The God of Life

Leslie Basham: As a pregnant teenager with no support or income, Angie discovered the God who is a Father to the fatherless.

Angie: You don’t know when you’re in that situation what the outcome is going to be, and that’s why God is so good. We need God because we don’t know the future, and He’s the reason why I am sitting here today in front of you as a Christian woman.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Tuesday, January 22.

On this day we mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade. We are telling the story of one individual woman affected by that decision. Here's Nancy to pick up on that story.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Well, if you’ve been listening to Revive Our Hearts over the past several days, I think you will agree that we have heard an incredible story of the amazing grace of God and His power to transform lives, to bring hope into the most desperate situation.

Angie has been sharing with us her story of how God found her and rescued her and rescued the child that she was carrying as a result of a lot of people's wrong choices and a lot of wrong things she had been exposed to and the work of the enemy trying to destroy life. That’s what Satan does, Angie, isn’t that right? He tries to destroy life. He tried to destroy your life; he tried to destroy the life of your pre-born son, and God had a different plan for you.

Angie: That’s right.

Nancy: He’s a God of life, and I just thank you so much for being willing to come and share your story. I was saying to you as we were getting ready for this recording session, as hard as Satan tried to keep a strangle-hold on your life, God has won such a powerful victory.

Every time you tell this story and look in the eyes of your now six-year-old son, precious BJ, Satan is once again reminded of the defeat that he has been dealt by the power of Christ. Do you ever look in BJ’s eyes and think of how things might have been different had you walked in the abortion clinic instead of the Pregnancy Care Center that day in December?

Angie: I have this picture of him in my hand, and I can’t imagine . . . It brings tears to my eyes when I think about what . . .(crying) I mean, you don’t know when you’re in that situation what the outcome is going to be, and that’s why God is so good. We need God because we don’t know the future, and He’s the reason why I am sitting here today in front of you as a Christian woman.

When I tell him [BJ] that you saved Mommy—he did. He’s the reason why I’m a Christian. Knowing him, and after he turned one (there’s a lot of background), but he’s the reason why I needed God so bad. I know that people can agree with this—through your children, you see your need for Christ more. I could not imagine for one moment not having him in my life. He’s such a blessing. Children are such a blessing, and Satan wants to destroy God’s blessings for us.

Can you just imagine? The angels can’t even create. God has given women such a magnificent quality, a trait. God’s characteristic is in us, living in women, and Satan wants to destroy that in any way he can, and what better way than to destroy the life that we can carry through us?

Nancy: And your life has become such a trophy of God’s grace and His character, and I just believe even through this broadcast this week that there are going to be many, many women impacted in deep ways, who are in different places in this equation—maybe the mom or the grandmom who is burdened for a young woman who is not walking with the Lord, or maybe a young woman who is not walking with the Lord just tuned into or happened to catch on the Internet this program and is going to hear that there is hope.

The first time I heard your story, I was speaking at a banquet for that Pregnancy Care Center. They do this every year and raise funds for the ministry for the next year. Before I had a chance to speak, they had you up on the platform sharing your story. We had never met. You took not a very long time, but it was moving as you shared your story. People were in tears; they were very touched. This was two years ago, and what was, I think, an additional very special thing about that evening was sitting in the audience that night was Michelle, the woman who had been the counselor at the Pregnancy Care Center in whom you saw, as you described yesterday, Christ in her.

Michelle, you were sitting there that night. You had never seen Angie since that day that she came into the Pregnancy Care Center four years earlier. What were you thinking when you heard her get up that night? This radiant Christian young woman now has a four-year-old son. What were thinking as you heard that story?

Michelle: I said, “Wow, God!” So many things that she said in her story fit exactly how we prayed at the pregnancy center. We prayed that the girls couldn’t go through that door, that God would stop them before they even stepped on that sidewalk. We prayed that in their heart they would be drawn to the Pregnancy Care Center; that they would see our sign and come in, and that we could share with them and they could see the love of Jesus in there.

So everything she said was exactly how we prayed. I mean, that just showed me so much about how much God hears our prayers. For me it was also an incredible blessing because I had felt that I wasn’t maybe in the place that God had wanted me to be as a counselor there. I didn’t see lives changed. We don’t see the fruit, and often I would hear about other counselors leading others to Christ, and I didn’t seem to know the right words. I thought that perhaps I was in God’s way and these other women should be there.

