God's Miraculous Hand in Missouri's HB 126 8 Week Abortion Ban

Nine years ago, April 29, 2010, I suffered a traumatic miscarriage. It was a turning point for me personally in my stand for life. Before that event, I had been pro-life, but I had never shed a single tear over the issue of abortion. I knew in my heart and mind that abortion was wrong and grieved God’s heart, and I had been leading Bound4LIFE St. Louis with my husband for several years.

This event in my life was the thing that finally broke my heart and showed me a glimpse of the Father’s heart for the unborn. It was this experience that opened the flood gates for me and brought the tears. It was also shortly after going through this that I got pregnant. It is always challenging to have hope and faith in God for a different outcome after going through loss and disappointment. I knew I wouldn’t make it through the pregnancy without a word from God, a promise that I could stand on.

God brought me to a scripture that is now my life verse and what I cling to during trying times.

Psalm 126:5-6:

“Those who sow with tears WILL reap with songs of JOY. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”

These verses would not have been as meaningful to me before the miscarriage because I didn’t know what it meant “sow in tears,” that concept was foreign to me. So that’s what I have done for nine years. I have stood at my kitchen sink, on the sidewalk outside abortion clinics and courthouses, and in our prayer room and shed tears as I have prayed for LIFE in my state, and asked God to release the harvest of joy. In many ways, I have been pregnant with this promise of a harvest of joy for nine years! It’s the longest pregnancy ever!

Then in February 2019, I happened to be at our state capitol with another pro-life organization on the day that House Bill 126 passed the Missouri House of Representatives. It was a momentous occasion. This bill is a sweeping pro-life piece of legislation that would ban abortions at eight weeks, among other things. It is known as the strongest pro-life bill in the nation! However, the most defining thing about this piece of legislation was that it was 126th bill filled in this session. God was speaking of my promise, and I knew it immediately!

We continued to follow the progress of the bill as it made its way through our Senate. At the end of April, I had three dreams in the span of a week, and a dear friend had another that we felt were clearly from God. In my dreams, I was pregnant and giving birth; in each one, there was an obstacle in the way of the baby being born. In my friend’s dream, I was also pregnant and had given birth to a baby we named “Steady Endurance.” We took all these dreams to the Lord in prayer and asked for a revelation of what He was speaking so we could pray in line with God’s will for our state. With each of my dreams, I woke up during the hour of 4 am. We felt this was a strategic prayer assignment and felt led to cover the hour of 4 am in prayer.

In partnership with a local House of Prayer, we had a small band of prayer warriors commit to get up and pray at 4 am, two people each day the Senate was in session. Along the way, God was speaking to us through His word and encouraging us to keep going! We committed to the prayer strike until the bill passed, and it ended up lasting three weeks. On May 16th, the last day of our scheduled prayer strike, at 4:01 am the Senate chamber announced that HB 126 had passed by a vote of 24-10! God, once again, was showing his faithfulness to His promises!

HB 126, banning abortions after the eighth weeks of pregnancy with no exception for rape or incest,  now heads to Governor Mike Parson’s desk, who is expected to sign it into law.

- Melissa Jacobs

When My Mom Was Violated and I Was ‘Unwanted,’ Adoption Revealed God’s Perfect Love

“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your Book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.” Psalm 139:13-16

I always knew I was adopted. I remember my parents sitting me down and explaining it to me. I remember crying myself to sleep thinking, You aren’t my real mom and dad. I remember the rejection and hurt I felt.

They loved me so much and wanted to help me deal with this flood of emotions, but they didn’t know how it felt. They couldn’t. They knew where they came from. I didn’t.

Photo: Augusto Serna / Flickr

This internal struggle continued for years. Little did I know that I only knew part of the story. I was a senior in high school when I found out: my birth mother had been raped.

I have imagined the scenario over and over again in my mind—how my birthday almost didn’t happen. A young woman is picked up for a date and night on the town. Her boyfriend is charming, persuasive. The night was going well, and then things took a turn for the worse. They called it date rape.

Nine months later, here I was. Born to a woman who didn’t want me—didn’t even want to know if I was a girl or boy. Unloved, unwanted, yet saved from the unthinkable violence of abortion, which is somehow totally accepted in our society.

I remember staring out my mother’s car window thinking, You’re a product of evil; you were never meant to be. How the enemy has a way with words.

For years, I lived with those nagging feelings, those hating thoughts—feeling like I was somehow predestined for something horrible because that’s how my life began. I was pathetic, or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.

