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Today's 40 Days for Life devotional is at the bottom
of this e-mail message and can also be downloaded at:
http://40daysforlife.com/docs/fall2008day23print.pdf
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Dear Pro-Lifer,
Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion
chain, does NOT like 40 Days for Life.
The billion-dollar organization -- that rakes in
$336.7 million tax dollars each year while aborting
289,750 children -- is always fighting to protect its
bottom line.
And it has brought out one of its tired old ploys for
this fall's 40 Days for Life -- a campaign it calls
"Pledge-a-Picket."
Planned Parenthood supporters are asked to make a
donation for each person who prays outside its
facilities, claiming that pro-lifers are helping
to raise money for the abortion business.
Planned Parenthood has been using this tactic in
numerous cities across the country where 40 Days for
Life campaigns are disrupting customer income.
To further demonstrate how much 40 Days for Life is
impacting Planned Parenthood's revenue stream, the
organization has now rolled out a national campaign
attempting to counter the impact of 40 Days for Life
while raising funds for the abortion operation.
They use a web-based blog called, "I am Emily X,"
which uses a made-up character that represents, "a
small group of Planned Parenthood employees," who
continually accuse 40 Days for Life participants of
harassing clinic workers and customers.
To give an example, the blog reported this Tuesday
from Nebraska where the abortion workers have counted
more than 350 volunteers participating in the 40 Days
for Life campaign thus far. (Great job, Nebraska!)
"Emily X" then condemns a group of Catholic priests
and lay people who came out to peacefully pray the
rosary together outside their doors, saying, "I worry
about how intimidating the sound of all those voices
at once can be," before claiming that the rosary,
"has been corrupted as a tool to frighten women."
That's what they call intimidation?
First of all, if Planned Parenthood tries
Pledge-a-Picket in your community, please don't
change what you're doing!
You are NOT raising money for Planned Parenthood.
This is a deceptive campaign meant to dissuade
faithful people whose prayers are cutting in to the
abortion chain's bottom line. You are praying to end
the evil of abortion -- PLEASE DON'T STOP!
Devanie Cooper, the local 40 Days for Life
coordinator in Memphis, gave a great answer when a
WREG-TV reporter asked her about Pledge-a-Picket.
"Prayer and fasting works better than money does,"
she said. "We're going to win this; God's going to
win this."
The 40 Days for Life team in Manchester, New
Hampshire is noting the real effect this campaign is
having on Planned Parenthood.
Mike and his wife pray outside near the end of the
business day. "We observe that the people working at
the clinic leave all at once and very quickly in
order to avoid any interaction with us," he said. "I
believe that deep down in their souls they know that
what they are doing is evil."
I suspect that the 40 Days for Life team in Spokane,
Washington is having a similar impact. Why else would
Planned Parenthood send eight of its own employees
outside with signs promoting "choice"?
"Two or three more joined them within the next half
hour," said Inga. "They lined up on the curb on
either side of our prayer volunteers, with an
'in-your-face' attitude, mocking us with their looks
and laughter. This was the first time in either
campaign that we have encountered this kind of
persecution."
Inga said only two people were signed up to pray at
the vigil when this happened, but God had other
plans. The people who were scheduled to leave the
vigil stayed and kept praying -- and other people
kept arriving to join them until more than two dozen
faithful believers were gathered in prayer outside of
Planned Parenthood.
When 5 o'clock came, the Planned Parenthood employees
gave up and went home. But the 40 Days for Life team
continued to pray.
"We all felt great cause for rejoicing that we had
been found worthy to suffer for truth and life," Inga
said. "Truly, this is a sign that we are somehow
getting under their skin, disrupting business,
causing women to not keep their appointments,
possibly even saving lives of babies and keeping
women from a lifetime of regret."
Please keep Planned Parenthood and its employees in
your prayers. A call to conversion can be extremely
unsettling to those being called. But the call is
strong, and it is real.
Here's today's devotional from Dennis DiMauro, the
Lutherans for Life representative to the National Pro
-Life Religious Council...
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DAY 23 INTENTION
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We pray for the strength to love those who do not
love us.
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SCRIPTURE
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But the Lord said "You have had pity on the plant for
which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which
came up in the night and perished in the night. And
should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which
are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons
who cannot discern between their right hand and their
left, and much livestock? Should I not be concerned
about that great city?"
-- Jonah 4:10-11
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REFLECTION by Dennis DiMauro
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God doesn't value people and things like we do. Jonah
loved a shade tree more than an entire city of sinful
people. We love our dogs more than a terrorist. We
love our cars more than a beggar on the side of the
road. And sometimes, we love our money more than a
child growing in a desperate teenager's womb.
But God isn't like us. Genesis 1 tells us that humans
were the capstone of God's creation. We were created
on the sixth day after God had completed the land,
the stars, the plants and the animals. Therefore, His
love for us is greater than His love for a plant, an
animal, or any other created thing.
And the book of Jonah tells us that He loves even the
most sinful people and seeks to bring them into His
merciful arms. And it's a love that seeks to touch
all of his created children: that desperate teenager,
the baby growing in her womb, even tyrants and
terrorists.
So it's up to us to imitate God's merciful love by
helping and praying for those who persecute us, and
those who don't love us back.
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PRAYER
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Gracious God, loving our enemies seems like one of
most difficult things you could ask of us. Please
remind us that this is how you love and that if you
ask it of us then you will give us the grace to do
it. This we ask through Christ our Lord, Amen.
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Yours for Life,
David Bereit
National Campaign Director
40 Days for Life