January 16, 2017 (PregnancyHelpNews) — Have you ever felt unworthy? Maybe alone? Or looked out the window into the sky thinking… what am I even here for? Especially when it comes to being faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
I have.
The devil knows how he can slip through the cracks of my soul when I’m down. He even likes to feed lies to make me think I am of no value. Learn to recognize these lies and speak words of truth over your life. We have the tools to overcome and to know we are valued, welcomed and loved.
Truth is our anchor and our freedom. Truth needs to be restored in our communities.
Serving as the executive director of our local life-affirming pregnancy center, I see many who are struggling with that same lack of truth. Facing an unplanned pregnancy, you can feel isolated, alone, scared. I know because I have been there.
I remember having a small bit of excitement, but my fears far outweighed my excitement. All the voices magnify your fear, but the greatest fear of all is being told: “We can go just have an abortion. Get ‘it’ done and over with. No one has to know.”
Do your current circumstances hold more value and worth than the child you now carry within? Maybe it’s your job, your finances, your career, your boyfriend, or your parents’ reaction that feel as if they hold more value than this pregnancy.
The one question we all truly need to ask is, “What is it?”
The abortion industry is not answering this question. Abortion is an industry that taps into your fear and offers you a quick ‘solution’ to your problem… for money, that is.
Over the past three years, my eyes have been opened to the reality of abortion in my community. I have tried to look at both sides and not let the media—whether pro-choice or pro-life—persuade me. I wanted to see for myself and gain an unbiased view.
This drew me back to the all-important question: “What is it?”
“What is the unborn? What is your ‘pregnancy’?”
If Only They Knew What “It” Was
One of the two abortion clinics in my town “performs” between five and 25 abortions every day. That’s around 75 lives lost every single week to abortion. That same abortion business tells its clientele to beware of the “protesters” outside its clinic and never take one of the pink pamphlets these protesters hand out.
Now, the word “protesters” makes me picture a person yelling, screaming and waving signs—a scene straight out of a movie. Could that really be what’s taking place in front of this abortion clinic in my town? How would I know unless I went to see for myself?
It wasn’t long before I knew God was calling me to go and see.
“Surely you have the wrong gal, Lord. I am here to serve those we see, not go stand out at the sidewalk of an abortion clinic.” Then I remembered a prayer I’ve prayed so many times, that the Lord would break my heart for what breaks His.
I was able to get in touch with a group of sidewalk counselors who have been faithfully praying outside the abortion mill for at least the past 10 years. So off I went.
I am normally a happy-go-lucky person. I smile and like to say a good ole Tennessee “Hey!” to people I meet, but this was not the place. Right off, it felt cold. I felt as if my life was being sucked right out from me. I could feel a thick wall of darkness at the line of the sidewalk.
Car after car, driving in for an abortion. I counted 25 cars that day. I couldn’t help but let the tears roll down my face. My heart broke for these families. No eye contact. There was no protesting, no yelling and screaming, no waving signs. Only weeping with those that weep and offering hope, forgiveness, grace and help in any way possible.
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Some of those praying along with me on the sidelines have experienced an abortion themselves. They didn’t want anyone to experience the pain and heartache they have. Those “pink pamphlets” the abortion clinic warns its clientele to refuse is a list of ways we can help, as well as the truth about abortion and its life-long after-effects.
The workers who drove in and walked past us had faces of stone. My smile faded. My heart broke for the workers. Was there a time when they smiled? Or has the light they once had been blown out by the darkness of this place?
Car after car lined the parking lot. If they only knew what “it” was.
A Call to Speak Up in Love
I knew what I needed to do: Continue to serve our community with truth. For I once was in the darkness of my own unplanned pregnancy, but now I am thankfully light in the Lord. I pray these families, may they know where to turn for help. I pray for the workers, that one day they will see from a new perspective.
And the perspective has everything to do with what “it” is.
When we truly come to grips with what “it” is, we find ourselves being willing do everything we can to speak up for and to protect the sanctity of human life.
If an unborn child is not human, then what is “it”?
The science of embryology teaches us that from the moment of fertilization, we are living, distinct, whole human beings. This truth exposes the “my body, my choice” as the destructive lie it truly is. A child is a distinct, whole, living person, growing in his or her mother’s womb. He or she has her own blood type and genetic makeup—even at the very earliest stages of development. What about that little body?
Another lie the abortion industry depends upon is the false charge that to be pro-life means to hate women. Far from it. We are here to help, and we do so in love. That’s why non-profit pregnancy help centers out-number for-profit abortions clinics more than 3 to 1 throughout the U.S.—we’re there to help every woman we meet make the healthiest choice for everyone involved in her unexpected pregnancy.
Regardless of what she chooses, we are there to love both her and her unborn baby.
Will you join us?
Valerie Millsapps serves as executive director of Pregnancy Resource Center in Maryville, Tenn., and also blogs at ChooseLivedLoved.com, where this post originally appeared.
Reprinted with permission from Pregnancy Help News.