{"id":3944,"date":"2010-01-26T13:05:40","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T18:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=3944"},"modified":"2010-01-26T17:07:19","modified_gmt":"2010-01-26T22:07:19","slug":"miracle-at-planned-parenthood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/miracle-at-planned-parenthood\/","title":{"rendered":"Miracle at Planned Parenthood"},"content":{"rendered":"

BreakPoint<\/a> | by Chuck Colson | Jan. 26, 2010<\/p>\n

People often ask me if I believe in miracles. Of course I do! I see them every day. Because a changed heart is nothing short of a miracle. <\/p>\n

If your conscience required it, could you turn your back on the job you\u2019d dedicated your entire adult life to?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Abby Johnson did. After nine years as director of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, Johnson left in October to join the Coalition for Life, a group that holds prayer rallies outside that same clinic\u2014and a group of which she had once been a vocal critic. <\/p>\n

Johnson cites two reasons for her decision to walk away from Planned Parenthood. First, she says, it bothered her that the organization was so focused on performing more and more abortions in order to bring in more and more money.<\/p>\n

Johnson had believed that pregnancy prevention was Planned Parenthood\u2019s main goal. But, she says, \u201cIt seemed like maybe that\u2019s not what a lot of people were believing any more, because that\u2019s not where the money was. The money wasn\u2019t in family planning, the money wasn\u2019t in prevention, the money was in abortion.\u201d And Johnson reports she had \u201ca problem with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as Johnson tells it, the moment that really changed her heart occurred when she was called in to help with an actual abortion procedure, which was not part of her regular duties.<\/p>\n

This was her first time watching the procedure on an ultrasound. She says, \u201cI could see the whole profile of the baby…I could see the whole side profile. I could see the probe. I could see the baby try to move away from the probe….I just thought, \u2018What am I doing?\u2019…And then I thought, \u2018Never again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, looking out the clinic window and seeing members of Coalition for Life outside praying, Johnson walked out of the clinic and joined them.<\/p>\n

She has never looked back.<\/p>\n

As you might expect, no one at Planned Parenthood knows quite what to make of Abby Johnson. The recriminations have been flying thick and fast. They\u2019re accusing her of lying about why she left, of stealing files from the clinic where she used to work, of any number of other things.<\/p>\n

Apparently, they don\u2019t know how to handle the idea that her conscience might have convicted her.<\/p>\n

But Johnson\u2019s story should serve as a cautionary tale for pro-lifers. For all of us as a matter of fact. Especially when we\u2019re dealing with polarizing issues like abortion, we Christians must remember that our fellow human beings are not the enemy. Here\u2019s one where we thought the woman was. But she saw the truth.<\/p>\n

Remember, Paul spells it out so clearly for us in Ephesians: \u201cFor we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.\u201d<\/p>\n

So even as we fight to save lives (and we\u2019re reminded this week of the importance of that with the anniversary of Roe v. Wade) we must still keep our minds on our larger mission, which is to love the world. And it\u2019s the only way we\u2019re going to bring change.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther King said it beautifully: He whom you would change, you must first love. This means every human being\u2014pro-life and pro-choice\u2014because everyone is made in God\u2019s image. And we all, as the result of the Fall, stand in need of redemption.<\/p>\n

So we need to do everything we can to reach out to the Abby Johnsons of the world, and pray that God will change their hearts\u2014for their sake, and for His glory.<\/p>\n

If it happened here with Abby Johnson; it can happen again.<\/p>\n

. . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BreakPoint | by Chuck Colson | Jan. 26, 2010 People often ask me if I believe in miracles. Of course I do! I see them every day. Because a changed heart is nothing short of a miracle. If your conscience required it, could you turn your back on the job you\u2019d dedicated your entire adult … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[85,68,84,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anti-abortion","category-christianity","category-defense-of-innocence","category-miracles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}