Yes, you read that title right. My best Easter weekend had nothing to do with going to a special service at church and later having a special Easter meal with family and friends. And NO, it had nothing to do with a drunken weekend in college. That special weekend was spent in jail with believers I had never met before from all over the country - for trying to save babies! It was a time I REALLY wish you could have been a part of - honest.
Good Friday, 1989. In a previous post (#177, 1/22), I shared how in the fall of 1987 I was awakened to the evil nature of abortion and of how it was not a “Catholic” issue but a moral and therefore a Christian one. In the spring of 1989, I learned about a group called “Operation Rescue” that was going to hold a rally in Los Angeles (I lived about an hour east of there at the time) and I decided to attend it with a group of friends. The highlight of the rally turned out to be when we (there were almost a thousand of us gathered) were all asked to silently walk past the body of a baby that had been aborted. For the first time, I no longer just looked at a sonogram or even a photograph of an aborted baby but passed within a few feet of a dead, fully developed baby with burn marks where it had been burned to death by an injection of a saline solution in the mother's womb before it was extracted. My friend, there is nothing like seeing an actual dead baby to impress on your mind just how horrific is an abortion. After that viewing, abortion went from being simply an issue of great concern to being an evil you just had to do all you could to try to stop. (Did the soldiers who saw the actual results of the Holocaust when they came across Hitler’s extermination camps feel any less resolved that they had brought a great evil to an end?)
The Day After – Saturday. After spending the evening in discussion and prayer with my friends, we all slept in the cramp quarters of a mobile home we had traveled in to the rally. The following morning, all who felt called by God were to travel to the largest abortion clinic in the city where they would join together and physically block all entrances to the clinic. (Operation Rescue focused on civil disobedience by non-violently blocking the entrances of abortion clinics with people sitting or standing at its doors to shut them down for at least a day.) I remember having a restless night because, while I understood the reasoning behind the action that was planned, as one who had not been in any trouble with police except for one traffic ticket), the thought of getting arrested if I participated terrified me – big time!
The following morning I awoke to the sound of my fellow travelers dashing out the door of the trailer and rushing toward a building in the distance. I remember feeling extremely conflicted as to what to do until I believe the Holy Spirit simply asked me in my heart if what they were about to do was of God or not. (Its funny how in the most difficult moments in life, God makes the issue involved so simple.) When the answer was obvious and I felt an incredible peace, I simply dashed through the door and ran after my friends and joined them to sit in front of one of the doors of the abortion clinic's huge building.
For the next 6 hours or so, I and more than 600 others scattered at other entrances around the building simply prayed and sang songs and read scripture. We didn’t yell slogans and, as we had been told beforehand, never got into any discussion with the counter demonstrators who eventually gathered at a short distance yelling slogans and obscenities at us. (Many of the males clearly seemed to be homosexuals.) Near noon, the counter demonstrators now stood just several feet from us, continuing to scream obscenities and in some cases came right up to some of us and begin kicking them (and sometimes spitting at us). As instructed, none of us responded to the taunts and assaults but just stood with locked arms, unmoving. Soon, in the distance I could see policemen on horses slowly moving through the crowd coming towards us, with the obvious intent of arresting us. I will never forget the fear welling up inside of me as the policemen approached, but suddenly I felt the Spirit direct me to the long-haired guy standing just feet in front of me screaming obscenities. As I focused on him, I felt God say, “Stan, that guy yelling in your face has more to fear from Me than you ever will from that officer coming to arrest you.” In that instant, as that truth hit me, I felt my fear melt away, an incredible peace fill my heart, and I then found myself praying for the salvation of the guy yelling in my face! It was in that moment that I knew I was about God’s work and I just needed to rest in Him. (THAT God-moment was one of the most incredible experiences of my life!)
One other thing. I remember seeing one of the officers advancing on their horses with tears in their eyes. It took me just a moment to realize that some of them had to be Christians as well and they were crying because they supported what we were doing but were sworn to do their duty. Recognizing their silent support and their great personal conflict proved to also be a great encouragement.
After we were all arrested, we were temporarily placed inside a nearby gymnasium. I remember initially most of us were so exhausted that we hardly indulged in conversation. What I will never forget about that time in the gymnasium was that I suddenly heard someone distinctly quoting Scripture. Ordinarily that would not be unusual but we had had any item like a Bible taken from us when we were arrested. After awhile, I suddenly realized that the guy was quoting a very long passage from memory. He went on for so long he must have recited several chapters. Talk about someone challenging you to scripture memory and “hiding His word in my heart!”
[Please check my next posting (#197) on Easter Sunday for Part 2 of my story.]
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