Weeds

While I was out of town in a hotel, I saw this television show called "Weeds."  The name obviously refers to some illicit activity carried on by the main characters of the show but that's not my point.  One of the main characters is the mother of a teenage boy who is sincere but sometimes mistake-prone.  Well, the boy and his girlfriend found out that they were going to have a child and they had every intent to keep the baby.

The boy's mother obviously did not condone the behavior that led to this pregnancy but, realizing that she could not change the past, supported the teenagers' decision to keep the baby.  The girl's parents felt that they were too "good" (wealthy, priveleged, and conformist) of a family for this sort of thing to take place so they did not let the girl leave the house for several days.  This was more than enough time for them to speak to their daughter in a way that would introduce all kinds of doubt into her mind.  In the meantime, the only access the boyfriend had to her was a series of unanswered e-mails he sent, each one with an idea for a name for the baby.

Unfortunately, the baby was not meant to be.  Eventually it became clear that the baby was aborted.  What the kids did initially was wrong.  But given that what was done was already done, they tried to do the right thing from that point forward and the boy's mother supported that.  But the girl's parents tried to erase the past by erasing evidence of the past.  Sorry grandma and grandpa, but erasing evidence does not erase the past!  It only makes the situation worse!  Not only were the 2 teenagers likely to be scarred from the abortion, but the girl would also have a hard time recovering her self-confidence and her ability to trust her intuition after her parents so brutally put so much self-doubt in her mind.

Living your life so as to be pleasing to God may be the right way but it is often not the easy way.  Elizabeth intended to name her child "John" instead of "Zechariah" even though the father's name was Zechariah while nobody in the entire family tree was named John.  Elizabeth was just trying to do God's will.

Predictably she had no support for her position. In fact, the relatives and neighbors were putting pressure on her to change her mind. She was grossly outnumbered, some of the others were very knowledgeable, and her husband was unable to speak and therefore unable to come to her defence.  Furthermore, choosing a completely new name while refusing to use the father's name may have been considered a slight against his family - and Elizabeth was getting no feedback on the contrary from Zechariah.  Nevertheless, Elizabeth held firm and eventually the others turned to Zechariah for an answer - and the child's name was John.  It would have been a lot easier for Elizabeth to just give in to the pressure from the others but it was right for her to hold firm and do what was pleasing to God - listening to His will.

Luke 1: 57-66