New Book Gives Hope & Mercy

Released in January, 40 Days for Life: Discover What God Has Done… Imagine What He Can Do is a book that is bringing hope and fresh enthusiasm to the pro-life effort. It documents peaceful vigils, prayer and fasting, and community outreach campaigns at the local level, which has been changing the face of the pro-life movement.

Authors David Bereit and Shawn Carney write about the 2004 launch of the first 40 Days for Life campaign in College Station, Texas, where the pro-life movement was dwindling. At the same time, it appeared that “Planned Parenthood was picking up speed.”

While praying for direction, David and Shawn’s ideas converged around prayer, fasting and the biblical timeframe of 40 days. “Then came a truly radical idea,” they write. “The second thing we felt led to do was forty days of nonstop, around-the-clock peaceful prayer vigil outside our local Planned Parenthood abortion facility.”

“Where two or more are gathered in the Lord’s name, he is present in our midst. Where is he more urgently needed than outside a place of such hopelessness and despair as an abortion facility?” write the authors. “Our presence on the sidewalks is powerful in two critical ways—we are the last sign of hope for the mother and baby when they arrive, but also the first sign of mercy to the women as they leave.”

A movement was born that has involved over half a million individuals in over 480 communities, and resulted in more than 6,700 babies being saved.
What makes this book a fascinating read are the personal stories of participants in local campaigns. Over the past seven years, the 40 Days for Life movement has spread across the nation and overseas.

Mark, for example, was like 30 percent of those who get involved in the 40 Days for Life campaigns. He considered himself to be “pro-life,” but this was the first pro-life activity he had ever participated in. He felt good about deciding to pray outside a local abortion center.
During one of Mark’s prayer vigils, it was pouring down rain. He considered sitting in his car instead of standing in front of the abortion center. But when another volunteer stayed out to pray in the rain, Mark did the same.

Soon, they focused their prayers on a particular family of three as they entered the building. Ten minutes later, the woman came out and poured out her story.
Her husband wanted her to get the abortion because it was not his baby. On the way to the abortion center she asked God to give her a sign if he didn’t want her to do it. Her sign was two men praying in the rain.

Volunteers for these 40 Days for Life vigils won’t always see the same immediate results, but that does not diminish the significance of their prayers. So far, the 40 Days for Life campaigns across the nation have seen 26 abortion centers close.

If you’re like Mark, and you consider yourself “pro-life,” yet you have never gotten involved in any pro-life activities, 40 Days for Life: Discover What God Has Done… Imagine What He Can Do is a book you’ll want to read. It tells inspiring, encouraging and motivating stories of people who are quietly and faithfully praying in front of abortion centers across America.
God has given us a powerful means to intervene in the modern-day holocaust of abortion—prayer. And he has promised that he is able to do “immeasurably more than we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20 NIV). The book 40 Days for Life challenges us to “Imagine What He Can Do!”

For more information about the Fort Lauderdale Spring 2013 40 Days for Life campaign now underway, go to: 40daysforlife.com/fortlauderdale.

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