The Writing on the Wall: Against the Wind

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Against the Wind

I jogged alongside a car, chatting with the driver who had just dropped his girlfriend off to get an abortion. I knew they were conflicted. They had already left once, and the other sidewalk counselors and I had all spent time calling to them and offering support, resources, reasons to choose life. When they drove away, we cheered. A saved baby! But then they returned.

After dropping the girl, the man slowed his car as I asked if I could talk with him. He rolled down his window.
"I tried," he told me, "That's why we left the first time. But she won't listen to me. There is nothing else I can do." He drove slowly as I walked beside the car.
"Pull over," I urged, "I can give you our literature and suggest some other things you can try."
He began to accelerate. I broke into a jog.
"Please," I said, trying to hand him our pamphlet, "Give her this. It might make a difference."
"I tried," he said again, and sped away, leaving me...and his baby... in the dust.

Three times yesterday that happened -- cars left, we thought they'd chosen life, and then they returned! However, two left and didn't return. The abortionist had not arrived so we knew they had not aborted their baby. One didn't speak with us, but the other told us softly, "I didn't do it," as she slipped into her car and drove away.

After the draining morning, I went straight to the Catawba River to kayak. I knew the rest of my week was busy, and the weather was glorious. Also, I needed the time to process all the sadness. I pulled into the parking lot of the launch site. A man was sitting in his car, window down, eating lunch. He waved and then asked me about my shirt. I had my Cities4Life shirt on, with the logo of a baby's face and the word Protect. Cities4Life is the ministry I volunteer with that helps women choose not to abort and then helps them find resources after that decision.

"I'm a sidewalk counselor at an abortion mill," I told the man, "In fact, I just came from there."
He gazed at me, "You are in the front-lines."
"Yes. The gates of hell."
"So you came here to decompress."
"Yes."
It turns out he was an ordained minister who used to work with incarcerated youth. In the end, he had to leave the ministry. The stress had caused difficulties that had disabled him emotionally.

I hurried with my kayak to the river. Since there was no one else around, I figured it was a good idea to thank him for his service to God, and then skedaddle. The wind was very strong. There were whitecaps on the river, which is very rare. I headed upstream, into the wind. It was not too difficult. I have been kayaking for months now this season, and my arms have grown strong. However, if I stopped paddling for a second, I was blown back down stream.

Keep paddling. Never let up, or you will get nowhere.

That is exactly how I feel at the abortion mill. We assume that everyone there is conflicted, everyone there could potentially change their minds about aborting, and we should not let up for a moment. Every second they can hear our voice, we should proclaim truth and give them the hope of God. Sometimes the ones that laugh at us and call us names are the ones that leave in the end, telling us they couldn't do it. We may feel like we are paddling against the wind in many things God asks us to do, but if we keep paddling, we eventually get closer to where we are supposed to be. There will come a day of rest, but until that day -- Never let up, or you will get nowhere.

After 45 hard minutes of battling against the wind, I turned my kayak around. It was almost like a whitewater run over rapids as the wind whooshed me over the water back to the dock in no time. Exhilarating. Effortless. A reward for the struggle that I had endured against the wind.
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