This post transferred from my old blog. Bold words are new/modified.
October 4, 2011 8:22PM
Tonight is my first night of 40 Days for Life for this year. I was going to write this out on paper but my pen wouldn't write... :-/. I decided to do some on-site reflective journaling because I ... feel like it would be fruitful.
This time around is different. Last year I went from 7PM-8PM where the sun was still setting and you can still see. But now that I'm from 8PM-9PM... It's already dark. This is also different in that it is evening since I usually go on a Saturday morning. The parking lot is near empty and no one is driving up like a Saturday morning.
I prayed a Divine Mercy Chaplet and during this time the employees, with their conspicuous tattoos (even in the dark), drove away in their really nice cars. I didn't look at them purposely. I closed my eyes with my head down as they drove past me. Now, the only person on the premises is the custodial worker.
Praise God that I'm not alone here. I'm in a somewhat shady part of town. A few Hispanic women are near me with their devotionals, and a mother and son showed up a few mins ago, and they're now on the corner holding signs.
One thing I want to reflect on is what to name my spiritually adopted baby. Last year, I was inspired by the idea of spiritually adopting a baby. I named her "Melody" because I wanted to make it personal. If I had my own baby girl, I would probably name her "Melody." Let me pray about this.
(insert pause for a few minutes)
...and hmm... Somehow the name "RJ" sticks out to me though I don't know what those initials stand for. "RJ" would be my first name's initials, inverted. Sounds good to me. It's a boy!
What RJ and Melody share in common is that they face the threat of their parents aborting them. I don't know their actual status or well-being nor do I know anything else about their parents. This is the burden of spiritually adopting a baby. But the fruit of it is that you can't help but to pray for them and their parents because that is all you can do.
So that's settled. I thought I'd spend a little more time on deciding on a name, but it only took a few minutes.
On my drive here, I heard on 910 AM that 64% of women who have an abortion are forced to have it. The ad continued by citing examples around the nation of cases where women were threatened with violence if they didn't have an abortion. How sad is that? That even if she desires life for her child, she cannot because someone is threatening her life unless she goes through an abortion. The ad ended with that, in this way, abortion is an unchoice. www.unchoice.info is the website, I think.
Hmm, I was just thinking... The nice thing about going this late in the evening is that you don't have to ponder the reasons why a woman enters this facility like you would on a Saturday morning. No one is inside right now except Mr. I Have To Clean This Place.
What's frustrating about this facility is that it offers other sexual and health services besides abortion. But sometime in the past year, I realized that if a man is truly a man and a woman is truly a woman and their conjugal union is truly a gift of self to the other in marriage (we're talking eternally, here), then the whole sexual health purpose of this facility means nothing. Pointless.
I pray here not to shut down this facility though its existence doesn't promote an authentic loving environment, but rather I pray here for a change of heart.
It is the attitudes about sex and love that we must seek to change in order to end abortion. I don't feel like eradicating the means is enough.
To get rid of a weed, you must consider its root.
- JD
