So, have you ever been sad and just wanted someone to be sad with you? Like not preach at you or try and cheer you up, but just kind of “be” with you? Like exist together under your gray cloud so you can fully feel everything you need to feel before deciding enough’s enough and getting up and doing something about it? I felt that way a bit tonight and so I turned to Ecclesiastes because I knew Solomon would deliver on the “hanging-out-depressed-together” thing. And of course, what always happens when I read the Word happened: a verse popped out at me as if I had never read it before…

“For with much wisdom is much sorrow;
as knowledge increases, grief increases.” (1:18)

I was able to kind of pinpoint where some of my sadness was coming from through it. If you didn’t know already, working in the pro-life/abortion industry is hard on daily basis, because it it tears at your emotions and constantly brings the worst of the world before your eyes. You help women that are victims of rape or human trafficking, parents forcing daughters to kill their unborn grandchildren, married men forcing the other woman they got pregnant to get an abortion because they don’t want any “evidence” around of their misdeeds (or married women wanting to get rid of the evidence of their own adultery), women with various addictions knowing they are not in the right state of mind to adequately parent, women that are homeless and don’t want to bring a child into the world they can’t give a safe home to, and a million other scenarios that are just as difficult. I read hundreds of client cases of women being forced into abortion and their situations just break my heart.

In pro-life ministry, you have these super highs with lives saved, but they are always coupled with super lows. We grieve so deeply for people we may have never met that are touched by abortion, and unborn children that will never see the light of day. You have to be called to this ministry, and oftentimes I question God on whether I am strong enough for it. You know you are making a difference with each life saved, but then you wonder if you will ever do enough to stop the thousands being slaughtered everyday, and you tend to get discouraged a lot, (so please remember to pray for all those working in pregnancy centers across the country).

You keep going though, because the alternative is unacceptable to you. You now know the truth, and you can’t forget the names and the stories, and the fact that 3500 people are being murdered everyday. We are all in shock at what happened in Nigeria, over 2000 in one massacre, and rightly, we should be. It’s a horrible and unspeakable evil. Yet no one blinks an eye (including the American church) at the 3500 a day being massacred daily in the US alone. Why is that? I honestly believe it has to do with the fact that no one is broadcasting about it. And if no one knows, why should we expect them to do anything about it?

About every 26 seconds a life is lost through the practice of abortion in the US. Can you imagine if a beep went off country-wide, every 26 seconds, all day long, to denote that a life has been snuffed out through abortion? It would constantly interrupt your day. You definitely wouldn’t be able to sleep. You think then someone might decide it’s time to take action? I would hope so. Even if it’s just to make the endless beeping stop, I’d take it! The problem however does not lie with the fact that we don’t have people with the power to stop the beeping.

The problem is that no one is beeping. No one with a really loud voice is speaking for the voiceless. I wonder what would happen if a really famous person tweeted the hashtag “beep” every 26 seconds on January 22, the anniversary of Roe V. Wade? The point is that we need more people with public platforms speaking out against and about abortion, using logic and love to make their case. As Brian Fisher, CEO of Online for Life, writes in his latest book, Deliver Us From Abortion, “Ignorance about abortion may be bliss, but it’s also fatal.” You see, Solomon knew that knowledge about the world would bring grief and sorrow, because once you know the truth of how devastating evil really is, it brings a weight and responsibility into your life you never had before. You can no longer live in in blissful ignorance once you understand what 3500 babies a day means.

Proverbs 24:11-12 states, “Rescue those being led away to death, hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?”

If you have read this blog, you now know, and you are responsible for that knowledge. Take on as your own the pain and sorrow of those who are affected by abortion. Let it grieve you to the point where you decide to finally speak for those whose speech has been silenced. During the Nazi Holocaust, the Christians at the time simply sang their hymns louder to drown out the sound of the trains clattering by their church that were carrying the Jews to the concentration camps. Do not be like them. Know about the issue, grieve about the issue, then get up and do something about it. Basically…

… stop singing and start beeping instead.