Today a young woman gets out of her parked car and walks toward the shopping plaza. I hope she’s going to the salon to get her hair done. But no, she walks past the hair salon without stopping. Maybe she has come to shop at the dollar store next door. No, she walks past that store as well, and heads...to the Planned Parenthood “Health” Center adjacent to the dollar store.
In front of the clinic she stops, pauses momentarily, then enters behind the reflective glass door....to an appointment to kill her child? I’ll probably never know for sure. I do know that over 50% of women who have abortions feel they have no choice and over 70% are never told about alternatives.
If an abortion is imminent for this woman and her child, I have no other recourse than to pray. Appropriately, the next Scripture I planned to meditate on to guide my prayer after she drove up was Ephesians 6:10-13.
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (NIV)
So I enter the struggle and pray for her.
Then there are the young men - waiting outside the glass walls of the abortion clinic. They were there Wednesday and again today. Standing - seated - waiting...for what? As I prayed today for a young man sitting on the bench near the clinic door, his back to the facility where perhaps his son or daughter is meeting a violent death at the hands of an abortionist, tears begin to well up in my eyes. Does he know what he is doing? Or perhaps he does but has no say in the fate of his child.
I become restless - pacing back and forth. I’m not sure why. Perhaps a sense of helplessness. It hurts to think of his loss. This is personal. My only grandson was born out of wedlock. So are 83% of all aborted children. My grandson was unplanned as are most aborted babies...but by the grace of God not unwanted.
Earlier on my watch this was the text,
“ You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44 NIV)
The devil is the enemy. We are at war with him. The one who has come “to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10) has also successfully deceived many moms and dads, many doctors and nurses, many counselors and many owners of abortion facilities.
It is a real war with real victims - preborn human beings (over 3,300 per day), their post abortive mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers and other family members who will never meet them.
We must stand in the gap for the helpless, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1:27 NIV)
The victims of abortion are the most destitute of all orphans - not just abandoned by parents but murdered. Many of their mothers are the widows - pressured, manipulated, even coerced into killing their own young by those closest to them.
“...though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV)
(I am participating in a 40 Days For Life prayer and fasting vigil at a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Pembroke Pines Florida. You can be involved in the 40 Days For Life effort at an abortion clinic by going to http://www.40daysforlife.com/ for further information.)
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