EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK: What one little kitten taught me

By William Perkins
Editor

I confess I’m a cat person at heart. Right now we’re living with two formerly feral kittens, Minnie and Maxxie, siblings who showed up in our yard emaciated and weak at the age of about four weeks. We took them in and now they’re both healthy adults. In addition, we’re minding our son’s cat Josie while he’s in law school out of town. We love cats at our house.

I don’t believe I’ve ever been as moved by any video as I was after coming across the short clip at https://vimeo.com/649252620 — but not because of my personal affinity for felines. Rather, it was because of the embedded messages so clearly portrayed about our true nature as a divinely-created race of beings.

In the video, a family discovers a single, orphaned kitten buried in the snow outside their home, on the verge of death from hypothermia. They reflexively rush the kitten inside their home and do their best to save it, gently coaxing it back to life in front of a warm fireplace and even performing CPR on its fragile little chest.

Thanks to the family’s dedication to saving this tiny creature, the kitten slowly begins to show signs of life once again and eventually makes a full recovery. It is now a valued member of the family.

What an awesome, inarguable portrait of the importance of life. Without giving a second thought, the family committed themselves to saving this special little life. That’s who we are, both as human beings with a God-given sense of the sanctity of life and as Americans. We’re not the minority of bloodthirsty barbarians who so viciously fight for the destruction of human life on any whimsical rationale.

The criticality of the hearing before the U.S Supreme Court tomorrow that will decide whether Mississippi can enforce its ban on abortion after 15 weeks of gestation cannot be overstated. After nearly 50 years and 62,000,000 babies slaughtered, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could be the first step in the pathway leading to the legal collapse of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized nationally-available abortion on demand up to the date of birth.

Fact: If Roe is overturned, abortion will not disappear. Each state will decide the issue as provided by Amendment 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which specifically states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In other words, the term, “abortion,” literally does not appear in the Constitution, so regulation (or non-regulation) of the procedure is not delegated to the federal government. It is an issue for the several states to decide, not the Supreme Court which is federal government institution.

Please, please pray earnestly for this national nightmare to be over. Tomorrow could be the start.

As Shawn Parker, executive-treasurer of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, recently said in his Simple Truth column, “Prayer is an active exercise that represents the frontline of spiritual battle.” Make no mistake, we are in a battle – yea, a 2,000 year war – with more than earthly foes (Ephesians 6:12).

Tomorrow as the hearing carries on, remember that one little, precious, throwaway kitten and the lessons about life taught to all of us by that family’s example. Then pray with all your heart and all your soul for the children who are yet to be torn limb from limb before they can draw their first breaths, even as the hearing is underway.

If that reality doesn’t drive you to your knees before Almighty God, what will?

Editor’s Note: Opinions expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board, The Baptist Record, nor the publication’s Advisory Committee. The author may be contacted at wperkins@mbcb.org.