Turnabout is Fair Play! (WOTS Chronicles cont...)

Friends, you don't know what joy it brings to my heart when I hear stories such as these. I've take too long a break from the Woman on the Streets Chronicles. Much at large has happened including the turnaround story that this picture illustrates. (Turnarounds are what we affectionately refer to as an abortive-minded woman who has had a change of heart and decides not to abort her baby.)

One such turnaround occurred a bit over a year ago where Lynn counseled the young mother in the picture above. On April 11, Easter Vigil, the mom and her growing family came back to join the pro-life crowd at the Avocado Green Planned Parenthood Clinic on 7th Ave to join forces with those who helped her say yes to life. The little guy obviously seems eager to agree with the poster being held which proclaims HUMAN LIFE IS SACRED. Indeed. I have the privilege of standing on the front lines with Lynn and so many others that use their compassion and their voices to proclaim a word that might rouse those who have fallen asleep to the sacredness of life. How do we do this? One little guy at a time.

40 Days for life Campaign is ended but the battle still rages. Please consider joining us either in person on the street or in private in your prayers.

WOTS Chronicles, Ch 3

If you'd have told me 13 years ago that today I would spend part of St. Patty's Day praying to end abortion outside of a abortion clinic, I would have laughed at you.

Despite the massacres that were being carried out inside avocado green building today (Lord have mercy), it was a particularly good prayer day. There were more than a dozen or so of us. Some were folks I recognized from previous weeks and some were new faces. Holly, the girl I gave my sign to last week, was there when we arrived. She was courageously conversing with a young man who disagreed with our large display of people. He said that our presence was a judgment upon innocent people who were there to receive services. (That was his judgment upon us).

Well, he's right, frankly. I do judge. I can't help it. I judge what I will do each day; I judge what I will ingest; I judge with whom I will dine; I will even judge whether or not I will approach someone based upon their non-verbals. I judge, I discern, I make choices based upon my very human reality. I can even judge a happy prayer person approaching avocado green bldg from a scared, downcast young woman. I know which one is coming to end the life that is within her.

I believe judging is human and normal. We all do it - we need to do it in order to survive. Making right judgments is not to be confused with judgmentalism...this is an attitude of judging everyone else's wrongness and never judging oneself. We teach our children judge differences between good and bad, vice and virtue in order to live in a way that is pleasing to the Lord.

I think it's condemning we need to avoid. Condemning puts us in the place of God. It says to the one being condemned, "my ways are so far above your ways" or "I am right and you are wrong". At the clinics, we never stand in condemnation of a brother or a sister who has had or is in the process of having an abortion. We try to identify with her pain and show her the love that she has been missing.

Another striking feature of the 40 Days for Life Campaign that I have realized is that this is truly a movement that has the ability to unite Christians and Pro-life peoples from a wide variety of religious backgrounds. I was praying today with Anglicans, Calvary Church members, Lutherans and Catholics. This is one issue that cuts across the broad religious stratosphere. I ended up in conversation with an Anglican priest talking, of all things, about the Liturgy. How interesting. We were both aware of the differences, but we were also happily aware of our many similarities.

God writes straight with crooked lines.

WOTS Chronicles,Ch 2...Hey Kalispell, you're doin' it right!

An observation from the 40 Days for Life Woman on the Street:

When we are finally face to face with an abortion-minded woman, I must remind myself that her indoctrination into her mindset began when she was very, very young. In fact, my best efforts in trying to save a child (and a mom) will be thwarted 9 times of 10 simply because we are entering her reality so late in the game. By the time she arrives at a abortion clinic she will have committed in her mind and in her heart that this is what HAS to happen because society has told her that she is ill-equipped and ill-prepared to parent a child. Her ability to search her heart has been undermined by a culture that has bombarded her with messages that convince her that a convenient & nuisance-free life is the only one worth really living.

The name of our Abortion Doctor at avocado green building on 7th Avenue in Phoenix is Dr. Child. The vanity plate on his car reads: "Abort Me".

Kidding? I wish I were. Pray for him.

Do we give up? Heck no. There is that one child.

To get a broader picture of what a "real" sidewalk counselor does, check out the troopers up in Kalispell, Minnesota in 1 degree temps!

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031107.html