bright, staggering light, it anxiously waits inside
July 18, 2011
i have a question, or maybe just a concern. maybe it will upset you. maybe we could call it an inquiry, because those sound nicer, and less scary.
most of you know my heart for prolife. you know what i do on saturdays. you know that i stand in front of a clinic with others who believe the same as me and pray that God ends abortion. i pray other things too. i pray that God closes the clinic. i pray that He establishes His order in the midst of much hostility. that He makes himself known to the girls going in, the men staying out, and the escorts waiting to usher mother and child through their doors.
i pray for the owner. i pray for the government. i pray for the strength to continue praying. and sometimes, mostly on days when i feel the weariness of fighting in such small numbers against something so big…i pray for you. the collective you, from the collective church…and this is my question:
if we believe that abortion is wrong, that it grieves the heart of God, and that an actual child is being killed…why am i standing there with so few? i mean really consider it…this is not a guilt trip. this is a sincere thought that rolls through my mind again and again and again. if we believe, truly believe, that each saturday in a birmingham building on 17th street (or a thousand other buildings across the country) children are being killed, really killed, then why aren’t every single one of us out there on the sidewalk interceding on their behalf? wouldn’t you want someone interceding for you, if it was your life that was being taken? wouldn’t you want to know that someone at least showed up to plead your case…to ask for mercy…to acknowledge your life as it ends in senseless death? (is it possible that someone has done that for you already…)
if i came to you on a friday and said, “tomorrow a man downtown will be murdering ten small children at the park. their parents will be bringing them, and the police say they cannot interfere. no one is going to stop him…” wouldn’t you take some sort of action? would you call the chief of police and ask him to reconsider? call the news station and ask them to bring this to light? and when no one responded…could you keep yourself away…or would you show up that morning, nearby at the very least, praying and hoping for God to intervene?
i sincerely want to know. click on the comments section. email me. facebook me. give me your thoughts on this. what do we find more important on a saturday morning than the fact that mothers are taking their unborn children into a legal facility to be murdered. how real is this to us? to you?
i don’t think i’m being idealistic here. i know that many of you pray for the same things i do in your own homes. many of you have families with little ones that need you in the morning. or you have jobs that require you to work weekends. i know that not everyone in the world can physically come out on a saturday and pray for these children as they die. but i also know that there are many of us, so very many, who can…and don’t. and i cannot understand why.
is that too harsh? it might be. from what i understand, i can be a very abrasive young woman at times. i can be too much for people to take. but please know, please at least consider, that if every person who professed to be a christian woke up on a saturday, drove to their city’s abortion clinic and knelt down in prayer, that God would move in a way that we have never seen Him move before. not because He needs our numbers, but because He requires our hearts. God moves through His people. He will not force His will or commands. and when we stand in front of the clinics, when those of us who are able leave the comfort of our own homes–our safe, isolated spaces–we throw open the door for God to work.
look through scripture and see if that doesn’t ring true. look at the israelites marching around the walls of jericho. what if they had stayed in their tents and told joshua they would yell from there? what if gideon had decided to stay put in the wine press? or if david told his father that he didn’t want to take his brothers any food on the battlefied, that he much preferred to just stay home? what if Jesus had decided to remain in heaven…
that last question might sound a little ridiculous…but is it, really? because Jesus had a choice. He didn’t have to come. but out of love for the Father, He chose to die on a cross. and every day since then, He has been choosing to speak on our behalf. choosing to stand beside you, pleading your case before the Father with the grace and mercy of His blood. all of a sudden, we who were sentenced to death are spoken for, and saved. should we not do everything in our power to follow that example? should we not speak for those who have been sentenced to death? is it too much for you to get out of bed on a saturday and drive to the site where Death will be claiming the lives of innocent children, and ask our God to speak?
i don’t think it is. i will never think it is. if anything, it is never enough. Christ settled the debt of my sin when i didn’t deserve it. and i can never repay Him for that. but i can give Him my life, and i can give Him my heart, and i can try to live as He lives…as an advocate for those who the enemy thinks he has claimed. i invite you to join me, and to become the Church that the innocent unborn do deserve. because no child deserves abortion.
think about it…get back to me.
your sister in christ,
sarah
Hi Sarah,
I like that you have posed this question and do seem concerned with why so many individuals seem to lack the interest or desire to stand in front of abortion clinics like yourself and pray for the children that will be killed, their parents and their murderers. I commend you for this.
While I think that as a culture we are obligated by God to care for our neighbor, born and unborn, I do not believe that each person is called to do as you do. I admire your example and challenge to society to act when injustice takes place. I found myself in the same or similar place where you stand according to this post. I was angry, frustrated and downright disgusted that more people didn’t join me on the sidewalks or even in the church. I challenged the church based on my understanding of the pro-life movement at the time through what I learned from the church.
