Seeking Light

My husband and I shared a moment this evening where we were both struck by the beauty of the sky.  I shared with him that one of the reasons I like to run between 8 and 9:30 in the evening is because I love the sky at this time.  I had just cooked the dinner for the family, but seemed like I might as well go for a run.

Before going, I had to take some pictures of the sky.  At first with my husband I noticed the design in the sky of the whisps of clouds.  When I went back out I was struck by seeing how the higher clouds were golden with light by the setting sun, while the lower clouds were dark gray.

I was struck by the imagery of how the clouds closer to the earth reflected not the sun, but the darkness of our world.

The challenge is to get up above the darkness, to seek the light, so that we can reflect the light of the Gospel to those around us.  The closer we are to the Son, through prayer, the Sacraments, Surrender to Holy Spirit to heal and transform us in love, the more we will reflect the light of our Lord.

Some people favor bird watching, I am a sky watcher.  I love the glory of the sky.  Especially the play of the gold on the white of the clouds.

I did go for a run tonight.  It was my longest of the year.  The sky was gorgeous.  As I was running I offered the pleasure I had seeing the beauty of the sky during my run.  I would run a bit faster when I was facing away from the sunset, so I could get more quickly to where I could see the sunset.  It was getting dark as I neared home when I was surprised to see there was still quite a bit of gold left above the horizon.  I thanked God for that too, as it seemed to be a gift since it was after 9:30 PM.

"If you offered Me your joys and your moments of recreation, I would send you few trials because it is only your union with Me that I am seeking, and as a rule you come to Me only when you are unhappy.  Then come - oh, come always."  Jesus speaking to Gabrielle Bossis in He and I

This morning I attended another monthly visit to the Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL.  I go there almost every month with my daughter's high school Pro-life team.  In another post I reflected on seeing mothers driving and walking daughters in for abortion.  Today I saw two fathers driving their daughters in.  One of the daughters was in the passenger seat when she passed us.  She was clearly crying.  We were attempting to hand out literature as our first attempt at sidewalk counseling.  Neither of the fathers stopped to let their daughter talk to us or take any of our brochures.

The leader of our team told me after that he saw a woman come out and cry while smoking.  He said that sadly he was pretty sure she did go through with it, because she was moving slowly when she left the building.

At about 10:15 a.m. an ambulance passed us with lights and siren blaring.  It pulled right to the front of the center and then it was followed by 3 police cars.  Those praying outside the center started praying more intensely for what was probably a poor girl inside with a complication from an abortion.  Many started taking pictures too.  I was asked to take some as well, so I did.  Here is one of them:

They did not bring the woman out on the stretcher in view of our cameras.  They moved the ambulance round the back and then had her brought out.  The event made things much more tense outside the center as well.  

The one gentleman that is there every week with the graphic sign from Operation Rescue, decided he needed to clarify for the Police where he could stand.  He was threatened with arrest, but not taken in.

Later there seemed to be more critiquing of the advocates for the unborn and the mothers and fathers from their fellow advocates.  Some were yelling to others where they could stand.  Others were confronting each other saying not to yell over each other.  Only one should talk at a time. 

I also saw a woman that I think did have an abortion, follow her mother, and walked past the sidewalk counselor that was boldly going up to the property line, and trying to persuade the girls to go to the nearby woman's center instead. The woman lit up a cigarette quickly just so she could blow smoke at the counselor.  

This counselor was completely unaffected.  I think she has been doing this for a long time.  She was even trying to engage the escort from Planned Parenthood "to humble herself before God."  She said, "You are beautiful on the outside.  Why not get beautiful on the inside and stop facilitating the murder of the unborn?"

Before this all happened a woman came up to me and the two high school girls I was with.  She said, "You all are saved right?  That's why you aren't just standing around praying the rosary."  I said, "Actually the two can coexist."  I showed her my rosary ring.  "I've been praying the rosary on this, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior."

One driver passed us and and yelled across the street from us, "Do you have to have the aborted fetus picture.  Really?  Do we need aborted fetuses out here?"

It wasn't our sign.  This is our sign:

If I were quicker or more experienced (only have 7 months experience visiting centers), I might have crossed the street and explained to the gentleman that  we were actually in agreement with him.  He doesn't want to see any more pictures of the aborted babies, and we don't want there to be any more aborted babies.  I don't like the signs that show the truth of the outcome of an abortion.  They are effective though.  They tend to increase the anguish as Mary has recently commented, and intensify our prayer and actions to stand against this evil.  

Also the same Operation Rescue gentleman I mentioned argued with the Police, he said he was with a group that had a bunch of these signs and a woman pulled over her car, got out and brought her baby over to show them and thank them.  She said that had she not seen those signs, she would not have had her little boy.

When I was riding back on the bus I reorganized some of the brochures so they would be in good order for our next trip.  Seeing the fathers driving daughters stuck in my head, and hit a nerve when I read this in the Pro-Life Action League brochure entitled, "Abortion for victims of rape and incest?  No:  They deserve better."  I read the following:

• Nearly all incest victims who had an abortion reported no input in the decision; instead, their parents, or the abuser made the decision for them.

