After posting the question I got from a friend yesterday, I received so many messages via inbox asking for the reply I gave the woman. I never considered sharing it, at least not today, until last night when I saw a notification from Valerie Amanda still echoing the same thing.
"Sir I would like to hear your advice to this guy."
So, I started editing our long chat with(name and sex withheld) so that it will be clearer.
Now you have it!
The question:
"I have a questions, it has been disturbing me. I work in the pharmacy. We sale contraceptives, ranging from condom to even pills use for abortion. To a great extent, some of these drugs (and contraceptives like condoms) sell more because it is usually in high demand. I am in a dilemma, I do not like the fact that I sell what aid people to sin especially abortion pills, I feel like I am guilty too."
My edited replies:
I do not know how to respond to you. I have a feeling that you already know what to do.
You need the money to pay your bills due to the economic situation in the country, so for that, you will not want to stop work. Yet any time you give a customer an abortion pills, it breaks your heart.
I cannot provide you with a new job if I ask you to quit the job. Yet, I cannot in all sincerity tell you that selling contraceptive drugs and especially abortion pills are good either.
And again, you cannot agree to work in a pharmacy store with the knowledge of all that is involved, and your employer still pays you your due salary, yet you on your part will now begin to select what to sell or not. That is not fair to your employer if we must be sincere.
I just want you to know how complicated this situation of yours is.
So I will ask you to think about it this way:
SEE IT AS A CALLING. . .
Yes, you heard me. . . as a calling.
We all are called in different ways. Some are fighting for justice from government. Others are priests and sisters ministering to people. Some have dedicated their life to helping the poor. Some as mentors to their children.
So, maybe this is your own special calling.
I will explain.
Not all Christians get this type of heart break over administering abortion pills. To many, it is simply business. They are into buying and selling and it bothers them not what you do with what you bought.
But you are different! How, I don't know.
Now, I want you to bear this in mind, not everyone is like you. If you even refuse to sell the pills, there are countless others who will. And those desperate to get the pills will still get it. So, finally, the only good thing you may have succeeded in doing is that they did not buy it from you. But at the end, they still bought it, they still did the abortion.
You want to know explicitly what I am trying to say?
Okay!
I have a friend who was feeling exactly what you are feeling right now. In her own case, the husband is the one that owns the pharmacy store, but she is the one that does almost all the selling.
She always feels bad anytime she gives out abortion pills like Misoprostol, Mifepristone or Gemeprost. Unfortunately for her, her husband is that type of person that does not care about what the drugs do. For him, it is business and he is putting food on the table.
This my friend, anytime she is alone in the shop, she will tell any customer that comes for abortion pills that they don't have and she will watch the customers as they go to the next shop close to theirs to buy it. Because of this, herself and her husband have had countless quarrels and fights until one day she sat down and talked to herself thus: even if we stop selling abortion pills, there are three other pharmacy stores close to ours. Those times that I refused to sell, they still bought it finally. So, what is really the difference?
Then something struck her in her heart, she prayed about it for weeks. It was as though something was boiling in her heart.
She stopped fighting her husband over abortion pills, she comes into the shop with so much happiness, so much joy that is so contagious. Whenever a customers comes for abortion pills, the manner at which she will welcome the person with so much joy and smile, you will think the person came to give her a thousand dollar.
She will request that the customer come in and sit down on a chair she provided. She will enquire who really is the person taking the drug. Then she will check the blood pressure of the woman. All these with smiles. Then she will bring out the drugs. She will tell the customer the prescription. Then she will begin to make the woman to feel at home. She will somehow begin to talk about her own first pregnancy, how she wanted to take the pills and terminate it. In no time, the customer is relaxed. And surprisingly the customer starts talking about herself too. She will talk about how she got pregnant, how all that the man wanted was sex, how miserable she feels getting pregnant. How scared she is about having an abortion.
Gradually, this my friend is entering into her customers life. They are bonding. The customer who is pregnant is looking for an ear to pour her heart. She is looking for just one person who understands. Now she finds it.
My friend at this point having known the situation, will gently begin to bring other possible ideas. She will get her number. She will visit her in the house. She will provide money when need be. And this pregnant woman begins for the first time to consider keeping the baby. (Note that this my friend sees this more of a force beyond her. She never for once felt it was her power. That is why she kept praying.)
My friend has saved five children last year through this. She feels so fulfilled. There are others that ended up aborting though. . . but at least she knows their story. She understands.
Ironically, after birth, these women will not want to give out their children even when they agreed that the baby may be sent to children's home or given to someone without a child to adopt at a high price.
This is her own calling. This make her happy!
Now, my friend's solution may no be applicable to all situation and to all people who are not happy that they are selling abortion pills, but if there is one thing to learn, let it be that: Desperate times need desperate response. Difficult questions need difficult answers. Yesterday's solution may not work for today's problem. The approach may be different, but the result is one.
Jesus said, be gentle as a dove and be cleaver as the serpent. There is no time that those words of Christ are best applicable than now.