EmpowerShop Pro-life

As the dust set­tles fol­low­ing the dev­as­tat­ing U.S. House vote that imposed abor­tion cov­er­age and gov­ern­ment fund­ing of abor­tion under the guise of health care, many peo­ple are feel­ing a sense of despair today.

But Jere­miah 29:11 clearly instructs us: “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Even in the midst of this dark­ness, God has given us more than 2,500 rea­sons to have great hope. And that hope is because of YOU.

In the past week, 40 Days for Life reached a mile­stone. In this, the sixth coor­di­nated, simul­ta­ne­ous 40-day cam­paign of prayer and fast­ing, con­stant vigil and com­mu­nity out­reach, we now know of …

… more than 2,500 babies …

… saved from abor­tion dur­ing these cam­paigns.

The exact total is cur­rently 2,536. Not only have so many babies been spared from abor­tion, but so have many moth­ers and many fathers!

Not only have 2,536 babies been spared from abor­tion, but the impact was also felt on each of their moth­ers and fathers.

So that’s roughly 7,500 lives directly impacted by your prayers and the mercy of Almighty God!

Add to that grand­par­ents, sib­lings, friends — it’s gen­uinely amaz­ing the num­ber of peo­ple pos­i­tively affected each time a mother rejects abor­tion.

For this cam­paign alone, the total stands at …

… 368 babies saved — that we know of. Of course, only God knows the true total.

The 40 Days for Life cam­paigns in New York City have reported more than 20 turn­arounds this cam­paign. The good news is that prayer is effec­tive; the chal­lenge is that New York is the abor­tion cap­i­tal of the United States.

The 40 Days for Life cam­paign in Queens is being con­ducted in an area the prayer vol­un­teers call “abor­tion row.”

Here’s a photo of a typ­i­cal day at the vigil in Queens:

It may look at first glance like these peo­ple are pray­ing out­side a donut shop — but that’s not the case. The donut shop just has the mis­for­tune of being right between two abor­tion facil­ity entrances.

To the left, there’s Women’s Health Care. To the right, Jack­son Heights Women’s Med­ical. Because of the neigh­bor­hood they’re in, both busi­nesses have signs in Span­ish.

The prayer vol­un­teers are often has­sled for being there. But they know that’s where they have to be in order to make a dif­fer­ence.

We’re often told that it’s use­less to stand out­side the abor­tion cen­ter because women arriv­ing for appoint­ments have already firmly decided that abor­tion is the right “choice.”

Time after time, that abor­tion indus­try maxim is proven wrong.

In South­field, Michi­gan, 40 Days for Life vigil par­tic­i­pants met a woman who was walk­ing into the abor­tion facil­ity. They spoke to her briefly, and learned that abor­tion was the “choice” of her mother and boyfriend — she was being pres­sured into it.

As she walked into the build­ing, one of the vol­un­teers told her that free help was avail­able just up the street at a pro-life preg­nancy cen­ter.

That appar­ently struck a chord.

She recalled that this pro-life cen­ter had helped a friend of hers. So while she was in the wait­ing room at the abor­tion facil­ity, she called her friend. The friend soon arrived, walked into the build­ing — and the two women then left together to go to the pro-life resource cen­ter.

The young woman then called her mother to explain why she was refus­ing to abort her child.

As one of the South­field vol­un­teers said, “Praise God for using us and this incred­i­ble live-saving team he has put together in our com­mu­nity!”

Today’s devo­tional is from Rev. Ben Shel­don, pres­i­dent emer­i­tus of Pres­by­te­ri­ans Pro-life.

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DAY 34 INTENTION
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We pray for the con­ver­sion of abor­tion­ists and all abor­tion advo­cates.

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SCRIPTURE
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Wash your­selves, make your­selves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes.

Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek jus­tice, Rebuke the oppres­sor; Defend the father­less, Plead for the widow.

– Isa­iah 1:16 – 17

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REFLECTION by Rev. Ben Shel­don
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God is just.

Inscribed around the inside of the Jef­fer­son Memo­r­ial in Wash­ing­ton, DC, are the immor­tal words of Thomas Jef­fer­son: “I trem­ble for my coun­try when I reflect that God is just.”

If the deist, Jef­fer­son, knew in the depths of his being that God is just, how much more ought we Chris­tians to reflect on this pro­found truth?

The jus­tice of God, like his holi­ness and his purity, encour­ages us to seek jus­tice for all peo­ple.

It is the evil deeds and wrong, self­ish atti­tudes of our mod­ern soci­ety that have led to the cav­a­lier accep­tance of abor­tion and euthana­sia.

But, as Jef­fer­son also said, “his jus­tice will not sleep for­ever.”

God is call­ing us today to seek jus­tice, to encour­age the oppressed, and to defend the orphans and wid­ows of our soci­ety.

It is a noble call­ing! It is one which every true believer, every God-fearing man and woman, should heed with no hes­i­ta­tion and no reluc­tance.

To fol­low the God of jus­tice and truth is to stand unequiv­o­cally for the right to life of every­one, espe­cially the unborn, the phys­i­cally dis­abled, and the ter­mi­nally ill.

God’s word through the prophet Isa­iah is as rel­e­vant in today’s 21st cen­tury world as it was in Isaiah’s 8th cen­tury BC world.

May God’s grace help us to defend the unborn’s right to life as well as that of the already born.

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PRAYER
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O God, our heav­enly Father, give us courage and wis­dom as we seek to erad­i­cate the evil in our soci­ety.

Help us to real­ize that your divine Spirit alone can change hearts and minds so that all your human crea­tures may enjoy the full­ness of life you intended for them.

I pray this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Sav­ior, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
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To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day34print.pdf

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Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: PS: Keep faith even in the midst of the chal­lenges! There are mir­a­cles hap­pen­ing every day at 40 Days for Life loca­tions near and far. Please share your thoughts, feel­ings, and any good news by reply­ing below.

Every day, we update a num­ber on the 40 Days for Life web page. Every day, that num­ber gets larger and larger. Every day, I am hum­bled and amazed at what God is doing dur­ing this cam­paign of prayer and fast­ing.

As of today, that num­ber has grown to …

… 298 babies … and their moth­ers …

… spared from abor­tion — that we know of!

Peo­ple pray­ing at a 40 Days for Life vigil out­side an abor­tion cen­ter in Mis­sion Hills, Cal­i­for­nia watched as a woman arrived for an abor­tion appoint­ment. Vol­un­teers spoke to her briefly as she walked toward the build­ing.

“The woman seemed upset with what she was about to do,” said Patti, “but went in any­way.”

When she came out a bit later, a pro-life coun­selor asked if she had changed her mind. “No,” she said. “I for­got my Medicare card at home and I have to go get it. The coun­selor responded, “You know, that’s just God telling you that you’re not sup­posed to be here.

“The woman acknowl­edged the com­ment,” Patti said,” and left cry­ing. She did not return!”

