A Noble Calling: Witnessing to Women Considering Abortion—"The key is love..."
"The first time I looked into the eyes of a woman entering the clinic, my faith was violently rocked. This is not a pleasant business. This woman and her baby should be as far away from this place as possible; I should be as far away from here as possible...God, how did the world come to this?"
The following are excerpts from an op-ed by Cassidy Burgos, a pro-life, student "street counselor" with Christendom College's Shield of Roses. Burgos details the challenges of witnessing and ministering to perfect strangers waiting to have abortions:
"I only began sidewalk counseling last fall. No doubt there are people out there who would be much better suited than I to counsel the women who enter the Planned Parenthood clinic in D.C. No doubt there are people who are much stronger, much more selfless and calm and compassionate than I.
"The key is love...I hope to God I show it, but I'm not sure; it's hard to know. But someone has to be that someone there for the women considering abortion and I feel strangely compelled to. I do hope that everyone—young people and especially young women—who read this article will pause to ask themselves whether sidewalk counseling is something they could do, with God's help.
"The first time I looked into the eyes of a woman entering the clinic, my faith was violently rocked. This is not a pleasant business. This woman and her baby should be as far away from this place as possible; I should be as far away from here as possible...God, how did the world come to this?
"Nothing makes you feel more insignificant or more worthless than sidewalk counseling. Everything you say sounds stupid. Immediately, and all day, and all week long you think of a thousand things you ought to have said...but I never really know what I am going to say until I look into each woman's eyes. In each is a world of hurt and a story all her own, of who-knows-what horror and deceit that brought her to this point.
"Perhaps these are all exactly the wrong things to say. I don't know. Will we fit into this woman's horrible memory of this day? Is there a way that she can remember us later and the love we tried to show her, and seek forgiveness? Will she even recognize what we tried to show her as love? Or will we always be only so-many fanatics to her, whose words will only haunt her grief and make her hate herself more? Thoughts like these torment me; but it doesn't matter. For only God knows how we fit into these women's lives.
"In an encounter of a few seconds, you cannot love a woman enough to change her mind or save her baby or to save her soul. You will look into her eyes and feel inadequate to understand her pain; you will trust in God, say a few words to her, and then she will go through the clinic door, and you will turn around and meet the next woman.
"But, you know, either way it's not fair for us to hide from abortion, and to leave the victims exposed and helpless...I suppose we have to face the possibility that we are not destined to change any minds or any hearts or save any lives on the sidewalk in D.C. Or if we do accomplish this, we may never know it. But the point is that we have to be there for these women, because it is what Our Lord would do...."
To read Cassidy's report in its entirety, follow the link below.
