Standing in the Path of the Storm

This has been a very exciting and encouraging and difficult week for me. I'll tell you why in a moment, but first I want to share an excerpt from a message John Piper delivered last Friday night at a pro-life conference in Minneapolis.

[The abortion] industry is Satanic to the core. Satan is a murderer and a liar. Those are his two names... liar (accuser), murderer... and the deception that reigns in the abortion industry and the killing that reigns must make Satan's mouth drip. Therefore, when you engage, you are coming up against supernatural power, and don't take it lightly. Satan will not sit by idly if you try and get near one of those abortion places. If you try to get between anybody moving there, the kind of eyes that you can see, the kind of voices that you can hear, where is that coming from?! And you know where it's coming from, it's coming from hell. Satan hates God and he hates every being created in the image of God, which is every human being. And he would destroy God if He could. [Since] he can't, he will destroy what is in the image of God.

I have felt the Satan-induced hatred and contempt this week to an extent that I haven't felt in a long time. It's chilling, a remember of what Piper warns. If you threaten what Satan loves, you'll probably feel the heat. And it is driven by an enemy almost infinitely stronger and smarter than I am, which makes the opposition even more daunting (but for the superior power of Christ). As I mentioned in my last email update, I began a sort of marketing test last week, made possible by the Abort73 MySpace page. I started sending "friend requests" to all of the roughly 3,000 current Washington State University (my alma mater) students who have a MySpace account. The process is now almost complete, and it has stirred up a lot of anger. Here is a sample of the messages I've received, and I warn you, much of the language (though partially censored) is crass and disturbing.

F--- you... end the ignorance??? YOU are ignorant. Thanks for trying to take away the rights to OUR bodies.

Leave me the f--- alone you two bit, c-- guzzling, gutter whore. nobody cares what you have to say you dirty bag of d----.

f--- you a--hole, you are deprive womens rights, im a guy and im sticking up for women who beleive abortion is right, so you can just suck my f------ d---, becuase who the f--- are you to tell my girlfriend what she can and cannot do with her body and life. how would you like it if i said you could not be with your family on fridays only for the rest of your life or if i made a law saying you had to eat your own g------ feces once a month. so dont f------ tell women what they can and cannot do with thier bodies, and as far as im concerned you are all a bunch of f------ that have no life, because you want to tell other people what to do with thier life. and the baby is just a freakin cell, when she gets pregnant that day, g-- i dont know what type of f------ sick satisfaction you get from telling others what they can do with thier bodies, just drop this abortion subject for everyone and make all of our lives better, because we would be better with out you and your bitching about this. Your making this something that doesnt need to be discussed, it is for women and their rights, not yours. so f--- off a--hole

f--- off

I hate you. Die.

Honestly you people don't give the person a right to choose, and that is where you are wrong. You want to try and take my free will away? Parade all the dead feti you want in front of me, your nothing but a bunch of right wing convervative a--holes who dont let people choose for themselves. I bet you are in favor of abstinece based sex ed right? Even though it's been proven not to work. I bet your a D.A.R.E fan too even that has been shown not to work. Places like planned parenthood give information about sex healthy choices and life to people that don't get it because of people like you. Im sure your a big Bush supporter too, and I'll tell you this, the only bush I trust is my own. But like I said I'm sure you guy would rather see a baby born and thrown in a dumpster, or put up for adoption, even though there are thousands of unadopted american children already. Mostly minority children. So you know they can stay in the system and be shuffled from foster home to foster home, and eventually end up on drugs and possibly leaving their baby in a dumpster. Yeah thats much better.

How dare you insult me by asking to be my friend?! I don't tolerate, nonetheless befriend, ignorant conservative pigs (most especially of the male type) who consider themselves experts on a subject they will never even have to consider. Why don't you try getting raped? Then you'll find yourself pregnant by the baby batter of some f----- up piece of s--- who only wanted you for a couple seconds pleasure. And you will do what? Allow said piece of s---'s child to alter your body and mind forever, just so you can give the kid up to a system that will probably see him abused and homeless at age 14? Try making a decision like that and THEN send me some stupid propaganda about 'saving lives.' You all like to bomb abortion clinics. Tell me, is THAT saving lives? F--- YOU.

As SOON as YOU have physically and mentally gone through the incredible, life changing (and many times ruining) effects of an unwanted pregnancy (most especially to the likes of rape) you are welcome to send me this hateful propoganda. As soon as you have to live with the fact that when it comes right down to it, you can't stop someone from forcing something into your body (for their pleasure, I might add), rubbing infections and diseases into your most private parts and leaving you with stretch marks, flab, a loose vagina and a hate-child to mark the wonderful event, you have my permission (and I'm sure many other women's) to go right up to that abortion clinic with your little picket signs and your little bomb threats and your incredible dose of hypocracy and shove it right in women's faces. Yep. Then and ONLY then, will I have the slightest inkling of respect for the likes of you. Until that day, you can suck it a--hole.

To date, though I've made my best efforts (often painful and time consuming) to address these remarks with humility and grace, my responses have only garnered more rage. It is a stark reminder that darkness hates the light. It is a reminder that we're not only battling unwitting ignorance, but also chosen ignorance, displayed by students who have the opportunity to educate themselves about abortion, but choose not to. I'll close on a more encouraging note, which stands in stark contrast to the last two comments above. This email came in on Friday:

I just wanted to say that I am so pleased to read your stance on abortion in the case of rape... My mother was a 14-year-old girl who was raped...and she tried to have an abortion... The only reason I am alive today is the doctor miscalculated her due date and thought she was too far in the pregnancy to have the abortion...when in reality he was a month off (this actually happened twice)... It pains me every time I hear even die hard pro-lifers say"except in the case of rape.".. I know it is traumatizing for a girl or woman that is raped to have to carry a child, but it is no more traumatizing than someone who gets shot during a violent attack and has to deal with those wounds... Counseling and therapy..can help heal the trauma,..but the trauma will be there whether she has the abortion or not...and the abortion could even make it worse.....It has caused me so much anxiety over the years to think that many pro-lifers would have approved my mother's abortion.....By the way, she gave me up for adoption, and my adoptive parents were not able to have children.....Thank you so much for printing..this wonderful view against..abortion even in the case..of rape.....

Be not discouraged. God is good (and I say that as much to myself as to anyone else reading this).