The Romans, as you may have heard, did not love children. Not only did they often abort them; they also “exposed” them, meaning that during the first days after birth, people took their little ones and left them outside to die. If the children were sick or disabled or the “wrong” gender (women were tragically undervalued), their parents frequently exposed them to the elements and to the animals, a historical fact that is grim to envision for even a second. 

But guess who showed up to change that tragedy? Christians. Christians picked up the babies, adopted them, and raised them as their own. In fact, this was so common that churches quickly became the places where the pagans abandoned their infants. “Leave those little lives with the church,” the pagan people started to say. “The Christians will love them. The Christians will care for them.”

Today, we can do the same. While much has changed in the past two millennia, the opportunity to impress our world by our sacrificial love has stayed the same. Consider the needs around you, especially the needs surrounding unplanned pregnancies, as you ponder Paul’s epic words: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14,15).