Recently on a cold, soggy Sunday, my son and I stood in the rain on the sidewalks of Elm Road. We were there with hundreds of others for the annual Lifechain event standing up for the unborn. We stood there quietly, holding our signs and praying.
Some would look at this event and say it's just a political stance, but really it's more than that.
My pro-life views go beyond a political stance. For me and for my little family, they are very real and very personal. To understand, you need to know our story.
Our story began about 14 years ago with a young woman. This young woman was 29 years old and pregnant. She was also a recovering heroin addict, separated from her husband (also an addict), with a 7-year-old son. She was making minimum wage and barely getting by. Her family and some of her friends encouraged her to get an abortion. She decided that she had no other choice and was going to abort the baby.
Before she could do that, her body tried to reject the baby. She had begun using drugs at 14. She also smoked and had COPD. She was in bad health, and her body couldn't handle a pregnancy. She began to have a miscarriage. Somehow, the baby survived.
Her friend John took her home from the hospital and told her this: ''In the old West, if you tried to hang a man, and he didn't die, you couldn't hang him twice.'' She thought about this and about how her baby had fought to live and realized she couldn't have an abortion.
There was still the problem of how she was going to take care of this baby. Her friend John had a sister and brother-in-law who couldn't have children. She had met them and even stayed in their home. She asked John to ask them to adopt her baby. So John asked them, and they joyfully agreed.
So at 8 a.m. on July 8, 1999, an 8-pound, 8-ounce boy was born. Twelve hours later, the young woman handed him to his adoptive mom - me. We named him John David Milo Yoder, but most people know him as our son Jack.
Today, Jack is a wonderful, funny, sarcastic, compassionate, goofy 13-year-old. He is wise beyond his years. He always seems to find the person in the group who seems to be the most unlovable, and become his friend. He has a faith that often puts my own to shame. He's not perfect - did I mention he's 13? - but he is special to us and to others. We know his life is precious even though its beginning was less than ideal.
Because we know that his life is precious, we know that every life is precious. Because we know that every life is precious, we know that we must be a voice for those who can't speak. Part of that for us is, of course, voting pro-life.
Sometimes, though, it is standing quietly in the rain on the sidewalks of Elm Road and praying.
Yoder is a Farmington resident. Email her at editorial@tribtoday.com.