The names have been changed to protect the, ugh, innocent? Alternately titled, A Long Post So Hang In There

Today started out fine. Well, as fine as a co-op morning can start anyway. Monday mornings I am usually rushing to get the kids out the door and to co-op not just on time, but somewhat decent looking. We made it though. Not exactly on time, but before assembly and announcements were over. That's a success in my book. So, anyway, the day started out fine. Co-op went well. I had fun teaching my kindergarten P.E. class, and it reminded me of why I went to school to be a P.E. teacher(and incase you are wondering, yes, you can actually go to college to be a P.E. teacher. My major was kinesiology, which is the study of the movement of the body.)

After co-op I went to work at The Hope Center. Many of you know that I work as a counselor there on Monday afternoons. I mainly counsel clients who come for the free pregnancy testing that the Hope Center offers. If you aren't familier with what the Hope Center is, well...it is pretty much exactly what Treyson's Purpose will be one day. It is a pro-life non-profit resource center for women with crisis pregnancies. I became connected with the Hope Center back in November with Meagan and I met with the assisstant director in an effort to get advice and information that would help us with Treyson's Purpose. In January I got a call from the lady that we had met with asking me if I would be interested in training to be a counselor there. She told me that it would benefit with Hope Center while providing with the knowledge and experience that I could use to further Treyson's Purpose. I seized the opportunity enthusiastically! What better way to get knowledge of how a pro-life non-profit agency runs, than to work at one?! Super excited doesn't describe how I felt. So I did the class part of the training in January, and went straight in to the counselors training the next week.

Over the next several weeks I gradually started doing more and more of the counseling on my own. Now I am fully on my own. Every Monday I look forward to going. Don't let the fact that I am so excited about it fool you in to thinking that it is simple. I have had some heart wrenching experience while working there. I have talked with women, and girls for that matter, that have some of the saddest stories I have ever heard personally. There are times that I feel so completely inadequate to help them at all. That is why I committed from my first week working there that I would spend my entire drive from my house to the Hope Center(about 20 min) in earnest prayer, praying that God would prepare the hearts of the clients I will see that day, and to prepare my heart to minister to them.

On my way there today I prayed that God would allow me to have a client to that was married, a Christian, and actually trying to get pregnant. That is the totally opposite of what we normally see, so I just prayed that God would send one my way for a little encouragement. It wears me down emotionally at times for the majority of my clients to be the women and girls that make up all those crazy statistics that I never thought were accurate until I was actually was faced with the women that make them. Underage post-abortive girls, 13 year olds with multiple life altering STD's, 20 years olds on their 4th pregnancy, women who have had 3 or more abortions, etc..... I have had more than one occassion where I have had to go in the restroom and pull myself together before I can walk in the room and tell a 16 year old that was forced by her parents to have an abortion after being raped at 13, that she is indeed pregnant again, and that by law I have to turn her boyfriend in to the state because she is a minor. Or there have been times that I have had to ask the other counselor that works at the same time as me to pray with me because my brain is mush after hearing a horriffic story and I feel unable to form words that could possibly provide comfort.

THAT is why I prayed for some nice, married, Christian to come my way that was just dying to be pregnant. That is what I prayed. And that is what I got. Times two. My first two clients were sweet married women that claimed to be Christians and had been trying for 1-2 years to get pregnant. I was thrilled to talk with them and run their tests. But I was heartbroken when I had to give them their results. Negative.

After the second client I was a bit discouraged. Ok, I was actually on the verge of tears. I was frustrated with how life seems to be unfair and how I had to be the bearer of heartbreakingly bad news. So client three comes along. And now we have a positive. Inspite of the fact that she wasn't married and beared the emotional scars of the post-abortive woman, I was happy for her. Her and her boyfriend have been trying to get pregnant for two years, and even though they aren't married, the lover-of-life in me genuinely congratulated them enthusiastically. Well, my enthusiasm was wiped away when the boyfriend of the newly pregnant girl began flirting with me. Yes, I did say flirting with me. Right in front of his pregnant girlfriend! At first I thought that maybe he was just giddy about the news and the giddiness was making him super friendly. But when they walked out the door after I scheduled their ultrasound, and the secretary exploded at his audacity, I knew it wasn't just my imagination. So much for being excited about client number three.

Just when I was seriously considering going in the restroom and crying for a minute, just to get in out, I get client number 4. I won't go in to details, mainly because my heart can't take it. But I will say that I am pretty sure that she will be having an abortion in the next week or so. That will make 3 abortions in two years for her. I am praying divine intervention in that situation.

This evening I am desperately trying to be at peace about client number 4. I not only prayed desperately before I went back in the room to give her the results of her pregnancy test, but I had the other counselor pray for the client and I as I talked with her. I have never felt so completely inadaquate in all my life. I literally felt like the life of that unborn child was in my hands and if I could just find the right words to say to the mother that I could save it. No right words came, aparently.

I know that my job is only to speak in the spirit and then let God do the work. But it is hard for me to not take the responsibily on myself to save that child when I am the one that is tangibly talking with her.


*Sigh. Big, big sigh*