I don't know what the copyright rules are in the "blogosphere," but I am going to go ahead and copy two blog posts... The first is Katie's post that I mentioned earlier, and the second is from Courtney. Both girls are teenagers in our church who believe in something... and who are doing something about it. So encouraging!
FROM KATIE'S BLOG:
I've been down in south Mississippi all week, petitioning for the Personhood Amendment. We have to have 89,000 signatures by the 13th, and right now we have approximately 87,000.
I cannot tell you how much my feet hurt at the end of each day after standing in front of a store for six hours straight, asking hundreds of people to sign my petition. Like, they were begging me to cut them off, burn 'em, and bury the ashes in a remote location. I told them to hush up and be glad I was still speaking to them after they screamed at me for half the day.
I cannot tell you how much it hurt to have hand after hand shoot up in front of my face while their owners coldly walked away as I said the words "pro-life" or "help end abortion in Mississippi."
I cannot tell you how much I wanted to shake people until their teeth rattled ominously in their skull when they said "not right now" or "I'm too busy today." Too busy?! Are you kidding me?? Do you know how many babies are being killed today and will continue to be killed until something is done to stop it?
I cannot tell you how encouraging was every scritch scratch of the pen on the paper as another person signed his name.
I cannot tell you how hot the tears were in my eyes when a lady said as she signed, "I had an abortion several years ago and it has hurt me every day since."
I cannot tell you how many people "didn't know abortion was legal." Well, ma'am, I'm here to tell you it is, will you please sign your name andincludeyourmiddleinitial. And have you been living under a rock for the years since Roe v. Wade?
I even had to explain to about five older people what abortion was. That really hurt. I didn't like saying the words out loud, because they're so hideous. But every time I said them, they became more real, and every time the reality sank in further I realized that I have been building a rock wall up around that area of my mind and heart ever since I knew what abortion was, because I just didn't want to think about it. This week, that wall crashed.
I'm so glad it has.
Because no matter how much rejection stings, no matter how awful the truth is, no matter how stupid some people are, I would rather be out there praying with all my might and working my feet until they beg for mercy than sitting at home pushing uncomfortable thoughts away.
This week, my heavenly Father has taken my weakness and inability, (because I have realized more than ever that I cannot make people do what is right, no matter how much I wish to,) and has shown me more and more of His kindness and strength. I have learned in a beautiful way that when He calls us to obey, it doesn't necessarily mean there will be success, but it does mean that He will guide us.
There will be no success in this unless God blesses our efforts. Please pray with me that He will, and mostly that through this, whether this petition gets to the ballot or not, His name will be mightily glorified in our State and in our lives.
p.s. I got pooped on TWICE by nasty little birds hiding in the Piggly Wiggly letters above the entrance who were obviously pro-choice. Heather was laughing at me, until they decided to give her a little bit of joy too... in her hair.
Also, I have an ink stain on my favorite pair of khaki pants from some dude dropping the pen. How it managed to fall in such a way as to leave an ink stripe on my pants is beyond me. I mean, you probably couldn't even do that on purpose.
FROM COURTNEY'S BLOG:
Well the Personhood deadline is fast approaching; the dark cloud is beginning to overshadow us, or the dawn is gloriously nearing the horizon, depending on who you talk to. Please keep Personhood Mississippi in your prayers!
Well, I've been thinking (uh-oh, that can't be good). It's easy to look at abortion passively, while stile agreeing that it's bad. As if there's just nothing we can do about it, it's just not in our power, I'm not a difference-maker, etc. You can make a difference! (Please excuse for sounding like some wacko green tree-hugger.) Back to the point. Think about this: at this very second, innocent babies, who have no say in their own life, are being cruelly and brutally slaughtered because their own mothers don't want them or 'can't deal' with them right now or just 'don't have the money' (um, hello ladies, do you think abortions cost llamas or something? No, they do indeed cost money). But we can do something about this! We can help join this movement, petition, and we can pray.
Unfortunately, even many churches are afraid to get involved (or just joined up when it's gotten a bit more popular and the deadline is nearly up). I suppose this is because they're concerned for their reputation or they think it's a bit risky or they don't want to lose any of their pro-abortionist members, I don't know exactly. But, let me ask you this; as Christians are we not called to live in this and world not of it? Countless churches think they can spread the gospel and change the world by looking just like it, but the world ends up changing them.
Abortionists say these babies in the womb are not babies at all. In fact, abortion clinics ban employees from calling the fetus a "baby", lest the mother makes that connection, lest they realize that this is, in fact, a baby inside of them! The clinics are afraid they might recognize this and thus might not go through with the abortion (which would also mean the clinic might not make some money). To the abortionist that baby is just "a clump of cells". This baby becomes a baby or a person at fertilization, not at birth. This is what Personhood is trying to do, "to define personhood as beginning at fertilization...to protect all life, regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction."
Amendment XIV, section I of the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities if citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive a person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The fetus is, indeed, a person. It's a person just as much as you or I. If these unalienable rights do not cohere for a child in the womb, why should they cohere for us? Noah Webster said a person is "an individual human being consisting of body and soul." A fetus (beginning at fertilization) is an individual human being consisting of body and soul, is it not? A fetus is a person.