Here’s a photo of the Mis­sion Hills vigil:

“A young lady came up to ask what I thought about abor­tion,” said Shan­non, who coor­di­nates the 40 Days for Life cam­paign in Mem­phis, Ten­nessee.

Shan­non asked if she was preg­nant, and she said “yes.”

The woman then asked Shan­non how long she would be out on the side­walk. “I told her as long as she needed me to be there.”

The young woman went into the facil­ity … and later walked back out.

Shan­non then gave her infor­ma­tion about pro-life options. She said she had nowhere to go. “She actu­ally seemed relieved,” Shan­non said, “like a big weight was taken off of her to know there was another alter­na­tive.”

Here’s a look at the 40 Days for Life vigil in Mem­phis:

“Part of our com­mu­nity out­reach this cam­paign is focus­ing on get­ting the word out about the dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of abor­tions per­formed on minor­ity women,” said Jeanie, one of the lead­ers of the 40 Days for Life effort in Syra­cuse, New York.

She was able to speak to a cou­ple of women who were on their way into the Planned Par­ent­hood abor­tion cen­ter. “I explained that abor­tion is the lead­ing cause of death for African-Americans,” said Jeanie. “They were obvi­ously sur­prised by this infor­ma­tion and read­ily decided to seek the help offered at the cri­sis preg­nancy cen­ter next door.”

One of them walked by a lit­tle while later and sim­ply said “thank you” as a big smile came across her face.

“Yes, there is help and hope,” Jeanie said, “and we can offer this hope to women in very des­per­ate sit­u­a­tions.”

Here’s a photo of the vigil in Syra­cuse:

Thank you for every­thing you’re doing to sup­port this out­reach of prayer and fast­ing for an end to abor­tion. It’s work­ing — one life at a time.

Today’s devo­tional is from Rev. Ben Shel­don, pres­i­dent emer­i­tus of Pres­by­te­ri­ans for Life.

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DAY 27 INTENTION
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We pray for the gift of open­ness to chil­dren.

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SCRIPTURE
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Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The Lord said, “What have you done? Lis­ten! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”

– Gen­e­sis 4:8 – 10

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REFLECTION by Rev. Ben Shel­don, Pres­by­te­ri­ans Pro-Life
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God’s inten­tion is that we mul­ti­ply and fill the earth.

One of the most per­ni­cious lies that soci­ol­o­gists have foisted off on the pub­lic is that the earth is becom­ing over­pop­u­lated.

What kind of a sadis­tic god would cre­ate the earth and human crea­tures on it, only to have them lit­er­ally repro­duce them­selves into obliv­ion?

The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our divine Cre­ator, has com­manded us to mul­ti­ply and fill the earth and far from let­ting the pop­u­la­tion get out of con­trol, He has, in fact given his human crea­tures a domini­cal role over all the lesser crea­tures.

The “birth con­trol” move­ment, which had its begin­nings with Mar­garet Sanger in the early years of the last cen­tury, has led, in many parts of the world, to a birthrate that is dras­ti­cally below the nor­mal replace­ment rate.

God’s Word assures us that chil­dren are a bless­ing, that they are a reward of faith­fully trust­ing and serv­ing God and that they are the crown of their par­ents’ old age.

The spread of the con­tra­cep­tion men­tal­ity that has so per­me­ated our cul­ture is, undoubt­edly, a fac­tor in the ready accep­tance of abor­tion.

God’s com­mand­ment to mul­ti­ply and fill the earth has never been with­drawn. May He help us to accept the gift of chil­dren and give him thanks for every baby who is born into the world.

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PRAYER
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Father of mercy and grace, we thank you for the gift of our chil­dren.

Grant that every fiber of our being may rejoice when a new baby, our own or any else’s, is born into the world.

Help us to wel­come them as we would wel­come you, for when­ever a new baby is con­ceived, another life to bear your image and another voice to praise and wor­ship you, is begin­ning.

In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
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To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day27print.pdf

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Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: Have you wit­nessed any lives saved from abor­tion at the 40 Days for Life vigil in your com­mu­nity? If you have, please DO share your story by respond­ing below.

I’m truly amazed at the many expres­sions of encour­age­ment we are hear­ing from peo­ple who are join­ing this 40 Days for Life effort and pray­ing for an end to abor­tion — not only at the abor­tion cen­ters, but also at home, in church, at school, at work.

There are THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of you who are mak­ing 40 Days for Life a spe­cial time of prayer and fast­ing

Laura wrote to say that every day, she sits and qui­etly prays with the 40 Days for Life devo­tion­als. “I must say how pow­er­ful the devo­tions are,” she said. “I have been pray­ing through tears. Thank you, dear Lord, for giv­ing me the oppor­tu­nity to be a small part of this great min­istry for life.”

“I can’t get out for very long peri­ods of time due to an ill­ness,” said Ross, “but I’m offer­ing up my cross these days for the 40 Days for Life cam­paign and an end to abor­tion. God bless all of you who stand up for Jesus and for life.”

Les said he lives far from the near­est abor­tion facil­ity and does not have an oppor­tu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in the side­walk vig­ils. “But please know that my wife and I are observ­ing the 40-day fast and are pray­ing daily for the suc­cess of this cam­paign.

“Your sto­ries of suc­cess are heart-warming and encour­ag­ing,” he said, “and we pray that many more of these sce­nar­ios will be played out dur­ing the remain­der of the cam­paign and beyond.”

Betty said her hus­band is in the hos­pi­tal, so she nat­u­rally spends most of her time with him. “So with lim­ited time to appear — and the bad back of an 86-year-old woman — I can only do so much. I pray that you keep up your good work,” she said. “God bless you all!”

God bless you too, Betty — and your hus­band as well. Your prayers are much appre­ci­ated.

Michelle is pray­ing that stu­dents at a school in her area will be able to join the 40 Days for Life vigil at the local Planned Par­ent­hood. “They already pray at school,” she said, “but would like to be present for those going in as a wit­ness for life.”

Isn’t it amaz­ing that peo­ple WORLDWIDE are pray­ing with you — and for you?

“Just to let you all know, your efforts greatly encour­age us here in Brazil,” said Mary. “We are fac­ing a law to make abor­tion legal in this great coun­try. Please pray that this law will NOT get passed here. We are pray­ing to that end and also pray­ing for all of you there are who are the front­lines of LIFE.”

To each of you, no mat­ter where you are or where you’re pray­ing, I sim­ply say …

… THANK YOU!

Today’s devo­tional is from Rev. Ben Shel­don, pres­i­dent emer­i­tus of Pres­by­te­ri­ans for Life.

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DAY 24 INTENTION
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Pray that we may real­ize the gen­er­a­tional impact of abor­tion.

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SCRIPTURE
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Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife because she was bar­ren; and the Lord granted his prayer and Rebekah his wife con­ceived.

The chil­dren strug­gled together within her, and she said,” If it is thus, why do I live?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.

And the Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your womb, and two peo­ples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”

– Gen­e­sis 25:21 – 23

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REFLECTION by by Rev. Ben Shel­don
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What an answer to prayer!

