Pro-lifers want to see progress towards ending abortion for their efforts. It is human nature – we fight hard for something, so we want to see our hard work pay off. Sometimes we plant seeds of conviction and hope in someone’s heart and someone else gets to see the fruit later down the road. When it comes to public opinion, sometimes we don’t see fruit for a long time because it can take a very long time to bear fruit. But we can never make the mistake of thinking this means our efforts are in vain, as some have regrettably made recently. When it comes to politics, culture, and changing the world, the nerdy Biomedical Sciences major in me comes out to produce a rather nerdy, yet inspiring, analogy:
Any college student who has taken a first year chemistry class has probably done an experiment called an Acid-Base Titration. It looks something like this:
In the vial there is liquid that has a lot of “base”, and in the tube above is a liquid with a lot of “acid”. The experiment is to find how much “base” is in the vial by slowly adding the “acid” liquid, drip by drip. You know when you’ve added the right amount of “acid” because the “base” will suddenly completely change color – all at once. It is fascinating – you can add gallons and gallons of “acid” to the vial, but it will remain yellow. But you keep adding “acid” patiently and persistently, drip by drip, because you don’t know how much it will take. Until you add just one more drop and suddenly the entire vial turns from yellow to blue:
This is what it is like when you set out to change your culture and change the world. You cannot let yourself become discouraged when you feel like you aren’t seeing results yet. Keep pushing, drip by drip. Because every drip of effort is building, and pushing the culture to the edge. Until one day, maybe when you least expect it, your one more drip will be just what it takes to completely change the color of our culture. Don’t let pessimism allow the day we abolish abortion to sneak up on you – it may be closer than you think.
Drip, drip.
