The power of presence

This morning's email brought another happy report from the abortion clinic sidewalk. Yesterday, a woman left the clinic 30 minutes after entering, approached the sidewalk counselors, and said she had changed her mind. She "just couldn't do it."

What turned things around for her? She'd only had a brief conversation with the counselor before going in. It appears to have been a combination of her own misgivings and the presence of "watchmen on the wall" -- the location where sidewalk counselors stand is a retaining wall overlooking the abortion clinic parking lot, between it and the Omega House property -- as well as the prayers going up from a group of young people inside Omega House.

This young woman was impressed that strangers would pray for her, and that their prayers had been answered (see yesterday's Power of Prayer). Of course, if the sidewalk counselors and prayer warriors hadn't been there, she may have gone through with the abortion.

Or not. I was impressed by the idea that if they'd not been there and she'd changed her mind, no one but God would know about it. Not the sidewalk counselors, who go faithfully to the clinic in all sorts of weather and suffer discouraging responses from most women. Not the prayer warriors who, in faith, leave results to God and are most often left to wonder how their prayers are answered. Not you reading this. We all would have missed a reason to rejoice in God! I am so thankful the sidewalk counselors are there.

This incident got me thinking about the history of sidewalk counseling at that clinic. It began with picketing back in the 1980s. Sidewalk counseling occurred on a small scale at that time. One day while picketing, I noticed the house next door was for sale. I suggested to the director of the Alpha Women's Center that they buy it. A PCC right next door to the abortion clinic? How ideal!

Well, shortly after Alpha moved in, the abortion clinic moved out, to a location not far away. I was disheartened, but a picketing and sidewalk counseling ministry followed them, until the building the clinic was located in was put on the market and sold to a pro-life group!

The abortion clinic then moved back into it's old location, but Alpha Women's Center had moved out by that time. They still owned the house, which for a time held a maternity home (called Omega House). They allowed a now thriving cadre of sidewalk counselors to park in their lot and stand on their wall, which was better than trying to reach women from the sidewalk out front. Prayer warriors were allowed to gather inside the house, out of the cold. The building, though essentially empty, was preserved as a place for pro-life ministry, just in a mutated form.

My best thought, back in the 80s, had been that a PCC was what was needed as next-door competition to the clinic. But if a center had been there, would sidewalk counseling taken place, snatching women and babies from the jaws of death? Would it have been as effective? We don't know. But God's plan, so much different than mine, seems better in the long run.

The important thing is presence. Being there for the women, whether you're a sidewalk counselor or a PCC counselor. Thank you for being there.