Last year, in the month of October to be more precise, I helped organize and lead something called the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity at my school. This event is put together by Stand True ministries (go check ‘em out: www.standtrue.com).
It all started because I was bored at home for almost 2 weeks while I waited to be registered at Porter High School. I spent most of the day, every day, online. Back then I spent A LOT of time on MySpace ( I have since then matured, and instead waste my time on more sophisticated social networking sites). I found a page on MySpace called Truth In Love. All it did was discuss different topics, such as homosexuality, politics, poverty, depression, eating disorders, and, of course, abortion. On the site, I saw a banner for this Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity thing. It looked really cool so I clicked on it. (I really did click on it just because it looked cool.)
Well, clicking on that banner changed me. Seriously, I spent a few minutes on the site and I began to feel old and sick. I mean, I always knew about abortion (I went to a Christian school) and I knew it was evil and I knew I was against it. But I had never looked at numbers. I had never seen what abortion did. (I was going to post a link to some pictures, but decided against it. Abortion is wrong not because of the method used to kill the unborn, but solely because it is murder.)
The more I read, the more I wanted to ignore the problem. I didn’t want to believe. Surely this was not happening in America. Surely this was happening in some third-world country where people did not know any better.
But I couldn’t ignore it. It was happening. I realized that it was very likely happening in my own community. And I also realized that I wanted the world to know that I was willing to stand up for the silenced voices.
So I decided I was going to take part in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity, which meant I was going to give up my voice willingly for the 50,000,000+ who have been unwillingly silenced since January 22, 1973. In other words, I was not going to speak for 24 hours straight.
I started school about 2 weeks before the actual Silent Day. Two days after starting school, I met the students of the Youth Alive Club at the school. I proposed that we all participate in the Silent Day and that we get other students involved, as well. They agreed and next 2 weeks were spent going back and forth between the principal and the Youth Alive sponsor, trying to make the event as ‘acceptable’ as possible without compromising our goal: to raise awareness about the ethical wrongness and the physical dangers of abortion.
Finally, just a few days before the Silent Day, we got everything okayed by the principal (well, God took care of that). For the rest of the time until the date we printed out hundreds of flyers and promoted the event.
The Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity at Porter High School was amazing. I don’t know how many students actually participated but I know at least 40 showed up to have the red LIFE ribbon tied to their arms. It was incredible to see that this many teens cared about abortion.
What was even better was listening to the conversations that arose the following days. I would walk down the halls and hear the pseudogangsters debating the morality of abortion. It was incredibly rewarding to see that something as simple as giving up your voice for a day could spark something like this.
For a couple of weeks after that, I was pretty good about keeping myself up-to-date with everything that was going on with Bryan Kemper and Stand True and just abortion as a whole. When the presidential election came along, I felt heartbroken. I was devastated. I understood that the war against abortion was about to take some seriously regressive steps and my heart just wept for those who have dedicated their entire lives to fighting on the side of the 50,000,000+ dead.
I grieved for a couple of days. But I don’t think I recovered fully. I started to spend less time reading abortion news. Before, I would eagerly look for stories of closed abortion mills, of prayer walks, and rejoice along with those who had participated. But slowly, I stopped doing that.
Now, I look back and try to figure out why. The first thing that I think is that when I was actively involved, I had friends who were involved with me, and it was our project, so I was highly motivated. That sounds convincing enough to me. But I think there’s something else that dissuaded me from even reading about abortion.
I got tired and discouraged and, thus, became selfishly apathetic.
You see, when I participated in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity, I could look around and see the results of our work. And it was good. But when that passed, and for the most part what I had was my computer screen, and I saw that the numbers were not decreasing, but instead were escalating, I gave up.
It is much easier not to care. It’s not your problem, so you don’t have to do anything about it, right?
Right.
It is my problem, and I do have to do something.
James 1:27 says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
My God wants me to stand up for those who cannot stand for themselves. Even as I write this I am overwhelmed with the size of this evil called abortion. I have no idea what I can do to contribute to its end. I still feel that anything I do will be futile. But now I understand that how I feel about myself and my abilities is not important. The only thing that matters is that I do something.
So today begins my journey away from selfish apathy and towards godly passion to defend the lives of the innocent. I know I’m going to be stinking depressed for a lot of the time. But I rather be wounded in battle than fall shamefully sick from sedentariness because all I ever did was watch from the sidelines.
