Beneath The Surface

Yesterday was my volunteer day on the sidewalks of the busiest abortion mill in Charlotte. It was very busy. Fortunately, three women in a row went on our pro-life mobile ultrasound unit to weigh their decision for life or death for their babies. I had the privilege to counsel two of them. The first one was very much abortion-minded, and it was quite a chore to convince her to first see her baby on the ultrasound unit. She was in her second trimester. The baby put on an incredible show, waving her little hand, sucking her thumb, kicking, opening and closing her mouth as though speaking. It was one of the clearest ultrasounds I have seen. In one picture, the baby raised her hand, fingers outstretched. Every little finger could be clearly see.
"She's waving hello!" I said.

I felt confident the mama would choose not to abort.  She believes in God, knows abortion is an affront to Him, knows it is the wrong choice, and even cried when viewing the baby. We showed her all the resources we have to offer to help her walk this journey. We spent two hours with her, sharing the Gospel, hearing her concerns, outlining how we could help, and then viewing her beautiful little baby who was active in pleading for her life. Still, she remained conflicted.

When the mama got off the ultrasound RV, she assured us she was going to get her money back from the abortion clinic, and would be right back out. She went in, but she didn't come out. I was on the RV unit with another woman (who chose life!) but my fellow volunteers told me the conflicted mama had not come out two hours later. It appears she aborted anyway.

I was crushed. I knew the conflict raged in her, but nonetheless, I thought she would choose to let her baby live. I had done and said all I knew to do and say...and so had the baby. The RV nurse was as wonderful as she always is. The mama seemed to love God and wanted to do His will, and claimed she understood His will. In fact, she pointed out how He had stopped her from aborting by placing obstacles three times that very week! Yet, under the surface, a battle raged, and in the end, destruction reigned.

Fresh off of my vacation to Florida, I thought about the manatee I'd seen while kayaking. The water where they congregate is often still and calm. These gentle giants feed on the vegetation that grows in the waterway's depths. Signs are posted everywhere, reminding boaters this is manatee country, and they must drive slowly and carefully. Yet nearly every boat passed those signs at top speed, spewing a huge wake, and racing with abandon across the water where unsuspecting manatee surfaced every few minutes to breathe.

One fisherman told me that he sees the manatee all the time, "But I almost never see one that isn't scarred and cut up by the boats." The manatee have no natural enemies, and threaten no other creatures. Yet they are vanishing, being killed of by boaters driving over them, or by the nets, hooks and garbage tossed in their waters that entangle them.

Beneathe the surface is life -- gentle, innocent, vulnerable life. All the signs warn us of how our wanton, reckless, unthinking behavior can harm that life, yet we ignore them as though that life matters not at all.

The manatee are endangered. The placid waters cover their slowly dying remains. I thought of them as I pictured the mama holding the ultrasound picture of her perfectly-formed baby holding up a little hand, so clear you could count all the fingers, so unsuspecting that she was waving goodbye.
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Matthew 18:10 

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.