The theme of this moment—this generation—is evident: Make Your Voice Heard.
For higher and worse, people need to be heard. So much so, the noise will be deafening. Everyone is talking, but is anybody listening?! For me, being heard is a really personal thing. I’ve spent my entire life learning how one can use my voice—on television, in boardrooms, on stages, and in ministry. I even have at all times been a truth seeker, and once I find what I feel are deep truths, I’m compelled to share them. To make my voice heard.
If you’re like me, then I’m telling you now: that is our moment—not simply to speak louder, but to talk smarter, bolder, and with holy conviction. Some of chances are you’ll know a bit of of my story. I became the primary African-American woman to host a network late-night talk show on NBC. Not because I fit the mold or got here from power, but because God gave me a voice and told me to make use of it. Be warned: When you employ your voice for truth in today’s world, you will likely be attacked, labeled, and misunderstood. But here’s what I’ve learned: if you stop being afraid to talk, God starts doing miracles through you.
I used to be recently asked to be the Keynote Speaker on the National Right to Life Conference. The invitation surprised me because I even have never been an lively pro-lifer per se. I consider myself pro-life, but I even have also been pro-choice, recognizing that many ladies don’t share my faith or my convictions and experiences when coping with this issue.
I feel in keeping babies, not ending pregnancies. However, I also understand that many ladies don’t know what to do when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. And while this issue of life is now a no brainer for me, there was a time when it wasn’t. So, how can I judge women who aren’t where I’m today regarding their very own journey from pro-abortion to pro-life?
I even have struggled for years with this issue, not because it pertains to a alternative to maintain a baby if you feel you may’t, or shouldn’t, or don’t need to, but because it pertains to the various women and situations on the market who face the alternative each day. I really like my sisters who could also be lost in all types of situations and mindsets different from what I feel in my core to be right. I don’t want to evaluate them or shame them. I need to support them and share the reality with them in a way that involves hearing them out. It’s easy to think the battle is just political—that it’s nearly laws, court cases, and elections. But I need to go deeper—deeper than policy, deeper than divisive soundbites, and deeper even than the abortion debate itself.
Because abortion is just not the foundation. It’s the fruit. And if we don’t confront the foundation—which is all of the lies we’ve believed about sex, identity, freedom, and power—then we’ll keep fighting symptoms as a substitute of healing the sickness. And we are going to keep fighting one another after we must be helping, hearing, and loving one another. That’s why I wrote my book, The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies. Because until we reclaim the sacredness of sex, we are going to never fully reclaim the sacredness of life.
The Culture War Starts with the Body
The reason why I even have such empathy for the lady who makes a robust pro-choice stand is because I understand the depth of the lies culture has sold us to sell one another. We live in a culture that has devalued the human body, especially the feminine body. It tells women their price lies of their desirability. That casual sex is empowerment. That being wanted sexually is similar as being loved. Then, when that very same culture leaves a girl used, alone, and pregnant, it offers her an answer: “Get rid of the issue.” But everyone knows—the kid is just not the issue.
If you’ve ever loved a baby who got here into your loved ones through an unplanned pregnancy, then you definately know—the kid is a blessing. The real problem is that we’ve severed sex from love, commitment, covenant, and God. We’ve stripped it of its sacredness. And when sex becomes casual, life becomes expendable.
If Sex is Casual, Life Is Expendable
Let’s follow the logic.
-When sex is entertainment, abortion becomes contraception.
-When sex is identity, abortion becomes a backup plan.
This is why we must go upstream in our discussion. We can’t fight abortion without talking about why it’s happening. And, we are able to’t fix what we won’t name. And what we don’t need to name – won’t name—especially within the Church—is sin. The sin that results in abortion is the foundation reason for every other sin. The unsacred, disrespectful, messy use of sex. The church is on par with secular culture on this one, folks! We’ve embraced the identical messy, compromised, unsacred abuses of sex and plunged ourselves right into a recent world of sin somewhat than Holiness..
We have an issue with casual sex—sex outside of covenant, sex without regard for God’s design. It exists within the culture and inside the Church, amongst young people, adults, non-believers, and believers, who’ve sacrificed truth for comfort and pleasure. Simply put, sex was created by God for the wedding bed. It’s a present. It’s powerful. And it comes with consequences when misused. The primary, nasty, murderous consequence of using sex casually is abortion. What is the foundation of this crisis?
We must change how we view sex in an effort to change how we see ourselves, love ourselves, and appreciate life when it begins inside us. A change in our understanding of truth will transform our minds and soften our hearts. When hearts are modified, abortion becomes unthinkable. I do know this from experience. My heart modified, and I cried for 2 years once I understood the actual truth of my actions. My entire paradigm shifted toward sex, myself, and life usually. When every individual transforms on this issue, laws follow, in the event that they are even needed in any respect.