Who dares to say that the unborn are not human, with dis­tinct per­son­al­ity and char­ac­ter right from the moment of con­cep­tion?

This account empha­sizes the vital­ity and unique­ness of the twins who, because of Isaac’s prayer for his wife, were con­ceived in Rebekah’s womb.

When Rebekah was told by the Lord that the older would serve the younger twin, God already knew that Jacob and Esau would lead tur­bu­lent and con­flicted lives.

God knows us and knows all about us, includ­ing our per­son­al­ity and dis­po­si­tion long before we are actu­ally born, indeed, from the moment we are con­ceived in our mother’s womb.

What a tragedy of gar­gan­tuan pro­por­tions that babies, planned and endowed by the Cre­ator, with dis­tinct and unique per­son­al­i­ties and with, per­haps, a future and des­tiny intended for great­ness, have their lives snuffed out by cruel abor­tion­ists before they ever see the light of day!

May our prayers that the dread­ful scourge of abor­tion in our land may van­ish be as fer­vent as Isaac’s were for Rebekah.

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PRAYER
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O, God, you formed us in our mother’s womb and planned a unique and spe­cial life and pur­pose for each of us, and we do thank you.

Grant that we may pray and work for an end to abor­tion, espe­cially in these 40 days, so that no unborn baby you have made may fail to achieve your divine inten­tion for him or her because of inten­tional abor­tion.

We pray this for the sake of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day24print.pdf

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Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: So how has 40 Days for Life affected you and your com­mu­nity these past few weeks? Please share the good news below.

I had to smile when I read a Cal­i­for­nia blogger’s post that described 40 Days for Life as a “babies-saving, moms-helping, ’round-the-clock prayer-and-fasting-outside-abortion-businesses effort that’s been sav­ing thou­sands of babies’ lives.”

I really loved that breath of fresh air! Far too often lately, I’ve seen strings of other adjec­tives con­nected to 40 Days for Life that are — to put it mildly — inac­cu­rate.

Just this week, I saw 40 Days for Life described as “a nasty cam­paign of anti-women harassers” who “get their jol­lies at this time of the year by swarm­ing women’s repro­duc­tive health cen­ters and abor­tion clin­ics for 40 days.”

Really?

Unfor­tu­nately, oth­ers can often be taken in by these inac­cu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tions. One 40 Days for Life vigil par­tic­i­pant saw first hand how such mis­state­ments can have an impact.

A young woman drove up to the abor­tion cen­ter and sat in her car. She seemed to be wait­ing for some­one. Finally, the per­son she was wait­ing for arrived — a police­man. The woman wanted to be escorted into the build­ing because peo­ple were out­side pray­ing.

A 40 Days for Life vigil par­tic­i­pant said the offi­cer was aware that “there had never been any com­plaints about us and how we con­duct our­selves.” But he also didn’t seem to under­stand why peo­ple were pray­ing.

The vol­un­teer saw an oppor­tu­nity to do a bit of edu­cat­ing, and explained that two dozen law­suits were pend­ing against the abor­tion cen­ter and there had been reports of three abortion-related deaths. “He didn’t know any of that.”

The offi­cer said, “The woman was scared to get out of the car with you here.” The vol­un­teer responded, “She should have been scared to go inside.”

Other peo­ple have fallen for the com­mon “pro-choice” mantra that a woman’s abor­tion deci­sion should be “hon­ored and respected.”

A 40 Days for Life par­tic­i­pant in Lake County, Indi­ana was shocked to see a pro-life bumper sticker on a car in the park­ing lot at Planned Par­ent­hood. The dri­ver explained that she didn’t like abor­tion, but it was her friend’s choice to have one.

She was told that such an argu­ment wouldn’t wash if her friend were to rob a bank; the dri­ver of the get­away car is con­sid­ered an accom­plice.

With that, the woman went inside the build­ing to tell her friend she was about to make a ter­ri­ble mis­take.

It wasn’t easy. Voices were raised. It was quite emo­tional. At one point, the dri­ver came out cry­ing, say­ing she had failed.

But the vigil par­tic­i­pants encour­aged her to try again. They kept pray­ing and “decided to let the Holy Spirit work.”

The dri­ver went back into the abor­tion cen­ter.

Later, her friend came out in tears, say­ing she had changed her mind: “I couldn’t do it.”

Thank you for your faith­ful­ness and your com­mit­ment. And thank you, Holy Spirit!

Today’s devo­tional is from Ran­dolph Sly of the National Pro-life Reli­gious Coun­cil.

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DAY 16 INTENTION
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May the mys­tery of the Incar­na­tion increase our zeal for defend­ing life.

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SCRIPTURE
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Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will con­ceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the High­est; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob for­ever, and of His king­dom there will be no end.”

– Luke 1:30 – 33

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REFLECTION by Ran­dolph Sly
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“God has assumed Human­ity, join­ing it with Divin­ity, and kin­dled in men’s hearts new love of me.” These words were writ­ten by a Roman poet in the Fourth Cen­tury. He spent his life find­ing ways to express the great­est mys­tery of the world: the incar­na­tion, in which God became man.

The womb has been referred to as the “first home of the whole human race.” It is the place where life begins, where our sto­ries start.

In the womb the great men and women of his­tory began their mag­nif­i­cent march through life.

In the womb Divin­ity met human­ity, and God the Son was born into the world.

As one of the Fathers of the early church, St. Leo the Great, declared, “Within her spot­less womb Wis­dom built itself a house and the Word became flesh.”

Recently, I was at the hos­pi­tal for the birth of my fourth grand­child. Look­ing through the nurs­ery win­dow at the rows of newly born babies, I began to think of the great sto­ries that would be writ­ten about these tiny lives.

Dur­ing his vis­i­ta­tion with the Vir­gin Mary, the angel proph­e­sied to Mary about the life of her child. Here in this hos­pi­tal, I pon­dered, what would he say about each of these?

Would they meet the one who also came from His mother’s womb to redeem the world and kin­dle our hearts afresh for God?

I thanked God for each baby alive and prayed for each story yet to be writ­ten.

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PRAYER
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Heav­enly Father, you have made the womb of each woman a very spe­cial place.

Help us to hold fast to the sanc­tity of this first home of human­ity, remem­ber­ing the won­der­ful mys­tery, that God inhab­ited the womb of a young woman and came forth as the sav­ior and deliv­erer of the world.

We ask this in the Name of the one who came forth, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
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To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day16print.pdf

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Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: What’s new at 40 Days for Life in your com­mu­nity? Please share any bless­ings by reply­ing below.

A young woman walked up to the 40 Days for Life vigil out­side an abor­tion cen­ter in Austin, Texas recently. She signed up to join the oth­ers in prayer … and then imme­di­ately sat down on the side­walk and started to cry.

