Today is Day 21. The first successful half of this spring’s 40 Days for Life is behind us. None of us knows what joys await us in the second half!
For Lent, I decided to take one hour of my prayer time & devote it to the important prayer apostolate of 40 Days for Life. But the added benefit to being involved in this prayer campaign is the daily email about all the activities going on in front of abortion clinics around the country. (All of which can also be viewed at the 40 Days for Life blog.)
Just to mention a few of the most recent highlights:
- 178 babies saved and counting! These are just the lives that are known to have been saved by prayerful protest and outreach…so quite a few people – including Shawn Carney – are doing praise dances in thanksgiving for hearts changed and lives saved.
- Women want choices that don’t include abortion. A story from Bryan/College Station, TX proves that women do want alternatives to abortion. Three different women planning to go into Planned Parenthood for low-cost health care services were given information by 40 Days for Life participants and all seemed glad to have an alternate place to go.
- Children on the front lines of pro-life activism. A number of stories about how little ones make a difference on the front lines. One story even reveals how a clinic staffer perceived a little child as a threat. [My hope is that the clinic worker someday realizes how unthreatening the child was…and that this perception of the child as a threat was a sign of his conscience trying to tell him something.]
From my own experience, I can say that this campaign works in so many ways that the fruits of it may never be measured in this life.
I pray at the clinic when it’s not open, but it’s on a very busy street. So while I am there with a few other young people from my church, hundreds of cars pass by. I pray for the expectant mothers & fathers facing the difficulty of an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy and for the lives of those children, but I also pray for all the people who drive by and look at our little prayerful protest. I’ve seen women shield their faces from us. I’ve seen couples stare us down in shock and wonder. I’ve seen conversations start. I’ve seen people drive hastily away…in all these cases, it seems to me that people think something about our prayerful protest. Little thoughts can eventually lead to big life changes – but these things take time. So we must never tire of working for the good of all – especially the innocent and vulnerable.
This spring’s campaign is all the more important because of the mounting pressure on Congress to cut the budget –particularly to defund Planned Parenthood of the $363 million they receive from our taxes. These hours of prayer not only reach out to the hearts of those experiencing first-hand the difficulty of abortion, but also to those who have a responsibility to do what’s best for our entire nation.
Together we can defund Planned Parenthood. They don’t speak for me. I am a woman. I deserve better than abortion. And I am not alone.
