By Dave Andrusko

Part Two updates you on the challenger to Rep. Bart Stupak. Please be sure to also go to www.nationalrighttolifenews.org.  Send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Sometimes the follow-up to TN&V is unexpected--either much more or much less--and other times our faithful readers come through exactly the way I anticipated--in abundance. The latter was most certainly the case in response to "An Urgent Prayer Request Late at Night." (www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/March10/nv033010.html).

As you recall, I had received an urgent email asking for prayer for someone about to make very bad decision. I didn't then and I don't now know the specifics of the situation. But I couldn't help wonder if that person might have been a scared-out-of-her-wits pregnant young girl. I shared my reflections on this, and you, after assuring me you also had lifted up this unnamed person, shared yours with me

I was flattered (stunned, actually) by how many wrote to ask that I pray for them! I am just a regular guy, but, of course, it was my privilege. I also enlisted my middle daughter whose gift for intercessory prayer I greatly admire.

In my Tuesday column I wrote about how often what we "do" in crisis situations takes the form of seeds we've planted in the lives of others which bear fruit in what they do for others. In that sense our impact is once removed.

I am so grateful that you offered examples from your own life and (not surprisingly) found other layers of meaning to those I found.

Some wrote about the abortion context, others not. Some examples were very subtle, others blunt.

More than a couple wrote about the life-altering impact of placing an ear to their mother's abdomen to hear/feel the movement of an unborn sibling. Others referred to how they were lifted above their challenging circumstances by someone who had triumphed in a similar dilemma.

What had not occurred to me--but should have--is the power of the story of the ill-chosen decision.

Over the years I have read the accounts of remorse and guilt and shame of hundreds of women who "chose" abortion. In a few cases I have talked with them personally.

I would never pretend to understand a fraction of what these women are feeling. The closest thing to that are the times I sat down with men who--sometimes decades later--are still in emotional turmoil over their inability to stop their girlfriend from having an abortion (or because they coerced her into having an abortion!). For them, like the woman who had aborted, it really was as if time had stood still.

I did what I could to help them understand there is forgiveness, the kind that can restore and heal the deepest wounds. More importantly, I did my best to help them understand that they could begin the healing process even if (as so often is the case) they felt they were undeserving of that forgiveness. It was and is there…. all the time.

Thanks to all of you who wrote and who forwarded Tuesday's column to friends or made it available on your social networks. Thanks in advance to those of you who will respond to this column.

Have a joyous and blessed Easter. Talk to you next week.

Please be sure to go to www.nationalrighttolifenews.org.  Send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two