I remember calling a close family member, wanting to feel comforted, to feel safe, and loved unconditionally. The only response she gave me was tears, and that I was a murderer. I was alone. I shut down and proceeded to do everything I could to forget and numb the pain. Anger rose within me as I wanted to justify, advocate for, and convince myself that I had made the right choice. Shame mixed with a deep bitterness settled into my heart.

I was a pastor's kid growing up. My parents had always been very involved with local crisis pregnancy centers in each church my dad pastored. They attended fundraisers, would gather donations, and they would often share abortion-related statistics with my siblings and I - everything that your crisis centers typically do. While I knew abortion was serious, truthfully, I didn't understand what an abortion was or even really meant. How could someone end up in that position, and why would they choose it? It was spoken about with heavy judgment and quiet rage. Those feelings always made me uneasy, but I wasn't old enough to explore those further and figure out the cause. I just knew abortion was murder.

It was the fall of 2007, I was finishing up my last semester at MSU and had been taking 18 credit-hour semesters to graduate early so I could accept a promotion at my dream job. I had been feeling off for a while, food aversions, random sickness, dizziness, etc. I pushed it off as a combination of stress and medication reactions. I had been working with a neurologist to treat my migraines and was on about 6 different medications, including birth control. As I was riding the elevator up to my office one morning, I started to get sick and someone jokingly mentioned that I was probably pregnant. I laughed it off, but inside I panicked. I was afraid to buy a test and tried to ignore the feeling, but it wouldn't go away. November 11, 2007, I caved and bought a pregnancy test, and sure enough, it was positive.

In the past, I had told my boyfriend that if I ever did end up getting pregnant, I would “take care of it.” We went to Planned Parenthood to confirm the pregnancy test. They brought us into a room, confirmed that I was pregnant, and proceeded with the discussion of abortion. I asked the lady if she had ever had one and what it was like. She shared that she had experienced three abortions because she and her boyfriend weren't ready yet and that it wasn't that bad. She seemed normal and appeared to be happy. She shared how the procedure was quick, fairly painless, and with little to no recovery, but their location didn't provide that service.

“I felt voiceless and didn't see any other options.”

On our drive home from planned parenthood, I brought up adoption to my boyfriend, and that’s when my vow came back - he reminded me that I had said I would take care of it should this situation arise, and so, I needed to take care of it. He said he wouldn't allow anyone else to raise a child of his. I didn't want to have his baby. I knew I would be tied to him for the rest of my life, and I knew that he wasn't someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. He brought up concerns about potential issues with the baby as a result of the many migraine medications as well as my on-and-off opioid habit. He told me that he would pay for it, but I needed to take care of it. I booked an appointment with a clinic for that Saturday.

I knew I couldn't tell my parents, and my one friend at work I felt safe confiding in was out of the country with no means of communication. I decided to contact my sister, thinking she would support my decision and keep it between us. Still unsure of what to do, I drove to my sister's house to clear my head and crash for a couple of nights away from my boyfriend. Shortly after I arrived, she offered to adopt the baby. She let me know that she had told my parents and siblings.

Feeling absolutely betrayed, I left and drove back to my boyfriend's house. The phone calls and texts started coming through from my family - I ignored my parents' calls. One of my brothers offered me a Mercedes to not go through with it. My other brother, when I asked him why I shouldn't do it, said, "I've seen the look in women's eyes who have had abortions, and I don't want the same for you." It didn't make sense. I felt sick, invisible, and alone. They didn't understand what I was going through. They didn't even ask. All they cared about was whether I had an abortion or not.

On and off that week, as we approached the appointment date, my boyfriend seemed to waiver, but each time I brought up adoption he refused. I felt voiceless and didn't see any other options. Deep down, I didn't want to have an abortion, but at the same time, there was part of me that wanted to prove to everyone in my life that I could do what I wanted and it wasn't that big of a deal. After all, as I kept reminding myself, this was just a cluster of cells, and it was not a big deal. This was normal.

That Friday night, when I went to bed and set my alarm, I prayed, "Lord, if you don't want me to have an abortion, then don't let my alarm go off." I woke up to my alarm, and I remember my heart sinking a little. So I prayed again, "Lord, don't let the car start." It started. “Lord, don't let the clinic be open.” It was open. Seemingly abandoned again, I walked through the doors.

