come to me." ~Jesus

This is not a judgmental verse in and of itself, though if a person has the least bit of guilty conscience from God, the verse will probably cause their guilt to surface... do not judge your relative if after she sees this verse, she becomes angry with you... but simply ask her gently why the verse made her feel condemned, if it did. Ask her, if she has a completely clear conscience about what she has done, why did she become so defensive about this verse?

In that verse, you are simply stating a message of hope regarding the "unborn." If her conscience is not clear regarding her own decision, then she needs to pray hard about it, and let the Lord bring her the forgiveness she needs. Help her here, it could be that she has carried around guilt for years, and you are who the Lord is sending to help her find freedom from it in Christ.

Find a way to present the plan of salvation alongside your art. There is a booklet which you can order free called "Freedom Through Forgiveness" by Charles Stanley. Order copies from Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995, USA.

All my best with your project. I hope this was of some help. And I dearly hope that my comments here did not say the wrong things. I want only two things, which underlie my statements here: (1) for you to get the message out that abortion is not simply something that most women "do and then forget about"... it isn't, and even without self-righteous Christians standing around them, they many times feel self-condemned; and, (2) for you to get the message out that Jesus'es blood covers all sin, for those who trust Him as the only begotten Son of God, who God raised from the dead... that once a person has trusted Jesus in this way... none of their wrongs will ever be held against them again.

(I think the Bible says we only have to "confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus" and "believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead"... doing those two things brings us to a state of "righteousness" and "salvation" by our simple faith and trust in Jesus.)

I continue to speak here about "wrongs" and "forgiveness" only because you said you needed a way to keep your relative from feeling condemned by you or offended. I am trying to give you some good stuff to allow her to read, from a Christian who is speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit here, and who is not related to her, and who has no reason to want to condemn or offend her... I am only attempting to speak truth that will be helpful to you in your efforts, and helpful to her in a way of healing. (Sorry to make this such a long post.)

The fact is, lying or cheating or stealing a quarter from your mom's pocketbook when you were a kid, are all just as wrong as any abortion could be, according to the Bible, if I read it correctly. The man who murdered my Dad is no more guilty than I am for gossiping about a neighbor who was giving me trouble last year. (The murder of my Dad was extremely difficult for me to forgive, by the way, but as God forgave me, so I want to extend that forgiveness to my Dad's murderer, because of Jesus.) Sin is sin, according to the Bible, and a price must be paid for it. Jesus paid that price, and He was the only one qualified to do so for all mankind, according to my heart's faith. He did it, praise His name.

I charge you to look beyond the blood and guts, and see the horrible loneliness and self-condemnation in these women. God wants these women to know how greatly He loves them, in spite of any right or wrong decisions they have made, He only wants them to talk to Him and build a relationship with Him in Christ. Comfort them with the words of Jesus in your collage. God bless you in the work you are doing -- it took guts to even begin thinking about such a work.

"There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to the Holy Spirit, and not according to the flesh." <--- If Jesus didn't condemn them, then you and I won't condemn them either.