Are You Convinced?

How would you respond if you heard someone in your family or church was pregnant and was struggling with whether or not to seek an abortion?

How would you feel? What would you think? What “voices” would be running through your mind?

Is it the voice of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” that we so often hear?

After all, whose business is this beyond the woman herself? Only the woman facing this choice can decide what’s best for her in her situation and no one else is affected.

But is it true?

Every choice we make is influenced by the voices we hear and every choice has an impact.

Is there another place, another voice she can encounter that offers an understanding, compassionate perspective and would recognize the reality that the life in her womb is a person, conceived in her own flesh, made in the image of God?

Not many. In fact, almost every woman who enters one of our PRCs does not know of another place to turn as she struggles with her decision. She often doesn’t know that abortion doctors consider abortion the default decision in every unplanned pregnancy. If a woman attends a church, she seldom sees it as a resource for sorting out this dilemma. Many people have never heard the issue of abortion addressed in a helpful way in churches they’ve attended. Most women getting an abortion experience pressure from their partners, or lack of support if she chooses to birth her baby.

This is where you and I come in – with hope.

Hope is empowered by conviction and compassion.

Only those with a settled conviction that every person conceived is created in God’s image and is our neighbor whom we are commissioned to love, protect, and support will exercise the love it takes to offer an alternative.

From this conviction, we are motivated by the love of Christ with compassion to give a woman facing an unintended pregnancy every reason and resource to give life.

At PRC, over and over again, we see that when women see their baby on an ultrasound screen, are educated about fetal development, and are provided the initial resources and direction for nurturing her baby, her hope, courage, and love awakens and moves her to be the life-giver God created all of us to be.

I invite you to clarify and deepen your conviction. We’d be happy to provide you with a great tool for doing just that by sending you Randy Alcorn’s excellent and concise book, “Why Pro-Life?” at no charge.

How is your compassion? The fact that you’re connected with First Image is a good sign that you care!  I admit that I’m not a compassionate person by nature, but because God has granted me the blessing of daily serving in the compassionate ministry of First Image, alongside amazing staff and volunteers, I am constantly humbled, encouraged, and renewed in the love of Christ for those I might otherwise ignore or judge.

I invite you to deepen your involvement with First Image. Whatever led you to engage with First Image – whether one of our events, through your church, volunteering, your personal or family situation – now, more than ever, please take another step to deepen your compassion.

How? By viewing our videos, taking a center tour, having coffee with one of us, inviting us to share in some setting at your church or small group, volunteering, joining our prayer team, providing maternity or baby items for our clients, or something we haven’t yet thought of.

I appeal to you to do something more than you’re doing now because I am convinced we need to. Continuing to connect our hearts to serving “the least of these” is a vital way for you and me to keep growing in our conviction and compassion.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving this month, join me in giving thanks for the lives of women, babies, and men that have been delivered from the threat and regret of abortion because people like you have made it possible for them to encounter the compassion of Christ through His people. We give thanks for your continued generosity in giving to serve these women and their babies.

In His Image,

Larry Gadbaugh, CEO