These quotes from actual incest victims were included:

• "Abortion on demand, no questions asked, makes it easier for incest and child abuse to continue.  Abortion for incest victims sounds compassionate, but in practice it is simply another violent and deceptive tool in the hand of the abuser." 
• "After the abortion, I wanted to die.  How could I live when I had just ended the life of my child?  The negative feelings resulting from the rape were not eliminated by the abortion.  Nothing was solved, instead, the grief was now doubled."
• "Like any woman in a crisis pregnancy, a pregnant sexual assault victim might welcome an instant answer to her problem.  But abortion is too permanent an answer to a temporary problem.  Abortion may sound compassionate--even noble--but it isn't."

Another pamphlet "Sharing the Pro-Life Message" explained that incest is only .03% of reasons for abortion.  Rape is .3%.  Protection of a mothers's life is .2%.  They don't even add up to 1% of the reasons for abortion, but they are often cited as the reasons it is important that abortion stay safe, legal, and soon, free.

Again recalling the fathers driving their daughters, I would suspect the incest number would be low, because if the abuser is driving the girl for the abortion, it is unlikely he would let her check incest as a reason, or he would otherwise intimidate her not to say anything.  And of course I have no idea why the fathers were driving their daughters.  Just when you see a teenage girl being driven by a man that appears to be her dad, and the girl is in tears, and the father is stone faced, it makes you wonder.

98% of abortions are from "personal choice":

• 32% say not emotionally capable
• 25% say not financially capable
• 16% say having a child would drastically alter her life

50% of women having abortions say they were using contraception the month they got pregnant with 16.9% saying they used it properly but it failed.  You'll remember one of the arguments for free contraception is to reduce abortions.

Please join me in continuing to pray, act, and vote as advocates for the unborn, and their mothers.  Babies come to violent ends in these centers.  It does sicken me that there is nothing we can legally do to stop this. We have prayer, which is far stronger and more effective than we can imagine.  We have our presence, our words, and our signs.  We can also vote.  If anyone is unclear who to vote for in the next election, it is the one that can defeat Obama, and whichever candidate for House and Senate is approved by the Susan B. Anthony list.

2 Chronicles 7:14

¹⁴If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

If you are a woman or man that regrets and suffers from having an abortion, there is hope and healing.  Please follow this link to Project Rachel.

Mom Forcing Daughter to Have Abortion?

This past Saturday morning, we watched a mother, a woman about my age, go out to the Planned Parenthood escort, so that her daughter would not be distracted by the people across from the parking lot, while she walked into the center.  The people who consisted of counselors from the Waterleaf crisis pregnancy center, our high school girls standing there holding signs like "Stop Abortion Now" and "Planned Parenthood Lies" and "Planned Parenthood Kills Babies".

So the escort, in a florescent vest, like you would see on a construction worker, walked over a little closer to where the mother parked.  The girl then walked behind them by a few yards as they made their way into the center.  I didn't see her face, but I know she must have been young, because she was wearing a pink hoodie and pink sweat pants.  I think that color pink goes into hiding when a girl becomes a woman, until she is preparing for a baby girl.

The question in my mind was, "Does that girl have a choice?"

I wondered if her Mom and the Planned Parenthood telemarketing team and on-site counselors explain the choices.  A choice of giving life to a baby, and perhaps giving the child up for adoption to a couple that will love and care generously for the child, or putting the baby to death, and dealing with the grief of that decision for many years into the future, until the Lord would forgive and heal her.  Or what I hope I would do if one of my daughters gets pregnant before marriage . . . offer to adopt and raise the baby as my own, or as her own, but in my home with as much secrecy and privacy as my daughter needs.

How strong would any of us have been if our mother, who loved and cared for us were telling us things like, "This is the best way.  You should have a child when you are older, when you are married, when you can afford to give that child a good life.  It won't take long, and no one needs to know."

We know Planned Parenthood says things like, "It is an emotional decision, but know that 1 in 3 women has had an abortion."  I got this from a youtube Planned Parenthood video on surgical abortion.

Where do they get that statistic?  Do they take the total number of aborted babies, and do we even have accurate data on that, and then divide it by the population of women in the world?  Do we have that...even if we calculate it just for the U.S.A., do we know how many aborted children there are to divide it?  I just don't think that number is accurate, considering that there is actually a market for aborted baby parts (Korean "vitality pills", some food manufacturers testing, stem cell research).

Maybe if they included women that used birth control that acts as an abortificient as the third method of preventing a pregnancy by weakening the endometrium so a fertilized egg cannot implant, or those that have used IUDs that do the same thing.  Somehow I have hard time believing that 1 in 3 women in the U.S. have had a surgical abortion.  Maybe 1 in 10 have an abortion . . . which is still high, or maybe 1 in 20 have multiple abortions?

One of the adults that came last month came again this month.  She is the one that had an abortion as a young woman, and had spoken in the chapel to the High School kids.  She brought her grandchild, a 6 year old, 1st grader with her.  One of the people we met was an organizer for "I Regret My Abortion".  At her request, she gave a button to this Grandma.  I was curious how the woman would handle it when her granddaughter saw the button.  I didn't have to wonder for long.

