Advocating Pro-Life on a Sidewalk

They stand determinedly outside the facility and wave to incoming drivers, praying for an opportunity to share loving, life-affirming alternatives to abortion.

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South Carolinian Shiela Miller waits just outside of private property line. It’s 36 degrees outside, and we’re standing outside of the abortion clinic on Grove Rd. in Greenville. She comes here twice a week, rain or shine, for a couple of hours at a time, making sure she has a prayer partner. Today it’s Chester Johnson, a pro-life advocate for more than 30 years.

Miller specifically was trained through Sidewalk Advocates for Life Greenville, a local chapter of Sidewalk Advocates for Life. As a prayerful and peaceful interdenominational organization, advocates do not scream or shout or run in front of cars. Instead, they stand determinedly outside the facility and wave to incoming drivers, praying for an opportunity to share loving, life-affirming alternatives to abortion. Advocates focus on the woman first and the baby second, understanding the essentialism to minister to the carrying mother.

“I’m not an eloquent person, and I just ask God to give me the words,” Miller shares, confessing that her first morning on the sidewalk, she was initially too timid to approach a car. But just as she was about to pack up for the day, Miller was able to speak with a not-yet pregnant woman and pray over her.

During the past six months, Miller has had a total of 128 encounters and four miracle meetings when God used Shiela to help save a life. And as incredible as this journey and mission have been to her, it wasn’t a ministry she ever initially anticipated—despite Miller’s own miracle birth story.

Shiela Miller was an unwanted baby to a woman planning to leave her entire family behind. Labor then was a dangerous and painful experience as Miller became a breech baby. But when her mother Evelyn locked eyes on Shiela’s non-breathing body, “Her viewpoint shifted 180 degrees,” and she became Evelyn’s greatest joy in life.

Several years ago, Miller recognized the significance to her story and thought to herself, “If this is really a miracle, I need to document it.” This then sparked her to record her testimony in a written book called Memoirs of a Miracle Baby: A Testimony of God’s Love, published in 2013.

The conversations that unfolded following its release touched Miller with incredulity. “I was really, really touched [that] my story could be used to help save babies,” Miller said humbly. She was inspired by how much “we do not have to be born in perfect circumstances for God to know us or to use us.”

Sidewalk Advocates for Life Greenville holds DVD-based advocacy training throughout the year. For more information or to register for the next available date, contact Patty McGrath at [email protected] or Carrie Gifford at [email protected].

 

If you or someone you know would like to seek support services instead of abortion, please call Birthright International with a 24-hour helpline at 1-800-550-4900. For free pregnancy tests, free ultrasounds, and post-abortion counseling in the Greenville area, call 864-877-0400 for the Piedmont Women’s Center.

 

 

Featured Image by Mike Setchell

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  1. […] Shiela Miller says, “As a sidewalk advocate, I have been anticipating this movie for months since I heard about it at the March for Life in January in Washington DC. After watching long preview clips and reading many interviews, I decided to take my husband, my 12-year-old daughter, and 15-year-old son along to see it last night. It did not disappoint! […]