So I was greatly blessed when I heard that. My heart rejoiced with God.

Nancy: How long did you counsel at a pregnancy care center?

Michelle: I think it was about four years.

Nancy: You had met many young women who would come through that door. Do you often see them back again, or is it often, as was the case with Angie, that it’s just one time?

Michelle: Often times with girls that would come in not expecting to be pregnant or not wanting to be pregnant, you would only see them one time.

Nancy: You had only met Angie that once, and now you’re hearing her story four years later. Did you remember her by chance? I know you met a lot of girls.

Michelle: I remembered her as a person, not by name, because we try to keep it anonymous. So even in praying for someone, we give them a code name. God had put a special place in my heart for her because I was expecting at the same time that she was. So every day that I carried this child, I prayed for the child that she was carrying. I knew her, and I hoped that she had gone through with having the baby, but I didn’t know if there was a little boy.

Nancy: You didn’t even know, for a fact, that she had gone through with having the baby . . .

Michelle: Yes.

Nancy: . . . until that night four years later when she’s standing up giving her testimony and talking about her four-year-old son.

Michelle: Correct.

Nancy: Isn’t it so true that many times when we’re serving the Lord and acting in obedience to Him, we don’t see the fruit of our labors. God sees, God knows! He’s the one doing the measuring, and in heaven, one day, we will see and know.

But you were just being faithful in what God had given you to do at that point, and were faithful in praying as the Lord prompted you. Then God gave you that incredible blessing of getting to see, years later, one glimpse, and probably there are many others that you haven’t seen, but that one glimpse of the fruit of your faithfulness.

Michelle: The fruit of God, and all that He’s working, and how He can use us if we let Him.

Nancy: Michelle, I want to hear more about how you first got involved with the Pregnancy Care Center, but let me introduce another guest who’s joined us in the studio today. Her name is Carla Shier, and Carla now serves at Revive Our Hearts. She’s part of our ministry team here in Niles, Michigan. For many years, Carla, you were the director at the Pregnancy Care Center in Niles. Thank you for your part in this ministry and for joining us here on the broadcast today.

Carla: It’s my pleasure to be with you, Nancy.

Nancy: I want to ask both of you, Carla and Michelle. Carla, I guess you were there first at the Pregnancy Care Center. What put it on your heart to get involved in this kind of ministry?

Carla: Well, for me, the Lord moved Tom and me to North Carolina. Our oldest daughter had a good friend who became pregnant, and my oldest daughter, Cara, and our exchange student, Marie, and myself all tried to talk with her and explain to her the value of life, and she chose to abort anyway. We felt so defeated. So all three of us went through training at the Care Net pregnancy care center facility in Concord, North Carolina. I actually saw more fruit in my daughters’ lives in the high school than I experienced. I stayed at home and would do the hotline.

Well, during that year, the Lord called me so clearly into pregnancy care center ministry, and then my husband was moved back to Niles. In God’s providence, I moved back to Niles and found out that there had just been one started. So I was able to volunteer at the Pregnancy Care Center here in Niles.

Nancy: Then the Lord brought women like Michelle to serve with you in that ministry. Michelle, how did the Lord touch your heart to get involved?

Michelle: I think the Lord works things in our lives and many circumstances that He brings into our life to create the person He’s going to have us to be. He gives us, from the time that we’re born, these gifts that develop. My heart was open to the Lord, and when I went to college, I decided I wanted to pursue counseling.

But really, the story for me starts with working at the Pregnancy Care Center. I thought, “All of this is what I’m supposed to be.” And so, when I started there, I just assumed I would do really well at it because I thought that’s where God wanted me to be.

But then I found that it didn’t seem to be going quite the way that I’d hoped. I thought that I would change people right away—that God would work through me in great ways. The thing I found was the more that I became discouraged, the more I relied on God and said, “Okay God. I can’t do this. You have to.” At the time when Angie came to me was at a time where I was saying, “You’re in me, Lord. That’s all I have. I give you whatever You want. Speak through me.”

