However, until recently, I have only been involved in pro-life issues by financially donating to the local pregnancy crisis center. A "timely" incident that I will expand on in a later post led me to have a deeper concern and compassion for women that have been lied to and are being led to feel that their only option for their unplanned pregnancy is abortion.
Allie did a fantastic report on this subject during the spring and as part of her research, read the book UnPlanned by Abby Johnson. Read it. It's amazing.
My heart was moved and my spirit was ignited to get involved at a deeper level. I was realizing that while the desire to save babies from death was a great goal, an even more important burden was to pray for the souls of these women, which would lead them to Christ.
Providentially while Allie and I were reading this book and she was doing her research paper, the National 40 Days for Life was underway. We started getting the daily emails with the praise reports of babies being saved from death as Christians prayed outside of abortion clinics such as Planned Parenthood. We decided that we wanted to participate in one of these vigils.
On Friday, April 1, three families from Casper traveled to Fort Collins, CO to intercede for babies scheduled to die in the womb on "abortion day". Thankfully there are no abortion performing facitlities in Casper but apparently a bus comes from Fort Collins to Laramie, WY periodically to pick up mostly college girls, take them back to Colorado to have an abortion performed and then transported back. This is a lucrative business; don't be fooled.
Sarah and Aly look up Bible verses and prayers for the mothers, fathers, babies and clinic workers.
We visited with the local organizer of 40 Days for Life. She had some amazing and also heart-breaking stories to tell us.
This was a peaceful, prayerful vigil but the director of the clinic was clearly bothered by the children praying and standing in front of the clinic. She came out twice with angry threats in her words and a look of hatred in her eyes that pierced to the core. Yet, we felt compassion for her. And more than compassion, we told her we would pray for her. As she walked away, I pleaded for God to break through her tough exterior and lead her to repentance just as he had previously done for many abortion clinic workers like Abby Johnson.
This was a special time for Kris, Brenda and me to experience.
In spite of the new vocabulary screamed from hateful mouths that our children heard on this day; in spite of the opposition from the church located to the rear of the clinic; in spite of the babies that died on this day....there was an incredible sense of God's presence as we stood in an invisible war and prayed the powerful, living, WORD OF GOD.
It may not have changed anything that we saw with our visible eyes, but it might have. One thing it did change was those of us who prayed and stood on behalf of lives that could not.
Our prayer for next time...more prayer warriors.
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