Hands-free Pro-Life

I was coming down with a cold and it was frigid POURING rain Monday. But I had missed last week as a sidewalk counselor at the abortion mill due to my exciting NYC book signing gig. I really didn't want to miss it this week, but truthfully, I felt pretty awful. I warned my team I wouldn't be there. As coffee and breakfast kicked in, my cough subsided and I considered how gleeful Satan would be if I didn't show up. So I decided I would go. I took a cough drop and headed out in the deluge.

I had not yet dared to wear my hands-free umbrella hat at the abortion mill. I thought it might be too whimsical for such a horrific place. However, my wrists were sore from all the driving and raking of last week. Holding an umbrella for 3 hours would not have been easy. Also, I decided it might be a catchy gimmick to get abortion-minded drivers to stop to talk with me before turning into the abortion mill. I put it on.

Two other counselors had forgotten their umbrellas, so I found two for them that I had in my car.(Those were just regular handheld umbrellas.) It was torrential rain. The gutters filled with water. Sadly, the cars streamed in as abundantly as the rain. If it wasn't such a sobering mission we were on, it might have been a lovely scene, all those colorful umbrellas on the sidewalk.

My umbrella hat had just one slight problem. It was gouging holes in my skull. But other than that, it was great. I was able to hold my hand up to stop the cars, while waving the Cities4Life literature in the other hand. Personally, I think it should be part of our official ministry outfit. I just hope I am not bordering on kooky with my umbrella hat, enormous belly pack filled with our pamphlets, and my blue megaphone held around my neck with a dog leash. I like to call my style: nouveau pro-life chic.

Despite the somber and cold waterfall of rain, three women chose life! I was so glad that I had decided to go, and be a witness to such bounty and evidence of God's working in the hearts of those women.  A woman driving another woman rolled down her window and told me she had chosen life for her baby. She looked relieved, as they so often do.
"Would you like handmade baby booties?" I asked
"Yes please!" she cried.
As she chose her pair from my dwindling selection sent to me by my friend Carrie High, I asked how far along she was.
"11 weeks," she said.
She looked a LOT more than 11 weeks pregnant.
"Well congratulations," I told her, placing my umbrella-free hand on her shoulder.
"Oh it's not me that's pregnant. It's my daughter."
I glanced at the smiling young woman beside her.
"Well then why are you choosing the booties?" I asked the driver.
"Cause I like them," she said, "I can't help myself."

I laughed and waved with my umbrella-free hand as they drove away, and thought how very glad I was to have stood for three hours in the pouring rain. And I also considered how grateful I was for my umbrella hat. It made it so much easier to hold the literature, my megaphone, and the baby booties when the time came. I also thought how hands-free ministry is certainly not the same as hands-off ministry. We are clearly to be reaching our hands out to seize every chance God affords us to bring souls to Him. If our hands are clutching other things, like prestige, comfort, money, or selfish desires, they may well not be free for the things God would have us grasp. And if we hold our hands up, and tell God no way are we touching that mission He is prompting us to lay hold of, how many blessings of His victories through us might we miss? How many souls praying for a sign from God to turn away from this terrible decision might be lost?

Right before we left, a couple we had been fervently praying for came out of the mill. They had stopped on the way in, taken our literature, and gone in anyway. As they came out, I stepped up to the car and they rolled down the window. The woman looked very serious.
"Did you decide to save your baby?" I asked.
The woman was silent. The man said, "We got an ultrasound. Now we need to talk. We have not decided yet."
"Do you think abortion is wrong?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "But it's not the right time for a baby now."
"Is it financial issues?"
"No...it's just the baby wasn't planned."
I looked into the eyes of the woman and said gently, "You don't want to hurt your baby, do you?"
She gazed solemnly at me without answering, but her eyes seemed beseeching. (Of course, she could just be wondering where to get a hat just like mine.) Anyway, I think the couple will keep the baby based on what I saw in her eyes. At least for now, the baby is safe. Her hands were folded across her stomach. Protective hands.
How comforting it is to know our job was done, that God had them firmly in His hands. Glory to God that His hands are always free to uphold us.
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1 Peter 5:6 

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

Ezra 8:21-23 

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

Isaiah 49:14-16 

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

Psalm 110:1 

A Psalm of David. The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

Isaiah 41:13-14 

For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.