That’s what I want other people to know. It’s not because I got this degree in counseling. Really, it didn’t do me good. It made me think highly of myself in counseling. I guess it was when He humbled me that God was able to do great things. Like Angie said, I’m so glad that Jesus shines in me. That’s the most important thing: If Jesus is in you, you can be a counselor.

Nancy: I think that’s got to be an encouragement to perhaps someone listening today who, God is putting it on their heart to become involved. Maybe involved through a pregnancy care center in a counseling role or maybe they have a friend or a daughter of a friend who’s going through a situation where they need this kind of input, but they're thinking, “I don’t have the training; I don’t have the background; I don’t have the gifting.”

You’re saying it’s not natural training or gifts that are what God needs so much as just an availability to be used and to let God work through you in someone else’s life.

Michelle: There was a song I liked growing up that talked about, “Here I am Lord, use me.” That’s what my heart said as a counselor, “Here I am Lord, whatever You want to do with me,” and that’s the way that God gets His work done. It's not through our educations or our gifts, but by our hearts just saying, “Here we are, Lord. Use us.”

Nancy: That’s probably the number one qualification to being used, and it’s also how God gets the greatest glory. When you have Angies who come through, she already said it, for those who listened earlier days this week, she didn’t remember anything you said anyway!

So all that fancy education you got, not to disparage education—it can be helpful—but that wasn’t really what God used to win her heart. It was just that you were there, at that moment, by God’s appointing, and you were letting Christ love her through you.

Carla: He uses your heart that’s willing to serve Him, your heart that wants to develop relationships, and your heart that loves mothers and daughters and sisters.

Nancy: So Michelle, you were involved as a counselor in the Pregnancy Care Center. Did they give you training to help you know what to do when you got started there?

Michelle: We actually called it consulting, just for legal reasons, but yes, they gave us training. Right away, you had to go through a month course; you came once a week. After that, we did different trainings monthly. We’d have something small, but we’d get together and pray and do a little training.

Nancy: And what are some of the other ways, Carla, or Michelle, that women can get involved in pregnancy care centers?

Carla: They also need to see supportive people in the ministry. We have girls that receive. As Angie came in, there was a receptionist. She is needing to be prayed for. All of my girls were supposed to have three people that would be praying for them. The girl that comes through the door needs to see that love in her eyes and that unconditional acceptance. There needs to be someone that would be willing to make blankets or even just go garage-selling to help out with things that these girls need.

Nancy: So the Pregnancy Care Center provides some practical help for these girls?

Carla: In our early days, we provided all things: car seats, cribs, clothing, maternity clothes. Now that there are laws in place, we raise funds to buy cribs and to buy car seats. But there are also women’s groups in churches who will make little burping cloths, kimonos, or the blankets that you can lay down for the baby to lay on. There’s just a wealth of different things people can get involved in, and that’s on a regular basis.

But then, we have a Life Walk. When we have the Life Walk, we need everything from cookies to people that would help with registration and people in their own church that will get a team of people together that will walk. Just the enthusiasm and the encouragement of people coming alongside . . . I remember when we used to stand across the street, because of laws in our country we couldn’t be near the abortion clinic, but we would have a life chain across the street. And people just driving by and giving a honk and a wave would be so encouraging.

Michelle: I think the major thing of all ministry, without it, we sometimes say it and people think it’s very trivial, but as we saw in Angie’s life, the need for prayer. Not just prayer, but specific prayer that that girl does not walk into the abortion clinic, but that she comes to the pregnancy care center, that somehow that word gets into her ear that there is a pregnancy care center, that there’s another choice, and that prayer is something that everyone can be doing in a church, whether you can even get out of your home or not. Prayer can do awesome things, as we have seen through the testimony of Angie.

Nancy: And if we recognize that this really is a spiritual battle, which I think is what has come home to me as I’ve heard Angie’s story. This is not just a battle for the life of the unborn. It is that, but it’s also a battle for the life of this mother and perhaps others involved in her story, and that battle’s not going to be won by human effort or all the brilliant things we can do to try to persuade people or convince people.