FROM KATIE'S BLOG:
I've been down in south Mississippi all week, petitioning for the Personhood Amendment. We have to have 89,000 signatures by the 13th, and right now we have approximately 87,000.
I cannot tell you how much my feet hurt at the end of each day after standing in front of a store for six hours straight, asking hundreds of people to sign my petition. Like, they were begging me to cut them off, burn 'em, and bury the ashes in a remote location. I told them to hush up and be glad I was still speaking to them after they screamed at me for half the day.
I cannot tell you how much it hurt to have hand after hand shoot up in front of my face while their owners coldly walked away as I said the words "pro-life" or "help end abortion in Mississippi."
I cannot tell you how much I wanted to shake people until their teeth rattled ominously in their skull when they said "not right now" or "I'm too busy today." Too busy?! Are you kidding me?? Do you know how many babies are being killed today and will continue to be killed until something is done to stop it?
I cannot tell you how encouraging was every scritch scratch of the pen on the paper as another person signed his name.
I cannot tell you how hot the tears were in my eyes when a lady said as she signed, "I had an abortion several years ago and it has hurt me every day since."
I cannot tell you how many people "didn't know abortion was legal." Well, ma'am, I'm here to tell you it is, will you please sign your name andincludeyourmiddleinitial. And have you been living under a rock for the years since Roe v. Wade?
I even had to explain to about five older people what abortion was. That really hurt. I didn't like saying the words out loud, because they're so hideous. But every time I said them, they became more real, and every time the reality sank in further I realized that I have been building a rock wall up around that area of my mind and heart ever since I knew what abortion was, because I just didn't want to think about it. This week, that wall crashed.
I'm so glad it has.
Because no matter how much rejection stings, no matter how awful the truth is, no matter how stupid some people are, I would rather be out there praying with all my might and working my feet until they beg for mercy than sitting at home pushing uncomfortable thoughts away.
This week, my heavenly Father has taken my weakness and inability, (because I have realized more than ever that I cannot make people do what is right, no matter how much I wish to,) and has shown me more and more of His kindness and strength. I have learned in a beautiful way that when He calls us to obey, it doesn't necessarily mean there will be success, but it does mean that He will guide us.
There will be no success in this unless God blesses our efforts. Please pray with me that He will, and mostly that through this, whether this petition gets to the ballot or not, His name will be mightily glorified in our State and in our lives.
p.s. I got pooped on TWICE by nasty little birds hiding in the Piggly Wiggly letters above the entrance who were obviously pro-choice. Heather was laughing at me, until they decided to give her a little bit of joy too... in her hair.
Also, I have an ink stain on my favorite pair of khaki pants from some dude dropping the pen. How it managed to fall in such a way as to leave an ink stripe on my pants is beyond me. I mean, you probably couldn't even do that on purpose.
FROM COURTNEY'S BLOG:
Well the Personhood deadline is fast approaching; the dark cloud is beginning to overshadow us, or the dawn is gloriously nearing the horizon, depending on who you talk to. Please keep Personhood Mississippi in your prayers!
Well, I've been thinking (uh-oh, that can't be good). It's easy to look at abortion passively, while stile agreeing that it's bad. As if there's just nothing we can do about it, it's just not in our power, I'm not a difference-maker, etc. You can make a difference! (Please excuse for sounding like some wacko green tree-hugger.) Back to the point. Think about this: at this very second, innocent babies, who have no say in their own life, are being cruelly and brutally slaughtered because their own mothers don't want them or 'can't deal' with them right now or just 'don't have the money' (um, hello ladies, do you think abortions cost llamas or something? No, they do indeed cost money). But we can do something about this! We can help join this movement, petition, and we can pray.
Unfortunately, even many churches are afraid to get involved (or just joined up when it's gotten a bit more popular and the deadline is nearly up). I suppose this is because they're concerned for their reputation or they think it's a bit risky or they don't want to lose any of their pro-abortionist members, I don't know exactly. But, let me ask you this; as Christians are we not called to live in this and world not of it? Countless churches think they can spread the gospel and change the world by looking just like it, but the world ends up changing them.
Abortionists say these babies in the womb are not babies at all. In fact, abortion clinics ban employees from calling the fetus a "baby", lest the mother makes that connection, lest they realize that this is, in fact, a baby inside of them! The clinics are afraid they might recognize this and thus might not go through with the abortion (which would also mean the clinic might not make some money). To the abortionist that baby is just "a clump of cells". This baby becomes a baby or a person at fertilization, not at birth. This is what Personhood is trying to do, "to define personhood as beginning at fertilization...to protect all life, regardless of age, health, function, physical or mental dependency, or method of reproduction."
Amendment XIV, section I of the Constitution states, "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities if citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive a person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The fetus is, indeed, a person. It's a person just as much as you or I. If these unalienable rights do not cohere for a child in the womb, why should they cohere for us? Noah Webster said a person is "an individual human being consisting of body and soul." A fetus (beginning at fertilization) is an individual human being consisting of body and soul, is it not? A fetus is a person.
