Weekly e-News March 4
Hey, everyone…
Hope you’re having a day filled with joy, hope, peace in your heart…a day filled with Jesus!
This is my Friday blog (i guess) where I try to encourage someone out there with something about Him…
I wasn’t really sure where I got the idea of doing this…and then I remembered! I got it from my mom!
My sweet mom has been in Heaven for just a couple of days. But there it’s always one Eternal Day!
“I can only imagine…”
So, for the last couple of days I been reading through support/prayer letters my mom used to write every month or so when she was the director of the Crisis Pregnancy Center on “the Strip” at UT, helping thousands of girls of all ages find a loving alternative to abortion…and helping them, first of all, find Jesus!! The Loving Alternative to the painful relationships most of them were living!
My mom’s letters were unbelievable!
Most of y’all have known her as a sweet, little, increasingly weak saint…but back in the day when she ran that place, through her sixties and seventies…Wow!
If you could have seen her then!
My mom was crazy for Jesus! And she LIVED for the opportunity to have that moment when she could look a girl and/or her boyfriend in the face and tell them “about my best friend, Jesus”!
And she got those moments everyday!
She just told stories in those letters from the week or weeks just past…Girls who came in and the sometimes sweet, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes hilarious encounters that would happen!
Stories of UT Olympics hopefuls losing their dreams in a puddle of tears and a positive test, but hearing of the One Who loved them no matter what…
The thirteen year old and her fifteen year old boyfriend…”What’s your father going to say when you tell him she’s pregnant?” “He’s going to ground me! Oh, no! You won’t be seeing me for a while, Pat. I’m sure I’m grounded!”
The high school cheerleader with a positive pregnancy test…”It CAN’T be! We never did anything!”
“Sweetheart”, my mom said (she always called the girls that) “That only happened once in history…”
My mom was so sweet that she could be as bold as she wanted for Him!
This is from her letter in September 1997…
“ ‘I didn’t know I was getting pregnant! This is the first summer I’ve been allowed to say at home alone…’
I knew we had to start in this crisis someplace and the best place is with the Lord.
‘Polly, you wrote that you are a Baptist. What does that mean to you?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. My father is very moral and I’m just glad he taught me good morals…’
‘’Scuse me, Polly, but you ARE pregnant.’ “
They spent the next 45 minutes talking about Jesus.
“After her bubblegum popped, I squeezed her, wiped her tears, and she turned to leave in her bare feet…”
This is from another…
November 1997…
”I’ve never been frightened at the center before, but last Monday at 10am a huge man arrived with his 16 year old girl friend wanting a pregnancy test. It was frightening to me as he was twice her age or more, and he was rough in his manner and vulgar in his speech. But when I was confronted with this man, I was ready. When he heard the lil’ gal crying because her test was positive, he rushed into the counseling room and grabbed her arm and jerked her out of the chair.
‘Ok,ok,’ he yelled. ‘Where’s the abortion clinic?’ As he said this, he pushed our young mom about four feet. ‘What give you the privilege of telling Sarah what she should do?’
‘This is her baby’, I said. ‘God has a plan for this baby.’
‘We’re getting rid of it’, he said and his look was frightening.
‘Sir, this isn’t an it. This is your son or daughter which gives you the privilege of being a father.’
‘I’m getting the car’, he said. Sarah stayed behind and I said as much as I possibly could in the time I had with her.
‘Call me, Sarah. I’ll help you! I love you! And so does your baby!’
‘Quick! Give me your phone number!’ Sarah said. I hugged her, stuffed one of our cards in her hand as she ran out the door. So, we are left to pray and trust God for her and this baby…”
Here’s one of my favorites, about a girl my mom had talked to on the phone a couple of days before…and three days before the girl was due…
November 1994
“We’ve had moms-to-be accept Jesus as their Savior in the counseling rooms or over dinner, but we’ve never one accept Christ during her labor till this week. Hop aboard!…After her phone call, I met her at a busy intersection. She jumped into my car. When we hit I-40, I turned on my flashers and hit the gas! She had been in labor all day and contraction were coming every three minutes. I didn’t know how far along she was in labor. I just knew I didn’t want a baby born in the front seat of my new white car. It was 11:30 pm and she said, ‘Pat, God must be mad at me!’
‘No, He isn’t mad! God loves you so much Deanna! He died for your sins and mine…He loves you more than you imagine! He knows right now what you are going through! You know, Deanna if I was going through what you are, I’d be scared without Jesus in my life! It’d be a lot easier to go through this with Him!’ Remember, she’s having a contraction every three -now two- minutes. She had a hard contraction.
She screams. I pray.
‘Are you ready to accept Him as your Lord and Savior?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
‘Ok! Bow your head.’ (contraction) One minute later, ‘Repeat after me…’
Remember, we’re still going 70 mph down I-40. I stopped at the West Town exit, hugged her and welcomed her into the family of God. And called the Tennessee Highway Patrol. They escorted us the UT hospital. Wow! That was exciting!…The next morning, God gave me the opportunity to introduce that baby doll to her new Mom and Dad. When the nurse laid her in their arms, her hair all curled and pink bow in place, there wasn’t a dry eye in the place. Tears make mascara run down your face fast! As I slipped out of the nursery to spend time with Deanna, I heard the nurse say, ‘Yes, girls get pink bows. Boys get circumcisions.’ Deanna and I talked about how her life would soon reflect the presence and influence of Jesus Christ…’”
Every letter always ended with her “grandmother moment”. Amazing!
“Can I share my grandmother moment with you? Meggie is such a precious four year! This week she asked me, ‘Nannie, where was I before I was in my mommy’s tummy?’ I wasn’t quite sure what to say,so I said, ‘Sweetheart, you were just a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.’ Later that night, she told her dad at dinner, ‘I know where I was before I was in mommy’s tummy!’
‘Where?’ Kurt asked.
‘In your twinkle!’
‘Who told you that?!’
‘Nannie!’
Most of y’all knew my mom was she was old and getting weaker.
But you should have seen her then!
You should see her now!