When I was a teenager, I thought abortion was wrong, but I didn’t know why. I met an older, married man and I soon gave in to the pressure for sex. 

When I found out I was pregnant, it was a month after the father’s wife died from a long illness. It was clear I had gotten pregnant before she had died. The father’s response was “You need to get an abortion.” 

I was deeply ashamed. I went to Planned Parenthood. The woman told me abortion was legal, and without examining me, she told me I had a tubal pregnancy and I could die. She told me I should make the abortion appointment quickly.

I made the appointment and the father drove me to the clinic. When I was on the table and the doctor started the procedure, I cried and told him it hurt and to stop, that I didn’t want to do this. He spoke the only words he ever said to me: “You should have thought of that before”.

After, all I felt was relief. It was all over. Like an eraser. Now, no one would know what a terrible person I was. 

I married the father. I felt like used goods. But, soon came the depression. And the nightmares.  And the fear.  And the suicidal thoughts. I functioned in daily life, but at night, I would stand in the dark, looking out the window, crying. I would look at the other windows with lights, and wish I was behind any of those windows – instead of mine. I couldn’t let anyone find out what a horrible person I was, so I isolated myself. 

What was supposed to be an eraser; hadn’t erased anything at all and it was destroying me from the inside.

I believed God could never forgive me, but I was so desperate, I went to church. There, I found hope that God could forgive me; that He wasn’t sitting up on His throne, with a lightning bolt in His hand, aimed at me. I began to let myself grieve my child. I learned of a Bible study called Forgiven & Set Free.

Once I accepted that God could forgive me, I began to move past my shame. I began to see how He was able to turn that darkness into light. Without God’s mercy and grace, I would not be alive today.

Psalm 103 says: Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not His benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, Praise the Lord, O my soul.

What I once hid in shame, I will expose to the light. I am silent no more.