Before I get moving on this.

A man writing about the issue of Abortion, come on what does he understand?

What I understand is this: Men have stood by apathetically on this issue because we have been told we are not part of the issue. That this is a woman’s issue not ours. We are told that we have no place in this choice, and no reason to even talk about it. That is a position I disagree with completely. The man’s role in Abortion is exactly what I plan to address from my point of view at least. There has never been a time in my life where I would say I supported abortion and I am positive it would never be an option I condone. But I can also say I never got close enough to it to understand and see both sides. I had never gotten dirty in the trenches, and learned the lessons. Lessons I could work with and through beyond the mission field. I had not seen the faces and emotions involved. I had not seen and experienced the spiritual battle raging…I had stood by apathetically assuming I knew better and that was ok. I never knew that my apathy left me inactive in God’s Kingdom work.

The words mission trip though invokes thoughts of traveling over seas to a 3rd world country and working with those in circumstances we would have or never have been exposed to. We often think of the poorest of conditions. The people have little to no food, dirty water and shelter of shacks or tents. They live often unclean and unsanitary conditions. These are the images that are hard for people to shake when they come home. These mission trips do a lot of good while there with the people. However, it is often taking the power of the images seen that leads to greater things being done long after the trip is over. What is done with the lessons learned, while not in the mission field, is sometimes more important to God for His Kingdom.

Well a 3rd world country is not where I spent my mission trip, but no less important to the work in God’s kingdom. I went to a place where I never thought I would ever journey to and a place where a spiritual battle is raging daily. It was the corner of Second and Market St in Downtown Louisville Ky. Praying in support of those without voices, those never given a chance for life. I stood and prayed as 40+ women and girls walked in the door of the Abortion clinic… I prayed for the unborn, the pregnant woman/girl of the unborn, the workers in the clinic and the Dr’s. I prayed for the escorts who volunteer their time to the clinic. I prayed that God’s love would pour out on them, his Grace and forgiveness freely accepted. I prayed that God would find a way to intervene in this spiritual battle.

The images and emotions from the four mornings I spent downtown are hard to shake. There is a story here that is not being told. This story is a real life struggle of life and death that many sit back apathetically on one side of or the other. We love to vote for or against it but nothing is really being done to change the outcome. This is an issue and a spiritual battle that starts well before the women/girls walk down that street to the Abortion Clinic.

Before we turn the page so to speak…This experience in no way changed my mind to accepting and condoning abortion. What it did do, is help me realize that we need to act to alleviate the need for abortion, and the spiritual battle must be addressed and fought long before the walk down the street to the clinic doors. My plan is to write from my perspective about this spiritual battle. I will write through a lens that was naive to the entire story until I took the steps to get involved. It will be hard to convey the emotion involved, but maybe I can at least give a better picture of the faces and stories involved. This is a spiritual battle for the souls of a broken world, and Men need to be involved in this battle. The battle must start with Men affecting the lives of the people involved well before they walk down the street.

If you are looking for political debate over abortion please look else where. I believe this issue is beyond something that will be solved in the political arena. I will monitor comments closely and will not publish those I feel are politically inflammatory, or made just to bait someone into debate.

My mission is to change the perception of men and the need for them in this battle, but not in the way many may think. First though I needed to go into the mission field to understand this spiritual battle better. Which I did, and over the next week I will be posting my journaling on the 4 days I spent downtown, praying for and talking with people on both sides of the abortion issue. I thought about going through and re-writing most of this from my daily thoughts, but decided against it. Each day brought a different range of emotions. So I will post exactly what I wrote hours after I left downtown, and then some reflective thoughts I have had since the experience.

My hope is to raise the awareness of this life and death issue to a level that men can no longer site idle. My prayer is that men will stand up to fight and become the protectors of the Church Christ wants us to be.