One of the vol­un­teers stopped pray­ing for a moment to approach the young woman, whom she had never met before, and asked her if she needed a hug. This vol­un­teer assumed that the thought of what was going on inside the abor­tion facil­ity had sim­ply over­come this woman and brought her to tears.

But that wasn’t the case. To her sur­prise, she found out this young woman was cry­ing for another rea­son.

“I’m preg­nant right now and don’t want to be,” she said. “I’ve already had four abor­tions.

She said she didn’t have an abor­tion sched­uled. “But I keep feel­ing this huge temp­ta­tion to just go to an abor­tion clinic, pay my $400 and get it over with. I came to the side­walk to pray, and to be around peo­ple who are like-minded as I am.”

The young woman told one of the side­walk coun­selors that she was twelve weeks into her preg­nancy. She had already been to a preg­nancy resource cen­ter, but was still a mess emo­tion­ally.

She had become a Chris­t­ian, she said. “But with this preg­nancy, I just feel so depressed. I’m liv­ing in a women’s shel­ter, and the last thing I want right now is to be preg­nant.”

The side­walk coun­selor took her to din­ner, and they sat and talked for hours. “As they devel­oped a long-term plan to get this young woman the help she needs,” said Eliz­a­beth McClung, the local 40 Days for Life coor­di­na­tor in Austin, “she said some­thing that should serve as an encour­age­ment to every sin­gle pro-lifer who has ever thought about going to pray at an abor­tion facil­ity.”

“If you guys weren’t out there pray­ing,” this woman said, “I would have pulled up to the facil­ity, sat in my car for hours on end — and ended up going inside for a fifth abor­tion. Since you were on the side­walk pray­ing, I knew I could find com­fort and sup­port there, so I went there to cry instead. Thank you for being there.”

“Her story is the per­fect exam­ple as to why we not only pray from home and from church, but we also go pray at the very places where lives are being hurt and taken,” Eliz­a­beth said.

She is now on a path to heal­ing from her pre­vi­ous abor­tions, find­ing a job and tak­ing her preg­nancy one day at a time. And, Eliz­a­beth said, “She is not going to have another abor­tion!”

Please pray for her, and for all who are des­per­ate to break out of that cycle of abor­tion.

Today’s devo­tional is from Car­men Pate, a mem­ber of the 40 Days for Life board of direc­tors.

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DAY 15 INTENTION
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Pray that we will not become defeated by the enemy’s attacks but rather call on the name of the Lord who is on our side and our help in time of trou­ble.

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SCRIPTURE
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What if the Lord had not been on our side when peo­ple attacked us? They would have swal­lowed us alive in their burn­ing anger.

Praise the Lord, who did not let their teeth tear us apart! Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

– Psalm 124:2,3,6,8

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REFLECTION by Car­men Pate, 40 Days for Life
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The enemy attacks in many ways, but one of his favorites is to slan­der us with hopes of tar­nish­ing our rep­u­ta­tion and char­ac­ter, and ulti­mately to defeat our good work for the Lord.

It is inter­est­ing to note how­ever that it is usu­ally not the slan­der that causes harm to our tes­ti­mony, but our response to the slan­der.

Proverbs 24:10 says, “If you faint in the day of adver­sity your strength is small.”

If we are apply­ing God’s truths to our lives moment by moment, we are not swayed by the lies of the enemy and we will be strong. Stand­ing on the front lines, armed with God’s truth, places you in the bat­tle­field for the mind.

As you are pre­pared to present words of love, for the sake of the unborn and for the dis­traught and con­fused women and men who are enter­ing the abor­tion facil­i­ties, know that the enemy has pre­pared his forces to attack your mind.

Unkind words from a pro­tester, or vicious lies in the local paper about who you are and what your mis­sion is, can indeed be hurt­ful.

But rather than give in to defeat, that is the time to shine for the Lord, stand­ing firm, as you call on Him to defeat the enemy.

Remem­ber the words of Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Let’s stand strong for those who need us most.

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PRAYER
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Dear Lord, help us to ignore the ver­bal attacks of the enemy and instead turn to You, our refuge and strength.

Help us to find shel­ter in the blessed promises and pro­vi­sions of Your Word.

Thank you that no enemy can defeat us, and we praise You know­ing that noth­ing can sep­a­rate us from Your love. In the name of Jesus, we come to You, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day15print.pdf

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Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: Please share the good news! Sto­ries about your own 40 Days for Life expe­ri­ences are always wel­come. You may post a response below.

I’m home in Vir­ginia for a short time before head­ing back out on the road. My wife, Mar­garet, asked if our fam­ily could go pray at a nearby 40 Days for Life vigil — so we piled in the mini­van and headed an hour south to Rich­mond to join other prayer war­riors out­side a local abor­tion cen­ter. I remem­bered to bring my pocket video cam­era, and just posted a 5-minute video:

Trust­ing God can be chal­leng­ing. You don’t always see instant results when you pray at an abor­tion cen­ter. But that’s all right. We often have to take it on faith that God is at work behind the scenes.

Three prayer vol­un­teers at the 40 Days for Life vigil in Roanoke, Vir­ginia talked to a young mom who was obvi­ously well along in her preg­nancy. She was unmar­ried and poor and had four small chil­dren.

“We prayed with her and asked her to give her baby life,” said one of the vigil par­tic­i­pants. “Let us have the baby, we said, and we would find a home.”

The young mother cried and allowed the three to hug her. And then she walked into the abor­tion cen­ter.

“I can’t get her off my mind,” the vol­un­teer said. “She held on so tightly to me. I don’t know what she will ulti­mately decide. Please, please keep up your prayers and sac­ri­fices.”

Here’s a photo of the 40 Days for Life vigil in Roanoke:

Please remem­ber that this is spir­i­tual war­fare. And some­times when you watch care­fully, you start to observe sub­tle changes.

“When there are large groups of peo­ple in prayer being led by mem­bers of the clergy, it really seems to affect the Planned Par­ent­hood escorts and work­ers,” said one of the 40 Days for Life lead­er­ship team mem­bers in Hous­ton, Texas.

She said the Planned Par­ent­hood staff can become very agi­tated and appear ner­vous. A few even back off from escort­ing their clients and allow side­walk coun­selors to hand out lit­er­a­ture with­out inter­fer­ence.

“Oh, if we could see the spir­i­tual war­fare that must be going on!” she said.

Nikki in Pitts­burgh sees a sim­i­lar impact. “What a dif­fer­ence prayer makes,” she said.

She said that dur­ing the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil, what is nor­mally a very busy, noisy side­walk was cov­ered in the peace­ful pres­ence of God.

“It even seemed that the noise of the buses were muf­fled, drowned out by the prayers of the peo­ple. It was so pow­er­ful,” she said.

For some rea­son, more young women were will­ing to take her infor­ma­tional brochures. More peo­ple were will­ing to talk to her. More girls were will­ing to take brochures into the clinic than usual. More peo­ple were recep­tive to talk­ing to her, includ­ing one teenage cou­ple.

