Maybe it is having been at Maine’s wonderful “Right to Life” banquet, or maybe it is the way God places things before us, makes us think, touches our heart, and asks us to pass it along. Today, I read a story that bears repeating.
We live in a time when life, which is always precious, is demeaned, diminished, not respected, or protected. This is true in a hundred ways, ignoring the drug overdose crisis, which kills 40 to 70 kids a month in Maine, letting education slip to 50th of 50 in that state, pushing older people from their homes, preventing younger people from affording a home, and…promoting abortion.
These are classic fails, things that should not be but are, due to hardened hearts, a sense that holding power is an end in itself, ideology more important than reason, faith, and compassion.
Yet, when we support those who are alone, when we answer the call to help, when we are the best image of ourselves, listen to our “better angels” as Lincoln and Reagan urged, we grow. We grow by pausing to listen, seeing ourselves in others, undertaking the hard tasks, and not looking away.
As Winston Churchill reminded us, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” More specifically, in a different context, he offered: “All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom, Justice, Honor, Duty, Mercy, Hope.”
This story relates to the last three in his list: duty, mercy, and hope.
The child was given a 10 percent chance of survival when, at 20 weeks, his mother had a major medical problem, the placenta stopped working, a lifeline to the child. She was told, if the child lived at all, he would be misformed and die at birth. They pushed an abortion on her. She resisted.
They said, if she insisted on not having an abortion, they could deliver at 28 weeks, but there was little hope. They pushed again for her to abort. The mother’s name was Loraine, lives in Scotland.
At 28 weeks, he still had a faint heartbeat. She delivered. He was one pound, 8 ounces. They put him on a ventilator, kept him alive for 12 hours until his mother could see him. He lived.
Now comes the crazy part. Today, at age four, he is a math genius. He learned to count to 100 at age two, began memorizing how to do the same in multiple languages. He is the happiest, most gifted little human being you could meet at age four, and already in school.
Lesson? Life is precious, always – and when we understand that and apply duty, mercy, hope – act on these qualities with faith – big things can happen. The little boy’s name is Jamie. His story is detailed in recent reports. Does it not show you that much is expected of us, not least honoring life?
Miracles happen every day, the burden – which really is not a burden – is to be open to them, see them unfolding around us, or within a courageous mother, and have faith that if we do the right thing, God is always there, watching, lifting, empowering, rewarding, giving and forgiving in the proportion with which we do the same. In a world that encourages hopelessness, hope abounds.
Here, a little boy lives, breathes, and thrives because his mother had the courage to save him. Now he is strong, growing stronger, and will deliver goodness in time to others. Churchill once said, another favorite quote, “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” I would only add…with God’s love.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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