Photo: Aftab Uzzaman / Flickr

I’d have good days, weeks, months… but it always came creeping back. Thinking back on that day, I can vividly remember what my mom so casually stated and how Satan was turning truth into lies. I wasn’t telling myself that I wasn’t meant to be, the enemy was telling me You weren’t meant to be—anything to bring me down and question my life’s purpose.

Who can imagine being raped and then finding out she is pregnant with the rapist’s child?

I remember as a high schooler, justifying how an abortion would be somehow acceptable in the case of rape—I mean, how could you expect a woman to carry a child that was conceived under such horrible and evil means? Oh wait, that could’ve been me… I was questioning everything: my self-worth, even my existence.

Thoughts of suicide came and went. I never acted on it and always shrugged off the thought of doing so. It wasn’t until I sought God’s voice in my life that those thoughts began to disappear.

Little did I know God was calling me to Him. He wanted me? It couldn’t be—He doesn’t know about me, where I came from… “Yes, Ashley, I want you,” I opened my Bible to Jeremiah 1:5:“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”

He knows me, He created me, He loves me. You see, I wasn’t a mistake. God knew what was going to happen the day I was conceived, and He had a plan greater than anyone could see. At a more fundamental level than even my adopted parents could imagine, my Father revealed the significance and purpose He imprinted on my life.  

God takes bad situations and makes something beautiful. I am a child of God! His adoption is beautiful, secure and astonishing in its glorious design. I am here to share God’s good news and plan for your life and mine. I am alive—not by mistake, but by His grace.

We must all remember that God has a plan for our lives. We may not see it or even understand what it is. All we can do is daily seek His face and His will. We must not get discouraged when we feel like the world has turned its back on us, it has!

But God hasn’t turned His back on us. God was, and still is, in control. Because of the circumstances surrounding my conception and birth, I have had the amazing opportunity to minister to others by speaking out against abortion and sharing the love of Christ to those who are recovering from it.

I am daily reminded that God’s plan is perfect. I am blessed to write and speak of what He has done in and through me! Praise God for His heart revealed in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

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About Ashley Lawton

Ashley Lawton is a writer, photographer and Christian speaker who loves to shares her pro-life testimony. She and her husband, Asbury, raise their two lovely children in Greenville, South Carolina.

Mercy Triumphs Over Judgment, Shares Woman Who Regrets Her Abortion

From the Dirksen Senate Office Building, I walked up to the United States Supreme Court, until my toes kissed the first step. I stood gazing up at the impenetrable bronze doors.

Looking foolish with a piece of red tape covering my mouth and the word “Life” written on it, I prayed a silent, faith-filled prayer, the Life Band prayer: “Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation. God, end abortion and bring revival to America.”

As I prayed, I remembered that angry teenage girl I had been. I was sad for her, as if she never had been me. That young woman was gone. She had faced her Goliath, the abortion industry, and had fallen prey to it. She had lost that battle and was left in devastation and tears, and without her child.

Photo for illustration purposes: Francisco Osorio / Flickr

Good and wise, Father God sometimes allows us to make our mistakes and learn from them. Many of these mistakes break His heart—and have real, devastating consequences.

After my abortion, God allowed me to feel deep pain and sorrow because I had ignored His kind convictions and divine stop signs on the path to my horrible decision. (He even tried to stop me as I was in the clinic, preparing for the abortion.)

There was absolutely no part of God’s heart that condoned my decision to take the life of my child, yet He still loves me and has never forsaken me. He gave me free will and the choice to love and follow Him; therefore, He allowed me to walk down a road that not only broke His heart, but would soon also break my own heart.

He allowed me to reach the end of myself so that I could find Him. I am thankful for His unfailing mercy in the many rock-bottom moments of my life that followed my abortion. His mercy brought forth righteousness and wisdom in my life; like Job, without His divine intervention I would surely have perished.

Bound4LIFE team members pray silently for women and children outside the U.S. Supreme Court (Photo: Bound4LIFE)

So I closed my eyes as I stood next to dear friends at the Court. I could hear the pro-abortion mockers and antagonists behind us, but they were fading in the background. “It’s a woman’s right,” they chanted. The mocking continued, but my faith increased. I faced the giant again.

This time, in my spirit, in God, I found a place of solitude, peace, and confidence. The red tape covering my lips seeped purpose into every fiber of my being. I have prayed this faith-filled prayer hundreds, if not thousands, of times.

I have prayed in Silent Siege at the steps of the Supreme Court, at the steps of lower courts across the nation, and in front of abortion clinics. Whether I’m standing in front of our nation’s highest court or in the court of Heaven from inside my prayer room, I know there is victory. God is on the side of life.

