Never Underestimate the Unseen Miracles of Redemption

Sometimes being on the sidewalk urging abortion minded women to choose life seems to bear no fruit. It feels like a lonely, unproductive vigil. People get angry with us, tell us to shut up, ridicule us, tell us it is none of our business if they want their baby dead, or even outright threaten us. But sometimes...something else happens.

Yesterday, a woman was driving down the street and pulled over to talk to our Cities4Life  team. Four years ago, she was driving down that same street on the way to abort her child. As she pulled near, she saw sidewalk counselors on the sidewalk. One held a sign of a baby who was a victim of abortion. It is a baby named Malachi by the pro-life folks that pieced him back together. He was found in an abortion clinic, frozen in a jar with three other aborted babies, all in pieces. A prolife doctor carefully put the little baby together. The tiny aborted baby’s  photograph was taken, and it became one of the most powerful graphic depictions of the horror of abortion.

It is a gruesome sign, and one I cannot bear to look at. I could not look at it four years ago either. I was a brand new counselor back then, just beginning the journey God had clearly set me upon to be a voice for the voiceless and stand for those innocent unborn babies who cannot stand for themselves. Four years ago, I saw a woman driving towards the abortion center and slow down. She glanced at the sign of Malachi. In obvious distress, she covered her face. I watched her, knowing how she felt. 

To my surprise, she drove past the driveway of the abortion center. She did not turn in. She drove down the street and out of sight. I was a brand new counselor, but I wondered if she was a mother who had just decided NOT to abort.

Yesterday, the woman who stopped to talk to us told us that four years ago when she saw the sign of baby Malachi, she decided upon the evidence of the sign alone that she could NOT abort her child. She passed the abortion center driveway and drove on. She told us she was now the happy mother of a daughter she dearly loves. She came back because she wanted to thank us...and she wanted to see Malachi again...the little aborted baby who saved her little girl.

I don’t know if she was the woman I remembered from four years ago. However, I do know that little Malachi has dissuaded other women from aborting their child. I also know that God was reminding us that even when we cannot see the miraculous work He is doing, He is working. We are to keep our eyes on His promises and be obedient to His call. The rest is up to Him.

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baby Malachi

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Malachi 4:5-6 

[5] “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. [6] He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”