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Testimonies
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Heart for the Hurting
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Lauren
Pennsylvania,
United States
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For many years I had a secret, going back to when I was a teenager. Like most teenagers, I did not consider the ramifications of my decisions and how they would impact me for the rest of my life.
At 18, I had my first steady boyfriend. After 8 months, I found out I was pregnant. We went to a clinic where I was greeted by a woman who made me feel like she was the only one who really understood and cared about what I was facing. She told me that an abortion would be quick, easy, and no one would find out or get hurt. She said that the sooner I scheduled one, the sooner I would be able to put this all behind me. An abortion was the only advice she offered. In reality, she was a very good abortion sales lady. This is identical to the “counseling” they give every day at Planned Parenthood.
A week later my boyfriend drove me back to that clinic to abort our baby. I remember feeling relieved that we could just go on with our lives as if nothing ever happened. We never spoke about what happened that day, and as is usual in these situations, our relationship changed and we broke up soon after.
Looking back I can see how that abortion sent me on a downward spiral. I really believed I was okay. I lived a lifestyle of partying and one-night stands which led to another pregnancy and abortion three years later. My friends and I all believed the lie that abortion was a normal part of being a woman. We unknowingly buried the grief, because the world convinced us there was no need to grieve over a bunch of cells.
Several years later, I married my husband. He knew about the abortions, but we both believed they were buried in the past, so we never talked about it. Soon after, we both became followers of Jesus Christ. I loved going to church and living for Jesus. But the other thing I lived with was the lie that my abortions were behind me in a past life.
The truth is that women and men who have lost children to abortion often suffer from post- abortive stress (PAS) which is very much like post-traumatic stress. I was suffering the symptoms but the cause was hidden, until one day all that changed.
In 2012, I heard that my old boyfriend had died suddenly. I was very depressed and thought I was going crazy, because in all the years leading up to this, I never had any thought or desire to reconnect with him. This depression went on for months until I finally opened up to my husband. I told him that even though my old boyfriend and I had not spoken since we broke up, we always had a bond--our baby. I was shocked to hear myself finally speak the truth.
I quickly discovered that the grief that I was feeling was not for my old boyfriend but for our child. From that moment on, I became a mom grieving for her babies along with the shame over what I had done. For months I suffered in silence because I thought that I was the only one in the church who had made the choice of abortion.
What I did not know at the time was that all around me were people who had the same secret. They were not just people outside the church but also inside sitting in pews, behinds the pulpits, even in our seminaries. I didn’t know about the other women who regret making the worst decisions of their lives. I didn’t know about the men who live with the guilt of choosing to look the other way instead of protecting their own flesh and blood. I didn’t know that the pain of an abortion is felt by siblings who have a sense of loss but are unsure of where it comes from, or about the grandparents grieving over grandchildren they will never get to hug and spoil. No one ever told me how my abortions impacted my friends, my family, my future husband, or our ability to start a family of our own.
Finally, in early 2013, I heard a woman tell a story similar to mine on a Christian radio station. She said that the church is silent when it comes to the deep shame that we have to live with day in and day out. She said that until we start to talk about what had happened to us, the church is going to be powerless confront this evil.
I thank God for the wonderful worker at Baby’s Breath who told me about Rachel’s Vineyard, a ministry of post-abortion healing. If it were not for the Rachel's Vineyard retreat I attended in early 2013, I would not be able to stand up here today.
I remember clearly the day that I walked in and met the team who loved me and accepted me just where I was.
It was there that I finally learned that the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to forgive us for the most grievous of sins. There is nothing outside His healing reach.
I left that retreat a changed person. I understood for the first time what our Lord meant when He said, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” in the prayer He gave us.
I am so honored and blessed to have been invited to join the very team that God used to change my life. I have had amazing opportunities to share the story of my heart ache and healing so that others can experience what I have.
My heart is for men and women, like myself, who sit in our churches week after week needing the healing forgiveness that only Christ can bring.
It is because of the lies told by Planned Parenthood and the milIions of people walking around with their secret shame that I am silent no more.
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