Rescuing Those Stumbling to the Slaughter

I went on a walk yesterday after my time out on the sidewalks of the abortion center urging women to choose life. (Two did!) While enjoying the sun, the breeze, and the peaceful quiet street, I heard a voice call out, "No, stay....stay....hey, get back here!!!"

I looked up to see a little dog trotting over to me, hackles raised, lip curled back, emitting low growls. Slowly I pulled my mace out of my belt pack. I always bring mace since I am often out walking or biking or kayaking...and dangerous creatures could be anywhere.

The owner rolled her eyes at me.
"He won't bite," she said. I did not appreciate the condescending tone in her voice. Especially in light of the fact that her dog was now a few feet from me, growling. He was in the typical  ready-to-attack stealth crouch.

"Your dog is growling at me," I said, pointing the mace at him. "If he tries to bite, I will mace him."
"He's growling because you are in a defensive stance," she said.

I blinked at her, biting back my own growls. She had a loose dog, clearly not under voice control, who was now inches from my ankles with raised hackles and growling....and it was MY fault?

Fortunately, she snatched the dog before he pounced. He continued to growl as she petted him. I cannot tell you how badly I wanted to mace HER and tell her she was an idiot like all the idiots with untrained dogs who think they have the right to infringe on my right to walk safely down a public street.

Instead, I told her calmly that I have been bitten by dogs who the owners claim don't bite. Dogs sense when someone is nervous, and it is understandable that someone is nervous when they have been bitten in the past, and a dog approaches them growling.

The owner never apologized, and was clearly angry I had threatened to mace her dog. I thought of a verse I had quoted over the microphone at the abortion center sidewalks earlier in the day: "The heart is deceitful above all else...who can know it?"

We are so deceived in our little bubbles of self commendation and rationalization. NO ONE looking at that growling dog would have believed the dog doesn't bite. The owner didn't want to believe the truth that was smacking her in the face. She had a badly-trained, mean little dog who would gladly have bitten me given another minute of freedom.

That morning, on the abortion center sidewalks, I stopped a car with an abortion-minded woman. I spoke with her for forty minutes. Every question I asked her demonstrated a heart that was terribly deceived. She wore a necklace with a diamond studded cross, and claimed to know God. I asked what she felt God would think of this abortion she planned? She told me he would think it was evil...but she would do it anyway. Since He was a forgiving God, she would abort and then ask His forgiveness. When I asked what made her feel abortion was her only option, she shrugged. She didn't know. I told her I assumed her situation felt dire, or she wouldn't be here. She told me that was not really true. She just didn't want the baby.

She agreed the baby was indeed a baby, a human inside her womb. When I offered a free ultrasound, she said she'd already had one. She had already seen the baby's beating heart.

"I really need to go now to my appointment," she told me.
"You really need to go now to kill your baby?" I asked.
"Well, if you put it that way..."
"How would you put it?" I asked.
"You are making me really uncomfortable."
"Would I be making you uncomfortable if we were discussing you getting a tooth pulled? Or do you think you are uncomfortable because you know what you are doing is wrong?"

Her "friend" who was in the passenger seat continued to urge the woman to just drive on to the abortion center. The woman who was at least conflicted enough to engage with me for forty minutes was not the one with the pedal to the metal urge...it was the "friend."

I felt totally defeated when the woman thanked me for what I was doing there, even admired why we were there, but now she had to go. She drove into the abortion center.

******
As I said goodbye to the woman with the growling dog, I hoped that the next time someone was walking down her road, the little dog would be leashed. Had she learned anything by the encounter with me or was all I had said in vain?
******

Proverbs 24:11-12

¹¹ Rescue those who are being led away to death,
    and save those who stumble toward slaughter.
¹² If you say, “Look here, we didn’t know about this,”
    doesn’t God,^[a] who examines motives,^[b] discern it?
Doesn’t the one who guards your soul
    know about it?
Won’t he repay each person
    according to what he has done?