From 40 Days For Life: DAY 8: Where is your heart?

Dear, Deacon John, It's a question one of the local 40 Days for Life leaders asked recently: "Where is your heart?" In other words, what do you think is important? Just the day before this 40 Days for Life campaign started, Planned Parenthood showed exactly where its heart is.

The headline on their own news release said it all: "Planned Parenthood announces sweeping initiative to expand reproductive health and rights state by state." To sum that up in two words: more abortion. Planned Parenthood's vice president termed it "going on the offense" because "everyone deserves the freedom and opportunity to control their lives at the most basic level." Everyone, of course, but the innocent child in the womb. But that's where your heart is – with the babies and their mothers. And that's why we continue to pray.

Columbia, Missouri Kathy, the 40 Days for Life coordinator in Columbia, was praying at the vigil on a day on which Planned Parenthood had to call two different repair crews. One team came to replace a broken security camera. Then a locksmith arrived when the staff couldn't lock the door as they were closing. "Planned Parenthood spends a great amount of money on security cameras and special locks to secure a building where the lives of innocent babies are taken and the lives of their mothers and fathers destroyed forever," Kathy said. "This is where their heart is." If your heart is with the innocent lives being ended at Planned Parenthood and the moms whose lives are shattered, "we eagerly await your coming to share your heart with those on the sidewalk and those who feel called to this dreadful place of death," Kathy said. "You are always welcome."

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Douglas, the 40 Days for Life coordinator in Sioux Falls, was alone at the vigil on Day 1 when a car pulled up ... and a woman walked over. "Seeing my pro-life sign," he said, "she asked if it was okay for her to pray also." The woman said she had five children and her husband was pro-life. "She'd never heard of 40 Days for Life, but she'd passed the Planned Parenthood facility many times, and always felt compelled to pray." Douglas told her that this was a good day for her very first time of sidewalk prayer, since it was also the first hour of the first day of the 40 Days for Life prayer vigil ... and now she was the first volunteer. "She then knelt down in the snow and prayed for about 15 minutes," he said. "What a joyous encounter!"

Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So, too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him." —Luke 10:30-34 Father, we are moved by the lesson of the Good Samaritan, who allowed compassion to influence him more than fear. Give us the same heart. Grant that we may never count the cost of standing up and speaking out for the unborn. See today's full devotional

For life,

Shawn Carney President/CEO, 40 Days for Life

40 Days for Life 4112 E 29th St. Bryan, Texas 77802 United States (888) LIFE-316