Well, there will be nothing humorous in this post, I'll tell you that now. Serious subject, sad day.
Christa and I, along with two friends from my church, went to an abortion clinic this morning to try to do some sidewalk counseling. There is a Christian pregnancy resource center across the street that had done a presentation to our Westbrooke women's group a couple of weeks ago, and she said that their greatest "need" was for people to show up at the abortion clinic. She said that several girls who had had abortions told her that if only someone had been standing between them and the clinic they never would have done it.
Well, I started praying, as did my friends. In my flesh, I did NOT want anything to do with this at all. I am not politically minded, definitely not an activist, hate confrontation, you name it, I don't have any of the qualities I would think necessary for protesting. But God really kept pulling at my heart, and finally, after talking to my friends and Christa, we decided to just go and see what happened. We all agreed that we didn't want to carry signs, we weren't going to yell, or say anything about them being murderers, etc., just be loving. Beyond that we had not a clue what we would say or do.
We arrived at 8:00 this morning - the abortions start at 9:00 but everyone has to be there by then and they just wait their turn. We were armed with a booklet printed by the state of Kansas showing pictures of a baby in-utero every two weeks of its development, and the only advice we had received was to ask them if they got the booklet (by Kansas law they were supposed to) and to ask them if they knew what their baby looked like right now.
There was a bodyguard there to escort the girls into the building - at first he was almost hostile to us, and told the girls to ignore us and not look at us, which is exactly what they did. So we went back to the van, prayed some more, and regrouped. Another car pulled up. Christa jumped out by herself and went to talk to the girl - the bodyguard guy actually backed off and let her talk! This seems like a miracle still - after that point we talked to the girls one on one instead of in a group while the other three stayed in the car and prayed, and the bodyguard truly walked away each time and let us talk to them.
The sad, sad, thing is that every one of them still went in to the clinic. Every one broke our hearts. We talked about how good we have been about "talking" about this issue, but none of us have ever come face to face with it before. We were all physically and spiritually ill when we left, but we are forever bonded together because of the experience. I kept thinking of the passage in 2 Chronicles - "Lord, we don't know what to do, but our eyes are on You." And the Battle is not ours, but the Lord's, and we KNOW it is His battle and the desire of His heart that these babies not die.
So, will I go back? I think so. My heart still hurts pretty bad tonight, I feel unsettled and unhappy, but not discouraged, because this battle IS the Lord's. I really believe (and so do the others) that if we could mobilize a literal army of people to go line the sidewalk between the parking lot and the clinic, not to say a word, not to hold signs, but simply to pray, with one or more "point" people talking to the girls as they come out of their cars like we did today, it would be powerful. They would hear the truth, then have to walk through the "gauntlet" of silence or maybe audible prayer - no hatred, no judgment, just love and conviction.
So that is the cry of my heart tonight ... that God will provide a rotating army of people to go visit that clinic every week. To those of you who knew I was going and prayed, THANK YOU! To Brenda, who watched Christa's kids so she could go - THANK YOU! She was awesome, and for sure she was God's instrument there today.
And this is the view out my front door (think those trash men are still coming today? Me neither.)
This was the same tree yesterday, covered in ice!
