The SOUND

“Books don't change people; paragraphs do. Sometimes even sentences.” -John Piper

A thousand well-meaning words can’t hold a candle to the power contained in one compelling moment. Done right, it can take your breath away and leave you different.

The pregnancy center is an extraordinary place. While a woman carrying new life should feel joy and expectation, here she often walks in feeling fear so deep that she contemplates the irreversible and tragic decision of abortion.

But an ultrasound. Well, that often changes everything.

If you’ve never heard it, there’s a certain hush that hangs reverently in a darkened ultrasound room. And to the untrained eye, the mess of monochrome shapes and squiggles radiating from the screen appears to be a whole lot of nothing, yet everyone in the room is captivated by the image. As the gentle light from the screen illuminates concerned faces and the hollow sound searches, we all hold our breath. And then finally…

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. The steady beat confirms it.

We just found a treasure.

And for that moment any “talk about rights” and “discussions about choice” are silenced. Because something incredibly more profound is happening here. A tiny voice yet to speak one single word can be heard advocating for her very own life. Her heartbeat is her voice.

The sound of LIFE.

This is the interesting part. Even more than seeing her baby. Even more than watching her jump and wiggle on the screen, there’s just something about THAT sound. And it’s in that moment that the impossible circumstances causing the woman to consider doing the unthinkable fade into the background.

She begins to fall in love with her baby.

Reality hits hard. Because her choice is now a human being. Her human being. For a second she dares to imagine herself a mother. She makes up her mind.

Life and love win.