Up until a few years ago, I did not have a clear image of what the sanctity of life issue was all about. But God, as a part of His purpose for my life, began to reveal it to me. What I thought was an unraveling of everything I had ever hoped or dreamed of, was soon to become a character lesson of a lifetime. 

I was a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner, a wife and mother of two kids in college. Heavily involved in ministry at church, I knew my husband had become distant. That led to a separation and ultimate end of our 23 year marriage. During my separation, I was led to a job at Planned Parenthood in Denton. I guess it was naive on my part, but I figured if I wasn't working in the actual clinic that did the abortions, maybe it was an acceptable place to work. 

It was there that my eyes were opened to the atrocities and the realities of abortion for the first time. It happened one day when a young women came in 20 weeks pregnant and bleeding. I examined her, listened with the monitor for the babies heartbeat, and realized it wasn't beating. I sent her to the Emergency room where they found that the baby had died. A few days later, Planned Parenthood's supervising Nurse Practitioner came to my office inquiring why I had used a fetal heart Doppler to allow my patient to hear her babies heartbeat. When I said it was part of the routine prenatal exam, she said "not at Planned Parenthood it isn't!"We do not allow the patients to hear the heartbeats of their baby because it may sway their decision. When I commented that it was probably good in this instance, because the patient got to the Emergency Room where she needed to be, she questioned why I did not send her to Dallas for an abortion. I said, "You would have done a sonogram and told her that her baby was dead." She said, "no we wouldn't have, by the time we do the sonogram, she has already signed consent for the abortion. We don't tell them if it is dead or alive, or twins, or triplets. It was at that point that I knew I could no longer be a party to this kind of travesty. 

I was so shaken, I went across the street to a pregnancy resource center and told them who I was and what had happened. It was as if they already knew me. They said they thought there was a "plant" next door at Planned Parenthood, because of all the girls that had been referred there over the last few months. It was then as they prayed and cried with me, that I began to see how in spite of myself, God was using me for His purposes. 

Not too long after that, I was working in the inner city of Dallas, with mainly Hispanic women doing their exams and giving birth control as I always had. Until one day, a patient asked me if her IUD was causing abortions? As I explained the way it worked, my eyes were opened to the fact that conception was taking place, but the device was causing the baby to abort before it could implant in the uterus. At about the same time, God convicted me of the fact that the "morning after pill" also caused abortion. I prayed and decided to stand for what I felt was right, and was fired from my job. 

Several weeks later, I was in a state of despair.  I had no job, no insurance, and I felt like God had abandoned me.  What was my purpose?  Just as I was at my lowest, I was awakened early in the morning. It was as if God were speaking audibly to me. All I could think was "Save the Babies." I called a local pregnancy center that day and spoke to the director. It just so happened their nurse manager was ill, and not sure if she would return. I started volunteering the next week, was trained to do sonograms and hired as the nurse manager 3 months later. 

We don't always have the full picture. We see just a little portion of the plan God has for our lives, and it's easy to be discouraged when you're the one walking through the fire. But, I'm alive and well today and here to testify of the provision, the grace, and the mercy that I was shown at a time when I was hopeless. God sent His ministering angels to keep me safe from myself, I had become my own worst enemy. Now, every day I can't wait to go to work and see who God will place in my path this day. As I watch the women and see the look on their faces as they witness the miracle of a little living, breathing, human being squirming on the sonogram, it makes me see a little bit more of His purpose for my life. They hear the little heartbeat, see the fingers, the toes, the humanness of their baby. They begin to bond and most decide to choose life. It makes me ever so grateful that God gave me a second chance. A second chance to "choose life."