The clinic was in an unmarked building that was fairly run down. We had been given specific instructions about how to enter to avoid raising suspicion. The inside was dirty and out of date. We checked in and my boyfriend handed over $450 cash. They said they would run it through insurance but never took my card. The waiting room had several other girls and there was an eerie silence. We all knew, eye contact was limited, yet I will never forget the faces of the girls with whom I had locked eyes.

We were all called back one at a time to determine our blood type, confirm the pregnancy and gestation, and the informed consent paperwork, and were told the doctor would be there shortly.

We arrived at 7:00AM, and the abortion was scheduled for 9:00AM. Around 10:00AM, we were all told the doctor was running late, but he would be there soon. 11:00AM rolled around, same message. 12:00PM, 1:00PM - he still wasn't there. The anxiety continued to build. One girl left, and my heart sunk in envy of her exit. At 2:00PM, he finally arrived. We were all funneled to the back of the building to a dimly lit hallway where there were rows of dixie cups with pills in them. We took a cup, walked up to the "doctor" who watched us take the pills, and then went back to the waiting room for them to kick in. They never disclosed the full contents of the cup - only that one was valium. The doctor was sweaty and gruff and mannered himself as if we were an inconvenience. I questioned internally if he was even a real doctor, but I didn’t have it in me to ask. I took the pills and went back out to the waiting room.

About another hour later, they started. One by one. It was my turn. As I laid on the bed, the doctor threatened me that if I made any sounds or moved, he would stop the procedure. The nurse in the room with me held my hand and smiled. I don't remember the sounds; I just remember how awful and intense the pain was and feeling the removal. I walked to a recovery room with all of the other girls, and they handed me a couple of prescriptions and sent me on my way. My boyfriend seemed happy, and I remember thinking, why didn't God stop this? If he's real, if he cares, then why didn't he intervene? Later, my boyfriend shared that he had been debating proposing to me so we could keep the baby. A new layer of numbness settled.

After that, I wanted to be pregnant again, to undo what I had done. I researched failed abortions and discovered that often if there is a twin pregnancy, they don't always get both babies. I was convinced I was still pregnant, and went to a pregnancy center desperate for a yes. I was afraid to tell them what I had done, so I told them that I took a pregnancy test which was positive, and was hoping for an ultrasound to see how far I was. Inside, I was desperately hoping to see my first baby's twin still growing. But, I didn't have twins, and the abortion had been completed and successful. The woman was confused about my positive pregnancy test, and I hesitantly told her what happened. She got quiet, told me there was nothing they could do, and showed me to the door. Again, abandoned. I was angry and numb. From then on, my decision-making became focused on forgetting and numbing the pain. I followed that course for a few years.

The strain of the abortion was too much for my relationship, and the knowledge that my boyfriend could have stopped it ate away at me to the point where I had to leave. I attempted to pursue the Lord after, but it was just a facade to appear as if I was doing the "right" thing, what was expected of me. In reality, I was just an extremely broken, deeply hurt woman clinging to anything that would ease the pain.

The years that ensued had some ups but were mostly heavy and dark. I was a shell of a person and eventually, the weight of my past became too much to bear and I crumbled. It was in that season of life in 2012 that I came back to the Lord out of sheer desperation, one last chance to encounter the living God, not even sure if He was real anymore, and if He was, I had little faith that He truly cared about me and hadn't already written me off. With a salty attitude, I began going to church, waiting for the rejection, waiting for God to release the fire and brimstone.

Instead, I supernaturally saw the Lord begin to move and change my heart. I started receiving inner healing through an intensive prayer ministry, where the Holy Spirit began to remove lies, heal wounds, show me how to trust in Him, and I started to experience true freedom for the first time in my 27 years of living. Shame, bondage, and generational curses began to fall. I saw God deliver justice to unjust situations, and time and time again, He showed up. A fire and hunger began to rise within me.

There was, however, one area that was off limits to him, one area where the shame enshrouded me to the point of believing it was an unforgivable offense - the abortion. If my own family shut me out, why would God be any different? It was something I never wanted to revisit or bring before Him.

As time passed into 2013, I knew the time was approaching to bring this before Him. Little by little, pieces were rising to the surface, and memories and emotions that I had wanted to keep hidden started to rise up. They would touch on the pain, enough to bring tears and fear, but not enough to make the dominoes come crashing down. My mind ran rampant. The longer I tried to disregard God's gentle, yet glaringly obvious nudges, the bigger the knot grew in my stomach. There was an urgency rising in me fueled by desperation and a determination to conquer. I was terrified. I thought I would be rejected. I thought He would tell me that while His grace is sufficient, this was the final straw and it didn't extend, that I was no longer a child of God, that I wouldn't be welcomed into heaven. Not one to back down from more freedom, I scheduled a prayer ministry session at my church.

