Last night

Last night the husband and I went to a banquet for Open Arms, a crisis pregnancy center. The program this year was exceptionable notable because Gianna Jessen was the keynote speaker. I feel compelled to share this because the power of her story and testament to God is overwhelming.

We had been served dinner and were finishing up our meal while Gianna was introduced. An unassuming young woman made her way up the stage with the help of a friend, she walked with a slight limp. She positioned herself in front of the microphone, while her friend sat on a stool next to her cradling a guitar. She briefly introduced herself and began singing the hymn It is Well. When she began to sing the room stopped, we were captivated. She sang with vunerability, she was singing to Jesus. Her voice was so sweet she brought tears to my eyes. In life you encounter people that have such passion, such a gift that it's impossible to attribute it to anything else but God. She is one.

Her birthmother tried to have an abortion when she was 7 1/2months pregnant. Her birthmother's womb was injected with a saline solution, toxic to the baby that would literally burn her inside and out for 18 hours. The solution would kill the baby and it would be delivered dead. But to everyone's surprise Gianna was born alive. She said that if the person performing the abortion had not been late to work that morning, she would have been killed. It is not uncommon in abortion clinics for infants to be strangled, smothered or left to die if born alive. However, the doctor was late, the nurse panicked and Gianna was sent to a hospital. The doctors said she would never hold her head up, talk or walk. As she puts it, she was also born with the gift of celebral palsey, due to lack of oxygen to her brain. She was placed in foster care and her adoptive mother worked with her until she overcome everything that everyone said she would not do. She has run a marathon and is running another next month in London. She spoke from her heart with poise, humor and confidence in the Lord. In sharp contrast to a time where people are used to apathy, she made her stances direct and concise without fear.

Gianna is a woman that people had been trying to kill for the first 17 months of her life. We were in the midst of a miracle. She is a woman who could have taken her circumstances in life and gone down a very different path. God specializes in making the impossible possible.

I wish a lot of people could have been there last night to hear her speak. I pray we all have such conviction about our purpose. Our God is big! Hallelujah!

Senate passes Born-Alive Infant Protection Act