June should be Life Month

For many Christians, June has taken on the undertones of defeat. Pride parades and rainbow flags mock and jeer at the very God who withholds his righteous judgment on the earth. Whether we’re shopping at Target, using Google calendars, or visiting the National Park Service website to plan a vacation, the so-called “Pride Month” is inescapable.

Yet God, in His good providence, has a different purpose for June. Rather than spend the month lamenting and avoiding the perverse displays of LGBTQ activism, Christians have a new reason to celebrate. I suggest that we call it “Life Month” due to the overturning of Roe v Wade. On Friday, God took what was planned for evil and revealed His better plan for good.

This celebration will not be made easy for us by the world. You will not find Life Month inserted into your Google calendar or displayed at your local Target store. It likely will not get the attention of NBC, CBS, or Disney. Rather, our celebrations should be stalwart ones of those who refuse to forget the kindness and mercy of God on us and our nation. Ours must be celebrations like those of old, in Psalm 78, as the psalmist recounts the rescuing mercy of God for a hard-hearted people through signs and wonders in the Exodus. Like him, we must “utter dark sayings from of old, things we have heard and known,” and, like him, “We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD.”

The month of June is an opportunity to tell and retell the meticulous providences of God that we have seen and heard with our own eyes and ears. We must tell how one man, Clarence Thomas, who was subjected in the U.S. Senate to a “high-tech lynching” by then-Sen. Joe Biden, God used as a Supreme Court justice to help strike down the blood-soaked Roe v Wade decision. We must tell them of the bravery of the justices who, even in the face of violent protests, held their ground on the side of the Constitution, willingly making themselves targets to those who love death.

We must tell them of the strange and peculiar providence of a reality TV star becoming president, who God was pleased to use to appoint three justices to the Supreme Court. It was those justices who made the difference in revoking the made-up “right” to abortion. With humble gratitude, we must tell them of all God has done as we recount the decades of prayers, tears, giving, and work done by everyday unsung Christians on behalf of the unborn. We must tell our children and our children’s children all the stories that led to June 24, 2022, and all that is yet to do. These are the ways of our God, and we must have eyes to see them and say them. But even more, we must celebrate them.

Christians know that it’s the joy of the Lord that is our strength. It is in our rejoicing, our feasting, our gladness, our singing, and especially in our praise that God fills us up with His strength. And we need His strength to continue in the fight for life. We don’t celebrate as the world does—with drunkenness or fornication or wicked plotting or violent protests or drag queen debauchery. No, we celebrate as a holy people who worship a holy God. We celebrate with shouts of praise and loud thanksgiving, with prayers and petitions for more mercy and grace. We celebrate together—among His people, not alone in solitude. So, invite people over. Have a giant barbecue. Set off fireworks. Sing Psalms. Let the neighbors hear the happy commotion. Let the children’s mouths be filled with praise, for, “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger” (Psalm 8:2).

As we celebrate, we bring ourselves as the sacrifice to God—a living sacrifice—offered to Him as our spiritual worship. May He find us pleasing and acceptable and full of joyful praise when we think of June—Life Month.