Life Issues
Other helpful links:
I Choose Today
AfterAbortion.org
Testimony of a Post Abortion Woman
For 14 years I lived with this secret, and I hid behind a mask that made it look like everything was ‘okay’ on the outside but on the inside I was dying. I didn’t realize the emotional toll that it would take on my life. Nobody told me about that part.
The summer after I graduated high school, I got pregnant. I was the girl who thought ‘that won’t happen to me’ but it did. I was getting ready to go to college. I was the first one in my family to attend college so I thought it would be better to have a college education than a baby at that time. I was so scared about telling anyone that I told only a couple of people: my sister was one of them. She made all the arrangements for me. I remember being in the waiting room of the clinic and wondering how it was that I got there. I cried the entire time. I remember the ‘counselor’ telling me it was just a blob of tissue and that it wasn’t really a baby. I remember waking up during the procedure crying and the doctor telling me to go back to sleep. Then I remember waking up in the recovery room on a mattress that was on the floor next to a couple other girls. From that time on, I just tried to pretend like it never happened.
I was going to a local MOPS meeting and a friend of mine wanted to play a video about all the different ministries at Sav-A-Life Shelby. I froze in place and didn’t even want to watch the video. Nobody saw the tears that I had in my eyes throughout the video, but I finally got up enough courage to tell that friend about my suffering. She said she’d go with me to Sav-A-Life Shelby and let me talk to some people who could help. I wanted to be a counselor to educate girls and try to stop them from making the terrible decision that I made to end my baby’s life. They told me that I’d have to go through Abortion Recovery Assistance first. I didn’t even know something like that existed and it scared me. I thought ‘I can’t talk about this. This is my secret. Nobody will ever understand. They’ll judge me.’ The first night of the study, none of the other ladies in the lobby really talked much, but then we ate a wonderful dinner that some special volunteers made for us and at the end of the study, they gave us a gift. Now I can only speak for myself when I say that I didn’t feel worthy enough to receive a gift but these women that were facilitating the study just showered us with love. They did this every week.
I had built up this brick wall between me and Jesus because I thought He couldn’t love me after I aborted my baby. In all other aspects of my life I was doing pretty well but this was the big one—the one He could never forgive me for. I was tired of the shame and the guilt that the Devil gave to me every day. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of what I’d done. Well, every week of the study that brick wall got smaller and smaller and by the time the course was done, the brick wall was gone and Jesus was waiting for me on the other side saying ‘see Michelle, I told you I still love you, I told you I’ve forgiven you, I really don’t even know what you’re talking about.’
Being able to talk about my past in this safe and loving environment was the best thing I’ve ever done. It allowed me to see the true character of God and that He doesn’t want me to live a life of shame and guilt. I was finally able to forgive myself and to accept God’s forgiveness. Now regret will always be there, but the shame and the guilt are gone thanks to this wonderful ministry. Now I’m a co-facilitator in the Bible study seeing the healing that God is bringing to many other women who have been in my same shoes and it is a privilege to give God the glory out of a terrible situation.”
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