On a sunny Saturday morning in March 2004, 80-year-old Wanda did what she’s done almost every Saturday for the last 23 years. She drove to a nearby medical clinic, to speak to young women on their way into the clinic for appointments.
The young women’s intent is to end a pregnancy through abortion.
Wanda is there to try to lovingly persuade them that there is a better solution to the challenge the women are facing.
But what she saw this morning was unlike anything they’d ever experienced.
A middle-class white woman in her late twenties or early thirties approached the abortion clinic. She had an appointment. Wanda made her way over to her and offered some literature explaining some options the young lady perhaps had not considered. Like many, the woman refused to take the brochure and continued toward the door. Wanda pleaded and the woman relented, took the material from her, and went in.
Wanda prayed that the woman would somehow change her mind and decide to save her baby. But she knew from experience that very few turn back. She prayed as if the woman would be one of the few.
Others came and went, but about 20 minutes later, out walked this young woman whom Wanda had given the brochure to. She was elated to see her leaving so soon...not enough time had passed to perform the procedure.
The woman approached Wanda. She looked strangely calm and peaceful—not troubled as most women leaving the clinic appeared. Then she said the words Wanda longed for, “I’m not going to go through with it.”
Wanda was curious. “Did anything we said have anything to do with your decision to not have an abortion?”
The woman replied, “No—that did over there.” She then motioned toward a building situated diagonally across the street.
Wanda was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The woman pointed at a movie theater. On the marquee two stories up were the words, The Passion of the Christ.
“You see that? The Passion .. .1 looked out and saw that, and that’s what did it.”
Wanda stood there, speechless. She was stunned.
The woman then calmly walked away, never to be seen again.
Wanda says that in her many years of sidewalk counseling she’s spoken with thousands of women, but she’s never had an encounter like this before. “It was very exciting. I couldn’t believe it when she said this. Sometimes they cry, but she was very calm...at ease...relaxed—relieved. That’s the word. She looked relieved .”
Later Wanda realized what a wonderful miracle had taken place. The waiting room for the abortion clinic is on the second floor, and a window faces that theater marquee. The young woman had no doubt sat down and stared out that window directly into those powerful words, The Passion of the Christ There may have been other seats that didn’t face the window...the window shades might have been drawn. She might not have had time to reflect on those words at all.
But Wanda was praying for God to touch her. Somehow. And a miracle happened. “God works in strange ways—and that’s very strange. She didn’t even go in and see the picture— just the title! Sometimes just a sentence will change your mind. I suppose she thought about The Passion —all that Jesus did for us, and here I am about to destroy one of His miracles.”
Wanda will be in front of some medical clinic this Saturday morning, praying for another miracle...and knowing those prayers are answered in the most unexpected ways.
