Have A Heart For Our Youth

By Nora Billow

      I have been a part of Students for Life Tri-Cities for the last three years and served as Treasurer for the past two. It has been a pleasure to serve my group in this way, and though we have a tight budget as teenagers, thanks to donors like the Pro-Life Coalition, God has provided.

      When I first learned about abortion in middle school, I was shocked that it was real and not some horrific dystopian fiction. I was even more shocked to know that it was happening in my own hometown. I Googled videos about how an ordinary teenager like me could help, but I had no one to do it with. A few years later, I became friends with Katriel Nyman, a devout Students for Life attendee and current President, and she invited me to join the group. Since then, I have learned so much about how to talk to pro-choicers as well as how to witness to the lost.

      Now, as I begin my adult life, I am so grateful for all that Students for Life has taught me. I have learned facts and statistics about abortion, yes, but more than that I have learned how to plan, pray, advocate, work, and witness alongside Christians who have a completely different approach than I might.

      There are two main lessons God has been teaching me through these past years at SFL. The first is that to be in ministry with others, you do not have to be completely compatible with everyone else. The Body of Christ is so much stronger and more beautiful when vastly different people, who by the world’s standards would otherwise never be friends, can unite behind one faith and fight for a cause side by side.

      The second is more obvious: prayer is effective. It is often challenging to trust that standing outside of an abortion clinic in the rain sleet, snow, heat or cold for a few hours every week is working for the good of the kingdom. But, as I have seen firsthand, prayer has power not only to change our external circumstances, but to change our own hearts as well. Some of the most trying days for me in my faith have been the days I have had to stand at the abortion clinic, but when we simply gather up and pray together out loud, my whole outlook can change. I can go from thinking, “This is useless. I’m cold. I want to go home,” to “God is doing something here, even if I can’t see it. There is a reason I’m standing here, even if I can’t see it. There is a reason I’m standing here. Our prayers are being heard right now by this living God. We can do this.”

      Students for Life has blessed me in so many ways throughout my high school career, and my prayer is that it can continue to flourish and do the same for other young people, until it is no longer needed, and abortion is abolished!