We Were One of Them!

While ministering at Planned Parenthood the other day, we noticed a man walking a woman toward the building, we offered help to the couple, but they went inside anyway. He then came out shortly after and went and sat in his van.  

Robert

One of the sidewalk counselors, Robert, went next door to the vacant lot so he could stand at the fence and try to talk with this young man. He stood there at the fence and started talking with him and after a bit, the man got out of his vehicle and began conversing with Robert.  I walked up at this point and leaned on the fence listening to the words coming out of the mouth of this young man. He knew theology alright, and he knew the all to well verse about not judging other people.  He went on and on about not judging and the usual rhetoric we hear about doing something other then being out in front of an abortion clinic. 

Germaine

While we stood there talking, Germaine, another sidewalk counselor, came over and leaned on the fence.  Here we were, the three of us listening and talking with this young man who had a young lady inside with an innocent little baby scheduled to die.  We listened to all the excuses and we talked with him on many different levels, but it always came back to the question, how do you feel about what is going to happen to the baby if you don't go in and stop it?  He would change the subject immediately as this question was going to be avoided, after all, no one wants to think about what will happen.  But then he looked at us and again, talked about judging and that we didn't have any idea what these people were going through that had come that day.  How dare we stand there trying to change their minds when we had no idea what they might be facing.  That is when I looked at him and said, "but we do have an idea, 
WE WERE ONE OF THEM!"  He just looked at the three of us bewildered and I said again, "WE WERE ONE OF THEM!"  At that, Germaine said, "Yes, I had three abortions."  I then said, "I had five abortions."  Then Robert said, "I had seven abortions, and probably more."  This was the first time he stayed quiet and I continued.  I looked at him and said, "We care about those people that are going inside that building, because if they go through with the abortion, they will never be the same.  You see, a piece of you dies with your baby, you walk out that door a very broken person, and we want to offer help to make sure that doesn't happen.  Even if you are the person that brought a person, you will be affected as well." We each shared a bit of our stories and told him that we wished someone would have been there to offer help to us on our first abortion, we really believe it would have made a tremendous difference.  I then told him that because we were one of them, we feel an obligation to do what we can to stand against this human and social injustice, that just as slavery was once legal it did not make it right, and even though abortion is legal, it definitely does not make it right.  We explained to him that these little babies have no voices and die horrendous, tortuous and painful deaths.

We talked a bit more and encouraged him to go back in and get his woman and baby out of there.  We gave him information about Maafa 21 and other literature to view.  We can only pray that God touched his heart.

What we didn't realize at that point was how God was going to touch our hearts.

As we finished our conversation, the three of us started to go to our cars, I walked over to Robert as he was getting ready to drive out and all of a sudden it just came over me, and I looked at Robert and said, "Robert,  Germaine said he had 3 abortions, I had 5 abortions, and you said you had seven abortions.  That's thirteen babies!"  There was silence, utter silence and at that point Germaine walked up and I shared with him what I had just said to Robert and the three of us just stood there together.  Thirteen babies between the three of us, not here on this earth.  It was overwhelming, even though the three of us have repented with weeping and sobbing for the killing of our children, and we know that God has forgiven us, it was just one of those moments that can not be described. 

I then said, "But....thank God for HIS redemption, thank God for His forgiveness, thank God for HIS GRACE, thank God that HE picked us up out of the pit of hell we were in and thank God HE has placed us here to tell other people.  We praised God for what HE has done and what HE did on that day at Planned Parenthood for us to remember what HE has done in our lives. 
 Yes, we know, because WE WERE ONE OF THEM!