Yet I still hear my accuser remind me (just as he did the first day I prayed this audacious prayer) that I am just a small, insignificant, stay-at-home mom. Who am I to believe that God will hear my prayers and will move mountains on my behalf? I hear the antagonists and I run, full-speed, to my Heavenly Father. Yet I believe.

Holding their daughter, Cathy and Marcus Harris wear Life Bands—a daily reminder to pray for life (Photo: Harris Family)

I do believe that God hears my prayers and the prayers of hundreds of other women, asking Him to spare another woman and her baby from the devastation we have been through. I do believe that abortion will end because of the prayers of the saints. I have to believe it, because I have to have hope for America.

The Goliath of the abortion industry will not step aside easily. I am not naïve enough to believe that all abortion will cease at the sound of the gavel’s judgment. Even if abortion is made illegal, it is possible that abortions will continue illegally through stronger forms of “birth control” and “forced miscarriages.”

Nevertheless, I pray that one day our nation will break its agreement with the evil Goliath of abortion, and as a result millions of babies, women, men, and families will be saved. Women will be heard, we will hold our children in our arms, and the church will be called from the outfield up to bat.

God is already on the move. Despite the façade presented by the media and some political establishments, the abortion industry is weakening. We can see it crumbling. Through the ministry of Bound4LIFE International, thousands of believers all across our nation and internationally are praying for the end of abortion.

Today a mother of three, Cathy wore Life Tape during her pregnancy as a public witness (Photo: Harris Family)

Bound4LIFE is mobilizing the church to step up to bat, with red Life Tape over our mouths, in front of our state capitols and neighborhood abortion clinics to silently pray. Other prayer ministries such as 40 Days for Life are also exponentially growing in numbers in front of abortion clinics and seeing miraculous results.

Babies are being saved, abortion clinics are closing at rapid rates, workers are leaving the industry and exposing the deception inside their walls, videos showing hellish practiceswithin the abortion clinics have gone viral, pro-life legislation is being passed by more and more states, and popular opinion is swaying towards life.

This is thrilling! A great move of God is on the horizon, and He is calling our name to come with Him. The tide is turning, and I believe it is in direct conjunction with the Church returning to God in prayer and repentance.

This article is an excerpt used with permission from Created to Live: Becoming the Answer for an Abortion-Free Community (2017, Ambassador International).

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About Cathy Harris

Cathy Harris is an author, certified prenatal educator, public speaker, and passionate pro-life voice. Most importantly, she is a wife and homeschooling mother to three energetic children. Learn about her work and ministry at CathyHarris.org. She and her husband Marcus raise their family in Manassas, Virginia.

One Phone Call to a Crisis Pregnancy Center Saved Her Baby—and Changed Her Family Forever

Several months ago, a 24 year-old woman called our center looking for an abortion. She spoke with someone who informed her of all of her other options; she also learned how Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center would be a resource and strength to her if she decided to keep her baby.

The woman didn’t make an appointment with one of our counselors that day—but to the glory of God, neither did she make an appointment with an abortion clinic.

I know because, a few weeks ago, she did make an appointment with us and I was privileged enough to be her counselor.

Robbi Harvell serves as a trained counselor at Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Matt Lockett)

She opened her heart to me about her struggle and how she had made up her mind to abort her baby… but that wasn’t her final decision.

After that first contact, everything changed. She pins the shift in her life to the day she called us! I know it’s because, after every abortion call, we pray for Jesus to intervene and make a way in each woman’s life.

Praise God for the power of prayer! She told me how, after she called us, her parents and the baby’s father got behind her. She had hope for the future.

My silent awe soon turned to rejoicing! However, the story gets even better. In the midst of our conversation, I asked her if she had picked out a name yet. She told me she didn’t know the gender and was waiting until birth to find out, but that she was considering a few different girl and boy names.

An abortion-minded woman decided to choose life after calling a crisis pregnancy center in D.C. (Photo: Jake Guild / Flickr)

I noticed the names started with the letter “a” and suggested the name Aubrey if it was a girl. I’ve always thought it was such a beautiful name and it means rules with wisdom. She loved the name.

It turns out she went into labor the day after our meeting, and did indeed bring a little girl into the world. To my delight, she named her daughter Aubrey!

I can’t tell you how much that moves me. How grateful I am to God for Aubrey’s life—and thankful that all of us in the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center family had a role in this beautiful journey.

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About Robbi Harvell

Robbi Harvell serves as a full-time intercessory missionary on staff at Justice of House Prayer DC. She also volunteers with Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center, a faith-based non-profit organization offering help and support to women, men and their families who are in a crisis pregnancy.