This cou­ple, how­ever, con­tin­ued on their way into the clinic. “But I believe came back out after only a few min­utes. I didn’t get to talk to them,” Nikki said, “but I hope and pray that they changed their minds.”

“Please know that we are plant­ing seeds,” said Linda, one of the local 40 Days for Life coor­di­na­tors in Can­ton, Ohio. “We are vis­i­ble signs of Christ; and with God guid­ing us we are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence.”

Today’s devo­tional is from Fr. Frank Pavone, national direc­tor of Priests for Life.

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DAY 14 INTENTION
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Pray that we will have faith to real­ize that even now our Lord can bring an end to abor­tion.

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SCRIPTURE
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On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to com­fort them in the loss of their brother.

When Martha heard that Jesus was com­ing, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you what­ever you ask.”

– John 11:17 – 22

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REFLECTION by Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life
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Martha was right. Jesus is Lord of life and death.

She knew that, which is why she was able to make this state­ment, yet at the same time she had to wres­tle with the fact that Lazarus died any­way.

Jesus indeed is Lord over life and death, but here the power of death was still dis­played right in front of her.

Yet in this clash between the con­vic­tion of faith and the evi­dence of human expe­ri­ence, Martha allowed hope to shine through. “Even now, God will give you what­ever you ask.”

Even now. Those words show the power of hope, born of faith. Even now, when death has already done its work, life can be vic­to­ri­ous.

Even now, when the last word seems to have been spo­ken, we can hope that a word will be spo­ken again to restore life.

Even now, when Lazarus has already been laid in the tomb and it seems impos­si­ble to do any­thing about it, things can change. And things did change. The Lord raised Lazarus from the dead.

We live in a soci­ety where many believe the abor­tion issue has been set­tled, and its prac­tice so deeply ingrained in our poli­cies and atti­tudes that it is unre­al­is­tic to think we can stop it.

Yet we are the peo­ple who say to Jesus, “Even now…”

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PRAYER
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Lord Jesus, even now, you are mas­ter of life and death. I come before you as Martha did after Lazarus has died. I come before you after count­less broth­ers and sis­ters of mine have died from abor­tion.

And I pray to you: even now, you can stop the forces of death. Even now, you can bring us into a cul­ture of life. Come, Lord Jesus. Speak your word yet again, and free our nation from the shack­les of death. Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day14print.pdf

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: How is God pro­vid­ing bless­ings for the 40 Days for Life cam­paign in your com­mu­nity? Please let every­one know by post­ing a reply below.

When­ever talk­ing about babies saved from abor­tion through God’s mercy and the prayers of 40 Days for Life par­tic­i­pants, I usu­ally add the words “that we know of.” After all, we really don’t know how many lives have been spared in ways that only God will ever know. We just have to trust Him!

With that in mind, I can tell you that thus far in this 40 Days for Life cam­paign …

… 107 babies have been saved from abor­tion …

… that we know of!

We don’t know, for instance, how many abor­tions were pre­vented because the abor­tion facil­ity was closed one day last week in Over­land Park, Kansas.

“The place was empty,” said Valerie. Appar­ently, heat­ing and plumb­ing prob­lems kept the doors shut all day. “Praise God for allow­ing women to have another chance to think about what they are doing.”

Most of the time, we don’t know how many women change their minds — and sim­ply don’t show up for their abor­tion appoint­ment.

We do, how­ever, know of at least one.

Judy in La Puente, Cal­i­for­nia said a young man walked up to 40 Days for Life vigil par­tic­i­pants to thank them for being there.

“Because he had seen us out­side pray­ing, he had the courage to con­vince his girl­friend not to have an abor­tion,” she said. “You just never know how many oth­ers never get to the abor­tion site because of our pres­ence. Praise God!”

That may be hap­pen­ing in other cities as well. Mary in Everett, Wash­ing­ton noted that last Mon­day, the abor­tion facil­ity “wasn’t as busy as I remem­ber on Mon­days dur­ing the last cam­paign.”

It’s great news when­ever busi­ness decreases at the abor­tion cen­ter!

Here’s a photo of the 40 Days for Life vigil in Everett:

In Fayet­teville, Arkansas — yes, the same city where the abor­tion­ist went on TV to call 40 Days for Life “silly” — a young man sport­ing a Mohawk hair­cut, leather jacket and sun­glasses is parad­ing in front of the abor­tion cen­ter with a home­made poster that reads “I love abor­tion.”

He, too, drew the atten­tion of a local TV sta­tion, telling the reporter that pro-life peo­ple “incite hatred.” The video shows a mom and her two chil­dren qui­etly pray­ing, with other peo­ple behind them peace­fully stand­ing in prayer as well.

Incit­ing hatred? Of course not! And any­one watch­ing the news­cast could clearly see that.

As for the guy with the “I love abor­tion” sign — and the other per­son who joined him later offer­ing “free coat hangers” — vigil par­tic­i­pant Christy White sim­ply told the reporter, “We’re just pray­ing for con­ver­sion of their hearts.”

Click here to see the TV news report:

http://www.4029tv.com/news/22665396/detail.html

Today’s devo­tional is from Den­nis DeMauro of Luther­ans for Life.

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DAY 13 INTENTION
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We pray for the strength to love those who do not love us.

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SCRIPTURE
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But the Lord said “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came up in the night and per­ished in the night. And should I not pity Nin­eveh, that great city, in which are more than one hun­dred and twenty thou­sand per­sons who can­not dis­cern between their right hand and their left, and much live­stock? Should I not be con­cerned about that great city?”

– Jonah 4:10 – 11

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REFLECTION by Den­nis DiMauro, Luther­ans for Life
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God doesn’t value peo­ple and things like we do.

Jonah loved a shade tree more than an entire city of sin­ful peo­ple. We love our dogs more than a ter­ror­ist. We love our cars more than a beg­gar on the side of the road. And some­times, we love our money more than a child grow­ing in a des­per­ate teenager’s womb.

But God isn’t like us. Gen­e­sis 1 tells us that humans were the cap­stone of God’s cre­ation.

We were cre­ated on the sixth day after God had com­pleted the land, the stars, the plants and the ani­mals. There­fore, His love for us is greater than His love for a plant, an ani­mal, or any other cre­ated thing.

And the book of Jonah tells us that He loves even the most sin­ful peo­ple and seeks to bring them into His mer­ci­ful arms. And it’s a love that seeks to touch all of his cre­ated chil­dren: that des­per­ate teenager, the baby grow­ing in her womb, even tyrants and ter­ror­ists.

So it’s up to us to imi­tate God’s mer­ci­ful love by help­ing and pray­ing for those who per­se­cute us, and those who don’t love us back.

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PRAYER
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Gra­cious God, lov­ing our ene­mies seems like one of most dif­fi­cult things you could ask of us.

Please remind us that this is how you love and that if you ask it of us then you will give us the grace to do it. This we ask through Christ our Lord, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day13print.pdf

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How many more lives will be saved over the next 27 days of this cam­paign thanks to you?

