Sowing Seeds

I read my Facebook updates a couple of days ago from fellow abortion mill pro-life sidewalk counselors with horror: a shooting had occurred right behind the mill. Helicopters were all over the sky within moments, and the counseling team wisely chose to leave while the manhunt continued.

As I was reading an update that the gunman had not been apprehended, and it had apparently been a random shooting, my counselor friend texted me: Going to the abortion mill to join the Wednesday team. Want to join me?"

Sure. Just let me grab my bullet proof vest and face mask. My normal day at the mill is Monday, but it was closed for Memorial Day. Does the irony of that not floor you? The center for killing babies closes to memorialize the memory of soldiers killed defending our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I wonder if the abortionist enjoyed a picnic in memory of the honored dead? What a strange juxtaposition of legally sanctioned murder of babies, and memorializing the dead who freed us from tyranny. Now throw into the symbolic mishmash an indiscriminate gunner on the loose shooting innocent strangers in the vicinity of the abortion mill. No wonder I ventured out with trepidation. I made a special point of kissing my family goodbye and telling them I loved them.

It was a very hot day and the sun beat down mercilessly. However, there were no gunshots this day, though there were a few close calls with cars speeding into the abortion mill. There was only one saved baby that we knew of. While I was there, one of the women I had counseled several weeks ago texted me. She was feeling overwhelmed and lonely. She needed a friend to talk to, but had none. Since she lives an hour away, it is hard to be physically present for her, but I offered to come visit if she would like. She would, so we set up a meeting for today. While texting her, I saw the name of another "save" from some weeks ago.  That woman, "N", had seemed shaky in her choice to let her baby live. I had texted her shortly afterwards to let her know I was praying for her, but she had not responded. Sadly, as the weeks went by and I heard nothing more from her, I feared she had decided to abort after all. But as I considered the other woman who was keeping her baby, but needed a friend, I decided to text "N" again. Post-abortive women need support as well.

"How are you?" I texted, "I have been praying for you. This is Vicky, the pro-life sidewalk counselor from the abortion clinic."
She texted back instantly, "Fine. Everything is going well."
I felt a flutter of hope and took a chance, texting, "How far along are you now?" Would she answer that all was well because she had killed the baby?
"12 weeks," she texted. I wanted to dance for joy. She had kept the baby!
She promised me she would send a picture when the baby was born, and thanked me for my prayers.

I thought of the many women we saw leaving the abortion mill in tears yesterday. Everything would never be "fine" for them again. Visions of gunshots and hot sun notwithstanding, I was grateful I had been at the mill that day and privileged to see one baby saved, but the face seared in my memory was of the very young woman driving out of the abortion mill with tears streaming down her face.

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Ecclesiastes 11:4-6

He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap. As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.

Matthew 25:14-30

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.

Ecclesiastes 11:1-3 

Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, or even to eight, for you know not what disaster may happen on earth. If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves on the earth, and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.