A prayer ministry session is when you sit down with a seasoned, spiritually mature leader who is gifted with hearing the Lord's voice and in the prophetic. They walk you through inviting the Holy Spirit into the prayer time and asking the Lord what He'd like to come do. Sometimes I've gone in with a specific area, for example, with the abortion. Other times I've gone in and just allowed the Holy Spirit to come in and show me what God wanted to deliver me from. Healing from trauma, healing from abuse, healing from lies I've believed, healing from generational curses, etc. It's partnering in prayer to intentionally seek out God's voice and allow him to speak into situations to bring about freedom in areas I wasn't successful in on my own. It's like a hybrid of quiet time and prayer ministry.

I tend to put a cap on how far I believe the Lord will go to show me how much He loves me, how much He cares, how much pain and grief it causes Him when I am hurting. During my prayer ministry time, not only did the Lord show up, but he surpassed any expectation and box I had placed him in. During the ministry, I was standing before the Lord, and pain filled my heart. It was the abortion. I repented, asked for forgiveness, and gave Him all of the hurt, shame, regrets, guilt, and hatred that was causing all of the pain. I laid it at His feet and asked what He had for me in place of those feelings, and I was blocked. I couldn't hear Him. I was prompted to start forgiving other people who had hurt me as a direct result of the abortion. The lies spoken over me that I had internalized rose to the surface. One by one, I presented them to the Lord for Him to wash away and replace with his truth. The lie that I didn't matter - the Lord said that I am valuable and a gem. The lie that I was forgotten - the Lord said that I am loved, and so on.

As we were praying, I saw the Lord sitting before me with His arms stretched out, inviting me to sit in His lap, but there was resistance in me to go. I cried out in frustration, asking Him why I had to go through all of this. His reply was, "to bring you here." I asked Him where He was when I was going through the abortion. He showed me that He was grasping my right hand holding on so tightly, and He was looking right at me, weeping. The tears were streaming down his face, He was in such pain for me, all He could do was cry over me and hold my hand. He showed me that I wasn't alone, He didn't abandon me, He didn't forget about me, He was with me the whole time.

We went a step further and I asked the Lord how he felt about my baby that was aborted, and I saw Him holding this little girl, and he was tossing her up in the air and catching her. He was happy and having so much fun with this. In that moment, God again told me that I was forgiven and was loved. I thought the little girl was me. And suddenly, it clicked. The little girl wasn't me, she was my daughter. She was so beautiful with shining soft brown curly hair and she had my eyes. She was snuggled up into the crook of God's neck, and she peeked her head out to look at me. I couldn't bring myself to hold her, but I ran my fingers through her hair. I asked her forgiveness for not getting to know her on this earth. He told me her name is Sophia. The Lord showed me in that moment that He reclaimed the evil done. He made it something amazing. He rescued her and gave her the best daddy anyone could ask for. I felt a depth of love I never knew possible and felt fully indemnified.

After that, He started pouring out all of the special qualities He created me with and everything He loves and sees, unique, creative, brilliant, and as He spoke these out, I saw the restoration He was doing and did to my heart.

My daughter's life had a purpose, and it has meaning.

After I went through the healing process, I was able to go to my parents, repent and ask for their forgiveness. We cried together, and my mom picked out the middle name Marie for my sweet daughter in heaven.

As I felt more bold, I shared with others. I wanted people to hear and have hope. I started to meet other women who also had abortions and realized what a great need there is in the body of Christ for these women as they process through and pursue healing. My heart aches and a righteous anger burns inside.

When Pastor Lee spoke his message about the abortion legislation, the urgency to share was so strong I almost vomited. I learned a long time ago, when it comes over me to that degree, it's from the Holy Spirit. Sharing this wasn't a light decision. It was one the Lord had been cultivating and preparing me for over the past few years.

There is hope.

There is healing.

There is freedom.

If you are walking through a difficult season regarding an unwanted pregnancy or a previous abortion, here are some resources that we encourage you to utilize:

www.alternativescc.org

or

Email info@radiant.church where we can connect you with a pastor.

Do you feel your story can serve as a hope and inspiration to others? Share your story at mystory@radiant.church.