Twice a year, I take prayer teams to Washington, DC to pray at strategic landmarks for this nation. One year the group I took participated in “The Call, ” a gathering of over 100,000 people in the area located between the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument, known as The Mall. People stood in the hot sun for hours as one person after another called the group to repentance then prayer. At one time, some women took the microphone to tell their stories of a past abortion and how that decision to abort their baby had drastically altered their lives. Each one related how her life had spiraled out of control after the abortion. The effects were a long list of destructive behaviors that ranged from having multiple partners, inability to keep a job, rocky family relationships, restlessness, drugs, prostitution, illnesses and compulsive lying. Their lives were out of control and they didn’t know why. What they had done was legal so what was going on? They were unable to get a grip on life until they realized the root cause of their issues and repented for the abortion.

The life stories of these women were compelling. They were not overly emotional but shared with a frank honesty that compelled the listeners to look for root causes within our own lives.  Two days later I met this group of women at the airport while they waited on their plane to take them back home to San Antonio. I talked with them and learned more about their lives. Their testimonies had impacted me and gave me a lot to ponder. I thought of the women whom I knew who had abortions. Many of them were like the Cry Out America women, their lives out of control and they had no clue as to why.

The same is true of our educational system. In the past godless decisions were made that led us on a downward spiral and there has been no repentance offered for those decisions. Our education system is out of control and no one knows what to do or how to make changes to counteract those decisions. The innocent children in our classrooms are the ones who suffer and ultimately our nation. Classroom discipline in many schools in almost nonexistent, children who cannot perform at grade level are often passed to the next grade level, and many graduate from high school who cannot read, write or do simple math problems. We have set ourselves on a self-destructive course and no one knows what to do about it. What if the simple act of repentance could turn things around? What if we could look at our history and realize where those decisions were made that turned us against a loving God? Wouldn’t it be a simple thing?