An ancient ripple courses through millennia and becomes a tsunami. That ripple started long ago in an ideal place. An event occurred there that was nothing short of a cataclysmic revolt in which man preposterously declared that he is fully capable of determining what is truth and on his own terms. Human pride dared to try in vain to usurp all authority and crown itself king . . . self made kings are always delusional self made idiots. That was true then and it’s still true today.

That long ago folly has rippled through time, repeating itself in countless and varied ways. Its effect is always the same. It is a hardener of human hearts, transforming flesh and soul from Agape to cold stone. From time to time, the original ripple gains steam and becomes a tidal wave phenomena, sweeping up millions in its path. In hindsight, it’s often pretty easy to spot the particularly big and dangerous waves in history . . . oh for instance, there was that time when human beings born with greater pigmentation were declared as somehow less human; talk about vainly lording over truth and reality! What sufferings resulted from that arrogant folly!

Today is really not that much different. The ripple is still there. Human beings still insist on sitting in the big chair and declaring what is and is not truth. Hearts still petrify as a result. A thousand ways to experience sorrow is still the natural consequence, touching the lives of both the innocent and the guilty.

But, sorrow is a forge capable of melting even the hardest, stoniest, most petrified of human hearts. This is a truth that’s often completely missed. Here, I’ll give you an example of human pride, a tsunami, sorrow, and redemption:

There is a mother of 4 children, pregnant with another child. She is in the 12th week of gestation. The mother is told by a midwife that heart sounds do not appear to be present in the womb. That finding is later confirmed by ultrasound. The mother has miscarried and the 12 week old infant, her child, lies dead in her womb.

The parents know the deceased baby is a boy and have already named him Philip. They have to make one last medical and moral decision regarding Philip, who they affectionately refer to as Pippo. The boy, Pippo, must be removed from the womb. There are two ways to go about it. One would be much easier on the mother, but would destroy Pippo’s body. The other would be more painful, both physically and emotionally, but would grant Pippo’s parents a great and powerful grace . . . the ability to love in the face of sorrow and the ability to respectfully say goodbye to a beloved. The parents choose the more difficult and less traveled road. The deceased Pippo is born whole.

Pippo’s perfect beauty is appreciated. He is wrapped in swaddling cloth. He is placed in a basket beside a cross and he his eventually buried. Sorrow and mourning are in plentiful supply.

Just down the hall, at the same hospital, is another mother who has also miscarried. She is a much younger mother and her baby is much farther along. Unbearable grief, mountainous in its gravity, descends upon this other mother.  Some of the staff of the hospital, seeing the healing effect of Pippo’s mother’s decision, suggest the same for the young mother, who readily agrees.

This young mother’s physician is a 40-ish woman who is vehemently pro-abortion. She consents to perform the procedure in an effort to help alleviate the young mother’s sorrow. After all, if it brought some comfort to the mother of Pippo, as the nursing staff maintain, then it may just do the same for her grieving patient.

The pro-abortion physician made a strictly clinical choice. The humanity of the miscarried child was not a factor. The physician, after all, was contentedly surfing through life on the tsunami of the pro-abortion mentality, which is, of course, just another expression of that ancient ripple where man insists on being the sole judge of truth. In this case, the self-made kings have declared that the preborn are not human beings, but only mere products of conception.

The 40-ish, pro-abortion physician’s heart suffers from the natural consequences of the ancient ripple. It is stony and cold, but sorrow is, as already mentioned, a little recognized forge. In the sorrow of Pippo’s death and in the sorrow of her patient’s miscarriage, the pro-abortion physician’s hardened heart is softened. The physician, cataracted all these years by the ancient ripple, finally sees real truth . . . a truth that exists even outside of her own, individual humanity.

After the procedure, as the pro-abortion physician looked upon her patient’s deceased child and upon the grieving love of that child’s mother, the pro-abortion physician cried, shuddered, ran to her office, locked the door, and sobbed; all of this evidence that a heart of stone has been miraculously transformed into a heart of flesh. The pro-abortion physician is now a pro-life physician.

Sorrow and grief . . . as horribly painful as they truly are . . . are a consequence of that ancient ripple. These awful consequences remind us of the folly of human pride, but they also can be transformative, as was the case with the formerly pro-abortion physician. Was all this a stupid accident? Or, were the life, death, and the mourning of Pippo an example of mercy and the divine toppling of evil, taking even its consequences and making it into an opportunity for grace, forgiveness, and redemption?

News Source for This Story: Lifesitenews