It was a cold, rainy, Wednesday evening in February in New Jersey. I had a sitter for my two boys, one my newborn son who was my unexpected pregnancy at age 38. The team who had come to speak at our Presbyterian church had set out about fifteen chairs and there were three or four guest speakers, to hopefully enlighten and drum up enthusiasm for our church to be a part of the launch of a new center opening in a nearby town.

As the time neared for the meeting to begin, there were still about fourteen empty chairs. I had taken my seat, center of the front row, as I was very interested in learning more about something that might have made my own recent experience quite a bit easier. I could sense their sadness, as it began to be clear that no one else was coming. After an uncomfortable foot shuffling time for the speakers, I took a moment to speak to them from my audience of one. I basically said I know this seems like a disappointing turnout to you, but if you knew how deeply this matters to me, and how I will be able to encourage others to join me because of that, you would realize that the audience you want to be here is really here. Please continue as if the room is full, because you do not have to get other people on board. I’m here and I am supposed to be. I didn’t come to listen, I came to be a vital part of this ministry.

And that was the beginning of my 30 year journey with pregnancy centers all over this country. I helped to start that one and became a counselor. I later moved to upstate New York and helped launch one from our church there. I became a part of one in southern California. And later in St Petersburg, Florida, I helped draw our church members into a struggling one in the heart of their city, although not in their neighborhood. The most needed and busy ones were often located in the parts of town many members were not as familiar with, I found. Those centers were also the very grateful recipients of those donors more available disposable income, volunteer time and the briefly worn infants’ clothing that was passed their way. I later attended conferences in Dallas, Texas and other places as the centers formed alliances to keep them all open and on track with federal and local laws, as efforts to shut them down and protests against them continued over the decades until Roe vs. Wade was overturned as a federal law and that decision returned to the states. I was there as the centers raised money for ultrasound machines and hired nurses or had volunteer nurses and doctors to perform those amazing signs of early life that would change so many hearts and minds. And of course, I was there in a counseling room, coming alongside many a young woman who was struggling to make a decision that would forever change her life and those of everyone around her, one way or another.

I was always impressed with the volunteers who had been on both sides, actually all three sides, as many had also been adopted as babies and not raised by the one who gave birth to them; but who were so grateful for the chance they received to experience a wonderful childhood and family. They were among the most humble and effective counselors, as they had a heart for each woman that surpassed any desire to save the baby at all costs. It hurt me to hear the phrase I saved a baby today, as I just wanted to ask how is that woman doing? The opposite was often true across the street from one center I was part of where there was a Planned Parenthood. I was the only one who ever thought we had something in common, because my heart was always for the mom making that final decision. I experienced many church women who felt they were definitely doing God’s work by saving a baby from abortion, as indeed they were, but they sometimes failed to realize it went so much deeper than that. They were so disappointed if that woman still chose abortion after counseling about all the options available, and they seemed to feel it a personal failure; whereas the women like me, who had experienced the agony of the decision-making personally, were much more likely to form a bond of loving acceptance with that woman that often drew her back to the center even after her abortion choice, to participate in a totally anonymous, loving, post-abortion counseling series done only with peers and women leading it who had chosen a similar path.

The last thing anyone needs in that situation is harsh judgement from anyone representing God’s love. God loves that tiny life just then forming, of course, but He has also loved that precious woman for a very long time and His heart for her is breaking as well. He will not abandon her, no matter what path she chooses. And just like my response to the leaders who gave the pep talk at my church that cold evening years before, she did find her way to the center to listen and learn. God’s timing is a part of her journey, whether she knows it at the time or not. The center and counseling are but another part of her path. We don’t know where that decision will lead in her life, but we do know Jesus told the parable about the lost sheep. He said the good shepherd always went after the one who strayed and left the 99 ‘good’ minding ones behind to do just that. This ministry was never only about the babies, as much as so many of us want to protect and save them. In my experience, if the mother can actually feel God’s love and acceptance and if she can truly envision a path for herself and that baby, she is way more likely to choose to carry it to term, and that is where choice really comes into it. Condemnation, in my experience, especially carefully veiled Christian judgement, rarely saves either of them.