My mom shared the following about her prayer intentions this past Wednesday during her regular daily hour at the vigil, “I prayed that the Holy Spirit would touch the souls of every person who crossed the sidewalk and entered that parking lot, that they would be shaken in their soul by the very powerful knowledge of how much God loves them."
As I shared in my Silent No More post about the powerful witness we heard at the vigil Thursday morning, we definitely felt God’s Presence. That evening Kevin and I met at the parking lot at St. Benedict’s after work and walked over to pray with my mom for the rest of her hour. She was exhausted and still had chores and errands to do before my youngest sister returned from college, so she asked if we would stay for the last twenty minutes so she could get going. We agreed and used the remaining time to meditate on Christ’s Sorrowful Passion.
When we started walking back to our cars, I noticed a man standing on the edge of the abortion clinic property using his cell phone. I looked beyond him and saw the hood of a vehicle propped up. I couldn’t see any other cars or people in the parking lot. I asked him if something had happened to his car. He said that he needed a jump start.
Kevin and I told him we didn’t have our jumper cables in our cars at the time. He said he had his own jumper cables. With that, we told him that we were parked a couple blocks away, and that we’d go get one of our cars and come back. I’m sure he was skeptical that we’d actually return.
A few minutes later we pulled into the narrow back parking lot. I immediately noticed a young woman sitting in the passenger seat of the vehicle. I hadn’t seen her there before. While Kevin and the young man hooked up the cables, I got out and talked with her. I asked how she was doing, and she smiled and said that she was fine.
“So what are you here for?” I asked gently.
“I just had a termination,” she said.
I was quiet for a moment, then I responded by telling her about a retreat that might be of interest to her. I didn’t have any of the fliers or brochures with me about Rachel’s Vineyard post-abortion healing ministry, so I pulled my business card out of my purse and on the back of it wrote down http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/ along with the name and home phone number of the couple who head up the ministry in our area. Before we pulled out, I told her we’d be praying for them.
Neither my mom nor my husband and I knew at the time that the prayer she’d prayed on Wednesday “that the Holy Spirit would touch the souls of every person who crossed the sidewalk and entered that parking lot, that they would be shaken in their soul by the very powerful knowledge of how much God loves them” would end up being a blessing for the two of us as well as all who entered the clinic.
The next evening I shared the story with the couple who happened to go to the same daily Mass Kevin and I went to Friday. They also saw it as a God incident that car trouble gave us the opportunity to go to the other side to help our brother and sister in Christ.
All of us will indeed continue praying for the couple as well as all of the women and men participating in the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat taking place this next weekend in our area.
If you or someone you know might benefit from post-abortion healing or would like more information about this international ministry, retreat schedules, and local contacts, please click on this link.
