I’ve mentioned before that the notorious late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart has set up his practice in Germantown, Maryland, only a few minutes from where I live. The local Christian community here has strongly responded to his presence – in the two months since his arrival, we have had three separate prayer events at his clinic with over 600 people at each, and now there is a regular prayer gathering of over 80 people in front of the clinic every Monday morning. Yesterday I got the following email from one of the pro-life leaders:

A young woman with her mother arrived to have a scheduled abortion with Carhart. We cried out to her not to go in and that we were there because we loved her. We watched her enter the mill and we all turned and bombarded the mill with prayer!  She later came out of the mill and over to us.  She told us, “I knew the love was out here and not in there!”  After talking with her, we drove her to [the local pro-life] Pregnancy Center.  She plans to give birth to her baby and is considering adoption.

Praise God! Please pray for this mother and her precious baby – the devil is sure to attack her now that she has rejected his ways.

This is a reminder that God does hear our prayers. Over the past twenty years I have been primarily involved in two types of apostolate: pro-life and evangelization. Both can be very frustrating, as they do not often show immediate results. You can pray in front of an abortion clinic for years with no (visible) results, and you can share your faith with hundreds of people without any known conversions. But, as Mother Teresa liked to say, “we are called to be faithful, not successful.” We must persevere, knowing that the Lord always hears our prayers – we just might not always see the results. But praise God when He allows us to see them!