Tim Tebow, former Heisman Trophy winner and current New York Met’s Minor League player, got engaged to girlfriend Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters, the 2017 Miss Universe winner.  He proposed to her during a recent visit to his family’s farm outside of Jacksonville, Florida.

News reports announcing their engagement reminded me of Tebow’s life story and God’s plan for his life.  Tim Tebow’s family moved to the Philippines in 1985 to take the Gospel to those who have never heard, and to establish churches where there were none.  Just before his mother, Pam, became pregnant, she contracted amoebic dysentery, transmitted through contaminated drinking water, and fell into a coma.

According to a news article about the family, Pam’s treatment required a series of strong medications.  Even though she discontinued the medications when she found out she was pregnant, doctors strongly advised her to have an abortion.  They thought the fetus had been irreversibly damaged as a result of the medications and expected the baby to be stillborn.

They would not consider aborting, instead they continued to pray for a healthy child and trust in God.  In the seventh month of her pregnancy, Pam traveled to the country’s capital, Manila, to receive around-the-clock care.  She gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Three years later, their family moved back to the U.S.  But they continued to return to the Philippines every year as volunteers to work in an orphanage and other ministry outreaches there.

Bob Tebow has said his son is “a miracle baby” and they’ve reminded him of that hundreds of times.  The Tebow’s had no way of knowing God’s plan for their unborn son, but they did realize that every life is precious.

The Bible says that God knows us before we are born (Jeremiah 1:5).  “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed,” Psalm 139:13, 14 & 16).  Life is always the most beautiful choice.

On January 2, 2019, Franklin Graham posted a Facebook message with shocking statistics from a recent news article.  He began by asking, “What was 2018’s leading cause of death? Cancer? Heart disease? Maybe gun violence? No, it was abortion—more than 41 million children were killed worldwide last year in what should have been the safety of their mother’s womb. Abortion was also the leading cause of death here in the U.S., to our shame.”  The data comes from the UN, World Health Organization, and other sources.

The numbers are staggering! Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, in January 1973, legalizing abortion, over 60 million lives have been ended before they took their first breath in our country.  These numbers are based on data from the Guttmacher Institute, Planned Parenthood’s Research Organization.

We will never know the impact their lives would have had on the world around them.  Could one of them have been the scientist with the intellect to find the cure for cancer or AIDS?  A future president?  An astronaut?  Or a Billy Graham?  Every life matters.  Every life is a gift from God.

Jan White is an national award-winning religion columnist. She can be reached at jan@janwhitewriter.com.