The Empty Parking Lot at the Place of Death

This is a sight I have not ever seen before from the sidewalks of the busiest abortion center in the Southeast. An empty parking lot at noon. Though Monday is traditionally a very busy day, every patient was gone by noon and all the workers gone by 12:30. Only a handful of patients showed up, with three that left before they could have done any procedure. One told us she chose life, and one who had come in under a blanket waved and smiled at us as she left. While we mourn for every baby whose life is discarded like garbage in that terrible place, ten abortions as opposed to the typical 30-40 on Monday was a blessed relief.

I took several photos of the empty parking lot. That is my dream and my prayer, that each day the parking lot will look like this:

One woman who left and chose life had been back twice with the intent to kill her baby. Each time, she turned away. She is struggling with what she knows in her heart is the right thing to do and the temptation of what seems to be the quickest way out of her difficulties. I begged her to call us. Let us help her. We have so many people and resources willing to stand alongside this woman, but thus far, she has not called. She is making her decision in a vacuum where voices urging death to her child are the loudest. She is closing herself from the very people who could help her follow her instincts to save that baby.

The worst thing we can do is close ourselves off from God when we most need Him. When we are the most downtrodden, the most entrenched and trapped in a sin that has dominion over our lives, we are often least likely to turn to God. When our struggles become so terrible that we are certain there is no way out, how often do we try to solve the issue with our own resources which are impossibly insufficient...and then we rant and rave against God when we fail?

As I was musing about the meaning of the empty parking lot, a news clip came across my Facebook feed. It was the story of a young man who set out to find his birth mother. In the process, he discovered a traumatic story surrounding his adoption. His birth mother had been on the abortion table, seconds from ending the life of her baby when the words of a woman calling to her from the sidewalk came back to her. “Your baby has ten fingers and ten toes.”

Those words reminded the frightened woman that she carried a living human being in her womb. She shouted at the abortionist that she could not do this, and ran from the place. The baby was placed for adoption, and now, nineteen years later, found his birth mother. He wanted to thank her for choosing life...for choosing to let HIM live his life.

He made a documentary of that meeting, a little movie to be released March 8. Click HERE for details.

The empty parking lot. Will it be empty today? How many more babies will die before we recognize every child that was killed by abortion longed for life just as ardently as the young man who barely escaped abortion and now had embarked on an emotional journey to thank the woman who chose to let him live?

There is a place where hope is found, and it was also empty. It was the empty tomb of the risen Christ. All hope was lost. Satan was rejoicing. The disciples were gathered in mourning. Jesus was dead and His tomb was sealed.  BUT THEN,  Mary Magdalene went to the tomb only to find the enormous rock that had sealed it rolled away, and as she wept, Jesus appeared to confirm the impossible. He had risen from the dead. The tomb was empty, but Jesus, our Lord and Savior was alive.

Those were my thoughts as I gazed at the empty parking lot of that place of death. Jesus is alive and ultimately, our hope must rest on Him and Him alone.

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John 20:11-18

11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!”