It’s been said that you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.  While first impressions are important, they often don’t paint an accurate picture.  Look at President Obama.  He made one good speech in 2004, that someone else wrote for him, and was immediately anointed as a future President.  Fast forward from his American Idol ascendance to the Presidency in 2008 to the present, and it’s painfully obvious that first impressions can be deceiving.

Take a look at a Planned Parenthood brochure.  The pictures of smiling, attractive young people would lead you to believe that a Planned Parenthood clinic is anything but a place you go to pay to have your child killed.  Even though abortion is their principle source of revenue, they go to great pains to make you believe otherwise.  They know that practicing truth in advertising and publishing pictures of the bloody dead bodies of the children that entered their clinics alive would probably be bad for business.  Pointing out in their literature that they kill over 300,000 children every year would put a damper on the happy-feely impression they are trying to make.

We all make our unique impressions on the world with our words and actions; but it’s never a complete picture.  While the things we say and do leave an impression, the words we don’t say and the actions we choose not to take leave an equally indelible mark.  When we choose to not speak out or take action in the face of evil, we allow evil to advance its agenda.  We all choose our paths as a result of the impressions made upon us by others.  We make our greatest impressions when we act with an inner knowing that we are playing our role towards a goal that is much bigger and much more important than either of us.

When we choose our paths and answer our callings we must do so with a courage of conviction that is unwavering. Only when we are willing to lose everything for the cause we believe in, are we able to manifest miracles and bring about true change.  The world’s unborn children represent the unbroken chain of humanity that confirms intelligent design and the existence of our Creator.  Our duty to protect His creations is our most important obligation, and the results of our actions in the pursuit of this endeavor yield the impressions that change the world.

One life saved is a worthy goal of a lifetime of toil.  A lifetime of toil, absent a focus on service to others, is a wasted opportunity to make an impression that inspires others to perform works they had once only dreamed of.  The impressions we leave behind are evidence of the brief flash of light that represents the life we were given, and the manner in which we embraced it.  Life is fleeting, but priceless.  Preserve it, protect it, and strive to inspire others to hold it in reverence.