When I stepped into the role of Executive Director for Assurance for Life in 2023, I asked God to give me a vision for the future.
Why a new vision?
In part, because every leader needs a vision to operate from: one that emerges from the initial call and purpose of an organization’s existence, but which is distinctly correlated to the time and place in which that calling emerges. The Church—and the visible expressions of it within society—look different in every time and place. The initial calling to build Assurance emerged only a decade after Roe vs. Wade and within a culture more sympathetic towards both Christian cultural virtues and the moral sanctity of life. But today, after nearly forty years of ministry, Assurance finds itself not only in a post-Roe vs. Wade world in which legal pendulums are confoundingly swinging to and fro, but it also finds itself in a culture of assimilation that has greatly divorced itself from the virtues, morals, and imagination for life. As one supporter of Assurance recently told me, “I am realizing that society is not becoming more pro-life; it is becoming less.”
The new vision was evasive for a period, but late this summer it began to emerge. It was a vision of a small tree, atop a hill, situated alongside a larger, robust tree. This smaller tree was born from a seed that had fallen from the larger one, but was still under the care, shade, and protection of the original. This larger tree was surrounded by thousands of people—people that Assurance had served in its forty years and people that had served Assurance during this time. But some of these people that were given rest under this tree were leaving, as were some of those who had tended to the needs of the tree over the years. Trees, like people, live in generations and serve generations. But no tree lasts forever. It either stands alone, for a period, only to be cut down by the currency of time or it gives generatively of itself for something new and for a season that it is unlikely to witness.
This, of course, is the story of everything. At one time or another, every person, every family, every church, and every ministry must think about how it will plant beyond its given time. Those time intervals are quite often broken down into generations of forty years. Indeed, as I broach my fortieth year on this planet, I am realizing how much of the second half of my life is dedicated towards the two generations that will come after me. My job becomes a lot less about me and my time and a lot more about what and who will come after me.
I believe the same is true with Assurance for Life. As we get ready to celebrate our fortieth year of ministry work, I have felt the Lord saying rather acutely, “Plant for the next forty.”
As we close out this year, I realize that there are thousands of stories that I and those who have served with Assurance over the years can tell you. I could tell you about the client who came to us for “one last ultrasound” before intending to have an abortion, only to find herself proclaiming after witnessing the screen “I believe it’s a boy.” She chose life. I could tell you about the REACH couple who, having chosen life, were sleeping in a car during the first hard freeze of winter last year and how we were able to work alongside a local church to help get them housing and walk with them until they found work to support that child (and each other)! I could tell you about the woman we counseled who left our center still set on having an out of state abortion, only to find herself met by God later in the day in a way “beyond coincidence.” She wrote us a letter that because of the words we shared here and the way God met her afterwards, she was choosing life. I could tell you about the pastor I met with last year who confided in me that she had an abortion several decades earlier and that she wanted to serve in our post-abortive healing program for other women—only to find herself participating as a client after realizing how much more healing work she needed! I could tell you about the client we had who had taken mail order abortion pills but suddenly had a change of heart and came to us to ensure her baby was still alive and receive Abortion Pill Reversal treatment!
You have heard those stories, and we will continue to tell them. There are, literally, thousands!
But the tree that is Assurance is a story of its own! A forty-year-old towering story of women and men, clients and employees, volunteers, churches and laypeople all working collectively to plant a seed that would sprout a tree in 1985 that would save (at least) 5,200 lives from abortion and serve tens of thousands more by pointing them to the Person who gives life to all life!
As we look to the stories of Assurance’s first tree as a reminder of God’s love and provision, I want to ask you one question: would you help us sow the new tree for the next forty? Would you help us cultivate the soil through prayer, generosity, and conviction?
I am, of course, so grateful for you and that God—somewhere along the line—tasked you with supporting this ministry. As you close out this year and as we look to close out the first forty years of this ministry, I would like to encourage you to give towards the second forty years. Your gift not only goes to the work of serving and saving lives. It goes to the work of planting trees that save lives for generations currently unknown.
Merry Christmas from all of us at Assurance,
Randall Hardman
Executive Director, Assurance for Life