I can’t wait to find out! 

Yours For Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: Good news from your 40 Days for Life cam­paign? Any “inter­est­ing” vis­i­tors like the ones the Fayet­teville vigil attracted? Please share the infor­ma­tion by reply­ing to below.

Two vol­un­teers stood in the rain and prayed at a 40 Days for Life vigil last week as a young man drove up, got out of his car with the engine still run­ning, and walked over to talk to them

“I just wanted to thank you for being here,” he said. “I know you know what kind of a place this is,” he said, point­ing towards the abor­tion facil­ity. “Can I tell you a story about it?”

The prayer vol­un­teers nod­ded yes, and the young man began to pour out his heart.

He said a cou­ple of weeks ago, his wife was not at home and he had no idea where she was — until he got a phone call from the hos­pi­tal. “My wife had been admit­ted because she was hav­ing seizures,” he said.

At the hos­pi­tal, he found out his wife was preg­nant. It would be a strug­gle with two young chil­dren already, he said, but they’d work it out.

As he spent more time at the hos­pi­tal, it began to dawn on this young man that no one was telling him the whole truth. He real­ized some­thing was seri­ously amiss when his wife told him she’d left her car at an abor­tion facil­ity.

He thinks she went there for a chem­i­cal abor­tion — the abor­tion pill. She began to have seizures and was taken to the hos­pi­tal.

His wife insisted she was still preg­nant, but he sim­ply didn’t know for sure.

“I haven’t stopped cry­ing in over two weeks,” he said. “What kind of place is this that would do this to a mar­ried woman with­out telling her hus­band, the fatherof the baby?”

“We asked if we could pray for him,” said one of the prayer team mem­bers. “As we prayed, the young man began to cry again. Just imag­ine how he felt — betrayed, help­less. We assured him that he will get through this trial and that God loves him.”

Vigil par­tic­i­pants hugged him, and he thanked them for being there on this rainy day. “Please keep being here,” he said, and then returned to his car and drove away. “While we did not save a baby from an abor­tion,” said the vol­un­teer, “we brought Christ to a hurt­ing father.”

Please pray for this young man, who fears he may have lost his child to abor­tion. Please pray as well for his wife and for his fam­ily. Please pray that those who are deceived by the abor­tion indus­try will be awak­ened to the truth of God’s love — and the aware­ness that all things are pos­si­ble with God.

“And, if you are will­ing,” the vigil par­tic­i­pant said, “please con­sider join­ing us as we keep vigil for these 40 Days for Life.”

Today’s devo­tional is from Car­men Pate, a mem­ber of the 40 Days for Life board of direc­tors.

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DAY 12 INTENTION
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Pray to God who is able to do immea­sur­ably more than all we ask or imag­ine, to end abor­tion in Amer­ica.

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SCRIPTURE
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Now to Him who is able to do exceed­ingly abun­dantly above all that we ask or think, accord­ing to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all gen­er­a­tions, for­ever and ever. Amen.

– Eph­esians 3:20 – 21

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REFLECTION by Car­men Pate, 40 Days for Life
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God’s power work­ing in and through His peo­ple is unlim­ited and far beyond our com­pre­hen­sion when we sub­mit to God’s Word and Spirit. He receives glory when we are obe­di­ent to His call­ing and faith­fully serve Him in His strength.

Con­sider God’s hand of prov­i­dence on this nation because of the faith­ful­ness of a few who were totally com­mit­ted to God and His truths.

It is inter­est­ing to note the words of Mother Teresa of Cal­cutta: “Yours is the one great nation in all his­tory which was founded on the pre­cept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poor­est and weak­est of us as well as the rich­est and strongest.”

Mother Teresa, in address­ing the Supreme Court of the United States said, “Human rights are not a priv­i­lege con­ferred by gov­ern­ment. They are every human being’s enti­tle­ment by virtue of his human­ity. I have no new teach­ing for Amer­ica. I seek only to recall you to faith­ful­ness to what you once taught the world.

She con­tin­ued, “Your nation was founded on the propo­si­tion very old as a moral pre­cept, but star­tling and inno­v­a­tive as a polit­i­cal insight that human life is a gift of immea­sur­able worth, and that it deserves, always and every­where, to be treated with the utmost dig­nity and respect.”

It is time to restore that dig­nity and respect. Our God is able. Are we will­ing to remain faith­ful until His work through us is done?

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PRAYER
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God Almighty, Who is pow­er­ful and will­ing to sup­ply, our hearts cry in uni­son for You to restore dig­nity and respect to human life, not only in Amer­ica, but around the world.

Lord, may our hearts remain faith­ful to your call­ing, and may You begin Your trans­form­ing work with me.

Keep me ever mind­ful that with You Lord, noth­ing is impos­si­ble; with­out You, I can do noth­ing. To You be glory for­ever and ever, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day12print.pdf

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

On this, the Lord’s day, let’s also pray for heal­ing for all those touched by the pain of abor­tion.

Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: If you have sto­ries to share about your own involve­ment in this 40 Days for Life cam­paign, please respond below.

Would you believe that God sent a snow­storm to shut an abor­tion cen­ter? All right, I admit that wasn’t the only impact of all that snow. But it cer­tainly put abor­tion out of busi­ness tem­porar­ily in Reno, Nevada.

“And for that,” said Carol Marie, the local 40 Days for Life coor­di­na­tor, “we thank God.”

There was no sign of the abor­tion­ist all day … but the vigil con­tin­ued. The snow delayed travel, but vol­un­teers came from as far as 30 miles away to pray.

Snow seems to be one of this campaign’s themes in North Amer­ica. In fact, there may be areas that are ready to re-name this effort “40 Days of Snow.”

It even snowed at the orig­i­nal start­ing place of 40 Days for Life in Bryan/College Sta­tion, Texas!

Eric in Indi­anapo­lis, Indi­ana fully expected to be stand­ing in deep snow on the campaign’s first day. But as he arrived at Planned Par­ent­hood, “I noticed that some Samar­i­tans had both plowed the right-of-way park­ing area and shov­eled the snow in the grassy prayer vigil area. What a nice sur­prise for those who will brave the cold air.”

Here are prayer vol­un­teers stand­ing in the snow in Indi­anapo­lis:

Sandy in Toms River, New Jer­sey reports that snow-covered ground and below-freezing tem­per­a­tures could not keep a group of 40 peo­ple away from the 40 Days for Life vigil site recently.

Dur­ing their prayer ser­vice, peo­ple were reminded that “our prayers should be focused not only on sav­ing the lives of the pre­born chil­dren in dan­ger of death, but also on the women who are enter­ing the clinic who may be los­ing their spir­i­tual lives.”

Here are prayer vol­un­teers stand­ing in the snow in Toms River:

Vol­un­teers at one 40 Days for Life vigil had an unusual snow story to share. Some­one at a Planned Par­ent­hood facil­ity called the police because vigil par­tic­i­pants were on the side­walk in front of the build­ing … shov­el­ing snow!