Culture Doesn’t Shift by Argument, it Shifts by Witness
Culture on the left on this issue has been used to make abortion look compassionate. To make casual sex look empowering. And, to make traditional values appear to be hate. But they didn’t do it through debate. They did it through a story. Through the media. Through relentless messaging. And we who understand a number of things concerning the alternative for all times must do the identical.
We must reclaim the narrative—not with fear, but with truth. Not with shame, but with love. We must show others the love in our stories. Love teaches our daughters that our bodies aren’t tools—they’re temples, that men were created to guard us, not devour us, and that purity is power. Love shows us the various ways in which boundaries are about freedom. When our lives reflect these truths, we grow to be a threat to each agenda that justifies abortion.
Reclaiming Holiness in a Culture of Lies
The world has skillfully shifted the conversation in order that perversion is seen as identity, abortion is considered healthcare, and death is viewed as freedom. Meanwhile, those that are pro-life have stayed stuck in language that alienates somewhat than unifies.
We don’t lose culture because we’re improper. We lose because we’ve allowed others to define our message. Our message is defined as hateful, judgmental, and anything but Holy. We don’t need to vary our movement—we’re on the side of Truth. We just must re-message our movement. We must speak with clarity, compassion, and conviction in a way that reflects our love.
We must speak to Jesus. Because He’s the just one who offers hope with power and love with healing. He is the instance of Holiness that all of us need, yet until we understand that He is the one hope a girl facing an unwanted pregnancy needs, we are going to proceed to supply what often looks like hate, judgment, and anger to the ladies on the opposite side.
Behind every abortion is a story that began long before the pregnancy. If we wish to stop the ending, we must rewrite the start. The starting starts with growing up understanding the lies culture tosses our way each day. We need to teach ourselves about those lies in an effort to change a generation’s decision-making process.
Teach Yourself First, Then the Next Generation
Before we are able to teach our little children identity, we must teach ourselves identity. We must unlearn the lies that tell us we now have to offer sex to get love, that our voice doesn’t matter, and that truth is judgment. I knew it wasn’t only a book once I wrote The Naked Truth. It’s a mirror. It’s a call to take a look at our story through God’s eyes, to let Him redeem our past and empower our future.
When women walk in reality, children are protected. When women know who they’re, abortion loses its grip. There are women across this country who don’t know who they’re in Christ. It’s time we tell them. It’s time we see them, love them, and invite them back into the sacred.
This War Is Spiritual
This isn’t only a political issue. It’s spiritual warfare. For far too long, Culture has told our young people:
-“Your feelings define you.”
-“Sex is freedom.”
-“Pregnancy is punishment.”
But here’s the reality:
-You aren’t your desires. You are God’s design.
-Freedom isn’t the absence of rules—it’s the presence of purpose.
We don’t win this war by yelling louder. We win by teaching higher. By living holy. By speaking boldly. We have to be the voice that claims:
-“Your body is just not a battlefield. It’s a temple.”
-“You aren’t a mistake. You were made within the image of God.”
-“Sex is holy. And if you treat it as holy, you walk in wholeness.”
Make Your Voice Heard
This is the moment. Not to attend. Not to whisper. Not to bow. Make. Your. Voice. Heard. Speak the reality in your property. In your church. On your campus. In your city. Speak it along with your words—and along with your life. You don’t need a platform. You need obedience. You don’t need a mic. You need boldness. Because someone’s freedom is waiting in your bravery.
We were born for this moment. How do I do know? Because here we’re. We are in a moment in History where it’s essential to reclaim the sacred. To fight for all times. To tell the reality in a culture that has forgotten what truth feels like. You aren’t too broken, you aren’t too late, and you’re exactly who God wants to make use of.
Let us be the generation that makes abortion unthinkable—because we made the sacred visible again. And as my friend Kathie Lee Gifford jogged my memory just before I left to talk on the Conference:
“We need to remember to like. Hate shuts the door to transformation because hate feels like hell, not heaven. And love continues to be God’s strongest strategy. I can’t hate any person I’ve just prayed for, honey. And love cannot live where hate does—ever.”
That’s it. That’s the message. Let’s go live it.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/Omar Lopez
Cynthia Garrett broke barriers when she became the primary African American woman within the U.S. to host a network late-night show, NBC’s Later with Cynthia Garrett. She is currently seen on TBN and Salem Media networks, in addition to on Fox News and other news outlets, addressing cultural issues and today’s news. The Cynthia Garrett Podcasts premiere weekly on all major podcast platforms.
A highly sought-after speaker, creator, TV host, and ordained minister, Garrett is the creator of The Naked Truth: Reclaiming Sexual Freedom in a Culture of Lies (2024), I Choose Victory: Moving from Victim to Victor (2020), and Prodigal Daughter: A Journey Home to Identity (2016). For more information, visit www.cynthiagarrett.org
