As Mother's Day comes to an end, the tides of shame recede for millions of women.

Being a mother (or father) doesn't depend on whether your children are living. And that includes adults behind the nearly 55 million abortions reported in the United States since 1973. The second Sunday of May can be a painful reminder.

Jesus hates abortion. But there's something about him we must understand: he didn't come to this world mainly to stop abortion. He came to die. John Piper explains,

God is not only a God of terrible holiness and wrath; he is also a God rich in mercy. And so he sent his Son into the world, not condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him from God’s own wrath (John 3:17). He came not to be served but to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). To lay down his life for the sheep (John 10:15). To bear our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). To provide us with a righteousness that comes, not from our law-keeping, but through faith (Philippians 3:9). And to reconcile us to God (2 Corinthians 5:18; 1 Peter 3:18).

All the children of wrath may become children of the Father through Jesus Christ. An aging abortionist, a few blocks from our church, after 3,000 abortions, can become a child of God. She could hear Jesus say, on her death bed, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” The same is true for the mother of five aborted children. And for the selfish, responsibility-shirking boyfriend. And for the secretive, shame-fearing, overbearing parent. And for the desperate 14-year-old girl.

Jesus did not mainly come to stop abortions in this world. He came mainly to die for abortion-committing sinners. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).

There is one way to know God as your Father. And it’s the same for the people at Planned Parenthood, and the people at Pro-life Action, and the people at Bethlehem Baptist Church — Come to Jesus.

Excerpted from Abortion and the Narrow Way That Leads to Life (2011).

Your day of shameful pain could become the day of mercy's triumph. Come to Jesus.