MERCY

I was part of a team to show a pro-life film in the college girls' dorms in our town. We went to give life and hoped to see lives changed. My life was the one changed.

After showing the film one evening, I was drawn to a group of girls who were talking. One of them, I'll call her Janet, was pregnant. Her friends hoped the film would persuade her not to have an abortion. I told her that I had had an abortion, actually three, and that I could understand. After we talked she seemed resolved not to have an abortion and wanted to turn her life over to the Lord.

Later when I visited her dorm room, I discovered she had lost her resolve under pressure from her sister, who was convinced the news would give her father a heart attack. Her baby was already aborted, and I was too late. I sat there, numb, sick and almost speechless as she told me it would never happen again because she was now on the Pill.

I remembered making the same vow. She agreed to come to a Bible study, and I recognized that she was trying to "get her act together" as many of us do attempting to put abortion behind us. We talked a bit longer before I drove home.

I remember sitting in my parked car, still stunned and with a blank stare on my face. I hit the heels of my hands against the steering wheel, clutched it, putting my head down as I began to cry.

"Lord, all she thinks she has to do is repent!"

I immediately heard the solid, unwavering voice of the Lord in my heart.

"That's right."

In the same second, I saw a clear picture in my mind of what He meant. I saw the Heavenly Father leaning over a cliff with His arms and hands outstretched as He tried to reach for the life of the unborn child to save it from its awful death. His fingers kept coming up empty, only grasping air. Tears streamed down His face as He cried for the child.

Amazingly, at the same time He mourned the loss of the child, He was saying over and over again between sobs, "I forgive her, I forgive her."

Not only could I see His actions, but I could feel His heart. There was not one ounce of bitterness, hatred, name-calling, or a desire for revenge toward Janet. Our abundantly compassionate Father had already set His heart to forgive her!

And what would she have to do to receive this overwhelming, divine mercy? All she would have to do is repent.