Paisley White and the Invigorating Culture-Shift on Abortion

Get ready for your jaw to drop. This video, on a father’s repentant love for his daughter Paisley, who lives with Down Syndrome, is poleaxing (HT: Eric Metaxas).

I said this a few months back: the babies we don’t want today are the ones we most need. In a fast-moving, high-achieving age, we don’t want to be slowed down today. In a narcissistic, appearance-obsessed period, we don’t want to be associated with those who look different. In a perfection-driven time, we don’t want anything less than designer babies. So it is that we find ourselves in an age killing the fruit of the womb, including–by many accounts–some of the sweetest-natured children out there.

I’m deeply thankful that ESPN ran this story. That in itself is a sign not that the culture is shifting on abortion, but that it has shifted. You may have seen the brand-new polling numbers on this. If you’re finding yourself in a place of deep cultural discouragement right now (which I fully understand), videos like this on a major outlet should encourage you. I don’t see happy days ahead for Western civilization–a big statement, this–but I do know one thing: the Lord has not stopped reigning, and that means that his grace, common and special, continues to rain on this earth.

I, for one, am not ready to don the sackcloth just yet. I don’t mean that I’m unaware of discouraging cultural developments. I do mean that God’s lyrical kindness often surprises us, often breaks the door down in the darkest hour. You can’t read about a figure like Wilberforce, for example, and not come away with this conclusion.

So: let’s keep praying, working, and trusting an awesome God to work awesomely, remembering the sweetness of little Paisley White as we do. Images like the screen-shot I took from the ESPN documentary, after all, are supposed to stir us, move us, and change us. That one left me undone.

I hope it does the same for the culture.