The church presented the pro-life cause as solely dedicated to the cause of the unborn. The efforts of the church were dedicated to being a pro-life witness in front of abortion mills and dedicated warriors to ending the horror of abortion. But, that was where it began and ended. True, the church spoke up occasionally for matters outside the issue of abortion, but rarely did it act to pray and witness against other present matters of life, including the death penalty and contraception.
This is what I believe to be wrong with the pro-life movement today. It is not united on all issues of life. It is only united through its defense of the unborn, but not on the issues I suggested. It is right for people to be outside of the abortion clinics praying, offering help, and pleading for life.
It is right to stand against abortion and encourage others to do the same. It is right to place this issue of abortion above all others; however, it is not right to forget all the other issues and disregard those persons who are called to fight them. It is not right for pro-lifers to stand aside and ignore other issues that are also just as pro-life as standing outside abortion mills.
Those who don’t stand outside of abortion mills are not exempt from their obligation to be pro-life. I believe that God will hold accountable everyone for his/her own deeds good and evil, but I also believe that God has called each and every individual person to a specific task and duty in life to fulfill the command to “choose life.” Their task may not be limited to directly coming into contact with an abortion mill, but could include a variety of pro-life actions.
Anyway, these are my opinions. Thank you for standing for the unborn, mothers and fathers. You are doing an excellent job, I’m sure.
God Bless,
Seth
seth,
thank you for such an articulate reply. my apologies for sounding as though i believed abortion to be the only pro-life issue on the board. i often assume the people who read this blog all know me pretty well, and know how i feel about prolife in its entirety. i include many things under my umbrella of pro-life, including oral contraception with abortifacients, euthanasia, and human trafficking. the bible says to help the widow and the orphan, to speak for those who are mute. that includes many groups in the world, not just the unborn. this particular entry, however, is very much focused on being active outside of the clinics. that i cannot deny. but i probably would have to disagree with whether or not all are called to stand in front of a clinic and pray. i do not think you need to feel a special calling to pray, even if it is outside of a clinic. and i believe the church of this nation would only be strengthened and blessed by regularly involving themselves in such an activity.
also, i hope i did not come off angry in my blog. i’m passionate, yes. very, very passionate. and sometimes a little bit tired. but i do not feel anger towards chrisitians who do not come and pray with me on saturdays. my hope is in Christ, and His love is in my heart…most days. ;o)
thank you again for your response. it has greatly added to the conversation.
I saw a comment up above that seemed to equate the death penalty with abortion. I would remind the commenter that Romans 13:1-7 gives to the State the power of the sword. While the death penalty is to be avoided if at all possible, the State still has the authority in Scripture to execute, under of course the stipulations that St. Paul delineates: “But if you do evil, be afraid…” Additionally, both qualitatively and quantitatively, there is a world of different between the death penalty and abortion.
Qualitatively, one may argue that a convicted felon is receiving the penalty for his actions as determined by a jury of his peers out in the public open whereas a completely innocent and helpless baby is being executed privately behind the closed doors of a Planned Parenthood clinic with no option for a trial.
Quantitatively the number of executions number in the hundreds to the thousands in the past several decades whereas aboriton has murdered approximately 60 million babies since Roe v Wade in 1973 – that’s about three babies per minute of every hour of every day of every week of each month all throughout the year for the past 38 years. In the meantime the official platform of the Democratic Party openly supports a woman’s right to chose, maintaining abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” “3.002″ murdered babies every minute is hardly rare [sorry, the nuclear engineer in me made me go to three decimal places - hopefully I used my calculator correctly; I don't have an independent verifier handy to do a nuclear quality review! ;-)].
As to why so few people show up for prayer vigils at abortion mills, maybe the answer is the same as to why only the scribe Baruch stayed with Jeremiah the prophet even though everybody KNEW Nebuchadnezzer had Judah in his sights. Maybe the answer is the same as to why there are more than 33 thousand different Christian denominations each claiming to be THE way, forsaking Jesus’ command that we all be one and now the Church is about to be persecuted in the name of gay marriage and equal rights. Most people want to do their own things and can’t be bothered with working in the trenches or getting their hands dirty, regardless of what they say with their lips. Just as the people of Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s day didn’t want to believe that the inevitable would happen, so now today. But the lessons of atheist Maximilien Robespierre and the French Revolution with the guillotine of Public Safety are about to be repeated because we have not discharged our Christian responsibilities. Not much has changed in 2600 years. Man has science and technology, but man is still man.