Because you only get one chance at this life and because I don't want to look back and wish I had done more... Please join me on November 1, 2008.

I am not anyone special. I mean, I'm not a celebrity like Barbara Streisand or Madonna or Tom Cruise or anything. I’m a writer and a stay-at-home mom with four children. Three of them are teenagers, so I’m kind of busy dealing with drama and emotion and all that. But I was driving one of the kids somewhere today (yes, it feels like all I do is drive the kids places!) and I got to thinking about how I really wish abortion didn’t exist. I mean, who ever thought it up anyway? Killing the unborn child living inside a woman. It’s not the sort of thing anyone would just wake up one day and decide to do, right? Well, why do we allow it then? Our government is supposed to offer us good choices. They campaign based on promises of good things we can choose – things like better schools for our children or less pollution from our cars. Putting a stop to world hunger. Offering help to victims of AIDS in Africa. Those are good choices. But offering a woman an abortion isn’t like offering her a car that spews less pollution or a school building without asbestos in its ceiling tiles. It’s certainly not a very good choice for the human resting snugly inside its mother’s womb. And if it’s such a bad choice, why should it be offered to us as a choice at all?

So while I was thinking about all this, I was driving down the road and wishing I had time to stop off for some Chinese food. Then it hit me. Those babies’ lives were destroyed before they had a chance to try Chinese food. Or pizza. Or my famous matzo ball soup. I know it’s a dumb thing. But it’s like in that movie Juno. It struck me just like how babies having fingernails already at a certain period of gestation struck Juno in the movie.

November 1 is All Saints Day. For Catholics, for Anglicans, and for some Protestant faiths, anyway. So I am dedicating this day, November 1, All Saints Day, to fasting and praying for all the victims of injustice around the world and across our nation.

Please join me as I go without food November 1, 2008.

My prayers today will be dedicated to moving God’s heart to help us elect a president who will not enact the Freedom of Choice Act. A president who will not reverse the partial birth abortion ban or rescind parental consent laws. A president who will fight for justice for unborn men and women in America. For liberty and justice for all. A president who may have made bad decisions in the past as well as good ones, but who is willing to stand with the unborn children of America.

Is it okay to ask God to help us elect one man instead of another? I don’t really know. But I feel so badly about the effects the Freedom of Choice Act will have on the number of abortions that are performed in this country that that’s what I’m going to do. You are welcome to pray for whatever you feel is appropriate today, but please be thoughtful and give careful consideration to what you say and what you pray. No matter who wins the election on Nov. 4, I will pray for our president ever after. To be sure, we should all pray for God's will to be done on and after Nov. 4.

My prayers are also for all the women who are facing crisis pregnancies today. That they will find someone to walk through their pregnancies with them, to support them as they give their children over to adoptive parents, and to help them get back on their feet throughout the next year. And my prayers are for the unborn children whose lives now, today, hang in the balance. And for those women who have not yet decided whether they will choose to abort their unborn children or not.

I am also dedicating this day to children everywhere and to the victims of injustice around the world. To those living in tragic circumstances, in poverty, or in a country whose dictator doesn't like the color of their skin or their nationality or their religion. To those who are being persecuted around the globe. To those suffering from diseases that we, here in America, could together obliterate. This day of prayer is for EVERYONE who has no strength left to cry out for help on their own. May God's will be done.

If you would like to join me for a day of fasting and prayer, please let me know by leaving a status message on your Facebook page or leaving a comment below. Here is a sample message you can put up:

“I am devoting this day of fasting and prayer to all those whose voices cannot be heard during the upcoming election."

I am not Catholic or Anglican or Protestant. But I think these scriptures from the order of service for All Saints Day are pretty cool:

Scripture Readings for All Saints Celebration:

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-10,13-14

Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
our ancestors in their generations.
The Lord apportioned to them great glory,
his majesty from the beginning.
There were those who ruled in their kingdoms,
and made a name for themselves by their valor;
those who gave counsel because they were intelligent;
those who spoke in prophetic oracles;
those who led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the people's lore;
they were wise in their words of instruction;
those who composed musical tunes,
or put verses in writing;
rich men endowed with resources,
living peacefully in their homes--
all these were honored in their generations,
and were the pride of their times.
Some of them have left behind a name,
so that others declare their praise.
But of others there is no memory;
they have perished as though they had never existed;
they have become as though they had never been born,
they and their children after them...

Psalm 139: 13-16

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Revelation 6: 9-11

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer...

Revelation 7:3-4,9-17

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

"Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,

"Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.

"Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from? "I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Matthew 5:1-12

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Please, God, have mercy on America.

Amen.

Thank you for joining me. And feel free to leave comments below.

Megan Hoyt

(photo courtesy of www.medicinenet.com; music courtesy of JoAnn McFatter)