Welcome, Lauren! Save Story from Lauren's first day of Sidewalk Counseling

Hi! This is JacqueFromTexas, your moderator on A View From The Sidewalks. I'm so pleased to share this story with you about two of my favorite people: My new friend, Lauren from My Choice, His Life, who never ceases to amaze me with her moral tenacity and intellectual insight, and Diane, a member of the Abby Women's Center team and a sidewalk counseling superhero who pleases the Lord in a way that only she can.

I got this story from my email box from Diane, and I thought it so great I wanted to share it with the world:

I was at Routh Street abortion clinic doing street work on May 20, and as the two African American women left their car to enter the clinic I called out to them. The young girl continued in. But the older woman approached me. "She looks hostile," I thought, and I sent up an extra prayer. As it turned out, she is hostile for Jesus! It was her "step-granddaughter" having the abortion, and she had come with her to stop her. Her name is Florence, and she is an elegant, intelligent 70-something. Her granddaughter had begged her to not go in and "preach to the clinic staff."

As Florence explained the situation I asked her how far along the baby is. Florence said she thought about 14 weeks (the young girl was wearing an outfit which looked like surgical scrubs so it was hard to see her belly.) I armed Florence with literature and fetal model, and we began to pray. I told her the guard would try to take them from her and she said, "He's not taking ____ from me!"

As she walked back to the clinic the guard stopped her so she went to her car, opened the door, and closed it again (I knew the lit and model were still in her large front pocket.) But as she got to the clinic door, out came her granddaughter sobbing hysterically. I knew the baby was too far along to abort. As they left the clinic in their vehicle, I stopped them in the alley. The girl was still hysterical and Florence was talking gently with her.

I began to tell her that I understood she is angry with her boyfriend but not to use this child as a weapon against him, that he has given her a great gift, that both her grandma and I had been through difficult pregnancies and that God had helped us, that those babies had become great blessings. But she seemed inconsolable.

Then Lauren, the beautiful eighteen-year-old who had come to pray at the clinic for the first time that day, stepped to the car window and began to lovingly address the girl. She told of her own "crisis pregnancy" at seventeen; how, although she had married the father all around her pressured her to abort (she had been awarded full scholarship to attend college,) And how when her water broke at twenty-three weeks she was put on bed rest in the hospital for seven weeks until she delivered by C-section. And how her beautiful little boy just turned one year old.

And I could feel the wonderful presence and peace of the Holy Spirit in that dirty alley by the abortion clinic as the girl stopped crying and began to relax with Lauren's words. We offered her every help we could, and she can still abort at Aaron's abortion clinic at fourteen weeks. So please pray she'll make it. Florence said she'd get her through. I think she will.

Praise you ladies for your words of hope and having the passion to get out and share them. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more from Lauren. :)