As I stood in front of the Supreme Court building on Dec. 1, my eyes filled with tears. I began to cry thinking of the countless times I’ve prayed during the 17 years I’ve been in the pro-life movement. I was at the Supreme Court, along with thousands of other pro-lifers, to show my support for Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. 

The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization court case is the most significant pro-life case I’ve seen in my lifetime. I was honored to receive an invitation from the Mississippi attorney general’s office to speak at their “Empower Women, Promote Life” rally. I accepted the invitation knowing this case could lead to the ending of Roe v. Wade.

As I raised my hands high in prayer toward the Supreme Court, I remembered how I spent my early 20s praying before these steps with intercessors from the Justice House of Prayer and Bound4Life. Young people came together from all over the nation to ask God to give us pro-life justices. I got emotional realizing that now at 40 I am seeing the answers to those prayers.

I was born and raised in Connecticut. Growing up, the topic of abortion was never discussed in my family. I never heard a pro-life message spoken at any church I attended. Connecticut doesn’t have parental notification laws, so my teenage classmates chose abortion without having to tell their parents. As a black woman in a liberal state, coming from a family of Democrats, I didn’t consider the issue of abortion when it came to my politics or faith.

But my life drastically changed in college, when a member of my home church approached me during a service. “God wants you to know something remarkable happened around the time of your birth.” I wondered what could have happened “around the time of my birth” that would be of any interest to me.

I asked my mother, Andrea, if anything remarkable happened during that time, and to my surprise she said, “I met an angel before you were born, but I don’t want to talk about it.” I knew she was serious, so I decided to let it go and approach her at another time. 

I spent that summer in Kentucky doing volunteer work for a Campus Crusade for Christ mission trip. As I worked at the Boys and Girls club and with children in the Louisville community, I thought about the message given to me. I wrote in my journal that I had to find out what my mother meant by saying she met an angel.

After the summer ended, I came back to Connecticut and continued my education at Southern Connecticut State University. I lived on campus, but my mother’s home was less than an hour away. During a visit back home, I decided to ask her about the angel encounter. “You would hate me if I told you,” she said.

I assured her there was nothing she could tell me that would cause me to hate her. Though hesitant, she opened up and told me that when I was in her womb, I had an appointment to die. At the time I was conceived, my mother was unmarried and in an unhealthy relationship with my father, who pressured her to choose abortion. 

 

She approached a church mentor to confide in her about her unplanned pregnancy, and to her surprise, the mentor said, “If you come back to this church, I will be the first person to put my foot in the door and not let you in.” My mother was overwhelmed with pressure from my father and rejection from the mentor she trusted. She made an abortion appointment and went to the hospital alone. 

A counselor in the hospital assured her abortion was the best decision. She was put in a white gown and told to go in the waiting room until the abortionist called her name. As she left the counselor’s office, she sat in the hallway before entering the waiting room. A janitor—an elderly black woman—saw her crying and walked up to her. The kind woman lifted her chin, looked into her eyes and asked the question that saved my life. “Do you want to have this baby?”

My mother looked into the eyes of the janitor and saw they were gleaming like pools of water. “Yes,” she answered.  

“Then God will give you the strength,” the woman replied. She told my mother to get her clothes and leave the hospital. As my mother walked back into the waiting room, the abortionist called her into his office.

The first thing she saw when she entered the room was blood on the floor. She was disgusted and told the doctor she wanted to keep her baby.

“You’ve already paid for this,” he insisted. “You’re just nervous. You can do this.” My mother repeated her desire to keep me. After unsuccessfully trying to change her mind, the abortionist shouted, “Don’t leave this room!” My mother ran out of his office, called my father on the lobby pay phone and told him she didn’t go through with the abortion.

My mother’s decision to walk out of her abortion appointment gave me the opportunity to walk down the aisle and marry a loving, devoted man of God. My mother’s “yes” to saving me led my husband and me to say “yes” to a newborn in foster care who is now our adopted 2-year-old son. Her courage to keep me gave me the courage to testify before Congress multiple times regarding abortion and share my testimony in the White House.

I’ve lived a life of adventure in obedience to Christ because I narrowly escaped death. God helped me understand that I was loved and wanted before I was born. He then asked if I knew how He felt about the “others.” I committed my life to seeking and understanding how much God cares about the unborn, along with the women and men impacted by abortion. 

Since then I’ve traveled overseas aiding impoverished communities and worked for four years at a pregnancy center supporting women. I currently work for Live Action, and through our 2363 campaign, we are seeing hearts change on abortion. We are exposing the reality that every day 2,363 children are killed by abortion. We want to get that number to zero. 

I pray that one day soon, unborn babies will have the legal protection that was stolen by Roe v. Wade, that  the Supreme Court justices will rule in support of Mississippi’s abortion ban, leading many other states to follow in their example. I pray that God will end abortion in my lifetime and send awakening to this nation. I live every day in gratitude to my Lord who “delivered me because He delighted in me” (Psalm 18:19, NKJV). ©2021 Christina Bennett 

 

Christina Bennett is a news correspondent with Live Action and also speaks for Ambassadors International. She has served as a pro-life prayer missionary with the Justice House of Prayer, Bound4Life and IHOP Atlanta. Her work can be found at christinabennett.com.

Photo: Jillian Hanon