Oddly, thinking about them calmed me, as it almost always did. Truly reflecting on an atrocity can be a clarifying experience. You know where you stand in relation to evil. Horror clears the mind of conflict, seizes the imagination, and demands action.
I was never good with babies. You probably don’t know that about me. Given what I’ve done for the unborn, most people naturally assume that I’m good with children. But I never was. They cry and make me nervous. I’m nervous enough by myself.
Perhaps the Lord put the responsibility on me to protect them because He knew I didn’t like them. When I’d see a baby I could only think about what He wanted me to do, that same thing that my unbelief had long screamed at me not to do. Two voices in my head…no, it was the same voice, my voice, but each time the voice would point out a different aspect of the situation. The unbelief would tell me it was wrong, that killing was wrong and killing a man was as wrong as killing a baby.
But then the Lord said, I am the Lord your God. I’m telling you to go save those babies. Whatever you think is right doesn’t really matter.
And, of course, He was right. Alone and forsaken in my car after a night of failure and disgrace, I watched the rain and realized that I was Jonah in the whale. I’d been running from the one thing I was always bound for. While I was getting into fights about stickers and trying to save an unsavable, wicked whore, that abortionist was killing babies.
I was so filled with shame at this realization that I felt ready to burst.
One person can’t speak for another, of course, and I can only imagine the lies the Devil must tell in order to turn a man into a butcher of unborn children. I don’t envy that man his Judgment Day. That’s his to answer for.
But that night it finally occurred to me that I had to answer for mine. What are you going to say at Judgment? I wondered. That you had more sense than to do that which He gave you to do? There is a way that seems right to man but which in the end leads to destruction. Those are words from the Bible, but I’d never thought much about them until that night. God blindfolds us and spins us around and then demands we walk in a straight line. I think the only way you can walk that line is to take Him by the hand and let Him lead you. We want so much out of God, but in the end there’s only one thing He really wants from us.
Obedience.
*
When the sun woke me in the park the next morning, birds sang in the trees. A little pond sat close by, and steam wafted off it as if it had been freshly created. While the birds sang, I bathed myself in those waters. The sun shone through gray clouds and even though it was quite cold, I felt warm. I wrapped my clothes around a rock and sunk them to the bottom of the pond. Naked, I climbed into the car and drove to Karen’s house.
She would still be sitting with Jennifer at our home, so I let myself into her house with the spare key she hid on the top of a tall post at the corner of the back porch. I stopped in Lynn’s bedroom, looked at her unmade bed, its sheets twisted together like a coil of snakes, and thought how sad it was that some people never see beyond this world of flesh.
I walked down to Karen’s room. I found Brother Peter’s old clothes still hanging neatly in the closet. I dressed in the black suit he wore when he preached funerals. Then I searched the top of the closet until I found his little silver pistol. I had to rummage around for the clip, but I found it in Karen’s dresser under some shirts. I made sure it was loaded and slipped it in my pocket.
I thought about going to see Jennifer one last time. I knew I would never see her again in this world. But I decided against it. I saw no reason to delay my task. There was nothing I could think to say to her that would not be better said in heaven.
*
The death clinic wasn’t open yet, so I sat down in the damp ditch behind the lot and waited. While
I was never good with babies. You probably don’t know that about me. Given what I’ve done for the unborn, most people naturally assume that I’m good with children. But I never was. They cry and make me nervous. I’m nervous enough by myself.
Perhaps the Lord put the responsibility on me to protect them because He knew I didn’t like them. When I’d see a baby I could only think about what He wanted me to do, that same thing that my unbelief had long screamed at me not to do. Two voices in my head…no, it was the same voice, my voice, but each time the voice would point out a different aspect of the situation. The unbelief would tell me it was wrong, that killing was wrong and killing a man was as wrong as killing a baby.
But then the Lord said, I am the Lord your God. I’m telling you to go save those babies. Whatever you think is right doesn’t really matter.
And, of course, He was right. Alone and forsaken in my car after a night of failure and disgrace, I watched the rain and realized that I was Jonah in the whale. I’d been running from the one thing I was always bound for. While I was getting into fights about stickers and trying to save an unsavable, wicked whore, that abortionist was killing babies.
I was so filled with shame at this realization that I felt ready to burst.
One person can’t speak for another, of course, and I can only imagine the lies the Devil must tell in order to turn a man into a butcher of unborn children. I don’t envy that man his Judgment Day. That’s his to answer for.
But that night it finally occurred to me that I had to answer for mine. What are you going to say at Judgment? I wondered. That you had more sense than to do that which He gave you to do? There is a way that seems right to man but which in the end leads to destruction. Those are words from the Bible, but I’d never thought much about them until that night. God blindfolds us and spins us around and then demands we walk in a straight line. I think the only way you can walk that line is to take Him by the hand and let Him lead you. We want so much out of God, but in the end there’s only one thing He really wants from us.
Obedience.
*
When the sun woke me in the park the next morning, birds sang in the trees. A little pond sat close by, and steam wafted off it as if it had been freshly created. While the birds sang, I bathed myself in those waters. The sun shone through gray clouds and even though it was quite cold, I felt warm. I wrapped my clothes around a rock and sunk them to the bottom of the pond. Naked, I climbed into the car and drove to Karen’s house.
She would still be sitting with Jennifer at our home, so I let myself into her house with the spare key she hid on the top of a tall post at the corner of the back porch. I stopped in Lynn’s bedroom, looked at her unmade bed, its sheets twisted together like a coil of snakes, and thought how sad it was that some people never see beyond this world of flesh.
I walked down to Karen’s room. I found Brother Peter’s old clothes still hanging neatly in the closet. I dressed in the black suit he wore when he preached funerals. Then I searched the top of the closet until I found his little silver pistol. I had to rummage around for the clip, but I found it in Karen’s dresser under some shirts. I made sure it was loaded and slipped it in my pocket.
I thought about going to see Jennifer one last time. I knew I would never see her again in this world. But I decided against it. I saw no reason to delay my task. There was nothing I could think to say to her that would not be better said in heaven.
*
The death clinic wasn’t open yet, so I sat down in the damp ditch behind the lot and waited. While
Similar Books
