When God says COME...GO!

The sun is just barely risen. I  sit on my back porch listening to robins and cardinals greeting the new day. A woodpecker is the background drumbeat to the chorus of bird songs.  I woke up with a different song bouncing around in my head. I can never remember the lyrics of songs, but the refrain echoed over and over again, escaping the tomb of my feeble memory...

O come to the altar:

The Father's arms are open wide 
Forgiveness was bought with 
The precious blood of Jesus Christ…

We sang that song yesterday while a thousand women walked along the street upon which is nestled one of the busiest abortion centers of the Southeast. Our mission for the Love Life Charlotte Women’s Prayer Walk: pray. Pray for the women who would abort their precious child; pray for the fragile innocent babies; pray for an end to the horror of abortion.

I almost didn’t go. I had been there every day of the week except Wednesday when I had minor surgery on a basal cell carcinoma. I was feeling worn out.  Besides, I pray there every day, hours a day. However, when the morning dawned, I felt the pull of God.

Go.

So I went.

I was glad I did. The Bible says where two or more are gathered in His name, Jesus is among them. Imagine the palpable sense of God’s presence when a thousand are gathered in His name.

While standing in front of the abortion center with the thousand praying women, one of our Saturday Cities4Life sidewalk counselors came over to me. She told me she had spoken to a woman who was overwhelmed and there to abort, but Sara felt the woman was conflicted and might leave. 

“Please watch her car,” Sara told me, “We might need you to counsel her.”  Sara was returning up the street to try to encourage other abortion minded women streaming in to turn away.

So I watched. Just as the prayer group was filing slowly away up the hill, the car pulled out of the driveway of the abortion center. I was not able to reach the car in time to offer she come on our mobile ultrasound unit on the Monroe HELP Pregnancy Center RV. I texted Sara, “She left!”  I left the prayer group and joined my fellow sidewalk counselors.

Shortly thereafter, I was summoned to the RV. A SECOND mom was on the RV and they needed me to counsel. It turns out, the conflicted woman Sara had initially talked to had gone in the abortion center, but once inside, Sara’s words echoed in her head. So she left, deciding she should go on the RV. However, it was parked just out of sight and she didn’t see it. As she drove, she stopped to ask a woman from the prayer march if she knew where the RV was. That woman was Tara Quinn, the director of HELP Pregnancy Center whose vision had been the impetus for the first mobile ultrasound unit in NC to be outside an abortion clinic.

Tara hopped in the car to direct the woman to the RV. When I arrived, the woman was sitting in the RV, overwhelmed still, but knowing she could not and should not abort. Sara appeared a few minutes later, and with the nurse Courtney, we counseled this woman, sharing resources as well as the Gospel. She knew God but had clearly taken her eyes off His promises and put them on her struggles. Her struggles were not terrible. Honestly, she faced what nearly every new mother faces: Fear she was not up to the task. Wondering what the future would hold.

We talked about how easy it is to take our eyes off of Jesus. I reminded her of one of my favorite Bible stories that illustrates the danger of doing so. When Peter kept his eyes on Jesus, he walked on water. When he put his eyes on the storm, he sank.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Then we took her to the back of the RV to the mobile ultrasound unit, where she would see her baby. She was very early in the pregnancy, but Courtney found that tiny baby and showed the mother the little baby, the yolk sac, and the clear embryonic sac which is a dark circle on the grey background of the rest of the uterus. The beating heart in that tiny little baby was instantly visible, a metronome of life!

I asked the mother what she thought of her baby now. 

“I am already in love,” she said.

I am so glad I went when God nudged me yesterday morning. Someone else would have counseled this sweet woman had I not been there, but then I would not have received that blessing.

And so here I am sipping my coffee, listening to the chorus of creation as the sun rises, with my head filled with refrains from yesterday’s worship songs and my heart filled with gratitude for the precious truth of Jesus Christ.

*******

Psalm 121 English Standard Version (ESV)

My Help Comes from the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

121 I lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.