The voicemail closes with “Today, I felt the Lord’s love”. There is essentially nothing about our family, but just about my brief meeting of a woman from Iraq. The long pauses in the voicemail is because I was having trouble holding myself together. The woman’s English was limited and I’m sure she has no idea that she was talking with someone with some depth of knowledge about her home. I have even wondered if she might be, but clearly she knows of, the Yazidis. The video I did on them over a year ago was very difficult to do and was one of many that in preparation my heart was ripped out; a common occurrence.

So many things that I have attempted to prepare for on this subject and then I felt so unprepared in the dialog. I still stand firm on the idea that the Christian should love the Muslim and contend with Islam. This follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has difficulty learning foreign languages, spent a good bit of time to learn to say the Shahada in Arabic, and has done so, but poorly. I have etched in my mind seeing a young guy in East Aleppo who became an orphan and looks so very much like my George. I have a vivid image in my mind of a young girl who was one of the many lured off a bus caravan to be one of the bloodied survivors of a car bomb and looks so much like my Tirzah. For whatever reason the Lord has put my heart in that part of the world, but as a follower of Christ and not like the Zionists.

It is so clear that I am so much more prepared to address this than most, but when the opportunity was at hand I felt so naïve and timid. But in it all, the Lord’s shout of grace to me was very present. This I celebrate. Yes, I celebrate it alone. More than a material gift or big event, today I had the wonderful blessing to me of being a blessing to someone from Iraq. I so desire to share that kind of joy with my family.

While it was also clumsy, my video about Omran Daqneesh and Abdullah Issa was a rather big deal to me. I am aware that a large number percentage of the just over 100 views it has had is from Turkey and Syria. This brings me joy, but again a joy I have alone.

I think most would agree that I have impeccable pro-life credentials. This voicemail #635 is evidence of persistence in reconciliation. My recent video “Is Manning the next McCorvey? ● 4” is evidence of an understanding of the Lord’s grace and a willingness to proclaim it. But then my weakness today in the face of the joy the Lord set before me, shows I’m still a novice. I want to have in my mind and heart what Paul proclaimed in Philippians 3:8-11 “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Today was another day of tears. But this day it was tears of joy. Please celebrate my joy!

Dorothy-Jane, I love you!