Award-winning author/historian/speaker Dr. Rebecca Price Janney was contacted by a Moms for Liberty local representative to speak to a group of children about the U.S. Constitution. The venue would be a local public library. Dr. Janney, dressed as Martha Washington, would present her original rendition of the Constitution to a group of elementary students at the public library to promote a positive platform for children to learn about American history.  How fun, and how exciting for those little ones, right?

Apparently not.  Protestors, finding this teaching inappropriate because Moms for Liberty backed it, planned to block her performance. (MfL promotes parental authority and opposes public schools having pornography in their libraries and teaching sexuality to young children, especially apart from parental consent.) Prayers encouraged this brave woman to continue to do what she knew was God’s work.  The last email we received from Dr. Janney addressed her experience:

“I had been informed a few days ahead of the library event that there would be four police forces on hand, including undercover law enforcement. The protestors, led by one very vocal local woman, sort of our version of the 1960s Madeline Murray O’Hair, promised there would be between 75-100 of them. The police designated a place where they could stand, and I was so relieved when they said none of them, or the media, would be allowed inside for my presentation. One of my biggest concerns was being shouted down, having the kids be scared, and having the event turn ugly. Moms for Liberty requested that there not be a counter-protest, but some private citizens turned up to support us, without signs, just their presence.”

Dr. Janney shared that her husband Scott and a friend, Jen, to avoid the protestors, arrived at the library early.  God was at work.  The weather, cold and rainy, kept many of them away.  Most of the library staff were cordial.  Three local police officers stood near the presentation room, so Dr. Janney struck up a conversation with them, thanking them for being there.  They responded that it was an honor to protect her and the children.  The story continues:                “Scott positioned himself just outside the entrance and, dressed in a colonial outfit, played colonial tunes on his fiddle. When the protestors arrived with their hate-filled signs and their banners, all 20 of them, and they started chanting as people brought their children into the library, Scott would play ‘Yankee Doodle’ loudly, and the children’s attention was on him, not these protestors, many of whom appeared quite bizarre.”

After recruiting children to dress in colonial outfits and help with readings about the Constitution, Dr. Janney felt encircled by prayer and good will. The event had reached the library’s capacity of 30 people, and everything went better than planned.  The kids were energized by what they had learned.

When the event was over, Dr. Janney, her husband and her friend were escorted out a back door so they did not have to face the protestors.  We on the prayer chain celebrated that Dr. Janney had persevered and not caved to those who disagreed with her.  Her prayers before that day touched many of us as we saw her great love for those protesting: “I do pray they will have eyes to see and ears to hear how much God, who made them in His image, loves and affirms them as His created ones… But it is also a huge privilege to stand for truth, and I pray I’ll be everything He desires me to be in this, to the praise of His glory!”

Amen and amen. May we all be as convicted and loving when God moves in our hearts.