“We thought we were doing them a favor,” said one vol­un­teer, who never thought that clear­ing the side­walk would be con­sid­ered a “bad deed.”

So they stopped shov­el­ing and con­tin­ued pray­ing.

40 Days for Life in Spring Val­ley, New York has cer­tainly seen its share of snow as well. But there, too, peo­ple just bun­dle up and keep pray­ing.

Here are prayer vol­un­teers stand­ing in the snow in Spring Val­ley:

“Every prayer is heard,” said Eileen in Spring Val­ley. “Every hour makes a dif­fer­ence. Lives are saved. Wounded hearts are healed. And the power of love touches those who are look­ing for their Cre­ator.”

And that’s true … come rain or come shine. Or snow!

Today’s devo­tional is from Fr. Frank Pavone, national direc­tor of Priests for Life.

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DAY 11 INTENTION
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Pray that peo­ple of faith will have their strength renewed even in the face of the vio­lence of abor­tion.

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SCRIPTURE
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The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mer­cies are not spent. They are renewed each morn­ing, so great is his faith­ful­ness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my por­tion; there­fore I will wait for him.”

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait in silence for the sav­ing help of the Lord.

– Lamen­ta­tions 3:22 – 26

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REFLECTION by Fr. Frank Pavone, Priests for Life
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The Book of Lamen­ta­tions, a short book of only five chap­ters, con­tains some of the most poignant expres­sions of human grief.

These verses are used in many Churches on Good Fri­day, since they can be seen to express a prophecy of the suf­fer­ing of the Lord and the lamen­ta­tion of his fol­low­ers on that dark day.

But in the midst of his grief, Jere­miah writes the verses quoted above. “The favors of the Lord are not exhausted.” It is a call to hope that no mat­ter how much vio­lence there is, life will pre­vail in the end.

Why does he say, how­ever, that God’s mer­cies are renewed each morn­ing?

Because early in the morn­ing, on the first day of the week, the women came to the tomb — and they found that the events of that morn­ing changed every­thing.

Christ’s vic­tory over death came in the morn­ing, and there­fore each day we can renew our con­fi­dence that life has the final vic­tory.

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PRAYER
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Lord, look kindly on your peo­ple who weep and mourn amidst the vast dev­as­ta­tion that abor­tion has brought upon our land. We can­not even count the chil­dren killed, and the moth­ers and fathers wounded.

We can­not mea­sure the dev­as­ta­tion and cor­rup­tion abor­tion has brought upon the very fab­ric of our soci­ety. But we declare today that your favors have not been exhausted, your mer­cies have not been spent. They are renewed each morn­ing.

Give us new strength today in the res­ur­rec­tion of Christ your Son, that we may bear effec­tive wit­ness to the vic­tory of life! In His name we pray, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day11print.pdf

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: Has over­com­ing weather chal­lenges been one of the bless­ings at your 40 Days for Life cam­paign? If you have any good news to share, please leave a com­ment below.

I’m inspired by all the local TV reports about 40 Days for Life! In two min­utes or less, they can show your entire com­mu­nity the true nature of your peace­ful, prayer­ful out­reach.

Often, these reports will fea­ture only a writ­ten state­ment from the abor­tion cen­ter staff. They’re not always eager to appear on cam­era.

One excep­tion, how­ever, is William Har­ri­son — a Fayet­teville, Arkansas abor­tion­ist whose appear­ance on a local TV news­cast offers an inter­est­ing insight into his mind­set.

What does Har­ri­son think of 40 Days for Life? “I think it’s silly,” he told the reporter. “Stand­ing across the street and pray­ing to end abor­tion — that doesn’t work.”

He “thanked” vigil par­tic­i­pants for point­ing out his loca­tion, because he doesn’t adver­tise and claims that peo­ple pray­ing out­side will help new­com­ers find him.

He also advised local 40 Days for Life coor­di­na­tors to look more seri­ous and to bring a priest with them.

Har­ri­son said with a laugh, “You know, if they’re going to be pray­ing and fast­ing, they ought to take this job seri­ously.”

They ARE seri­ous about this, said Juliet Cas­sell, one of the local coor­di­na­tors. “We want this to be a pos­i­tive, peace­ful event and really call atten­tion to what’s going on across the street. Chil­dren are los­ing their lives,” she told the reporter.

And … they’re pray­ing for Har­ri­son.

“One of my biggest prayers is that he would have a con­ver­sion of the heart and he use his med­ical skills and knowl­edge to pro­mote life, not death,” said Tiffany Dick­in­son, another of the 40 Days for Life coor­di­na­tors.

Watch the TV report online (there’s a short com­mer­cial first):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UCxtLSMM5g

I per­son­ally pray for every­one involved in the abor­tion indus­try — includ­ing William Har­ri­son. He may seem deter­mined and unwill­ing to even think about quit­ting. But then again, so did some­one I know — Abby John­son.

For eight years, Abby worked at Planned Par­ent­hood in Bryan, Texas. She rose to the posi­tion of direc­tor and was the Planned Par­ent­hood affiliate’s employee of the year.

She watched the first-ever 40 Days for Life cam­paign from her office win­dow in 2004 — and kept watch­ing as five more peace­ful, prayer­ful cam­paigns unfolded over the next sev­eral years.

Last Octo­ber, dur­ing the fall 40 Days for Life, she had a change of heart … and quit her job.

Just four months later, the very same Abby John­son stood out­side the abor­tion cen­ter she once directed — speak­ing at the local 40 Days for Life kick­off event, encour­ag­ing peo­ple to come out and pray for an end to abor­tion — as her for­mer co-workers watched.

Here’s a short video of her kick­off remarks at:

Pray hard!

Today’s devo­tional is from Geor­gette For­ney of Angli­cans for Life

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DAY 10 INTENTION
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May those who hold life as triv­ial real­ize that we live because God wills it so.

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SCRIPTURE
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Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this, in His hand is the life of every crea­ture and the breath of all mankind.

– Job 12:9 – 10

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REFLECTION by Geor­gette For­ney, Angli­cans for Life
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Job was a man acquainted with grief, tri­als and tribu­la­tion. He had every­thing taken from him, includ­ing his fam­ily. He endured sick­ness, ridicule and judg­ment from his friends.

Every­one gave him advice about his sit­u­a­tion, ques­tion­ing his spir­i­tu­al­ity and his God. Job’s cir­cum­stances were bad but he never loses faith. Why? Because “the hand of the Lord has made all life.” Cre­ated by God, he knows his life has mean­ing and pur­pose, regard­less of the cir­cum­stances.

In our present cul­ture, we’ve lost that basic truth; every life is made and allowed to live by God’s sov­er­eign author­ity. As peo­ple who pride our­selves on our inde­pen­dence, we have a hard time acknowl­edg­ing our depen­dence on God.

From our cre­ation, when we were knit together in our mother’s womb to our last breath, God’s word is clear that “in His hand is the life of every crea­ture and the breath of all mankind.”

