Devotion for Tuesday 3/31
Our Father will always make a way. He will make sure that you will get to your divine appointment – and then let all Heaven break loose.
Read Luke Chapter 11 (this Scripture passage is available at the end of this devotion).
A Story of Another Woman
This is a story sent to me by another friend who wished to remain anonymous. I hope her story touches you like it touched me. May we always pray, and never give up.
I have an aunt who has had an abortion on more than one occasion. She did this to please her husband for the purpose of having more money for drugs and sex parties.
When I was about 11 years old, along with my 12 year old sister, we went to stay with my aunt in Dallas Texas. Their daycare closed for the Summer, and they were in need of a babysitter – and for our age, the pay was awesome for a summer job.
My aunt became pregnant and it wasn’t long before he begin ordering her to have an abortion. She begged him to let her keep this baby, but he insisted. Even at our age we realized when she was getting her abortion. We stayed out the way, babysat her 3 children and took them to the pool.
Because of the protesters with signs in front of the abortion clinic, the women getting an abortion took the coward’s way, and were bussed in so that no one could see their faces. They were driven into a parking garage, lined up, given paperwork to fill out, paid their money, and given a pill to relax them. Then they were taken in to have their precious babies killed.
After she came home sore and exhausted, her husband put her to work in cleaning the house. He then beat her and while he kicked her between her legs he yelled, “Bitch, you killed my baby!” He then raped her and ordered her to clean the bloody mess on the bed.
When we came back from our day out at the park with the kids, there was my beautiful aunt, beaten and wearing bloody pants from the assault her husband had afflicted on her. Even though she was pale from blood loss and just plain exhausted, I couldn’t pity her at this moment.
That night her husband of 13 years raped my twelve year old sister. She didn’t tell me, but he promised her that I was next. Immediately the next morning, my sister called our parents and told them that I was not helping, and that I was getting on her nerves. She asked them for a plane ticket for me, and two days later – I flew home. A few years later, my sister finally told me. I was devastated. She told my aunt, but she only called my sister a liar. She then confronted her attacker.
To anyone who may read this, maybe it might help point out the burden of the decision to be a single mom, by working two jobs or having tough times. I want people to remember how my aunt killed her baby, a man who raped and beat her, and violated her niece. These men who agree with abortion are hardly with the salt they are made of, and neither are the woman who kill their babies through an abortion when you think about it.
When you think about children, they will love their parents. There is no love from a baby killed by an abortion, or a man who walks out on his responsibility of being a dad.
I have been a single mother of an unwanted boy for 8 1/2 years. He will gladly tell you that I am his mom, but he will never know about the day his dad put me on that coward’s bus to an abortion clinic. He will never know that I never through the gates of the clinic, or about the letter that I left to his father, explaining that I couldn’t go through with it, because I couldn’t live with myself. I knew that every time I would look into his eyes, it would remind me of the baby I killed because of an abortion.
I kept the money for the abortion and took my pregnant self back home to mom and dad. I asked them to help me be strong enough for me and my baby. To this day, this man who is 300 miles away will never know that I didn’t kill his baby through an abortion. He is my son, and I could never be more proud of the decision that I made that day.
If you know someone considering an abortion, or maybe considering one yourself, please check out a website by Eduardo Verastegui, who starred in the movie Bella, here.
IMPORTANT!
If you have a life story you would like to share, please send it to me. I will keep your name confidential if you would like, or be glad to give you all the credit.
We are all paintings of Christ – share you painting with others.
Luke 11
The Model Prayer1 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”
2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”A Friend Comes at Midnight
5 And He said to them, “Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; 6 for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within and say, ‘Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’? 8 I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
Keep Asking, Seeking, Knocking
9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
A House Divided Cannot Stand
14 And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”
16 Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven. 17 But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. 18 If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. 22 But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. 23 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
An Unclean Spirit Returns
24 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
Keeping the Word
27 And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”
28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Seeking a Sign
29 And while the crowds were thickly gathered together, He began to say, “This is an evil generation. It seeks a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here.
The Lamp of the Body
33 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. 34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”
Woe to the Pharisees and Lawyers
37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.”
45 Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, “Teacher, by saying these things You reproach us also.”
46 And He said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. 48 In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’ 50 that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
52 “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”
53 And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, 54 lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.