The enemy can be very persuasive. But that battle’s going to be won as, somehow in God’s mysterious ways, He has ordained that He responds to the fervent, earnest, persistent prayers of His children. I think we can’t stress enough, that all of us need to be involved in this battle at the level of prayer, and that’s something we can do from home, from anywhere.

I’m just challenged again as we talked today. I don’t know how many times I’ve driven past the abortion clinic and the Pregnancy Care Center here in Niles and not even thought about what’s going on in those two buildings: life and death! But I’m challenged as I’m listening to you women, as I’ve heard Angie’s story, to be more intentional about lifting up the efforts of those in our community who are working with the Lord to help preserve life and to help minister hope and the gospel to these young women.

And someone prayed, and you came, Michelle and Carla, into the Pregnancy Care Center there, and your being there was a response to prayer. Now, as we pray, there are others God is raising up there at the Pregnancy Care Center. There’s a different season of life for both of you, but how thankful we are. We want to honor the thousands of volunteers and paid workers all across this country who are serving faithfully in various ways, not only in the pregnancy care centers, but in other life-related ministries.

And, Angie, what would you like to say to those who are involved in that kind of ministry?

Angie: I just want to say thank you. Thank you, Michelle. You’re always in my prayers, and I’m so grateful that you were willing that day for God to use you. I’m just so thankful for every woman or man that has a willing heart because that’s the only credential that God asks for is willingness.

I too want to encourage young girls out there who may be listening, or maybe older women, I don’t know, or even guys and their girlfriends are pregnant. I don’t know who’s listening, but God knows. I don’t want Satan to be glorified in any way through any of this, because the Lord won in my life, and He’s going to win in my son’s, and He’s going to win in the listener’s lives if you just let God take control.

God has saving power, but I just want to encourage whoever’s listening to hold on to that thought or that promise that God, even though you can’t declare Him yet, and even though you may not know anyone else who can help you, God is more willing than anyone can ever possibly be here on earth.

Nancy: Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Angie: Amen.

Nancy: Amen. Lord, how I thank you for your amazing grace, for your redeeming love, for your conquering love, for the power of Christ and the power of His cross that is greater than all the powers of wickedness and darkness. Thank you for redeeming this young woman from destruction. Thank you for calling her out and setting her apart, and thank you for Michelle and for having her at that pregnancy care center that day.

Thank you for Carla and for the hours that she invested in providing leadership to that pregnancy center and for all the Michelles and Carlas across this country. Lord, some of them may be discouraged today and wondering if it’s worth continuing. I pray that they will just be reminded that You are the God of all grace and that only in eternity will we know all the stories.

But thank You for letting us have a glimpse this week in the life of Angie, and as we see the picture of her now six-year-old son, BJ, we think, “How great is our God!” Thank You for faithful servants. Thank You for Your faithful, pursuing love. Thank You for the miracle of Your grace in Angie’s life. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.

Well, this is an amazing story we’ve listened to this week, and I know your heart has been touched, and I hope that you’ll order the entire story and our conversation with as well, with Michelle and with Carla when you order the CDs from Revive Our Hearts. 

Leslie: Here’s how to order the CDs Nancy was just talking about. Visit ReviveOurHearts.com and order the CD series, Rescue the Perishing. Or give us a call at 1-800-569-5959. 

Let me tell you about the guest on tomorrow's program. One of the guest's husband adopted their neighbor, a boy from Austria. The other guest recently resigned as a host of a popular national radio program, sensing God had something new for her. Nancy will talk with these two guests tomorrow.

When Nancy first heard Angie's story, they were both speaking an event to support the local pregnancy care center. To close our time today, we'll hear some of Nancy's message at that event.

Nancy: Psalm 82 says it this way, “Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (v. 4). 

I love that old hymn, that old gospel song:

Rescue the perishing; care for the dying. 
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave. 
Weep o’er the erring one; lift up the fallen. 
Tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.

Tho’ they are slighting Him, still He is waiting; 
Waiting the penitent child to receive. 
Plead with them earnestly; plead with them gently. 
He will forgive if they only believe.  

Then I especially love that third stanza which so relates to many of the women who are being ministered to—women who find themselves with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy. It says:

Down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, 
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore. 
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, 
Cords that are broken will vibrate once more.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Minstries.