It’s time for us as indi­vid­u­als, and as a soci­ety, to rec­og­nize that we exist by God’s grace and turn back to Him, hon­or­ing His word and His teach­ings. Why? Because our world is full of Jobs, peo­ple who are deal­ing with tri­als and tribu­la­tions and hurt­ing des­per­ately.

Job’s response should be ours as well. Regard­less of what we face (even an unplanned preg­nancy) God in His wis­dom and mercy will redeem it.

How do I know? Job’s friends who doubted God’s sov­er­eignty cry out to God ask­ing for help, God instructs Job to pray for his friends and after he does, God restores all that Job had lost.

In other words, because Job never lost faith and knew and trusted His Cre­ator, the Lord blessed Job.

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PRAYER
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Thank you Father God for being the Cre­ator of my life and every life. Please give me, and the soci­ety in which I live, an appre­ci­a­tion for your gift of life.

Please help us set aside our pride and acknowl­edge that we need you. Show me how I can honor you today in response to all the bless­ings you bestow freely. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day10print.pdf

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

Please pray for a change of heart for all those who work or vol­un­teer for abor­tion facil­i­ties, their finan­cial sup­port­ers and polit­i­cal advo­cates, and their cus­tomers.

Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: What’s the lat­est on 40 Days for Life in your com­mu­nity? If you have sto­ries to tell, please respond below.

Do you know how impor­tant your pres­ence in front of an abor­tion cen­ter can be? Here are a few reports from local 40 Days for Life cam­paigns that just begin to tell the story.

One of the prayer vol­un­teers in Hous­ton, Texas says a mom and her young son arrived to pray at their vigil in front of Planned Par­ent­hood. The woman had aborted her first child at that very loca­tion.

She HAD to be there to pray, she said. “I can’t help but think that if some pro-lifers were here” when she had the abor­tion, “maybe I wouldn’t have gone through it.”

Those sen­ti­ments were echoed by BJ, who posted a com­ment on the 40 Days for Life blog.

If only there had been some­one pray­ing out­side Planned Par­ent­hood in her city, 19 years ago, “it would have made all the dif­fer­ence in the world to me and my boyfriend,” she wrote. “I regret every day what occurred in that cold win­ter morn­ing.”

Just BEING THERE can have a pro­found impact.

Joanne tells of a mom who brought her chil­dren to the 40 Days for Life vigil in Cranston, Rhode Island. While they were pray­ing, her son noticed a woman sit­ting in a car in the park­ing lot. He looked in her direc­tion once, and then again.

The woman looked at him, and their eyes locked.

“The woman began sob­bing,” Joanne said. “Some­thing in her heart moved.”

We pray that God’s heal­ing love will touch women con­tem­plat­ing abor­tion — and all whose lives have been touched by past abor­tions. The suf­fer­ing can go on for years.

Dorothy, who left a note on the 40 Days for Life blog, said she still thinks of the “hor­rific deci­sion” she made 26 years ago, when there was no one there to tell her she could choose life for her child.

She had never healed from the pain of that abor­tion — until recently.

“When I stood and prayed in front of Planned Par­ent­hood, I was flooded with emo­tion,” she wrote. “Hold­ing the sign that ‘women regret abor­tion’ empow­ered me, along with the won­der­ful peo­ple that sur­rounded me in prayer.”

Sadly, not all of the women who see her sign take heed.

“A young woman leav­ing Planned Par­ent­hood looked away in pro­found sad­ness after read­ing my sign,” Dorothy said, “and I thought, ‘Dear God. Her life will never be the same.’ The impact on women is so under­stated.”

Still, she said, thanks to you and all 40 Days for Life par­tic­i­pants, “I am now on the road to heal­ing.”

Please pray for all those who seek heal­ing — and espe­cially for those who would deny that abor­tion leaves a last­ing impact.

Today’s devo­tional is from Car­men Pate, a mem­ber of the 40 Days for Life board of direc­tors.

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DAY 9 INTENTION
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Pray that the post-abortive woman would be repen­tant, accept for­give­ness, be healed and restored, and bring glory to God with her new life.

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SCRIPTURE
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I acknowl­edged my sin to You, and my iniq­uity I have not hid­den. I said, “I will con­fess my trans­gres­sions to the Lord,” and You for­gave the iniq­uity of my sin.

– Psalm 32:5

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REFLECTION by Car­men Pate, 40 Days for Life
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Because abor­tion is legal in Amer­ica, many have jus­ti­fied their choice. “If it’s legal, it can’t be wrong, right?”

We now have an entire gen­er­a­tion of men and women who have never known abor­tion to be ille­gal; a gen­er­a­tion of peo­ple who have never been bro­ken over their sin of abor­tion.

As a result, the con­se­quences of uncon­fessed sin weigh on their souls, yet they have never con­nected the dots as to why their hearts are heavy. No won­der we have mil­lions of women who are strug­gling with depres­sion, addic­tions, eat­ing dis­or­ders and more.

Post abor­tion syn­drome is very real but recov­ery begins when the indi­vid­ual agrees with God as David con­fessed in Psalm 51:3 – 4, 14, “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight — that You may be found just when You speak, and blame­less when you Judge. Deliver me from the guilt of blood­shed, O God, the God of my sal­va­tion.”

Bro­ken­ness is the key to access­ing God’s glo­ri­ous mercy and heal­ing. Christ came to heal the bro­ken hearted and He is wait­ing with open arms to take the post-abortive woman on a glo­ri­ous jour­ney of heal­ing and restora­tion if she will only run to Him.

God will not waste any sin we lay at His feet. Imag­ine mil­lions of healed and restored post-abortive women like myself singing aloud of His right­eous­ness and giv­ing tes­ti­mony of His love and for­give­ness.

What a day of rejoic­ing that will be!

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PRAYER
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Heav­enly Father, we have turned our backs on you and your prin­ci­ples in your Word. We have allowed man to usurp Your role as God over life and the num­ber of our days.

But we come to you in bro­ken­ness and repen­tance over our sin.

We cry out for Your mercy and ask you to remove the scourge of abor­tion from our land. Use us as your ves­sels, Lord, to bring the light of Your Truth to our nation once again. Because of Christ we pray, Amen.

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PRINTABLE DEVOTIONAL
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To down­load today’s devo­tional as a for­mat­ted, print­able PDF to share with friends:

http://40daysforlife.com/docs/spring2010day09print.pdf

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If you know some­one who has expe­ri­enced the pain of an abor­tion, pray for them, and let them know that they can find hope and heal­ing.

Also, tell them about the incred­i­bly help­ful resources avail­able from:

• Abor­tion Recov­ery Inter­Na­tional
  http://www.abortionrecovery.org
• Rachel’s Vine­yard Min­istries
  http://www.rachelsvineyard.org

Yours for Life,

David Bereit
National Direc­tor
40 Days for Life

PS: If you have sto­ries to share about the 40 Days for Life cam­paign in your town, please leave a com­ment below.