I’m proud of my daughter Linnea. She’s good at doing life and doesn’t shy away from challenges. But what impresses me most is her strong sense of compassion for others.

Today I was given an unexpected treat. Linnea began helping at a local pregnancy center a couple of years ago, and last summer she joined the staff part-time, one evening and one morning each week. Because she’s been on vacation with us at Sanibel Island but is now home, she needed to catch up on her work at the center, and I tagged along.

Linnea is responsible for a 12 week teaching course encouraging first-time parents through their pregnancies and into the early days of parenting. They’re coached to think about their babies long-term and are also given practical tools about finances and budgeting, marketability and careers.

The teaching task is immense, but the women working at this pregnancy center have a vision to save babies and assist the young mothers into their new roles. The center offers an incentive for coming to meetings: Baby Bucks to be spent at the baby boutique there.

Girls who come to meetings and do the homework can accumulate enough Bucks to purchase a brand new baby bed for their little one. Smaller amounts buy baby clothes, blankets, diapers and toys. Maternity clothes are also available and can be checked out like library books, no charge if they’re brought back after use.

Linnea showed me shelves full of baby gift bags for mommies who return after giving birth to show off their newborns. Each bag is assembled by a couple that donates the contents and wraps them festively.

I also got to see and hold soft, plastic baby-models, weighted correctly to represent in utero babies in different months of pregnancy. The girls can cradle these babies while visualizing their own, beginning to understand what’s going on inside of them.

I saw counseling rooms, a large group meeting room, the room in which results of pregnancy tests are made known, the various offices and the door leading to an ultrasound room. It’s a rare mother-to-be who sees her baby on an ultrasound screen and still opts for abortion.

The center was quiet today, so while Linnea went about her work, I found a chair in the reception area to spend time praying. Soon the director of the center arrived to do some work of her own. I introduced myself as Linnea’s mom, and she said, “I can’t tell you what an asset Linnea is to our team. She’s done wonders for our entire teaching program.” If a heart can be warmed, mine was.

Linnea works hard to free herself from the at-home mothering she loves in order to be at the center two days each week, but she does it because she feels compassion for the girls, and because there are eternal consequences to the work. Her desire is to help as she can and to prepare each mother-to-be for the challenge ahead.

God is pleased. And so am I.

May God “make you worthy of his calling, that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith.” (2 Thessalonians 1:11)