My husband and I went to see Unplanned last night, and, in his words, it was a “gut punch.” We have always been involved in the pro-life movement, but I left the theater wondering, “What else can I do? I need to be doing more!”

As I reflected on this question while I nursed my baby and prayed my Rosary (multi-tasking as its finest!), I realized that I was already engaged in the most important work of all:

Prayer.

The message in Unplanned is unmistakable: Prayer works.

Think about it. Abby had two abortions herself. Her supervisor told her that she was the only employee who didn’t cry when she saw the products of conception (e.g., baby body parts) that needed to be reassembled after surgical abortion procedures.  She became a clinic director. She was Planned Parenthood’s Employee of the Year. She knew what abortion was. She strongly believed in her chosen line of work.

Yet, she not only left her position at Planned Parenthood and disavowed her former position on abortion – she became one of the most outspoken advocates in our country for the unborn.

This change of heart is nothing short of miraculous! Abby credits her conversion experience to the prayers of the Carney family and the participants of 40 Days for Life. I’m sure that the prayers of Abby’s parents and husband also had much to do with her change of heart.

Did Unplanned encourage me to get back into sidewalk counseling now that Lucia is older? Absolutely! But, more than anything, it encouraged me to pray more.  If prayer could change Abby’s heart, it can change the hearts of others I know!  It can (and has!) changed the hearts of abortion-minded and abortion-vulnerable women! It can inspire others to join the pro-life movement! It can save the lives of unborn babies!

Did you know what Venerable Fulton Sheen did when Roe v Wade first opened up the floodgates for abortion? He wrote a “Spiritual Adoption” prayer for families to pray in their own homes, in private, to call for God’s protection of unborn babies–the most powerful protector of all!

That’s what our Spiritual Adoption program is based upon: a simple private prayer anyone can pray–especially families and young children!  Say the prayer daily for nine-months, until your “adopted” baby is safely born!

We have taken Sheen’s powerful prayer and developed a nine-month “Prayer Adventure” around it.  The Adventure will help you and your children learn all about the development of your spiritually adopted baby in the mother’s womb. 

It’s informative and fun while also providing reminders and encouragement to keep on praying! It’s easy on parents, joyful for children–and we had a blast making it! My siblings (especially Lillian and Caroline) made it oh-so-fun to persevere in prayer (their videos are truly a delight).

So, I invite you to join me in prayer by spiritually adopting an unborn baby and his or her family for 9 months. Pray that his parents are open to life. Pray that they get the help and support they need. Pray that they are kept in good mental and emotional health.

You can learn more and sign up HERE!

A little background: My friend from college, Mary, and I developed this program together. When we were in college, we would sometimes go pray outside of the local abortion clinic.  Now, we are both mothers of small children and can’t do that as often. But we can still pray for the unborn and their parents, and teach our children to do this also.

Of course, we don’t need to confront our children with the ugly realities of the Culture of Death right away, so we made sure that our program was kid-friendly by focusing on the science of prenatal development.  Children can learn about their adopted baby as he or she grows over the 9 months they are praying for him.

In a nutshell: Every two weeks, your children watch a short video about the development of their adopted baby and then have the option to do a variety of fun activities like journal pages, coloring pages, and mazes. (Don’t worry! No complicated crafts to be found here.)

We hope you will join us in building a Culture of Life!

PS If you are looking for more ways to help, here’s a blog post about 5 ways which I wrote last year for pro-life month when I was busy with a newborn–so you can find a thing or two to fit into a busy, hectic schedule.

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Virginia

Virginia has her M.A. in Counseling and currently works as a therapist at a Catholic counseling agency, specializing in working with children (and their parents), teenage girls, and mothers. She also gets some very "hands-on" experience parenting her two young children - who have become Holy Heroes fans! As the eldest of the "Adventure Guides," she has played a big part in developing so many Holy Heroes products and adventures. She wrote the scripts for lots of "Adventure" videos, as well as writing and directing the first "Inside the Sacraments" video (The Holy Eucharist). She wrote Glory Stories Volume 8, "Best-loved Catholic Prayers and Prayers of the Mass," and Volume 13, "Secrets from Heaven - The Story of the Children of Fatima" (her favorite!). Most recently, she co-created the Holy Heroes Spiritual Adoption Adventure with her former college roommate. She continues to enjoy blogging for Holy Heroes.

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