"Grandma, why are you wearing that button?"
"Well, when I was a young woman, 48 years ago, I was pregnant and I went into a place like this.  There wasn't anyone outside telling me that what was inside me was a baby.  I had an abortion."

The little girl didn't say, "Oh, Grandma!  How could you?" or anything similar. She didn't seem shocked at all.  Instead she ran right back beside the other girls and picked up her Stop Sign again.  She made the connection that it might have helped her grandma not to have the abortion if she would have seen someone letting her know it was a baby inside her, and that there were people who could help her.

It was an amazing thing to see.  I walked this little girl over to the Dominick's so we could both use the bathroom.  I have a son the same age, and I think I know when they are happy or sad or in between.  She was fine.  She didn't seem sad or upset about the news from her Grandma.

I told the Grandma afterward, how brave I thought she was.  That I thought it was easier to tell strangers, high school kids she didn't know, than to tell her own Grand-daughter.  She said she had never talked about it publicly before talking in the high school chapel the previous month.

It turns out both the little girl and the Grandma have had quite a bit of suffering in their lives.  The Grandma grew up in two different Catholic orphanages in the northern suburbs of Chicago with her 4 siblings.  At one point her birth mother had planned their murder by drowning in her car trunk.  The mother had a fifth child that was temporarily in the orphanage with them, but was taken to live with the mother after she married the father of the child.  The now Grandma explained that was hard for her and the others that remained orphans, to know that they were not to have a home, motherly love, and good food to eat that their youngest brother would have.

The little girl was taken away from her birth mother.  In a few months she will be officially adopted by the Grandma and Grandpa.  I didn't pry to find out the history, but for some reason DCFS has already granted the child a college scholarship.  I think I will pray the "Healing Your Family Tree" prayer for them.

I am sadder now writing this than I was sitting in the car hearing her story.  Part of it is that I just read this testimony from another woman that had two abortions.  She is a famous, and gifted blogger who is faithful Catholic and also very funny.  This post isn't funny.  It is courageous, and it is sad.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Please do whatever you are inspired to do.  You can sense the pain she has endured because of those two abortions.  Even though God will bring good from her witness, don't you just want to spread this story to others both to save the lives of the children, and also so they don't have the same grief to endure?

There is so much suffering, and sadness in this fallen world.  Still we have the gift of faith, and the confidence that we are loved.  We have the Gifts of the Holy Spirit that we can witness to God's steadfast love and kindness.  We can make a difference whether we are the repentent and forgiven sinner, or the innocent little kid, that has been both a victim and now the recipient of love from one that knows what it is like when your Mom doesn't act like a Mom should act.

Life is really intense and beautiful when you get the opportunity to interact with others grasped by Christ, and acting to support his causes.  One of the arguments someone used with me as to why abortion on demand isn't terrible is that it isn't a great loss to be denied a life where the mom doesn't want you or love you.

I think this little girl and her Grandma are evidence against that.  I want to say it is a lack of faith in the love of God to think that God isn't there in the midst of the little girl in the orphanage who does know the love of her siblings, and the nuns caring for and teaching her, and the experience of accepting Jesus as her Savior as an adult, and coming to know the faithful love of a husband.  Some would say that it would have been better if she would have been aborted than to have been born to a woman that would plot drowning her and her siblings in the trunk of her car.  But, she would say no.  She would testify that God has always cared for her and always shown her love and is strengthening her voice now to help persuade others not to commit the sin of abortion.

The little girl now has a Grandma and a Grandpa, gets to go to a great school, has great friends and birthday parties.  It is better that she lived.  God has acted to show her His great love through her Grandma and Grandpa, her teachers and friends.

Lord God, please bless all the women I wrote about in this post from the youngest little girl, to the high schoolers that came out to witness to your love and truth, to the adults praying and witnessing, some from experience.  Please bless and heal them.  Please change the hearts and minds of all that work to provide abortion services on demand.  Please convict them of the deliberate killing of innocents and give them the grace of repentance and conversion to turn to you and then in reparation to work to end this practice in our country and around the world.

Mary, our Mother, and the mother of these unborn and defenseless little ones, please pray with us that God's grace would change the hearts and minds in this country and around the world to stop this slaughter, and end the suffering of the women that are told it is OK, and then find out afterward, it isn't OK.  The pain tells them it is not OK.

If you are a girl that happened to find this post and you are pregnant, please know there are crisis pregnancy centers that can help you.  All you need is an internet connection and a phone for a start.  Here is a site that has links to local help lines and crisis pregnancy centers:  http://www.lifecall.org/  May God comfort, bless and strengthen you.  He loves you and your unborn child more than you can fathom!

I did a quick search and here are some actual words from girls forced to have abortions by their mothers: http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_ess1.htm
http://generationsforlife.org/2006/0809/choice-whose-choice/
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Had-An-Abortion/1516282

Quote from the last one, "The biggest mistake in my life wasn't getting pregnant. The biggest mistake in my life was ending my pregnancy."